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.