Once, when there chanced to be a little change in the scant night breeze, Perk lifted his head as if to listen but before he could decide whether he had actually heard something or had been deceived by a strut snapping back, the feeble air again fell away and left him groping in ignorance, not wholly satisfied, yet unable to find anything on which to hang a conjecture.
“Rats! you must be away off your base Perk,” he told himself chidingly, “huh! not a ghost o’ a chance in ten thousand—yet it sure did sound like a ship in action. Must be hearin’ things again in the night.”
He had slackened the pace somewhat, thinking of that dreadful crash down amidst the lava beds of the wildest country in the whole Southwest, mind pictures that made him willing to consider safety first before speed. Perhaps it was fate that made Perk for once conquer that reckless spirit of his for there could be no telling what the consequences might have been otherwise.
Again he lifted his head and assumed the strained attitude that went with listening intently—the roar of their engine’s exhaust seemed to eclipse any other sound and as if seized with a sudden inspiration, Perk reached out and brought the silencer into play. This had an immediate effect—and then too it caused Jack to take notice, for he called out:
“What’s the big idea partner—trying things out are you?”
“Listen, Jack—don’t you hear it ahead there?” almost shrieked the one at the stick.
A few seconds passed during which Jack must have been straining his ears to the utmost. Then he gave a cry that bubbled forth in a mixture of incredulity and alarm—the only time on record that Perk could remember Jack showing such an unusual emotion.
“It’s a ship, Perk!” he shrilled.
“You bet it is!” echoed the other, dismay in his thick voice.
“Dead ahead of us too and bearing this way,” continued Jack as the portentous sounds grew louder with each passing second. Their own motor had been throttled down to a mere whisper and thus any other sound was due to be heard.