As the big plane ceased to move forward and came to a stand less than five feet from the terminus of the smooth ground, Perk, utterly overcome, lay back inert, “weak as a cat,” as he himself afterwards described his condition.
“And that’s that!” was all Jack allowed himself to comment; just as he might have said in the days when he was a barnstormer, and ’chute leaper at County Fair gatherings—after sailing down from a five-thousand foot ceiling, clinging to his decrepit parachute, and making a soft landing in some ploughed field.
They both sat there as if to recover their breath.
No longer did the roar of the exhaust break upon their hearing—all was marvelously still round about them—the rocks reared their crests high above their heads, and looking more cruel and pitiless than when seen at a distance. Perk shuddered as he noted the innumerable projections that stuck out almost like giant needles in a cushion, any one of which, had its point come in contact with the now stranded ship, must have played havoc with its structure.
“Huh! wake me up somebody, wont yeou kindly?” Perk finally broke out, as if possessed by the idea he must have been dreaming such a descent could be put through successfully. “There sure never was sech a crackin’ good drop as the one yeou jest made, Pal Jack—I hand yeou the palm for luck an’ skill combined; an’ I hopes as heow I have yeou fur my side kick as long as I’m in this here flyin’ trick!”
Jack turned a beaming face on him at hearing this fulsome compliment.
“Nice of you to say what you did, Perk, old chum;” he remarked, with a nod of his head; “but you greatly overrate the landing—all any one had to do was to pick out the safest way, and stick to it through thick and thin. Easy as falling off a log, let me tell you, buddy.”
“Oh! yeah; but yeou stuck!” Perk thrust back, as though after all that clinched the whole matter, which it undoubtedly did.
“Next thing we’ve got to do, Perk, is to check up, so as to find out whether the ship was injured any by contact with rocks.”
“Right yeou are there, partner,” the other chimed in, quickly; “but I kinder guess as haow we aint got much to worry over that-a-ways, ’cause she kim daown so easy like, it wouldn’t hardly abroken an egg.”