“Perk, suppose you tote that painter up to the ship here and fasten it. We’ve got a little job on our hands for I’ve promised this young lady to check up and learn how badly her boat has been wrecked. By the way miss, you haven’t so far told us your name—mine happens to be Jack Ralston and this is my partner, Perk—Gabe Perkiser in full.”
“And mine is Suzanne Cramer—one of the newcomers in the ranks of women air pilots. It hasn’t been so long since they gave me my license, after I’d done my full allowance of solo flying. This is my own ship—I bought it secondhand, but in perfect condition. Until today I have never had any trouble but the engine started to miss and I knew I must land or crash dreadfully. Please see if there’s any hope for my getting out of this place soon, for it means everything in the world to me.”
Jack saw that suspicious old bachelor, Perk give him a solemn look and wink his left eye, just as though he distrusted the wisdom of their wasting precious minutes trying to help a flighty little girl pilot, evidently on some sort of a silly lark and making out that it was a most important matter indeed—as most girls always do, according to his limited knowledge.
Thereupon Jack shook his head at scoffing Perk, knowing as he did how the other was inclined to be a woman-hater.
“Come on Perk, now that you’ve made our ferry secure let’s get busy and see what’s what here. You take the off wing and I’ll look over the near one, then we can double-up on the engine and reach a conclusion. It won’t take us long, Perk and it’s a duty every decent pilot owes to his class, remember.”
“Okay Boss, jest as you say, I’m willin’; but all the same it looks to me like it’d turn out to be a bum job. That old bus has been given some hard knocks an’ won’t tune up worth a red cent.”
The girl thereupon uttered a little pitiable moan that influenced Jack to turn a bit sternly upon his pal and say quickly:
“No snap judgment Perk! You never can tell how badly things are until you give them the first over. Come on now, partner I know you well enough to be sure you’ll give an honest verdict, no matter what comes.”
“Sure thing, Jack—my dad taught me to ‘hew straight to the line, let the chips fall where they will’—that’s been the Perkiser motto right along, an’ see where it carried us as a family. Got one uncle sheriff o’ a county in Kansas an’ another at the head o’ a hot dog emporium, which is goin’ some, I want you to know.”
The girl looked as though amused at Perk’s quaint way of saying things but that anxious, eager expression quickly came upon her face again.