“Besides this queer communication, which you say is from your father,” Frank went on, “there seems to be another letter?”

“That is from Senor Jose Almirez.  Read it, Frank, and you will begin to understand.”

The letter was in a crabbed hand, apparently unused to writing in English, though grammatically correct.  And this was what Frank saw: 

“To Senor Andrew Bird: 

“I received the enclosed from a correspondent and customer, one Carlos Mendoza, located in the vicinity of Manangue, a town about one hundred and fifty miles up-river.

“He is a grower of cocoa in the rich valley.  I do not enclose his letter, because it is written in Spanish.  But it simply says that he found the written communication close to his plantation house one morning in April of this year.  At first he could not understand how it came there.  Then, upon having the writing translated, he noticed that the missive was attached to what seemed to be a little parachute, or balloon, made up of a fragment of silk belonging to a balloon.  Knowing that I had spent several years in Washington, in the service of my country, he finally concluded to send the same to me.  I have the honor to transmit it to the address given in the communication.

“With respect, and expressing a willingness to help you all I may, Senor Andrew Bird, believe me to be most sincerely yours,

“Jose Costilena Almirez.”

Frank read this amazing communication, and then turned to stare at his cousin.

“No, don’t stop yet!” exclaimed the trembling Andy.  “Read the other, the missive that Carlos Mendoza picked up on his cocoa plantation, in the valley of the Magdalena River.”

And so Frank again turned his attention to the enclosure that had been sent on by the friendly merchant of Columbia.

It seemed to be a sheet of thin but pliable bark from a tree, and in some respects reminded Frank of birch bark, which he had often used in lieu of paper, when in the woods.  The juice of some berry had afforded ink; and doubtless the college professor had easily made a pen from a bird’s quill.  And this was what Frank read, a small portion of the communication being missing, as though it had received rough usage somewhere, en route: 

“Whoever finds this, I pray that it be forwarded to Andrew Bird, in the town of Bloomsbury, State of New York, U. S. A. In my balloon I was carried away by a sudden storm while crossing the Isthmus of Panama.  As near as I can calculate I was swept some three hundred miles, more or less, in a south-easterly direction, much of the time above the clouds.  Then something happened, and I felt myself falling.  Giving myself up for lost, I awoke from a swoon to find myself in the branches of a tree, with the wreck of the balloon near me.  A merciful Providence has saved my life, but I fear only to prolong my agony of soul.  For months now I have been a prisoner in a remarkable valley, a sink-pit, enclosed by inaccessible cliffs.  Many times have I struggled to climb to their top, but only to meet defeat.