CHAPTER XVA Clever Landing
A brief time passed, and then Perk called out excitedly:
“Say, I kinder b’lieve I kin glimpse thet same pesky hangaout—looks like some sorter mounting pass, sech as he drawed in his map, where they went in an’ kim aout; but they’s a kinder haze ahangin’ over yonder that makes it hard to be dead sure. If we get it araoun’ here it’ll hide us from bein’ seen. The wind up here’s hittin’ us in the face, too, which helps some in the bargain.”
“Never mind about the hideout—that’ll all come later on. Just now it’s that landing-field we need most of all—keep your glass on the ground just ahead, Perk.”
Ten seconds later the observer uttered a sudden exclamation.
“Get a bite?” demanded Jack, just about ready to swing around, as it seemed taking too hazardous chances to continue their advance any further.
“Kinder guess I sure have,” Perk told him; and then proceeded to direct the eyes of the pilot on a certain spot over which the ship was then passing.
“You struck it that time, buddy!” exclaimed Jack, evidently mightily relieved in his mind; for a crisis was upon them, with a change in their movements absolutely essential, unless they meant to give the whole scheme away, and wreck their plan of campaign, which was not to be considered at all.
“Yeah,” Perk went on to add, more confidently than before; “that’s it, for a certaintee—the on’y place where a ship kin drop with a ghost o’ a show to keep from bein’ smashed to flinders. Goin’ doawn, are yeou, Jack?”
There was no need for the other to make answer, since already the big Fokker tri-motored ship was dropping steadily. How fortunate for them that just at that critical moment Nature herself was working overtime in their favor—the wind veering until it came directly in their faces; while that little haze acted as a veil to conceal them from the hidden valley lookout—if indeed any such happened to be posted, to give warning should danger menace the fugitive gangsters.
Perk waited, and watched, his tense face betraying the natural anxiety he must just then be enduring. It was indeed no small danger that faced them, for only a most skillful pilot would be able to successfully land a great airship on such a precarious and scanty stretch of fairly level ground.
A very small thing that could hardly be avoided, save through a near miracle, would suffice to throw the heavy plane off balance, and bring about a wreck that must interfere greatly with their mission, if not utterly ruin every hope of success.
Yes, Perk could easily be excused for feeling a tenseness around the region of his staunch heart—a tightening of the nerves and sinews—a halt in his free breathing, all of them occurring simultaneously; for the most sanguine of watchers would have easily said the feat was beyond human capacity.
Yet there was Jack going about the job with apparently the samesang froidthat it was his custom to show when coming down from the clouds, to settle upon the almost perfect landing green of the big San Diego airport.
“Say, whatwouldn’tI give right naow if on’y I could ketch that confident spirit my best pal’s got mixed up in his mind an’ heart?” So Perk was telling himself as he saw the deftness of the touch shown by the hand at the controls, as well as the wonderful response the perfect mechanism aboard the Fokker displayed.
Now Jack held her head on, with the ground almost within reach—beyond, the narrow stretch extended just about a hundred feet; and in this space he must bring his charge up with a round turn; for should the ship keep on she would assuredly be wrecked beyond repair.
The tail came in contact, and bounded up again, to immediately repeat the manœuvre; the wheels gliding roughly along, with the body of the ship bouncing from side to side, after the usual custom when the landing is at all inclined to be a bit off-color.
The motors had ceased working, and the spinning propeller had in consequence commenced to whirl less violently. Perk allowed himself to suck in his first good breath in a score of seconds.
“Glory be!” he was saying to himself, lost in admiration and sheer wonder—“dang my hide if he ain’t agoin’ to make it, I do declare—did yeou ever in yeour born days see the like o’ that—bet there aint another pilot west o’ the Mississip could a done it that smart—hot-diggetty-dig! we’re astoppin’, as sure as anything we air. Wow!”
As the big plane ceased to move forward and came to a stand less than five feet from the terminus of the smooth ground, Perk, utterly overcome, lay back inert, “weak as a cat,” as he himself afterwards described his condition.
“And that’s that!” was all Jack allowed himself to comment; just as he might have said in the days when he was a barnstormer, and ’chute leaper at County Fair gatherings—after sailing down from a five-thousand foot ceiling, clinging to his decrepit parachute, and making a soft landing in some ploughed field.
They both sat there as if to recover their breath.
No longer did the roar of the exhaust break upon their hearing—all was marvelously still round about them—the rocks reared their crests high above their heads, and looking more cruel and pitiless than when seen at a distance. Perk shuddered as he noted the innumerable projections that stuck out almost like giant needles in a cushion, any one of which, had its point come in contact with the now stranded ship, must have played havoc with its structure.
“Huh! wake me up somebody, wont yeou kindly?” Perk finally broke out, as if possessed by the idea he must have been dreaming such a descent could be put through successfully. “There sure never was sech a crackin’ good drop as the one yeou jest made, Pal Jack—I hand yeou the palm for luck an’ skill combined; an’ I hopes as heow I have yeou fur my side kick as long as I’m in this here flyin’ trick!”
Jack turned a beaming face on him at hearing this fulsome compliment.
“Nice of you to say what you did, Perk, old chum;” he remarked, with a nod of his head; “but you greatly overrate the landing—all any one had to do was to pick out the safest way, and stick to it through thick and thin. Easy as falling off a log, let me tell you, buddy.”
“Oh! yeah;but yeou stuck!” Perk thrust back, as though after all that clinched the whole matter, which it undoubtedly did.
“Next thing we’ve got to do, Perk, is to check up, so as to find out whether the ship was injured any by contact with rocks.”
“Right yeou are there, partner,” the other chimed in, quickly; “but I kinder guess as haow we aint got much to worry over that-a-ways, ’cause she kim daown so easy like, it wouldn’t hardly abroken an egg.”
“The proof of the pudding is always in the eating,” wary Jack told him; “and we know one of the weakest parts of a ship lies in the undergear. Let’s get a move on, and find out what’s what.”
Accordingly they both started to look things over, backed by a host of past similar checkings. It could be only a superficial examination; but just the same the result pleased them immeasurably, for never the least damage could they hit upon.
Perk was almost delirious with joy, and wonder as well.
“I never would a b’lieved that stunt could be pulled off if I hadn’t seen the miracle carried aout with my own lamps,” he kept saying half to himself, as he finished his part of the survey. “Jest won-der-ful, I’d call it, an’ let her go at that, which doant tell half the story.”
Jack, having had the severe strain removed from his mind, now consented to finish his breakfast, the natural hunger of a healthy young chap asserting its prerogative. Accordingly, since Perk also confessed to feeling a “bit peckish” they sat down on the ground, with the coffee container between them, and a heap of the “ham-an’ sandwiches” which had come from their favorite restaurant.
“As soon as we get through this necessary business, Perk, we’ll stow some of the grub that’s left over in our pockets for an emergency. After that we’ll pick out such traps as we may need in our game, and trot along—though judging from the looks of this same ravine it’ll be only a figure of speech, because we’ll find it necessary to crawl like a couple of snails most of the way.”
“Yeah! that sounds more like it, buddy,” agreed Perk, eying the depression with a scowl, as though he hardly liked the nature of the job ahead.