Perk grinned some more, just as if he had an idea his usually dependable pal hardly knew himself what he was aiming at. The girl novice pilot looked grieved, and then brightened up.
“But—what’s to become of me then—you surely wouldn’t be so mean as to leave me here in this dreadful hole all night—I’d go out of my mind with thinking every little sound meant that some ferocious wild beast was creeping up on my fire, ready to make a meal of me; which of course would be rough, after all those fierce lessons in the air, and actually getting my pilot’s license after all. And besides, I did really and truly promise Ma Warner I’d find Buddy, and fetch him back home with me.”
Jack looked at her entreating face, gave a glance at the grinning Perk, drew a long breath, shrugged his shoulders with the air of saying in desperation: “That’s that then; and what are you going to do about it, when a young woman sets you on a red-hot gridiron like that.”
There seemed nothing to do but capitulate, and make the best of a bad bargain. After all it was not as if they could find no room for Suzanne—she was such a little thing, and besides their new cloud-chaser was capable of carrying a weight almost twice the amount of the present cargo, gas and all.
“All right, then, Miss Cramer, we’ll take you with us when we start out of here,” he told her, allowing himself to shut off his feeling of near dismay, and actually smiled again in his accustomed way.
“Oh! thank you so much—Jack,” she told him, with sincerity in both voice and manner. “I promise not to give you the least trouble, and perhaps I could make myself useful sooner or later, especially if we do find my Buddy, and he—should be badly injured, so as to need a nurse’s care—for you see I was on my way to be a trained nurse when I got air-minded, and set out to be a flyer, so sometimes I might go with Buddy.”
“But this will mean we must all of us remain here in the great canyon for the night,” he reminded her.
“But that would be wasting many hours, and he needing me so much,” she complained, with a pitiful look that made Jack regret his inability to start right off and be doing.
“Listen, please,” he said, gently but firmly, “you can see by looking up that the sun has set, and night is creeping out—already down in this deep hole it’s next to impossible for any one to see what might lie in the way; so that makes it too risky to try and pull out. I’d like as not wreck my ship by running up against a snag in the water, or a stray boulder on the shore. Whether we took you with us or not I’d made up my mind to stick it out here for the night.”
“Yes,” here broke in Perk, who evidently thought he was due to “butt in” and have his little say, “and besides, even if we did manage to make the riffle without bustin’, what could we do knockin’ around in the dark—just a sheer waste o’ good gas, an’ gettin’ nowhere a’tall.”