Then, as Squinty remembered how he had been taught to stand up on his hind legs, he thought he would do that trick now.  He was hungry, and he imagined, perhaps, if he did that trick, the men would give him something to eat.

“Look at the little chap!” cried one of the men.  “He’s showing off all right.”

“Yes, he’s a smart pig,” said the other.  “He must be a trick pig, and I guess whoever owns him will be sorry he is lost.”

“Hu!  I’m sorry myself!” thought Squinty to himself, as he walked around on his hind legs.

“I wonder if these men are ever going to give me anything to eat,” he went on.  He looked at them from his queer, squinting eye, but the men did not seem to know that the little pig was hungry.

On and on sailed the balloon, being blown by the wind like a sailboat.  Squinty dropped down on his four legs, since he found that walking on his hind ones brought him no food.  Then, as he made his way about the basket, he saw some more of those queer bags filled with something.  There were a great many of them in the balloon, and Squinty thought they must have something good in them.

Squinty squatted down beside one, and, with his strong teeth, he soon had bitten a hole in the cloth.  Then he took a big bite, but oh dear!

All at once he found his mouth filled with coarse sand, that gritted on his teeth, and made the cold shivers run down his back.

“Oh, wow!” thought poor Squinty.  “That’s no good!  Sand!  I wonder if those men eat sand?”

Of course they didn’t.  The sand in the bags was “ballast.”  The balloon men carried it with them, and when they found the balloon coming down, because some of the gas had leaked out of the round ball above the basket, they would let some of the sand run out of the bags to the ground below.  This would make the balloon lighter, and it would rise again.

“Squee!  Squee!  Uff!  Uff!” grunted Squinty, as he wiped the sand off his tongue on one of his legs.  “I don’t like that.  I’m hungry.”

“Why, what’s the matter with the little pig?” asked one of the men, turning around and looking at Squinty.

“He must be hungry,” said the other.  “See, he has bitten a hole in one of our sand bags.  Let’s feed him.”

“All right.  Give him something to eat, but we didn’t bring any pig food along with us.”

“I’ll give him some bread and milk,” the other man said.  “We won’t want much more ourselves, for we are nearly at our last landing place.”

“Squee!  Squee!” squealed Squinty, when he heard this.  He watched the man put some bread and milk in a tin pan, and set it down on the floor of the basket.  Then Squinty put his nose in the dish and began to eat.

And Oh! how good it tasted!  Of course the milk was sweet, instead of sour, for men do not usually like sour milk.  Squinty had a good meal, and then he went to sleep.

What happened while Squinty slept, the little pig did not know.  But when he woke up it was all dark, and he knew it must be night, so he went to sleep again.  And the next time he awakened the sun was shining, so he felt sure it was morning.