We career wildly over snow and ice as Gisco and I are tossed around the gondola. I try to brace myself, but it’s like clinging to a sled when you’re heading down the Matterhorn. Miraculously, we immediately start to slow. Our toboggan has an unexpectedly good set of brakes.

I glance back and understand—the balloon is acting like a giant parachute! We slide off the glacier, skid through mud and ice, and come to a stop near a little mountain stream.

Gisco, we made it! We’re alive! You can stop whimpering in fear.

Fear? Those were chuckles, the dog says, standing back up and trying to regain his dignity. Once more I laughed in the face of death and lived to tell the tale.

Aren’t you going to thank the Great Dog God for your salvation?

There’s no time for religious mumbo jumbo now. We’ve got to see what the damage is to our balloon. It’s our only way out of here.

I grab my father’s watch, and in seconds we’re standing by the deflated balloon, examining a small, jagged rip in the nylon.

At least it’s not such a big tear, I say.

Where are we going to find something to patch it with in this mountain wasteland? And, more important, what are we going to eat?

We’ll forage for food.

I’m a dog, not a bear. Berries and wild grass are not my style.

Maybe you can find something more to your liking on one of your early morning jogs, I suggest.

Gisco ignores me, and peers down the hill. There! he exclaims. That’s the answer to all our problems.

I see nothing but barren rocky slopes.

Follow the river, the dog advises. Water always leads to civilization, and civilization leads to a hot lunch.

Following the stream downhill with my eyes, I spot a mountain hut carefully concealed between two boulders. It must be completely invisible from below. Near it are terraced fields of green crops.

Gisco, that hut was built with privacy in mind.

Nonsense, the dog responds, trotting downhill. You know nothing about the camaraderie and hospitality of the mountains. No doubt there’s some stalwart campesino inside whose sturdy wife will be only too happy to fix us a hearty goat stew.

28

28

Perilous clamber down pebbly mountainside. The slightest misstep will trigger a landslide. Gisco has an easier time of it. Four feet are better than two on a slope like this, and the potbellied pooch has the center of gravity of an earthworm. I walk hunched over, arms out.

Come on, Jack.

This is as fast as I can go. Gisco, I really think we should be careful.

I can smell food. Chicken. Nicely spiced.

I myself can’t smell it, but Gisco is infallible in certain areas. I’m willing to believe he could sniff out some well-peppered poultry at a distance of half a mile.