Water and food I would not sacrifice; and I kept my clothing, my gun, and my ammunition. I had hated to throw the books overboard, but they had gone the night before-every ounce counted.

I had kept some tools: a knife, a hand ax, and a light crowbar. I had had a purpose in keeping these, and now I felt that the time was approaching when I should find use for them. Nearly everything had gone overboard to reduce the load; there remained nothing but the gondola.

The floor of the cabin was of very light planning; and with the aid of the hand ax and the crowbar I commenced ripping this up, leaving a couple of planks down the center as a walkway. From some of the others I constructed a light affair about eighteen inches wide and six feet long. It was not a work of art. Lacking a saw, I had been compelled to hack pieces to approximately proper lengths with the hand ax. The planks were held together by four battens secured by nails I had salvaged from the flooring. Most of these nails were bent and had to be straightened. With my crude tools, the entire job was a slow one; but at last it was completed.

As I worked I saw that we were losing altitude again, and from time to time I pitched over a plank or two. This always helped for a time, but as the sun dropped lower and the air grew cooler our rate of descent became more pronounced; then I pitched overboard all the remaining lumber except the little platform I had built. Immediately, we went soaring up into the air; and inevitably my spirits rose, as they always did with a rise in altitude. But I still feared for the outcome of the long night ahead.

With that thought spurring me on, I went ahead with the work I had commenced. With my knife I cut a strip eighteen inches wide from the mattress on my cot, throwing the balance overboard. This strip I lashed to my little platform.

Now I set to work upon the ceiling of the gondola with my hand ax, chopping at the framework until I had cut a hole in the forward part large enough to permit my body to pass through. Taking a couple of half-hitches around one end of the platform, I fastened the other end of the rope about my waist and clambered through the hole I had made out onto the roof of the gondola.

About four feet above my head billowed the envelope of the gas bag, no longer taut and bulging with gas as upon the day we had taken off but loose and flabby like the neck of an old woman who needs face-lifting. It was evident that we had lost a considerable amount of the element that stood between me and a watery grave, if you will pardon the lack of congruity.

The rope I had attached to the platform was part of a hundred foot coil that Perry had brought along among a heterogeneous stock of supplies. One end was fastened about my waist, and I drew up a few more feet and secured a loop of it to one of the cables with which the gondola was attached to the gas bag. This was a precaution against the possibility of an accident pitching me overboard.

Next I drew the platform to the roof of the gondola and made it fast, temporarily, so that some misadventure might not rob me of the fruits of my labor.

This done, I attached the ends of four pieces that I cut from the coil of rope in such a way that four loops depended about four feet below the gas bag, there being a little less than two feet distance between loops. Through these loops I pushed the platform, adjusting its position until it hung level beneath the gas bag; then I lashed the loops securely to the platform in the eight places that touched its sides. My next job was to run a hand-line along each side of the platform about two feet above it.

I now had about twenty feet of rope left; and with this, after making several trips down into the cabin to fetch them, I slung my supplies of water and food in such a way that they would hang beneath the platform, yet easily accessible to my reach. I also brought up my blankets, folded them to the proper width, and lashed them on top of my mattress. The parachute I fastened in a position at one end of the platform so that I could use it as a pillow if I wished. I also fastened my own life line securely to one of the guy ropes.

Darkness had fallen long before I completed my task, but a full moon had given me ample light by which to see. I still had an altitude of several hundred feet, the sea was calm, a gentle wind was bearing me west-southwest. For the moment at least I had nothing to worry about and could relax. Under these conditions, and with the appetite of a farm hand, I ate a meal that would scarcely have satisfied a canary bird; for even though I doubted that the bag could stay afloat as long as my food might be made to last, I was taking no chances on adding starvation to my other woes.

Having eaten, I crawled beneath the blankets on my narrow couch and was soon asleep, my last conscious thought a hope that the ship would stay in the air throughout the night.

I must have slept soundly throughout nearly the entire night, for when a little jar and an accompanying splash awoke me the stars had faded from the eastern sky. With returning consciousness I was aware of a new sensation of motion: a gentle upward sweep followed by a drop accompanied by such a splashing sound as had awakened me.

The sight that met my sleepy gaze brought me to instant and full wakefulness: the gondola was afloat. I recall how thankful I was that this had not happened during the height of the storm, the only reminders of which now were the long swells rolling endlessly. How cold and relentless the ocean looked! I thought of the poor devils who had gone down with the freighter, and wondered how long it would be before I joined them.

However, my position was neither surprising nor shocking.