CHAPTER XIII

ALL THANKS TO SIMEON

"Bully again!" Perk faintly heard his cool pal call out, against the row their motor exhaust was keeping up.

There was considerable excitement in camp just about that time, although to be sure Perk was showing most of the same.

The fog was in retreat after all those tantalizing hours of holding the fort--there could no longer be any doubt concerning this fact. He could even see how it was being blown off toward the north by increasing puffs of agitated air; and meanwhile that line of pearly hue in the east was widening by spasms, until faint touches of rosy light painted the skyline as with the brush of a magician artist.

Perk had adjusted their useful ear-phones, for he felt confident they would want to exchange congratulations, in that the long and tedious night had finally come to an end, with what promised to become a "dandy" day opening up before them.

Jack laughed to himself when he actually caught his relieved brother pilot humming a fragment of a little popular love-song they had been hearing several times of late in the "talkies" they patronized when in old San Diego; and which evidently had been echoing in Perk's brain ever since; though if accused of "getting soft" the other would most certainly have indignantly denied the fact, and vowed he had never had a best girl--or any species of girl--in his whole natural life.

So things continued to brighten more and more, with Perk straining his vision from time to time in order to be the first to discover "land ahead,"--in other words sight the far-distant earth below them.

It came at last, after he had thus stared as much as half a dozen times; and he had the proud satisfaction of informing his comrade of the interesting fact. There was a vein of triumph in Perk's voice; one would easily think he must be a modern Columbus announcing the discovery of a new world; and yet it had only been one solitary night since last they were in touch with their old friend _terra firma_--solid ground.

Just the same that had proven to be such a memorable night, so filled with thrills, and accumulated anxieties, so gloomy in the midst of the greatest fog pack in history, that really Perk might be excused for showing undue jubilation over this, their ultimate deliverance.

"Hully gee! partner!" he called out suddenly; "I kin see it, that's right; an' say, she sure _does_ look good to me."

"Meaning the earth, I reckon, eh, Perk?"

"Nawthin' less, buddy--fog's a climbin' aout like hot cakes--soon wont be a single wisp left, I take it. But gee! what a pictur' it makes--never did set my lamps on sech _turrible_ stuff afore--looks like Ole Nature had busted loose in tryin' to pile up rocks as big as skyscrapers in little Ole New York, some o' 'em as big as the highest hill in the Catskills. What a place--what a place, I'd say agin."

"Does look a bit rough," admitted the noncommittal Jack, after himself taking a swift survey.

"A bit rough--huh! yeou jest can't ekal it if yeou trips all over this Rocky Mountain country fur weeks, that's a fact, Jack Ralston. Seems like we was abeatin' the record right along on this here jaunt--the thickest fog--the longest night--an' neow the beatenist country ever! If it keeps agoin' like that we're bound to run up against the wust gang o' holdup men that was ever heard of."

"Had that idea in my mind from the start, so it isn't going to surprise me much if it comes true," Jack calmly informed him.

About this time Perk discovered that the last retreating phalanx of the late fog belt had passed from his sight, dissolving in thin air as it seemed. The early morning, as viewed from that great altitude, was most charming indeed, with those fleecy white cloudlets all around them.

The speeding plane ducked in and out of the groups as though playing the old childrens' game of tag, or else hide-and-seek. Perk himself likened the picture to the gridiron, being especially fond of football games as practiced along the Coastal Slope around Thanksgiving time, and later on, when the East was battling with its chilly blizzards--in imagination he could readily picture their ship to be the man who had the pigskin bag held tightly under his arm, and kept darting this way and that, eluding the outstretched hands of would-be tacklers, and dodging all interference, on his wild dash to make a much needed goal.

It gave him a delightful thrill to thus compare their passage with the one hero whom he most admired--the prodigy to whom his favorite college was indebted for their greatest victory, when defeat had seemed so perilously near.

"Take over the stick, Perk; I reckon I'd feel better if I stretched my arms and legs a bit," the wearied pilot now announced; to which the other only too gladly acquiesced; for many times during the last few hours he had hung over his mate, as if trying to influence Jack to change places.

"Yeah, an' Jack, while yeou're 'bout it jest sample the grub--coffee's fine an' dandy, as well's steamin' hot. Goes through yeou like 'lectricity in this cold atmosphere."

"After I've had a good look through the glasses, to see if there's any sign of the targets Brother Simeon marked down on his rough pigeon carrier chart we're depending on to see us through."

That was just like Jack--duty always before pleasure. His empty stomach--the lovely view Perk had been drinking in so eagerly--all such trivial matters must wait until he had attended to much more important ones.

Perk might have expected to hear him say what he did, since from long experience he was fully acquainted with his pal's methods of carrying out his business calls. Perk also knew quite well that he could never claim to be such a Spartan, since the "fleshpots of Egypt" usually tempted him to take precedence, when it became a matter of choice between them.

Long and earnestly did Jack examine the ground below. He had given Perk instructions to make several long dips, each time flattening out again on a level keel; and during all this time he was engaged in staring through the magical lens that brought far distant objects so close he could even distinguish the character of the bark on such trees as came under his observation.

At such times as they were moving on the level Perk managed to also scan the scene below them. They had by now greatly reduced their distance from the rugged landscape, being not more than something like five thousand feet aloft; but stare as he might Perk, even with his keen vision, was unable to discover a single moving object--it was as if they owned the whole world for the time being--a weird sensation that rather awed imaginative Perk.

About this time the one at the controls saw his companion keeping the glasses focussed on a certain point, as though he might have discovered something encouraging there--possibly an upstanding object such as had been noted on that invaluable if crude penciled map.

"Hot-diggetty-dig!" Perk muttered to himself, as he felt his pulses quicken once more, "don't I jest hope he's struck ile--run acrost some piled-up crags that might a served Simeon as a good marker. But great snakes! heow air we agoin' to drop daown anywhere when there aint nary a sign o' level ground as big as my red neckerchief; an' us a wantin' a stretch a hundred feet, long--as much more as we kin find?"

So he tried to keep still while waiting to hear anything of interest Jack might have to report. Most certainly the other must have made some sort of discovery, or believed he had at least; for he continued to scrutinize that particular section of the rocky ground just ahead in a way that looked promising to his anxious partner.

Finally Jack lowered the binoculars, with Perk watching his face as if hoping to read good news reflected there.

"No doubt about it, I'm glad to tell you, Perk," Jack was saying; and if there was a trifling vein of relief in his voice one could hardly wonder at such a thing, after their just passing such a wretched night, and flying blind through the long hours, with but faint prospects of striking their goal when the coming of dawn allowed of an observation.

"Hey! does that mean yeou got a squint o' somethin' worth while, partner?" cried Perk, solicitously.

"Just what it does," the other assured him. "Swing around in a circle, and I'll let you have a look for yourself, buddy."