stunt flying, speed testing and altitude climbing, Jack decided there was hardly any necessity for their going out again in the afternoon. So they figured on taking things comfortably in their room, catching up with their sadly neglected correspondence, and even getting in a nap or two while waiting for their usual supper hour to come along.
The sun was well down in the western heavens when a knock on their door caused Jack to answer it. Perk could hear him speaking to the lady from whom they hired the room, then Jack came back examining a yellow bit of paper, meanwhile giving Perk a peculiar look that somehow caused the other to jump up excitedly and exclaim:
“Hot ziggetty dog! that strikes me like a wire, partner, tell me, has our order to strike out and get busy come along – gee whiz! I’m trembling all over with eagerness to know what our next line’s goin’ to be!”
VII
THEY ARE OFF!
Jack lost no time in answering the pleading look in Perk’s eyes.
“Order’s come at last, brother and we’re due to skip out of this burg just as soon as we can get a bite to eat.”
“Where to, Jack – north, east, south or west?” babbled the pleased Perk.
“Looks like it might be the last you named,” he was told.
“And if it ain’t a dead secret would you mind tellin’ me what sort of a jaunt we’re pushed on to this time – is it to be a hunt, partner?”
“I’d say it was, and with a vengeance too,” admitted Jack, still holding his chum over imaginary hot coals in that he declined to hasten with the information so urgently desired.
“So that’s all settled, hey? And what are we supposed to be huntin’, if it’s just the same to you to cough up that necessary information – more rum-chasers – bogus money-makers – check raisers, mebbe – runaway cashier with all the bank funds – which is it buddy?”
“Never came within a mile of the right answer,” Jack assured him with one of his puzzling smiles. “Fact is, it’s a pilot we’re ordered to fetch in.”
“Pilot – say, do we have to shoot out to sea after a steamship that’s carried off its harbor pilot – such rotten luck, when we expected something real big to take up our time and labor – shucks!”
“Wait, you jump at conclusions all too soon, Perk my boy. There happen to be several other kinds of pilots besides those who fetch ocean steamships in and out of New York harbor or the Golden Gate at San Francisco – for instance those on river steamboats, it might be, or those of airplanes!”
“Airships did you say, Jack?” roared Perk, his eyes widening while he clutched the hand that held the telegram as though tempted to try and read the printed words he could just manage to see upon the sheet.
“Yes, air-mail pilot in the bargain,” Jack fired at him.
“Hot ziggetty dog! do you mean a missing mail pilot and his name is – ”
“Buddy Warner – that’s right Perk, no other.”
The most ecstatic expression imaginable crossed the face of the amiable Perk to proclaim better than any words could ever tell just what he thought of the great news he had just heard.
“I’m so glad, partner – nobody could’ve fetched me better news than what you’re telling me right now. If I was asked what I’d like best to do – jest what line o’ work I’d be crazy to handle, I’d say it was to take a look in at every pesky canyon and sinkhole along the mountain ranges in hopes o’ findin’ that fine lad an’ fetch him back home to his old mammy. And now you’re givin’ me my best wish right off the bat. Go on an’ tell me what it says, that wire they sent you.”
“That we are to drop anything and everything else and start out to help find Buddy Warner; they must think a heap of that mail pilot for our Boss to issue such a broad order as that. It means we’ve got to jump off before night sets in and head for the western town where he was last seen. It also means we’ll be on the job for days, or anyway until we get orders it’s no use combing the gullies and ravines and canyons any longer for the missing pilot must be dead.”
“Can’t strike off any too soon to please me, Jack. I’d even go without any grub if by saving an hour we could have a better chance o’ strikin’ pay dirt an’ turnin’ him up alive.”
“No such desperate hurry as all that,” the other assured him to put a quietus on his nervous desire to be winging their way toward the scene of all the excitement and thus add one more ship to the flotilla already seeking information concerning the whereabouts of the missing mail pilot. “Also, Perk, as nobody knows when we may get another chance to eat, it would be wise for us to take advantage of the present opportunity as well as lay in a little grub for emergencies. For all any one can say to the contrary it may be our hard luck to get caught in an air pocket and take a tumble just as Buddy probably did when such things would come in mighty handy. I’m leaving that little task for you to handle, Perk, because you’re right clever when it’s grub that’s needed.”
“Yeah, I always aim to be that way an’ I take it as a compliment you’re payin’ me when you talk that way. Nobody c’n amount to thirty cents when he hasn’t stoked his engine properly with fuel.”
“I don’t know whether you’re on to it or not, brother,” pursued Jack as they began to hastily assemble their few possessions preparatory to stepping out; “but I’ve been clipping every account I could find in the papers you fetched home, covering Buddy’s dropping out of sight.”
“Huh! I sure did take notice of the fact, but never dreamin’ we’d have a peep-in at this wide search. I jest guessed you was enough int’rested to want to compare these here wise-cracks about the cause o’ his trouble with what it really must a’been, in case they found the remains o’ his crate in some canyon or gully.”
“That was one reason,” admitted Jack candidly, “but somehow, though I never let on to you, I seemed to have a sort of feeling we might be working on that mystery sooner or later – you might call it an inspiration and let it go at that.”
“Glory be Jack, an’ what have you got in that wise coco o’ yourn, if it’s all right for you to up an’ spill the game?”
“Some time while we’re on our way,” the other explained just as if he had the thing all laid out, even to the smallest particulars, “while you’re running the ship, I mean to go carefully over those newspaper reporters’ accounts and try to figure out just what could have happened to bring about Buddy’s disappearance – also, find what sort of weather he must have struck right after jumping off from his last port of call to drop mail sacks and pick up others.”
Perk thereupon wagged his head as though he began to understand what a skillful way his chum had of getting at the “meat in the cocoanut.”
“No wildcat skirmishin’, an’ heatin’ about the bush for you, eh partner?” he blurted out in sincere admiration. “An’ I’d wager all I got in my jeans you’re bound to hit on the real facts when everything’s figgered up.”
“Don’t be too sure about that brother,” advised Jack, shaking his head as he spoke, “I’ll certainly do my level best, but you never can tell how the cat’s going to jump. It’s one thing to theorize and quite another to hit on what’s the truth. I’ll try and separate the wheat from the chaff
