ot unusual inability of a professional predecessor to pay his
board-bill, obliging him to leave his balloon with mine host as surety,
first placed in Donaldson's hands the means by which he became afterward
best known. Fearless as he undoubtedly was, an ascension was undertaken
with the misgivings which usually preface an initial stepping from terra
firma to the inconstant air. Once aloft, however, with the widespreading
splendor and endless immensity of the earth's surface unrolling beneath
him, and an exquisite physical exhilaration thrilling along his nerves,
Donaldson became heart and soul an aeronaut. The novel and sensational
expedients with which he embellished his subsequent ascensions are well
known. Becomingly dressed in tights, he delighted to sail away skyward
hanging by one hand from a trapeze-bar, generally terminating a variety
of feats thereon by poising himself a moment on his back, then suddenly
dropping backward, catching by his feet on the side-ropes--easy and safe
enough, doubtless, with his preliminary acrobatic training, but
blood-curdling to the breathless spectators beneath. He left drawings
for a jointed bar which, at the proper time, should apparently break in
two and leave him dangling to one of the pieces. For a consideration
which the citizens of Binghamton, New York, sensibly declined to give he
offered to ascend to the height of a mile in a paper balloon, there set
fire to it and descend in a parachute.

[Illustration: DONALDSON'S DANGER.]

A little incident, not generally known, illustrates the gentler side of
his nature. He had been giving one of his trapeze exhibitions at Ithaca,
New York, and was induced by some Cornell students to furnish them
captive ascensions from the university campus. As if specially for the
occasion, there came three days of delightful May weather with a
propitiously quiet atmosphere. To the natural elevation of the location
were added several hundred feet of rope, affording a bird's-eye view of
Cayuga Lake, the town and far-famed adjacent scenery. Two or three
hundred persons were "sent up," including several university professors.
Donaldson was in his element, and kept everybody laughing at his jokes
and amusing experiments. He had a crowd of children constantly at his
heels, and in the intervals of waiting for pay-passengers would tumble
them into the basket to the number of six or eight, and send them
skyward screaming with delight and pelting him with a sh