Judging from the heavy rain that had come down in such a solid stream it must be reckoned one of those dreadful cloud-bursts of which he, Perk, had so often heard, but which thus far in his experience he had never met up with. No doubt rivers would be out of their beds long before dawn although that angle of the situation did not interest them in the least, since their traveling would not be interfered with a particle, if only the air proved inviting.
Yes, soon Perk believed he could detect a lessening of the baffling crosswinds that had been so trying to the pilot, keeping him continually on the anxious seat—then, too, it struck him the floods were growing weaker in the bargain; which two facts gave poor Perk a feeling akin to joy in the region of his heart, such as he may have known on previous occasions, but that must have been far down in his adventurous past.
According to their altimeter they were something like two thousand feet from the ground, but of course never the faintest glimpse could they secure of what lay beneath them, so poor was the visibility, with all that torrent of water pouring down as might a mountain cataract.
This delightful feeling grew stronger as minutes passed—at this rate he would soon be able to influence tired Jack to renounce his frozen hold on the stick, and turn the handling of the ship over to his chum.
In this frame of mind he again nudged the other, but in turn received a negative shake of the head, which meant there was “nothing doing”—in other words, since the storm still raged, even though in somewhat diminished violence, they must not be too premature, and spoil it all just when the victory seemed about to drop into their hands.
With what Perk hoped would prove to be a last dying spurt the rain came pelting down, after which it suddenly stopped as though an unseen hand away up among the clouds, had plugged the gap, and kept any more water from running out—enough was enough, surely, Perk was telling himself when he made this thrilling discovery and for one he felt he had had sufficient rain to last him the balance of that year.
So too did the wind start to diminish its force, also coming from one direction with more constancy—some relief to Jack, that was certain, since now he could know just how to steer his turbulent craft so as to meet the force driving against it.
Then what did Perk do but start getting his ear-phones adjusted, being wild to hear a human voice, after all that fiendish roaring and howling kicked up by the raging elements.
Why, already the atmosphere had cleared enough for him to catch faint glimpses of what lay beneath them—it looked as though they had come to a stretch of country where the level prairie had changed into rougher ground, with deep swales, sometimes running into quite respectable ravines and there were indications of ridges ahead, which might even prove to be fairly high, so that it would have been tempting Providence had Jack dropped still lower, while flying blind through all that welter.
“Talk to me ’bout luck,” the grateful Perk was saying to himself, “I never ran ’cross anything like this—they told me Jack must a been born under a lucky star, an’ now I sure b’lieves it to be the right stuff they were givin’ me, an’ no taffy either. But that was some fight, take it from me, fellers.”