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

XV
THE HAND OF FATE

It was a surprising discovery that Jack had just made, but after all not so very wonderful. In these modern days a multitude of daring girls and young women were becoming air minded and filled with the ambition to become pilots. The fascination of such a life appealed to them with irresistible force so that already some of them had made a most creditable showing in the annals of aviation.

For one thing the fact that the one he had offered to help had turned out to be a girl gave Jack a twinge – he realized that more than ever he and Perk would be obliged to “stick around,” and endeavor to overcome her difficulties, if the disabilities of the wrecked plane could in any way be remedied.

That was apt to mean a further delay in their work, a serious handicap, since already too much time had passed if there remained any further hope of finding poor Buddy Warner.

“Tell me, did you come through this crash without being seriously hurt yourself?” he asked her.

Perk must have made the same sudden discovery as Jack for he was standing near by, staring hard at the novice pilot and with his mouth open. Possibly Perk also deplored the fact that their meeting with a woman flyer was bound to interfere more or less with those plans of his pal’s which above all things concerned the need of speedy action, unhampered liberty of going where they willed and staying on the job steadily, come storm, fog, riotous wind or fair weather.

“A few little bruises seems to be the extent of my injuries – next to nothing, I assure you, but if they were ten times as serious it would not keep me from going up again, if my ship were workable – indeed, it is absolutely necessary for me to do so!”

Jack looked at her again. Most assuredly she did have the necessary stamina required of a successful air pilot. He did not believe any ordinary peril could deter such a girl from attempting what she had planned.

“I am glad to know that you were not badly hurt, he told her, but it’s plain to be seen you must have handled your stick cleverly or your ship would have crashed ten times as hard as it did. The first thing to be done is for us to check the craft over and learn the extent of the damage. If, luckily, it happens to be but a broken wing, possibly we can fix it up well enough to get the boat out of this fearful hole. However did it happen you picked out this place to come down in, or was it just by a rare chance? You could not have found as good a landing-field inside of a hundred miles I reckon, miss.”

She smiled at hearing him address her by that title, since it was the first real evidence that he understood the situation.

“I suppose it was partly luck,” she told him simply, “although I did have an idea it would be a hundred per cent better to fall on what looked like a sandy shore down here, than take chances with those terrible rocks up above. Just what I did and how I landed so easily, I’m not at all certain about, but Heaven was kind and yet I hope never to find myself in the same bad fix again. Did you say you would take a look at my ship and find out what’s wrong? It’s kind of you to go to all that trouble, but I must get out of this as soon as possible – oh! I surely must!”

Jack could not help being struck with the way she said this, with her pretty sun and wind-tanned face taking on a determined, resolute expression. He would not have been human to thus hear and see without beginning to wonder what is could be that influenced her to speak so. Why should she show such a yearning for a chance to continue her flight? What genuine reason could a girl have for such an overwhelming desire for action? Was there any sort of endurance race on the books for women pilots who had recently obtained their necessary flying licenses – or was it some sort of a private wager that caused her to betray so much solicitude?

Would he and Perk be justified in holding over so as to get her started, granting that her ship could be put in condition again by means of their combined knowledge and ability along those lines?

Somehow, when he looked keenly into her face, he failed to discover the faintest trace of guile thereon. Once convinced of this fact, Jack threw every suspicion to the four winds and came to the conclusion that both duty and the natural chivalry in his nature compelled him to do all that was possible to aid a fellow pilot in distress.

“Perk, suppose you tote that painter up to the ship here and fasten it. We’ve got a little job on our hands for I’ve promised this young lady to check up and learn how badly her boat has been wrecked. By the way miss, you haven’t so far told us your name – mine happens to be Jack Ralston and this is my partner, Perk – Gabe Perkiser in full.”

“And mine is Suzanne Cramer – one of the newcomers in the ranks of women air pilots. It hasn’t been so long since they gave me my license, after I’d done my full allowance of solo flying. This is my own ship – I bought it secondhand, but in perfect condition. Until today I have never had any trouble but the engine started to miss and I knew I must land or crash dreadfully. Please see if there’s any hope for my getting out of this place soon, for it means everything in the world to me.”

Jack saw that suspicious old bachelor, Perk give him a solemn look and wink his left eye, just as though he distrusted the wisdom of their wasting precious minutes trying to help a flighty little girl pilot, evidently on some sort of a silly lark and making out that it was a most important matter indeed – as most girls always do, according to his limited knowledge.

Thereupon Jack shook his head at scoffing Perk, knowing as he did how the other was inclined to be a woman-hater.

“Come on Perk, now that you’ve made our ferry secure let’s get busy and see what’s what here. You take the off wing and I’ll look over the near one, then we can double-up on the engine and reach a conclusion. It won’t take us long, Perk and it’s a duty every decent pilot owes to his class, remember.”

“Okay Boss, jest as you say, I’m willin’; but all the same it looks to me like it’d turn out to be a bum job. That old bus has been given some hard knocks an’ won’t tune up worth a red cent.”

The girl thereupon uttered a little pitiable moan that influenced Jack to turn a bit sternly upon his pal and say quickly:

“No snap judgment Perk! You never can tell how badly things are until you give them the first over. Come on now, partner I know you well enough to be sure you’ll give an honest verdict, no matter what comes.”

“Sure thing, Jack – my dad taught me to ‘hew straight to the line, let the chips fall where they will’ – that’s been the Perkiser motto right along, an’ see where it carried us as a family. Got one uncle sheriff o’ a county in Kansas an’ another at the head o’ a hot dog emporium, which is goin’ some, I want you to know.”

The girl looked as though amused at Perk’s quaint way of saying things but that anxious, eager expression quickly came upon her face again.

For some little time the pair rummaged around and seemed to act as though they both knew their business, as well as the makeup of any plane ever conceived by the human mind. Perk knocked on this and that, made all manner of little tests where he believed were necessary, and in other ways carried himself as befitted by education and calling to be a judge of an airship’s anatomy.

She followed them about, always intently watching and squeezing her hands in a way to show how wrought up she must be with the suspense. Then, when they were through with the inspection and checking up, Jack and Perk “went into a huddle,” as the latter would have termed it, nodding their heads and talking in low tones. Finally Jack was shoved forward by the other as the one who ought to bring the sad tidings to the distressed girl pilot.

“Oh! you have something dreadful to tell me,” she cried out, wringing her hands. “Is it too badly wrecked for you to fix up so I can pull out of this awful hole and take off again?”

“I’m sorry to say, Miss Cramer,” Jack told her, “your boat is so badly knocked out that it can never be taken out of this place by its own power. It will, I fear, have to be dismantled and carried up piece-meal, to be shipped to the company’s works for rebuilding.”

She put up her quivering hands to her face and started crying.

“Oh! it is terrible – just terrible, when he needs me so! Three days have passed already, and I felt that if any one could find him surely love would show me the way. What will poor Mother Warner say when she fails to hear from me as I promised? Poor Mother, and poor Buddy. What will happen to us all?”

XVI
SUZANNE INSISTS

What seemed to be the whole truth flashed into Jack’s mind when he heard the grieving girl pilot express the sentiments that influenced her into making this far-flung flight so soon after winning her new pilot’s license.

It staggered him, too – not so much that Suzanne should thus turn out to be Buddy Warner’s sweetheart, though in itself that was decidedly interesting; but to think how a strange and perverse Fate had so decreed that she should meet up with the pair who had been deputized by the Department at Washington to start forth, and do everything in their power to solve the mystery of Buddy’s strange disappearance, also, if possible, accomplish his finding.

As for Perk, who apparently had seen a great light all of a sudden, just as Jack had done, almost “threw a fit.” He declared later on, when he could ponder, how many thousand chances there were against anything like this lucky meeting coming to pass.

Jack, chancing to let his gaze wander that way, could see Perk staring with round eyes at the inspired face of the brave girl. He also feebly scratched his head with slow movements, just as if his wits had gone astray under the shock.

“Can it be possible, Suzanne,” stammered Jack, grinning amiably the while, “that you happen to be – er, Buddy’s sweetheart – what you might call his ‘best girl’?”

She regarded him with an encouraging smile, and nodded her head, forgetting to cry, as though something in his way of saying this bade her hug fresh hope to her heart.

“Why, yes, most certainly I am – we expected to be married in another three months – Buddy’s got the dear little cottage on the way, and everything was planned – and then came that dreadful news telling how he was lost somewhere among these awful mountains. My ship was being repaired, for I had had a slight accident in making too fast a landing on rough ground, and it took nearly two days for those slow poke mechanics to get it checked up again – two frightful days that I never want to live again. Then I hopped off, and came here, for the boys at the flying field told me just where he must have gone down, you know. Perhaps it was a crazy thing to do – they tried to persuade me to give it up, but I had promised Mother Warner to find him – and what was the use of my being a full-fledged air pilot if I had to stay a kiwi– stick to the ground, when my Buddy needed me so?”

“Still, it was an unwise thing for you to have done, though nobody could blame you, because Buddy was well worth taking chances for. But, you must have realized there would be scores of skillful pilots on the job, every one bent on finding your boy, if it lay in human power. My pal and I are in the employ of Uncle Sam – taken off all other business, and set to making a wide search – we have come all the way from Cheyenne, through the worst fog bank that ever was known, just for that purpose, which makes it seem doubly strange how we should have been brought in contact with you, Miss Cramer.”

She smiled through her tears, and then went on hastily to say:

“I can only think it was Providence answering the prayers I have been sending up ever since the dreadful word came to us there in our little town, that Buddy has put on the map. Oh! I am sure the way was opened up to me – that now you know who and what I am, you could not have the heart to leave me here while you took up the search I had dedicated myself to carry out!”

Jack evidently could give a pretty shrewd guess as to what lay back of her words – she undoubtedly meant to implore them to let her accompany them in their hunt.

So he scratched his chin in a way he had when placed in a dilemma – Perk, saw him do that and understood how matters stood; for he grinned shamelessly, as though it actually tickled him to see his best pal placed in such a hole, with no way out save in yielding.

“Er – much as I – we, that is – would like to oblige you, Miss Cramer – I’m afraid it would be impossible. We belong to a Department of the Government that frowns on our mixing up what they call business with pleasure. They set us on this job, and that means we’ve got to take off without any more delay than we can possibly help – I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean.”

Perk grinned some more, just as if he had an idea his usually dependable pal hardly knew himself what he was aiming at. The girl novice pilot looked grieved, and then brightened up.

“But – what’s to become of me then – you surely wouldn’t be so mean as to leave me here in this dreadful hole all night – I’d go out of my mind with thinking every little sound meant that some ferocious wild beast was creeping up on my fire, ready to make a meal of me; which of course would be rough, after all those fierce lessons in the air, and actually getting my pilot’s license after all. And besides, I did really and truly promise Ma Warner I’d find Buddy, and fetch him back home with me.”

Jack looked at her entreating face, gave a glance at the grinning Perk, drew a long breath, shrugged his shoulders with the air of saying in desperation: “That’s that then; and what are you going to do about it, when a young woman sets you on a red-hot gridiron like that.”

There seemed nothing to do but capitulate, and make the best of a bad bargain. After all it was not as if they could find no room for Suzanne – she was such a little thing, and besides their new cloud-chaser was capable of carrying a weight almost twice the amount of the present cargo, gas and all.

“All right, then, Miss Cramer, we’ll take you with us when we start out of here,” he told her, allowing himself to shut off his feeling of near dismay, and actually smiled again in his accustomed way.

“Oh! thank you so much – Jack,” she told him, with sincerity in both voice and manner. “I promise not to give you the least trouble, and perhaps I could make myself useful sooner or later, especially if we do find my Buddy, and he – should be badly injured, so as to need a nurse’s care – for you see I was on my way to be a trained nurse when I got air-minded, and set out to be a flyer, so sometimes I might go with Buddy.”

“But this will mean we must all of us remain here in the great canyon for the night,” he reminded her.

“But that would be wasting many hours, and he needing me so much,” she complained, with a pitiful look that made Jack regret his inability to start right off and be doing.

“Listen, please,” he said, gently but firmly, “you can see by looking up that the sun has set, and night is creeping out – already down in this deep hole it’s next to impossible for any one to see what might lie in the way; so that makes it too risky to try and pull out. I’d like as not wreck my ship by running up against a snag in the water, or a stray boulder on the shore. Whether we took you with us or not I’d made up my mind to stick it out here for the night.”

“Yes,” here broke in Perk, who evidently thought he was due to “butt in” and have his little say, “and besides, even if we did manage to make the riffle without bustin’, what could we do knockin’ around in the dark – just a sheer waste o’ good gas, an’ gettin’ nowhere a’tall.”

Since it was now two against one, and they both seemed so kind, Suzanne wisely gave in.

“You’ve convinced me, Jack, and I’ll say no more,” she told him sweetly; “but do you know I haven’t had a bite to eat for ever so long; though Ma did make me take aboard enough rations to feed a regiment, including tea and coffee, as well as an assortment of pots and pans.”

Perk immediately betrayed fresh interest in life, for it was wonderful how the fellow brightened up, as though just then realizing that he himself must be perilously close to starvation.

“We’ll help you get them out o’ the bus, lady,” he hastened to say; “if so be you’ll kindly show us where they be – ain’t that so, partner?”

Jack did not seem at all averse to such a proceeding – why not make things as pleasant as possible since a capricious Fate had thrown their fortunes together in this mad way?

“Suppose you attend to all that, Perk,” he told the other, knowing how efficient his partner was along such lines; “while you’re doing it under Miss Cramer’s directions I’ll take another look at her crate, and see just how we can drag it further back from the river, so it will be safe when we’re gone.”

XVII
THE CAMP IN THE CANYON

Things immediately began to happen, and for the time being amidst the excitement of showing Perk just where the stores and things were located aboard the stranded Stinson-Detroiter, Miss Cramer seemed to temporarily forget the load of trouble she was carrying on her little shoulders.

Indeed, as Jack had already sized her up, she was rather a remarkable sort of a girl – so sensible, so level-headed, and truly brave in the bargain. Under such a heavy strain he felt certain ninety-nine girls out of a hundred would have given way to their helplessness, and collapsed; but here this one had taken her courage in both hands, to set out in the expectation of accomplishing a task that thus far had baffled a score or more of the greatest aviation aces the country had ever known.

Soon the energetic Perk had landed everything in the line of eatables and such truck as Ma Warner – bless her dear old heart, Perk was saying to himself as he noted what a volume of good stuff lay in the mound he had erected – had denuded her pantry in order that her beloved boy should have enough to keep starvation at bay, when Suzanne had eventually found him.

It was almost ludicrous to Jack to learn with what abiding faith those two who loved Buddy so well had lost no time in starting the lone expedition on its way; just as though they fully expected Suzanne, now a full-fledged pilot, and feeling able to conquer the world, could be attracted to the very spot where Buddy lay helpless, by the spark of true love – to them it must be like the magnetic needle, always pointing so faithfully straight at the North Pole, and the star that hung over it.

“Bless her heart” – Jack was telling himself later on, as he listened to her talking so cheerfully, while busying herself in cooking the supper, with Perk attending to the fire, and offering to help in “any old way.” “She wouldn’t have had a tinker’s chance to do anything in this wild rocky country – only have her own crate crash, and double the tragedy. So it’s lucky for them both we made this same queer contact tonight.”

Jack was certainly vastly amused to watch how his cranky chum seemed to be acting. Usually Perk would have little or nothing to do with the other sex – Jack strongly suspected that at some time in his misty past Perk might have been “turned down” by some girl in whom he was becoming interested, and so allowed his whole life to be soured by the experience.

But then this was different, and perhaps the affection he had once felt for Buddy Warner made him feel warmly toward a girl who adored the same chubby young flyer and who had forgotten her weakness as a newly fledged pilot, and struck out so boldly in hopes of finding the one who was lost.

The supper was voted a great success, especially by Perk, who drank innumerable cups of hot coffee, which he pronounced “nectar for the gods,” growing a bit poetical in his exalted state of happiness. Suzanne, too, proved herself to be a wonderful cook, and Perk found himself quite envying Buddy – that is, if he was ever really found, and alive in the bargain – in having such a good helpmate and life partner to prepare wonderful meals for him every day in the year.

Afterwards he and Jack set about the job of dragging the single-seater Stinson-Detroiter something like forty feet back from the edge of the river, where it could stay until later on, when Suzanne might find a chance to visit the scene again, or send mechanics to dismantle her ship, and pack the parts back to the factory for reassembling.

She even wrote something on a sheet of paper, which latter was attached to the wreck, and would doubtless serve to keep any curious tourists from damaging her property. So, too, she made up a small package of certain articles which she wished particularly to save, or would be apt to need for her personal comfort which, she assumed, might be taken with them on the coming voyage.

“In the morning,” said Jack, after all these things had been attended to, “I’m meaning to ask you to let us transfer what gas you have aboard your bus to our own tank – it will be wasted here, while in our hands it may save us from spending many valuable hours running off to replenish our wasted supply. Of course I shall see that you are eventually reimbursed, Miss Cramer. Even as little as fifty gallons would mean we could stick to our job so much longer, and then too it might be the means of bringing us success.”

“And if I had a million gallons every drop would be gladly devoted to the sacred task you have so loyally undertaken,” she told him, with a suspicious glow in her eyes, which Jack imagined might be caused by bravely repressed tears. “I think it is just wonderfully fine the way you two – and all those other brave men – have been so willing to spend their time, hour after hour, scouring the whole country in hopes of finding – my Buddy.”

So Jack had to tell her how the entire world of flyers were like a company of blood brothers; an injury to one being resented by the entire calling – that their universal braving of the elements, and meeting similar perils in their daily work, made a bond like no other on earth, a kinship of like interests.

She was as yet only a novice, but already she had begun to have something of a similar exalted feeling toward other air pilots, so that it was not difficult for Suzanne to understand his meaning.

She told them not to worry about her – that she could easily make herself comfortable in the limited confine of her cockpit. True, it had no roof for shelter; but that bothered her not at all she told them, since she had camped many times in the open without even a canvas tent, or brush shanty; and besides, the stars were shining brightly overhead, showing they need fear nothing in the way of bad weather during the night.

Perk again assured himself that she was a mighty sensible and clear-headed little girl, and that if there were only more like her, perhaps – well, there couldn’t be, and besides he’d never have the chance to run across any of that class – it just wouldn’t be his good luck.

It was something to make Jack look back to that same evening for years to come. He as well as Perk had spent many a night in camp, when on fishing trips, or it might be hunting hikes up in the big woods; but no other camp could have such a royal setting as this one did.

The lofty walls running up as if to touch the star-decked sky, and as they knew full well that with those vivid colors making a nature painting beyond all imagination, that the loud song of the happy river flowing through the greatest gorge in all the wide world, that the blazing campfire, throwing up soaring sparks seemed like bright messengers of hope to Suzanne as she sat there drinking it all in. It filled to the brim the longings connected with the missing air mail pilot. Then, too, there was present that air of eternal mystery such as would be apt to brood over the spot where ages back the Zuni, and other Indian tribes, had lived in those quaint stone houses still to be found all through the hundred miles of the Colorado Canyon.

Perk knew very well that as a rule there was no danger from wild animals – that frequently parties made it a point to spend at least one night camping in the canyon, just to say they had gone through such a weird experience; and he had never heard of them being disturbed by man or beast.

Just the same, with this glorious chance opening up to him, Perk was persuaded to imagine himself constituted as the sole guardian of the fine girl aviatrix, into whose company they had so strangely fallen. Then, too he welcomed the opportunity to again handle that sub-machine-gun, which had been placed in his possession by the Government at the time he and Jack were running down the smuggling ring leaders on the Florida Coast, and a return of which had never thus far been demanded by the authorities.

Jack realized what was in the mind of his chum when he saw Perk looking over that powerful weapon with infinite joy; and while he did not imagine for a minute that there would arise any chance for requiring its services, still, since it afforded romantic Perk a good excuse for posing as a vigilant sentry, Jack held his peace, taking it out by giving his pal a few significant sly winks, to which the other deigned to take no notice whatsoever.

Neither of them knew what arrangements Suzanne had made for sleeping in the limited confines of her cockpit; but she bade them goodnight, and climbed aboard with the greatest nonchalance imaginable, as though this thing of camping out under all manner of inconveniences might be an old story with her, as indeed Jack thought was more than probable.