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

XXVIII
AROUND THE CAMPFIRE

“How does it come, my young friend,” remarked the recluse of Crater Lake moving closer to the grinning Perk and apparently greatly moved, “that you are mentioning a name I have not heard spoken for the last seven years?”

“Huh! it happens, Doc, that I got some memory. Specially o’ faces,” candidly replied the aviator. “Course you’ve changed a heap since I knowed you, but back o’ it all I could ketch the same look you had then when you fixed me up so dickey.”

“Ah! that is what it means! So you were once a patient of mine. I hope I served you well, to cause you to remember me so long!” and the hermit patted Perk on the shoulder in what seemed to be a very friendly way.

“Hot ziggetty dog! I’m sayin’ you did, Doc – looky here and see how the things healed up,” and as he said this, Perk rolled up his sleeve, exhibiting a stout arm marked by a series of red lines zigzagging here and there and giving evidence of being a reminder of a most serious wound.

The hermit looked and nodded his head.

“Rather a tough proposition it must have been,” he remarked with a show of interest.

“You jest bet it was!” vociferated Perk. “That bally English doctor wanted to take the arm off – said it’d save my life, but what use would life be to a birdman with only one arm? Then you came along and done the trick, Doc. Never could forget what I owed you. Finest operation ever done on that line, the American surgeon said afterwards.”

“Ah! very kind of him, I am sure,” said Perk’s companion, obviously appreciating the implied compliment, “and would you mind telling me just where, and under what conditions all this happened? It may assist me to remember the particular instance out of the hundreds I handled?”

“In the Argonne, Doc – I came down in flames after sendin’ two out o’ four Heinies ahead o’ me. ’Member you told me my mother had ought to feel proud o’ her boy – which she sure was, Doc. Course it couldn’t hardly be ’spected you’d ’member me, but I guessed I’d keep think-in’ ’bout you as long as I lived. An’ to think we’d run up agin each other like this – it certainly is a small world, as I’ve said before.”

“While I don’t happen to remember the particular circumstance, my friend,” the other went on warmly, “it’s a pleasure to know that you did pull through with both arms and have apparently continued to ply your dangerous, if glorious calling ever since. Shake hands with me, will you? I’m proud to renew our acquaintance and it comes at a turning point in my life also.”

He glanced affectionately at Buddy lying there on his cot with the girl hovering over him, smoothing the blanket as only a woman can and lavishing looks of adoration on her hero pilot.

“For years I have been mourning the fact that after being shell-shocked on the battle line during the closing month of the war, I had lost my touch for my vocation; for a surgeon depends a great deal on his hands for the success of his delicate operations. Then he came into my life as though dropping down from heaven itself. The necessity for immediately handling his injuries started me back into the old rut again and I was thrilled to discover that my finger-tips were as sensitive as ever. Then I realized that since God was so good as to restore to me that which I feared had been lost forever, it would be wicked for me to remain shut up away from my fellows when so many suffering people were holding out their hands to me for aid. My prayer had been heard and I have resolved to go back once more to labor in the field that can never have an over supply of workers.”

What he said so seriously, so joyfully, thrilled Perk to the core. He felt that both he and his chum Jack had had at least a little to do with this loyal determination on the part of the once expert surgeon to again offer his services to the uncounted multitude of sufferers in every great city of the nation, and insofar as he could effect a cure, bring happiness to many a home that was now shrouded in darkness.

Later on, when Perk had a chance to tell this remarkable happening to the deeply interested Jack, and they had talked it all over, they came to the conclusion that the supposed loss of his skill as a result of his shock, was not the only reason causing Doctor Reeves to have that mysterious yearning to seek the solitudes of Nature in an effort to shun his fellow men. He may have met with some bitter disappointment, perhaps from the hand of the woman he loved, who had proved faithless. But all this was none of their business and Jack agreed with his pal when Perk declared they were treading on forbidden ground in even speculating about it.

“No matter what it was,” Jack ended the talk by saying earnestly, “he’s apparently gotten over that upset. Time heals wounds of the heart we know, and if he’s the wonderful surgeon you say, he can do a heap of missionary work among the hospitals during the rest of his life. I’m mighty glad we’ve run across him and he seems to have fixed up Buddy here just prime – says he’ll be able to get back on his job in four weeks and be just as good as ever.”

“Bully for Doc. Reeves!” exclaimed the enthusiastic Perk, still a little dazed over the amazing coincidence of meeting the professional man to whom he owed so much.

They found that the hermit – who would be called by that name no longer if he kept his new resolution – had a stone fireplace close by his shelter where he was accustomed to carrying on such cooking as was necessary.

Perk immediately took possession of the “cooking galley” as he was pleased to call the small addition to the shack where a meagre assortment of pots and pans were hanging, and proceeded to provide supper.

He would not allow the proprietor to render the least assistance and also declined the offered help of Suzanne, telling her she could do more good as a nurse than trying to help him. He had long been waiting just such an opportunity to “sling the grub” and was not going to be knocked out of this fine chance.

Jack, knowing how the other was enjoying himself, offered no objections so Perk found himself monarch of all he surveyed and boss of the kitchen.

Perk dragged the clumsy dugout belonging to the late recluse to serve as a ferry between the anchored amphibian and the shore. Later on Jack saw him fetching a number of things up to the vicinity of the shack and chuckled, highly amused, to note that among them was the submachine gun with its belt of ammunition. He could readily surmise what that meant. Perk must have remembered seeing that monster silvertip bear waddling along among the piled-up masses of rock not so very far distant from the shack of their present host and with some dimly defined notion in his head that he might wish to again play sentinel and guard to the camp, was determined to be in condition to meet any situation that might arise.

Oh! well, if it pleased Perk to imagine dire things hovering over their heads, and if it afforded him real happiness to assume the duties of a posted sentry, why should any one wish to cheat him of such an innocent recreation? It could do no harm but on the other hand would give the vigilant one a feeling of satisfaction, thought Jack.

“Only I do hope,” Jack was telling himself under his breath with a fond glance toward the object of his soliloquy, “if he’s bound to save us all again, his victim turns out to be a little more ferocious than a wretched half-starved prairie dog, creeping up to smell out a bone or two thrown away after a camp supper.”

Perk was a busy and willing worker for the next half hour, dodging in and out, bending over his cooking fire that had been coaxed to a point approaching perfection with several pots and pans resting on the large gridiron that the ex-hermit evidently used principally for roasting his potatoes in their skins, he being no great hand at achieving culinary triumphs. Some men are born to one profession and others excel in quite another line. Doc. Reeves’ specialty was surgery, that of Jack might be set down as general excellence along the duties of an air pilot and also fairly well equipped to play his part as one of Uncle Sam’s energetic Secret Service men while Perk had a notion he shone in no one particular line, but could get up about as savory a meal, under existing conditions, as the best woods guide.

He certainly surpassed himself on this particular occasion. The odors that soon began to permeate the atmosphere all around that lonesome spot caused Jack to show uneasiness, as though he could hardly wait for Perk to call them to partake of the glorious feast.

“Why, if this keeps on much longer,” he told himself as he walked up and down near by as a very hungry man is apt to do when waiting for supper to be put upon the table, especially if it is in camp, where appetite reigns above ordinary likes and dislikes, “he’ll have the whole neighborhood saturated with the smell of whatever he’s cooking. If there’s a hungry mountain lion or a half-starved grizzly within a mile of here, he’ll make a trail to this nook right away. What’s that Emerson wrote, that if a man invents the best mouse trap ever built the world will make the deepest kind of a trail flocking to his woods cabin to patronize him? And Perk’s sure some cook, I admit!”

The agony was finally brought to an end and they settled down on bits of logs and a couple of ricketty chairs the self-exiled surgeon had manufactured at some time or other. A small table, also home-made, fairly groaned under the most bountiful supply of “camp grub” imaginable and the grinning Perk eager to serve it out in generous portions.

Even the injured Buddy developed an astonishing appetite. Doc. Reeves, now radiant and full of good nature at the way he had been brought back to his one consuming passion, which he feared was gone forever, declared he had not sat before such a gorgeous feast for many a long year. Suzanne too, saw fit to add her praises while she ate and ate, as if trying to make up for the several meals she had missed while laboring under such a heavy load of suspense.

As for the cook himself, he showed no sign of his late labors having diminished his capacity for stowing away tremendous quantities of food, as those who prepare meals so often declare. But there was enough for all and a bit to be thrown out for the squirrels, rabbits, or any larger species of hungry mountain denizens that might care to investigate the appetizing odors.

They sat around in the faint light of the only lamp available, used only occasionally by the doctor on account of the difficulty of transporting kerosene such a distance on muleback, and talked on a variety of subjects. Buddy was of course eager to learn what was being said concerning the mystery of his disappearance and must have been duly thrilled when Jack and Perk recounted some of the many things they had read under flaming head-lines in the daily papers coming under their observation from time to time.

When questioned, he told in simple words just what had happened. It was nothing original, just such an accident as might happen to the most skillful of air pilots, though not all of them live through the experience. Chancing to see the little lake which was not by any means the first time he had glimpsed it, since on several occasions he had flown above it while carrying his mail pouches to and from airports, he had tried to make a halfway safe landing on the strip of sand at that end of the round pond but failing by a dozen or more feet, plunged into the water.

He lost all knowledge of what happened, coming to his senses a long time afterwards to find himself on a cot with the recluse just completing his wonderful job of attending to his broken arm and the many bruises about the rest of his person.

Dr. Reeves said but little, seeming quite content to listen to the voices of his little company of guests thrown so unexpectedly upon his hands but it was easy to see he was far happier that night than he had been for many years, with the future again beckoning and looming up as a wide field where he could apply his services in behalf of his fellows.

It was decided that Buddy must keep his cot for the night. They made up one for Suzanne with several fairly well cured animal pelts, mementoes of certain beasts the recluse had shot or trapped, either for their skins or to be used as a change of diet. Jack and Perk were old campaigners, and could find an apology for a bed on the ground near the fire while the surgeon said he meant to sit on a chair in the kitchen and spend the night in general rejoicing over his good fortune in “coming back.”

Jack teased his chum a bit when he saw the other lugging that sub-machine gun over to where he was going to sleep, but Perk only grinned, and nodded, as though he really enjoyed the prospect of once more remaining on guard.

XXIX
NO PROWLERS ALLOWED

Perk was more than usually sleepy when he lay down with the gun close by the fire. Perhaps he really did not expect to be called upon to defend the camp since the doctor had assured him there had never been any serious trouble from the inmates of the wilderness, though he admitted he had now and again found some evidence in the morning that a large beast had been prowling around while he slept behind a closed door.

But having made up his mind to do his full duty, Perk was not to be turned aside either through arguments or ridicule. He lay there doing his best to keep awake by reviving long since buried memories of his activities across the sea when in France.

Then he “passed out,” as he himself would have termed it, to awaken and find the fire in need of replenishing. There was an abundance of wood close at hand so, still half asleep, Perk got to his knees, picked up an armful and rising to his full height stepped over to the smoldering fire.

As he cast his burden on the red ashes some of the smaller stuff started up instantly, causing the immediate vicinity to appear as though illuminated by a flash of vivid sunlight.

Perk heard a sound that was not unlike a loud sniff. This startled him and his returning animation was hastened when he caught a low growl, thrilling him to the center of his being.

Instantly he stared in the quarter from which these strange sounds proceeded. A movement concentrated his attention on a certain point. Some object that resembled a bulky, dark, living thing commenced to rise up until the startled Perk though it would never stop growing.

There it was standing before him – the same monster he had seen from his seat aboard the air ship. A full-grown grizzly, the “Mountain Charlie” of the California ranchers and hunters, a very giant of devilish ferocity and unafraid of anything that walked on two or four feet, monarch of the foothills and canyons of the mighty Rockies!

The grizzly growled again, this time with added vigor as if wanting the wretched invader of his hunting grounds to thoroughly understand he would put up with no trifling and that he must speedily “skip the ranch” unless he wished to be scattered around the whole neighborhood in pieces.

“Holy Smoke!”

That was as far as Perk got in starting to express his agitated feelings for the standing bear had made a movement that started him toward the campfire and the amazed aviator. Perhaps by this time Jack may have also awakened but Perk gave no heed to such a possibility. As the self-appointed guardian of the slumbering camp it was up to him to stand like a rock in its defense.

No right or left tackle on the gridiron ever made a more furious plunge in an effort to stop the hurtling progress of the enemy player carrying the pigskin toward the goal posts than Perk set in motion just then, urged on as with a goad by the necessity for clutching that firearm upon which he was depending so much.

He landed in a huddle, snatched at the gun, dropped it in his wild excitement, pawed around for what seemed a full agonized minute but which evidently lasted less than five seconds and finally found himself clutching the object of his mad groveling. Even then he got mixed a bit and was presenting the butt of the weapon toward the oncoming growling bear when, recognizing his mistake he managed to swing it around.

Another blunder just then might have cost him dear but Perk, now fully alive to the emergency cooled down sufficiently to move the little lever which would start the machine-gun to spitting out its discharges in one – two – three style as long as the belt of cartridges held out and he, Perk, refrained from shutting off the mechanism by which it was worked.

The bear was not twenty feet away when this hurricane of lead began to rain upon him with oft repeated thuds. His growls had been followed by the most dreadful roarings to which those near-by cliffs had ever echoed. He dropped down on all fours, shuffled this way and that, like a boy trying to evade the attacks of a swarm of maddened yellow jackets whose nest he had the temerity to strike with a club. But all without avail, since the now equally aroused Perk had only to switch the muzzle of his little cannon a trifle to continue bombarding him right along.

The gigantic beast rolled over this way and that, stroke to get upon his feet again, his bellows becoming less vociferous as his wounds increased with frightful rapidity. There could be no telling when Perk would ever have stopped firing only that a hand grasped his weapon and turned it upward toward the starry heavens while the voice of Jack roared in his ear:

“Hold hard, brother, you’ve got him shot full of holes as it is. What’s the use ruining his hide? Some day you’ll be proud to rest your feet on a rug made from a genuine old grizzly you potted all by yourself out here in the Rockies.”

So the fully aroused Perk managed to curb his warlike spirit a bit and shut off the flow of deadly missiles.

“Gosh amighty Jack, did you see me knock the ole hippopotamus silly when I opened on him right smart? Some ruction while she lasted, I’ll tell the cockeyed world! Gee whiz! he’s kicked his last an’ there he lies as quiet as a lamb.”

“He’s your meat okay, buddy,” Jack assured him after which he turned to explain the meaning of the frantic outburst of firing for both Dr. Reeves and Suzanne were in the doorway of the shack, demanding to know what it was all about and if anybody were hurt.

“Huh! on’y one that’s hurt real bad lies over yonder with his toes pointin’ up to the skies!” laughed the proud marksman. “Reg’lar he-grizzly, with a bellow like a range bull. Tried to rush me, don’t you know, but it turned out he couldn’t chaw lead an’ so he quit cold. An’ me, I’m figgerin’ on having the smartest rug you ever set eyes on made from his hairy hide if I c’n trim it from his carcass come mornin’. Some stunt for little Perk to put on the boards, if I do say it myself, as oughtn’t.”

“Queer how I have managed to keep the peace with that scamp for so long,” observed the doctor with a whimsical laugh, “and then he chooses to go on the warpath just when I happen to have company for the first time in years. But that was the proper caper, Perk, and you deserve to have a beautiful rug to show when telling this thrilling exploit to your grandchildren.”

“Wow! go easy on a feller, please, Doc,” expostulated the embarrassed Perk, “why, I ain’t even got a girl yet. You see, they gimme the razzberry, mebbe ’cause I’m so handsome. But I’m meanin’ to get that rug fixed up, if the pelt c’n be dragged off the big varmint in the mornin’ an’ that’s that.”

Examination showed that although a number of the bullets sprayed forth so promiscuously by the ardent sportsman had punctured the hide of the bear, these small holes would not prevent its being repaired and made useful, if one chose to spend a little time and cash for the desired result. So while Perk absolutely refused to call his vigil off and get some sleep, he had the comforting assurance that his work had not gone for naught.

“Yeah! don’t try to cramp my style, partner,” he told Jack who was trying to argue that lightning seldom struck twice in the same place, “course I understand how that grizzly ain’t goin’ to gimme another scare, but how do we know that he ain’t got a mate an’ if she comes prowlin’ around this roost an’ runs across her big boy lyin’ there all bloody and cashed in, why she might go on a tear an’ smash things into kindlin’ wood. Yep, I’ll finish the night on my post. Time to pick up any lost sleep when we’re back in old Cheyenne jest loafin’ an’ waitin’ for orders to start out on a fresh job.”

Knowing how stubborn Perk could be when he took a notion, Jack made no further attempt to persuade him and the last he saw of the bear-killer, Perk was sitting there, his back against a stump, with the formidable machine gun across his knees, all set for business at the old stand. Let all the silvertips in the entire Rocky Mountain section step up and give him a dare, with that wonderful gun that reminded him of old days in France when he was with the La Fayette Escadrille, flying for France and her allies, he felt equal to a full dozen of the shaggy beasts.

So the balance of the night passed and finally came the dawn of a new day that would thrill the nation with the startling news covering the finding of the missing air-mail pilot.