Wings Over the Rockies; Or, Jack Ralston's New Cloud Chaser

XVIII
THE VIGILANT GUARD

It had been arranged between Jack and his mate that it would be just as well for them to fetch their blankets ashore and settle down on the sand for the remainder of the night.

In the first place, Jack thought it would not look very nice if they went aboard their anchored amphibian and left poor Suzanne there alone. Although she had not mentioned the matter at all, he felt sure it had given her a few qualms and that in her mind she really hoped they might decide to camp there by the fire.

Then again it would add to the girl’s peace of mind, should she chance to be lying awake, unable to lose herself because of the haunting fears connected with the mystery of Buddy’s fate, to raise her head and look around to always find that cheery fire blazing, dispersing the gloom in the immediate vicinity.

Last of all neither of them was so fond of doubling up and trying to forget their bodily discomforts aboard their crate, that they could afford to pass up a golden opportunity to sleep on solid ground, though to be sure they were able to make the best of anything when duty bound.

So Perk went aboard by means of their ferry and returned with both dingy gray blankets as well as something to serve as pillows, since they had never made it a point to travel with such “soft stuff” as Perk always scornfully termed them.

“You turn in whenever you feel like it, Boss,” Perk had said with a grin. “I’m not a bit sleepy, it happens an’ ’sides I jest feel like havin’ another whiff or two – somehow this ’baccy seems sweeter to me than I ever knowed it to be.”

“It should,” Jack told him, and evidently there must have been a significant emphasis attached to those two words to make Perk look so queer and finally grin in a most ridiculous way like a boy caught robbing the jam jar or the cookey pot, and at a loss to explain the situation.

Accordingly Jack rolled himself up in his covers, fixed his head rest to suit his own notion, turned his back on the blazing fire and lost all interest in everything saving getting his fair quota of slumber.

Perk sat there and smoked three pipes one after the other. Then feeling a little draught of cool air on his back he dragged his blanket to him, wrapped it around his form, and gun across his knees, continued to sit with his back against a big boulder he had rolled down the sandy stretch for some purpose or other.

He continued to sit there like one of the sentries they say were found at their posts when the ruins of Herculaneum were cleared of the accumulated ashes of centuries, close to the grim old volcano. Proving how in those military days a soldier stuck to his post though the heavens might fall upon him.

Twice Perk got up, threw an armful of fuel on the dying fire, smoked a round of that “sweet” tobacco, cast a look of concern over toward where the stranded plane lay, shook his head doggedly and resumed his former position alongside the big boulder.

Apparently he had resolved to stay on duty throughout the entire night, and since Perk had a vein of doggedness in his disposition the chances were he would stick to his guns.

Perk may not have noticed it, but more than few times his chum’s covering would move just a trifle, allowing him to peep out and on each occasion Jack would chuckle as if vastly entertained, after which it was sleep again for him.

Midnight came and went.

Stars shone down upon the lonesome camp, gradually wheeling westward until each in turn passed beyond the lofty rim of the canyon walls while others climbed the eastern heavens to take their turn at peeping and eventually follow the track of those who were by that time doubtless setting beyond the genuine western horizon.

It must have been something like two in the morning when Perk waking up from a disturbed nap, in which he was beset by a pack of savage timber wolves with only a stout cudgel as a means of defense, caught a sound that sent a delightful quiver chasing up and down his spine.

“By gum! what was that now?” he asked himself, at the same time moving the gun from his knee to a more elevated position.

His tingling nerves announced the delight that filled his heart in contemplation of a possible chance to show how he could play guardian to a camp where innocence slept. Suddenly awakened from such a wild dream, Perk was in fine condition to see a pack of ferocious, gray, hungry, four-footed pirates of the waste places creeping up here, there, everywhere, with the intention of taking the camp by strategy and devouring every solitary inmate.

His fire happened to be low so that the light even close by could hardly be called worth while. Again Perk caught some sort of sound – to his excited mind it seemed similar to an animal’s nails scratching the dry sand just at that point where the high river tide was wont to reach its peak during the flood season.

Perk redoubled his efforts to see something moving while he nervously fingered his modern shooting iron, so radically different from those old guns used by the pioneer settlers of the virgin West in the early days of the far-flung frontier.

Now his quivering changed its character to certainty and rapture. Most surely he had caught a fleeting glimpse of some object that was slowly and cautiously creeping up toward the slumbering campfire.

A wolf – just one of the precious pack that had bothered him in his late dream – but then he had only himself to consider, whereas now it meant three separate human lives in peril. How his teeth gritted as he mentally called the slinking beast every opprobrious name he could think of, his finger meanwhile playing with the trigger that, once pulled, would start the long line of cartridges contained in the endless belt to discharging like a pack of firecrackers popping to commemorate the birthday of the good old U. S. A.

Yes, there could be no longer any doubt – he had not deceived himself after all, as he was beginning to suspect. Now the thing had ceased to move and was starting to rise up on all four legs, as though to be in readiness to answer the call of the pack leader when it came time to charge.

“It’s goodbye to you, sneaker and robber on four legs!” muttered Perk grimly as he put the butt of the gun up to his shoulder, covered the half seen figure, and pressed the trigger.

A burst of firing instantly followed as the mechanical gun commenced to bombard the particular spot where Perk had discovered the first of the oncoming pack. The reports came thick and fast, following on each others’ heels and so it would continue to the end of the string unless Perk himself stopped the mechanism.

By the time he had thrown half a dozen leaden messengers at that one point, he felt he had effectually rid the world of one thief and marauder for which he should have the thanks of every decent person. Then Perk started to swing his arm from left to right, fully anticipating seeing a host of monster companions of his initial victim bounding forward and coming within range of the line of fire from his still spitting machine gun.

Nothing of the sort greeted his astonished eyes – in fact there was not the first sign of a single monster raider – only Jack indignantly bawling him out and demanding to know what in the devil he meant arousing the entire camp with such a racket, and spoiling the rest of the night for sleep.

So Perk instantly shut off the deadly stream of fire that was expected to slay the whole pack of fiendish wolves as he swung his gun around with a circular movement.

“Whatever ailed you Perk, to set that thing going like mad?” Jack demanded, as he scrambled out of his enfolding blanket and advanced toward his chum, keeping a nervous eye on the gun meanwhile as if afraid Perk, whom he believed had been dreaming, would start it going again.

“Wolves – heaps an’ heaps o’ ’em – dreamed they had me cornered, with on’y a club to hold the pack off – then I woke up, and sure as you live, they was acomin’ right in on us – saw one whoppin’ big feller right over yonder an’ let him have the whole works. Looky yourself Jack – honest to goodness he’s lyin’ right there where I knocked him cold.”

Jack gave him a laugh and hastened over to see for himself just how much truth there could be in what the other had said with so much earnestness.

XIX
OVER-ZEALOUS PERK

“Perk!”

Strangely enough, while the late sharpshooter had seemed so positive concerning the identity and present status of his victim, he had not displayed the eagerness one might reasonably expect in such a sturdy guardian of the camp, to follow at Jack’s heels.

“Yeah! what is it, old hoss?” he now asked, keeping one eye on the cockpit of the nearby Stinson-Detroiter, under the belief he saw a slight movement there, as though the girl pilot had been suddenly awakened from her sound slumber and was peeping out to ascertain the cause of the late terrific bombardment.

“Come over here and see your monster timber wolf,” Jack was saying.

Perk shrugged his shoulders, as though some dim suspicion of the truth might be already knocking at the door of his valiant heart, but since there was nothing else to be done he stiffened up and walked with soldierly tread to where Jack ominously awaited his coming.

“There he lies, fairly riddled,” the other was saying, pointing as he thus greeted the arrival of the vigilant one. “He never had a chance to even give a single peep after you opened up on him – must have imagined yourself away back again on that Argonne front and sending another Hun ship down wrapped in flames, eh Perk?”

“Huh! he don’t look quite as big as I guessed he was,” admitted the now contrite marksman, beginning to weaken. “Mebbe I wasted too many slugs on the onery critter – sorter shot him to pieces you might say.”

Jack laughed and Perk started, under the belief that evidences of feminine amusement drifted out of their cockpit close by as though Suzanne understood, and was not only interested but highly entertained in the bargain.

“That’s a good one partner, for you sure did knock spots out of the poor little yellow sap – chances are he followed some party down here yesterday, got to hunting around on his own hook, and missed them when they started up Angel Trail. Then he discovered the light of your fire here and hoping he’d run upon real friends who’d toss him a scrap of meat, was crawling up to investigate when you blasted him with that fierce volley. Poor confiding little beast, a victim of mistaken identity.”

“Migosh, a prairie dog!” muttered the astonished and mortified Perk, gazing ruefully down at the huddled mess before him, not too plainly seen on account of the fire flashing up only fitfully, being in need of more fuel.

“It’s all right, Perk old man,” soothed Jack, knowing just how mean his chum must be feeling, with that unseen girl a witness to his upset and her low gurgles of laughter coming distinctly to their ears in the bargain, “your intentions were okay, and you certainly did pot him neatly. No danger of any poacher stealing from a camp where you’ve taken up your post as sentry. That vivid dream you mentioned must have got on your nerves and when you discovered a moving figure, naturally enough your first thought was of sneaking four-footed mountain wolves about to make a raid.”

“Hot ziggetty dog! I sure must ’a’ had the jimjams all right,” chuckled Perk, beginning to throw off that stupid feeling of being only half awake and even able to laugh at the joke on himself.

“Jack,” said a merry, girlish voice just then, “tell your friend not to be worried about me. I’ve shot more than a few wolves and coyotes for I was born and brought up in the cow country you see. It’s all right, Perk, don’t feel badly about it. I know it was just to stand up in my defense that made you so speedy on the trigger. Only gave me a little scare until I guessed what it all meant. I’m going to sleep some more, though it’s a hard job to get Buddy’s frightful predicament out of my mind.”

“And Perk,” said Jack, throwing an arm affectionately across the shoulders of his mate, “you turn this job over to me now and get a few winks before morning comes creeping along out of the east over there to start us on our way again. I’ll sit right here, holding your old cannon and woe to the wolf, coyote or even another yellow cur that dares to sneak in on us.”

So after all Perk was not feeling so very badly on account of his fiasco, though it did make him grimace to remember that those bright eyes of Buddy’s best girl had been an amused witness to his humiliation.

He did not say another word, but humbly handed over the sub-machine-gun to his companion and dropped down near the fire upon which he had tossed a fresh supply of fuel. Secretly he was meaning to be up at peep of day before Suzanne would be stirring, in order to drag the victim of his fusilade some distance away from their camp so that her curious eyes might not be offended by sight of the wreck of a little harmless prairie dog.

The balance of that wonderful night, spent alongside the Colorado in the famous canyon of the painted walls, passed without a single thing happening to further disturb them.

In the east, where the mountain peaks made a ragged horizon, the first faint fingers of pink were commencing to streak the low heavens when Jack saw his chum moving off toward the spot where lay the victim of his deadly aim. He instinctively understood what Perk was aiming to do and on that account refrained from calling out or otherwise taking any notice of his being abroad.

When Perk came back ten minutes later and washed his hands down at the river brink, Jack only chuckled, as though it tickled him to notice how the flinty-hearted Perk – only with regard to his indifference toward all female persons – had discovered that there might still be a few – not many, perhaps – girls who were sincere and loyal to the one to whom they had pledged their hearts – lucky Buddy Warner, with all this uncertainty regarding his fate – at the worst there would be some one to always mourn his passing.

On came the day, and Perk busied himself in getting a good cooking fire going, remembering what a delicious supper the girl had prepared on the preceding evening; and his mouth now fairly watering with hopes of another turn at that royal ambrosia which some people without sentiment will call plain “coffee.”

Suzanne presently joined them, after washing her pretty face down at the running water, which was icy cold, and most refreshing indeed. Then she busied herself at the fire, ordered the meek and obedient Perk around after the manner of most petty and pretty kitchen tyrants; but the fine odors that were soon filling the rarified air buoyed up Perk’s spirits wonderfully and he raised no rebellion.

And the breakfast to which they soon sat down was just as delicious as fancy had pictured; indeed, the only thing amiss so far as the ravenous Perk could discover was the fact that it might give out before all of them had had a sufficiency.

“Now, let’s get busy transferring that gas to our tank, Perk,” Jack observed, as they finally arose. “We’ll have to get our boat up on the shore, you observe – a case of Mahomet going to the mountain – let’s go, partner.”

This was not so difficult as it might seem; for the sandy shore was shelving, and once Jack gave her the gun the amphibian literally “walked up” to where they wanted her to be, alongside the Stinson-Detroiter plane.

Perk produced a length of small rubber tubing, and made use of it as a siphon. Once the gasoline was started, by suction – Perk attended to that part by sucking the air all out, and getting a mouthful of liquid to pay him for his trouble, which he ejected with a grimace – it continued to flow until the tank aboard the amphibian was plumb full.

“I can scare up several five-gallon empty tins,” suggested the wise Perk, “that might be filled, and stowed away somewhere – that would give us a reserve stock, plenty I guess to carry us to the nearest supply base in case our tank went dry.”

“A mighty good idea, boy,” was Jack’s comment, he being glad to see how the other was recovering from his late depression.

They finally had everything settled – Suzanne had put up her little “sign,” to let curious-minded folks wandering that way know who owned the abandoned crate, and that it was to be let absolutely alone until she came to salvage it. Then, too, she had made up her little package of “essentials,” which she meant to take along when they zoomed off to start the real search for lost Buddy Warner.

As they settled down in their places, room having been found for the girl pilot, Suzanne waved her hand a bit sadly toward her impotent crate, as though certain high hopes she had been entertaining were now fallen in ruins; then she smiled again, watching closely to see Jack gripping the stick and letting in the gas to the attendant spark, when they were off.

XX
AN UNSUBDUED SPIRIT

Backed by plenty of daylight there was no difficulty at all experienced in mounting. The sand was packed quite hard as sometimes happens at the seashore, particularly in highly favored localities like down at Daytona Beach on the eastern coast of Florida, where the speed races are run every season. After the wheels contained in the aluminum pontoons left the ground not a single obstacle stood in the way of their climbing steadily upward, until presently they could look out over the sweep of rough country surrounding that strangest of all Dame Nature’s trick pictures – the Colorado Canyon.

Jack had his plans all laid out, built upon his charts, and the general fund of knowledge gleaned from some of the newspaper accounts that he had kept by him; after shuffling the pack, and discarding all unsupported versions as unreliable guides for stranger air pilots to go by.

Having set the course Jack had Perk handle the stick, for it was his intention to have a good talk with Suzanne, something he had not managed to accomplish thus far.

She understood just what he had in mind when he took up one end of the earphone harness, and made motions; for the racket was too fierce to think of trying to make his ordinary speaking voice heard – indeed, she had already shown a certain amount of curiosity concerning the apparatus, possibly knowing what it was intended for, although never herself having as yet had occasion to make use of such a means of communication when in flight.

He soon had the straps adjusted to suit her small head, and then proceeded to arrange his own end. His main purpose was far from being connected with anything like curiosity, for somehow he had a faint hope something she could tell him might open up a line of reasoning, and produce a live clue, which was just what was lacking in his plans.

“I’m meaning to ask you some questions, Miss Cramer,” he went on to say; “in hopes that you may be able to give me some little valuable hint; for up to now everybody must be working more or less in the dark. You see, all that’s known to be positive is that Buddy took off from a certain station where he delivered some important mail, picked up a local sack, and then took off at a specified hour and minute. After that he was not heard from again – failed to show up at either of the succeeding stations, and was awaited in vain at the end of his run.

“For a time nothing much was thought of his delay in turning up; because of any one of several things that might have held him back – fog, head winds, or some trifling trouble compelling him to make a forced landing, which in this dreadful country of rocks and gullies among mountain peaks usually is attended by serious difficulties, especially the getting off again when the trouble has been attended to.”

Then he went on to tell her what he had deducted, after carefully getting the gist of what all the newspaper men had discovered up to within twenty-four hours of the present time; the deeply interested girl listening eagerly, and occasionally nodding her head, as though quite agreeing with his reasoning.

“Now,” Jack went on to say – after bringing his story down to where he and Perk had received their orders from Washington, took off, butted against a most tenacious fog belt, and finally brought up at the Canyon, where they made her acquaintance – “Tell me please, when and how you first heard that Buddy was missing, if it would not be too painful a recital.”

“Oh! that will not keep me from speaking,” she hastened to say, trying bravely to keep the tears from dimming her eyes: “nothing could be too painful for me to endure if only it works to his good in the end. We read the dreadful news in the daily paper that comes to Ma Warner’s home every morning, it being mailed in the big city not a hundred miles away. She always hunts up the aviation column the very first thing. Why not, when she has an only son who is known as an experienced and reliable air-mail pilot and also knows that she is going to have a second ambitious flyer in the family soon, if all goes well, and I find Buddy.

“Of course we were very apprehensive, what with the neighbors running in to sympathize, and cheer us up. Later on that same day a reporter from the very paper in which we read the first news about Buddy, turned up, having motored over across country, eager to pick up enough interesting facts at the humble home of Buddy’s anxious mother to make a thrilling story for his editor.

“They have been saying some very kind things about our Buddy since he disappeared so suddenly and mysteriously. He was one of the best liked air-pilots in the whole corps, I read again and again; and oh! what a thrill it gave us both to realize how he was even being compared to Lindbergh himself. Could anything be said to make a mother’s heart thrill more with joy – or that of Buddy’s best girl also?

“To be sure,” she went on, with a winsome little smile, “he had never done anything great, to make him famous, in the way of wonderful stunts, or long perilous flights over wide oceans, and such, but every one seemed to know how his heart has always been wrapped up in the cause of aviation, and that he would be willing to lay down his very life if by doing so he could advance the day when flying will be much safer than going by train or boat.”

Jack soon realized that there was no hope of learning anything from this source capable of opening up a promising line of thought. Suzanne was only too eager to tell everything she knew, but after all it amounted only to an exhibition of her affection. How she conceived the madcap idea of herself starting out, “only a half-baked pilot” she called herself in humiliation, just hoping that something – she knew not what, for it would have to be in the nature of a near miracle, as Jack very well knew – would have to come along to draw her to where her Buddy must be lying, waiting and praying for needful aid.

Jack knew very well, although not for worlds would he have hinted at such a thing in her hearing, that since three full days had by this time gone by, poor Buddy must long since have passed on. Unless of course some Good Samaritan had found him where he lay injured and perhaps starving, and taken him in charge. A happy accident like this was one chance in a thousand because of the uninhabited wilderness.

She had pictured the old mother striving to believe God would surely keep her boy safe in the hollow of His omnipotent hand, so that Jack had to wink pretty fast in order not to let her see the tears in his own eyes – such confidence and assurance was really beautiful; and for one thing it caused Jack to resolve more than ever to let no ordinary obstacle daunt him – for the sake of that fond mother and this courageous if ill-advised young lady who just refused to yield to despondency even when the skies looked most gloomy, and hope hung by just a slender shred.

“Depend upon it, Miss Cramer,” he told her, gently, after he realized that nothing was to be gained by pressing her with further questioning; “both Perk and myself are booked in this game, and we mean to leave no stone unturned in trying to find Buddy. Others who are engaged in the search will make all manner of sacrifices too. So great is the warmth of feeling for that faithful mother who is forced to stay at home, and leave the sacred task to strangers. If concerted effort is able to accomplish anything we’ll succeed; if all our efforts fail us, you must try and believe it is for some wise purpose which we cannot see with the weak human eyes.”

She looked at him with an expression that made Jack realize how much of her confident spirit was make believe – that deep down in her sensible heart she knew very well what terrific chances there were against success coming to reward their efforts – that much of this had been assumed in the hope of buoying up the falling hopes of that poor mother, left bereft of her only boy, the stay and pride of her aging years.

He saw her clamp her white teeth together as if forcing herself to brush aside that sinking feeling, and show the old dauntless spirit that had thus far carried her safely through a sea of doubts and fears.

When she spoke again it was with a ring in her voice that thrilled him to the core – he only wished he could take on a measure of that indomitable nature that would not give up.

“But we’ll find him,” she was saying, slowly but fiercely; “I just know we will, that’s all – his mother needs him, his only girl needs him, and we’ve got to bring him back to his old home – alive, or – dead!”