CHAPTER XV
A CLEVER LANDING
A brief time passed, and then Perk called out excitedly:
"Say, I kinder b'lieve I kin glimpse thet same pesky hangaout--lookslike some sorter mounting pass, sech as he drawed in his map, where theywent in an' kim aout; but they's a kinder haze ahangin' over yonder thatmakes it hard to be dead sure. If we get it araoun' here it'll hide usfrom bein' seen. The wind up here's hittin' us in the face, too, whichhelps some in the bargain."
"Never mind about the hideout--that'll all come later on. Just now it'sthat landing-field we need most of all--keep your glass on the groundjust ahead, Perk."
Ten seconds later the observer uttered a sudden exclamation.
"Get a bite?" demanded Jack, just about ready to swing around, as itseemed taking too hazardous chances to continue their advance anyfurther.
"Kinder guess I sure have," Perk told him; and then proceeded to directthe eyes of the pilot on a certain spot over which the ship was thenpassing.
"You struck it that time, buddy!" exclaimed Jack, evidently mightilyrelieved in his mind; for a crisis was upon them, with a change in theirmovements absolutely essential, unless they meant to give the wholescheme away, and wreck their plan of campaign, which was not to beconsidered at all.
"Yeah," Perk went on to add, more confidently than before; "that's it,for a certain_tee_--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 bigFokker tri-motored ship was dropping steadily. How fortunate for themthat just at that critical moment Nature herself was working overtime intheir favor--the wind veering until it came directly in their faces;while that little haze acted as a veil to conceal them from the hiddenvalley lookout--if indeed any such happened to be posted, to givewarning should danger menace the fugitive gangsters.
Perk waited, and watched, his tense face betraying the natural anxietyhe must just then be enduring. It was indeed no small danger that facedthem, for only a most skillful pilot would be able to successfully landa great airship on such a precarious and scanty stretch of fairly levelground.
A very small thing that could hardly be avoided, save through a nearmiracle, would suffice to throw the heavy plane off balance, and bringabout a wreck that must interfere greatly with their mission, if notutterly ruin every hope of success.
Yes, Perk could easily be excused for feeling a tenseness around theregion of his staunch heart--a tightening of the nerves and sinews--ahalt in his free breathing, all of them occurring simultaneously; forthe most sanguine of watchers would have easily said the feat was beyondhuman capacity.
Yet there was Jack going about the job with apparently the same _sangfroid_ that it was his custom to show when coming down from the clouds,to settle upon the almost perfect landing green of the big San Diegoairport.
"Say, what _wouldn't_ I give right naow if on'y I could ketch thatconfident spirit my best pal's got mixed up in his mind an' heart?" SoPerk was telling himself as he saw the deftness of the touch shown bythe hand at the controls, as well as the wonderful response the perfectmechanism 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 spacehe must bring his charge up with a round turn; for should the ship keepon she would assuredly be wrecked beyond repair.
The tail came in contact, and bounded up again, to immediately repeatthe manoeuvre; the wheels gliding roughly along, with the body of theship bouncing from side to side, after the usual custom when the landingis at all inclined to be a bit off-color.
The motors had ceased working, and the spinning propeller had inconsequence commenced to whirl less violently. Perk allowed himself tosuck in his first good breath in a score of seconds.
"Glory be!" he was saying to himself, lost in admiration and sheerwonder--"dang my hide if he ain't agoin' to make it, I do declare--didyeou ever in yeour born days see the like o' that--bet thereaint another pilot west o' the Mississip could a done it thatqsmart--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 thanfive feet from the terminus of the smooth ground, Perk, utterlyovercome, lay back inert, "weak as a cat," as he himself afterwardsdescribed his condition.
"And that's that!" was all Jack allowed himself to comment; just as hemight have said in the days when he was a barnstormer, and 'chute leaperat County Fair gatherings--after sailing down from a five-thousand footceiling, clinging to his decrepit parachute, and making a soft landingin 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 wasmarvelously still round about them--the rocks reared their crests highabove their heads, and looking more cruel and pitiless than when seen ata distance. Perk shuddered as he noted the innumerable projections thatstuck out almost like giant needles in a cushion, any one of which, hadits point come in contact with the now stranded ship, must have playedhavoc with its structure.
"Huh! wake me up somebody, wont yeou kindly?" Perk finally broke out, asif possessed by the idea he must have been dreaming such a descent couldbe put through successfully. "There sure never was sech a crackin' gooddrop as the one yeou jest made, Pal Jack--I hand yeou the palm for luckan' skill combined; an' I hopes as heow I have yeou fur my side kick aslong 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 anod of his head; "but you greatly overrate the landing--all any one hadto do was to pick out the safest way, and stick to it through thick andthin. Easy as falling off a log, let me tell you, buddy."
"Oh! yeah; _but yeou stuck_!" Perk thrust back, as though after all thatclinched the whole matter, which it undoubtedly did.
"Next thing we've got to do, Perk, is to check up, so as to find outwhether the ship was injured any by contact with rocks."
"Right yeou are there, partner," the other chimed in, quickly; "but Ikinder guess as haow we aint got much to worry over that-a-ways, 'causeshe 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 ofpast similar checkings. It could be only a superficial examination; butjust the same the result pleased them immeasurably, for never the leastdamage 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'tseen the miracle carried aout with my own lamps," he kept saying half tohimself, as he finished his part of the survey. "Jest won-der-ful, I'dcall it, an' let her go at that, which doant tell half the story."
Jack, having had the severe strain removed from his mind, now consentedto finish his breakfast, the natural hunger of a healthy young chapasserting its prerogative. Accordingly, since Perk also confessed tofeeling a "bit peckish" they sat down on the ground, with the coffeecontainer between them, and a heap of the "ham-an' sandwiches" which hadcome from their favorite restaurant.
"As soon as we get through this necessary business, Perk, we'll stowsome of the grub that's left over in our pockets for an emergency. Afterthat we'll pick out such traps as we may need in our game, and trotalong--though judging from the looks of this same ravine it'll be only afigure of speech, because we'll find it necessary to crawl like a coupleof snails most of the way."
"Yeah! that sounds more like it, buddy," agreed Perk, eying thedepression with a scowl, as though he hardly liked the nature of the jobahead.
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