“We’ll go, Perk—the stick if you please and stand by to lend a hand if it’s needed when we make contact. I can see what looks like an inviting place in the water where we can use those dandy pontoons to advantage. Ready for it?”
They swung around once more and this time Jack turned the nose of his craft directly at a slant so as to head for the spot where the pilot of the wrecked ship was running up and down in great excitement, still flinging his signal of distress back and forth.
But when he saw that they were actually starting to drop below the majestic walls of the wonderful canyon as though bent on endeavoring to assist him, he stopped short and stood there wringing his hands in what to Jack was a rather peculiar way for a brave man to do. Still, if he had been through a series of hard knocks, had perhaps even been seriously wounded in the crash of his boat, he might be close to distraction. Anyway theirs must be the job of ascertaining the truth and afterwards doing all they could to afford him relief, though his plane might be beyond remedy and would have to be abandoned.
Now they were approaching the bottom of that rocky canyon—the walls towered above like grim cliffs or battlements, forged by nature to protect the stream that swept through the enormous gorge. It seemed to Perk, as he shot one thrilling look upward, as though they were a mile high and that everything around them was mightily magnified—all save the river itself, together with the stranded ship and the figure standing there watching their coming so eagerly, so filled with freshly risen hope.
Then contact was made between their wonderful pontoons and the surface of the Colorado River and there they floated on the turbulent bosom of the stream.
XIV
JACK MAKES A DISCOVERY
While thus dropping down into the great wide canyon by easy stages, Jack had taken note of several things, although not for a single second failing to keep tabs on his dials and the action of the ship when meeting certain baffling currents of air welling up from the depths and which might have played havoc with things only for this watchful, never-ceasing care on his part.
First he became aware of the fact that the abyss was no longer subject to clear visibility—in fact, it would have been next to impossible for him to have made a decent contact with the river surface only that a sudden glow had started up as if by magic.
It was a fire that helped to dissipate the gathering gloom in that particular spot and the one responsible for this welcome illumination must be the unknown aviator whose crate had been wrecked when falling into the vast sink with the gorgeously painted walls.
Evidently he must have gathered a few piles of dry driftwood so plentifully scattered along the banks of the river, and prepared a pyre to which a lighted match could be applied, a cheery blaze following. Jack sensed all this even without distracting his attention from his work.