“Never came within a mile of the right answer,” Jack assured him with one of his puzzling smiles. “Fact is, it’s a pilot we’re ordered to fetch in.”
“Pilot—say, do we have to shoot out to sea after a steamship that’s carried off its harbor pilot—such rotten luck, when we expected something real big to take up our time and labor—shucks!”
“Wait, you jump at conclusions all too soon, Perk my boy. There happen to be several other kinds of pilots besides those who fetch ocean steamships in and out of New York harbor or the Golden Gate at San Francisco—for instance those on river steamboats, it might be, or those of airplanes!”
“Airships did you say, Jack?” roared Perk, his eyes widening while he clutched the hand that held the telegram as though tempted to try and read the printed words he could just manage to see upon the sheet.
“Yes, air-mail pilot in the bargain,” Jack fired at him.
“Hot ziggetty dog! do you mean a missing mail pilot and his name is——”
“Buddy Warner—that’s right Perk, no other.”
The most ecstatic expression imaginable crossed the face of the amiable Perk to proclaim better than any words could ever tell just what he thought of the great news he had just heard.
“I’m so glad, partner—nobody could’ve fetched me better news than what you’re telling me right now. If I was asked what I’d like best to do—jest what line o’ work I’d be crazy to handle, I’d say it was to take a look in at every pesky canyon and sinkhole along the mountain ranges in hopes o’ findin’ that fine lad an’ fetch him back home to his old mammy. And now you’re givin’ me my best wish right off the bat. Go on an’ tell me what it says, that wire they sent you.”
“That we are to drop anything and everything else and start out to help find Buddy Warner; they must think a heap of that mail pilot for our Boss to issue such a broad order as that. It means we’ve got to jump off before night sets in and head for the western town where he was last seen. It also means we’ll be on the job for days, or anyway until we get orders it’s no use combing the gullies and ravines and canyons any longer for the missing pilot must be dead.”