Perk was in a little heaven of his own later on when calling out that he could distinctly see the ground, thanks to his binoculars.
Morning had come, with the sun well above the horizon and everything indicating they had a fair day ahead as frequently happens after a heavy fog. It was a wild stretch of country now spread beneath the sky voyagers, with all manner of lofty peaks in every direction, mountain ranges running criss-cross without the faintest sign of regularity.
“I swan if I’d care to be lost down in that sort o’ country,” Perk was saying as he continued to stare with great eagerness. “Jest about like huntin’ for a needle in a haystack as to ’spect to find a cracked bus in all that awful scramble.”
“Oh! we haven’t got to where the trail is warm yet, partner,” Jack informed him, “though of course it isn’t going to do any harm for you to scour the ground as we cut along. When a thing’s lost, the chances are it happens to be lying just where nobody suspects—I’ve found that out myself more than a few times.”
“Yeah! jest so Boss,” grunted the one who handled the binoculars, “an’ if we fall down on the job it ain’t goin’ to be from not usin’ our eyes to the limit. But say, things keep on pilin’ up worse than I ever ran across in all my whole life—look at what’s ahead there—can you beat it, Jack?”
“Pretty tough stretch of mountain land any way you take it,” said Jack as he swept his eyes around from right to left, “but fortunately we have nothing to worry about as long as we keep a fairly decent ceiling. Fact is, I’d call it free-going up here, with a nice cool breeze knocking on our port quarter and not hindering us any, even if it doesn’t push us along.”
“That’s right, Jack—after that boring through a fog belt hundreds o’ miles wide, this does seem like a little bit o’ Heaven on earth. Mebbe you’ve noticed me takin’ a look all around once in a while—up in the air, I mean? Somehow I’ve been wonderin’ why we haven’t glimpsed a single ship since sun-up.”
“Do you mean air-mail crates or some of those pilots who’re searching for signs of Buddy Warner?” the other demanded of Perk.
“Either kind, if it’s all the same to you, Jack. If we’re not so far away from where the poor chap said his last goodbye as he took off with his sack of Uncle Sam’s mail, strikes me we had ought to’ve run across one bus anyway, of all the flock that must be on the wing lookin’ for the boy.”
“Just so Perk, but consider the immensity of space out in these regions, with all these mountains to get lost in. A score of pilots might spend every single day for a whole year in winging around the neighborhood of the Colorado Canyon and never once glimpse the smashed crate, even if it was in some open stretch of ground.”