XVISUZANNE 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’ssweetheart—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 akiwi—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 ofmethen—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 wedofind 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.”