CHAPTER XXIII

ON TO THE COLORADO

“Listen, Perk, I’ve got something you should know—something that hinges on a change of plans.”

Jack was saying this at a time when, relieved from the controls he could enter into one of the little confabs that their use of the ear-phones allowed. All Perk had to do was to lean forward and while still handling the stick drink in whatever his co-pilot chose to say.

“Yeah! spit it out then, partner,” was his familiar way of inviting confidence and which meant so much with those who knew Perk’s peculiar sayings best.

To be sure Simeon Hawkins was sitting close beside Perk, and what Jack meant to confide in his running mate could never be intended for his ears but despite this elbow to elbow touch there was not the slightest risk of his being able to pick up a single word, owing to the clamor kicked up by motor exhaust and propeller.

“We’re going on a bit further than was arranged,” said Jack, concisely.

“Huh! meanin’ we don’t pull up when we strike the border, eh, what, Jack?”

“Just that, brother—the going is good, and we might as well keep moving till we drop down on the Metropolitan Airport grounds.”

“Whoopee! you mean at Los Angeles, don’t you, old hoss?” demanded Perk, apparently considerably surprised by his pal’s bald statement.

“Righto, Perk.”

“How come, Jack?”

“Get this fixed in your noodle,” said the resting chief pilot—“circumstances often alter cases, they tell us; well, when we figured on halting at or near the border, close to the Gila River, things hadn’t happened such as have hit us since then.”

“Meanin’ the storm, Jack?”

“That was one thing,” admitted the other.

“Knockin’ us out o’ our reckonin’, like, an’ makin’ us take a forced landin’ on the open prairie where we run across that flimsy ol’ shack—does that cover what you mean, Jack?”

“After a fashion it does,” the other told him, adding: “like the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet left out, it falls flat. You omitted the chief reason for my making this change in plans.”

“I guess you must mean Simeon here, eh boy?” asked Perk, as if suddenly waking up to the fact.

“Sure thing—what are we going to do with _him_, tell me, Perk? It’d be impossible for us to lug him everywhere we mean to go, flying across into Mexico, and baiting the wolf in his own lair, as you might say. He’d be a constant hindrance to our being free to act besides, we’d run a fat chance of having him give us away, just when we thought it was all over but the shouting.”

“I get you, Jack—it means you don’t trust his promises to lend us a helpin’ hand, and goin’ back on his pals—ain’t that the idea?”

“You said it,” replied Jack, never bothering to drop his voice a particle, knowing as he did that without the aid of those valuable ear-phones Simeon, humped up against the side of Perk, could not have caught what was said even though it had been shouted at the top of his voice.

“Well, what then, partner?” continued Perk, apparently still groping in the dark.

“Nothing to hinder our tripping right along till we fetch up at Angeles, when we can find a way to hand him over to the Federal agents located there. He’s connected with the big gang against which Uncle Sam’s declared war to the knife; and as a material witness, ready to turn State’s evidence, they’ll be only too well pleased to hold him _incommunicado_, so he can’t do a thing to warn the bunch the big push is on.”

“Okay, Jack. Sounds mighty good to me, you bet. I’d never a cudgeled my brains enough to hatch up an idea like that; takes you to think o’ clever dodges, old hoss.”

“Then we’ll consider it settled, eh, Perk?”

“Just what we will,” came the confident reply. “’Bout when ought we raise the last beacon on the road to Angeles, an’ lamp the field lights at that same Metropolitan Airport?”

“Oh! if everything goes well, you might call it along toward midnight,” Jack assured him.

“Got aplenty o’ gas to carry on that far, I’d guess?” hazarded Perk.

“It’s to be hoped so,” said Jack; “because there’s some mighty tough stretches of country between the Colorado and the big Pacific city.”

“Yeah! so I understand, Jack.”

“And it would be a bad job for us if we had to hit the ground where you couldn’t scrape up a decent landing place with a fine-tooth comb. When I take the stick again, Perk, maybe you’d better have a look in, so’s to get tabs on our fuel tank, and tell me how it stands. From the dial finger yonder I figure we’ll have a lot more than enough to see us through.”

“That’s right, boss,” affirmed Perk, after casting a hasty glance at the tell-tale figures so plainly marked.

“That settles it then,” with which remark Jack showed by his actions that further conversation was needless.

And Simeon sat there through it all, never once dreaming how his fate was being so calmly settled; doubtless he imagined the consultation had been about something connected with the running of the cloud-chaser, and covered facts such as would have been all Greek to him, even had he been able to listen in.

Perk was not at all bothered by this change of plans on the part of the head pilot—it mattered little when they managed to drop down at the airport—chances were the ground lights were kept on full through the whole of each night, since air mail planes would be apt to come and go, some of them having been thrown out of their regular schedules by dense mountain fogs, or head winds that cut down the customary speed.

Perk, also, was well acquainted with the courtesy to be encountered at all such well conducted flying fields, where every one would be eager to do whatever was possible for the comfort of those who chose to visit such ports, and show little or no undo curiosity connected with the reason for their coming.

True, they might turn out to be a bit short with the “eats;” but Perk, who knew the ways of his pal so well, felt certain Jack would see to it they had a chance to “fill up” as soon as they could strike an open restaurant, of which there should be no lack in such a wide-open city as Los Angeles, with its sporty crowds at Hollywood.

The afternoon was moving on apace, and there cropped up fresh thrilling sights every little while, for Perk to stare at through his useful glasses. They were following the course of the famous Gila River toward its confluence with the still better known Colorado, which hundreds of miles further north passed through the Grand Canyon country, most majestic in a panorama sense of any region on the face of the globe.

Along about nightfall they might expect to pass over Yuma, located close to the junction of the two rivers. Perk wondered once or twice why his pal had not decided to land there, and turn the prisoner over to some one in authority; but he felt certain Jack had good reasons for not attempting this.

“Mebbe, now,” Perk told himself, with Jack again running the ship, while he attended to some of his own manifold duties; “he guessed there might be a bad crowd at Yuma—fellers apt to be in cahoots with the same gang o’ daredevils Simeon here was connected with; and who might even try to effect his escape, so as to shut his trap—even go so far as to knife the poor skunk to make sure he didn’t peach. Oh! yeah, that’s the way Jack looked at it, bet your boots it must be.”

Soon afterwards the sun gave notice that it was about to withdraw behind the line of mountains lying toward the west. Jack had his bearings, and expected to be able to pick up the flash beacons arranged for the convenience of the air mail corps in their night flights to and from Los Angeles. So thoroughly has this all been mapped out, with the signals to be found about every ten miles, that a pilot can see as many as three ahead at one time, depending on the altitude at which he may be flying.

Such wise precautions had been taken that would make night flying just as safe and easy as during the daytime one thing only cropping up from time to time to raise trouble, and cause delay was the presence of the fogs that were apt to rise from the deep canyons, to blot out those friendly gleams of flashing light marking the air mail course from start to finish.