Perk suddenly ceased struggling as though he had seen a great light.
“Wall, I guess you ditched me, ol’ hoss—that’s a fact they couldn’t make it after all. Then what’s to be done?” he went on to say, dejectedly.
“We’ve got to bridge it some way or other,” snapped the ever ready Jack. “This is a kitchen, seems like, partner—jump into it now, and see if you can’t run across something that would reach across to that other window—even an ironing-board might make it. I’ll take a look across the hall, in some other apartment, and may run across another.”
Perk, as if freshly inspired, set about his commission with alacrity and almost immediately made a plunge toward a corner of the small room to snatch up a six-foot board covered with several thicknesses of cloth that was scorched in numerous places as with a hot iron.
Jack had meanwhile darted into the hall, discovered another open door nearly opposite and without knocking rushed through to find a second deserted kitchen and not quite so much smoke to interfere with his vision.
Fortune again favored him, for almost the first object he saw was a similar ironing-board, evidently a mate to that Perk had run across. Snatching it up he turned and hurried back to the opposite room, where he found Perk just laying his frail plank across the area to discover that it bridged the gap, although with but a mite to spare.
Jack arrived just in time for the rash one was in the very act of crawling out on his unsteady bridge which, if moved a few inches, would have precipitated him down thirty feet and more to land upon a cement pavement and meet with grievous injuries, even if he survived the drop.
“Hold on!” Jack shouted as he again caught hold of his chum. “Here’s a second board that will widen the bridge. Let’s swing it across and then one hold them together while the other crawls over!”
“Yeah, let’s,” Perk chimed in, seeing the advantage a double width would afford, and this was quickly accomplished.
“I’ll go over,” Jack was saying.