They took things easy and lay around for another hour and more. Jack, as usual, consulted his chart and did some figuring. Perk, quite content to let the Chief do most of the planning, amused himself in various ways, as was his habit when they were not flying. Puttering with this little thing, poking around the stores as if to figure just how many more meals would exhaust what he had laid in so bountifully and bring them near starvation and tiring at length of this sort of thing he lapsed into inaction, puffing at his beloved pipe and indulging possibly in daydreams.
Once Jack chanced to turn an inquiring eye in his direction to see him nodding his head, and counting his fingers, as though adding up some score.
“At it again, I bet a cookey,” Jack thereupon told himself, holding back the casual remark he had intended making, “browsing on that same old game of trying to remember a name by going over the whole alphabet again and again. Poor old Perk, how that defective memory does bother him. He’ll get no peace of mind until he happens to strike what he’s fishing for and since I never did hear the boy’s full name mentioned I just can’t help him a mite.”
Jack had guessed aright, for just then Perk was saying to himself in a low but earnest tone, something of the old formula:
“Sufferin’ cats! it sure began with an R I bet my boots! Randolph, no, don’t jest sound right to my ear—Ratcliff, Randall, Ratterman—strikes me it ended in man—Rodman—hang the luck, what the devil is the matter with my think-box? Did you ever know sech a tantalizin’ mess—just openin’ my trap to say it out loud when before I could get the right word out it slipped me like a wet cake o’ soap on the bathroom floor when you set a foot on it. I’m sure hoodooed for keeps, an’ it’s no good.”
By this time the afternoon was wearing away and before long night would be putting a dark blanket over the deep notch in the mountains. Perk suddenly came out of his fit of abstraction to remark cheerily:
“Guess now it’s ’bout time I got busy ashore, an’ started that ’ere fire. I gathered some firewood ready an’ it ain’t goin’ to take much time to get supper goin’.”
Accordingly he began to fill his arms with the things previously set aside, consisting for the most part of food, coffee pot, skillet and last but not least, the dependable machine-gun with which a provident Government had fitted out its flying detective squad when starting them on their way to rounding up lawbreakers who were in many instances taking to the air.
“Call me when you’re ready or need any help, brother,” Jack told him, he being still engaged in his extensive figuring and marking places on his handy little chart, as though mapping out his campaign as well as such a thing was possible.
Perk had his blaze going in almost record time, for he was an adept at fire-building. Later on, from the delicious odors that came stealing to his olfactories, Jack knew that supper was on the way.