Since it was now two against one, and they both seemed so kind, Suzanne wisely gave in.
“You’ve convinced me, Jack, and I’ll say no more,” she told him sweetly; “but do you know I haven’t had a bite to eat for ever so long; though Ma did make me take aboard enough rations to feed a regiment, including tea and coffee, as well as an assortment of pots and pans.”
Perk immediately betrayed fresh interest in life, for it was wonderful how the fellow brightened up, as though just then realizing that he himself must be perilously close to starvation.
“We’ll help you get them out o’ the bus, lady,” he hastened to say; “if so be you’ll kindly show us where they be—ain’t that so, partner?”
Jack did not seem at all averse to such a proceeding—why not make things as pleasant as possible since a capricious Fate had thrown their fortunes together in this mad way?
“Suppose you attend to all that, Perk,” he told the other, knowing how efficient his partner was along such lines; “while you’re doing it under Miss Cramer’s directions I’ll take another look at her crate, and see just how we can drag it further back from the river, so it will be safe when we’re gone.”
XVII
THE CAMP IN THE CANYON
Things immediately began to happen, and for the time being amidst the excitement of showing Perk just where the stores and things were located aboard the stranded Stinson-Detroiter, Miss Cramer seemed to temporarily forget the load of trouble she was carrying on her little shoulders.
Indeed, as Jack had already sized her up, she was rather a remarkable sort of a girl—so sensible, so level-headed, and truly brave in the bargain. Under such a heavy strain he felt certain ninety-nine girls out of a hundred would have given way to their helplessness, and collapsed; but here this one had taken her courage in both hands, to set out in the expectation of accomplishing a task that thus far had baffled a score or more of the greatest aviation aces the country had ever known.
Soon the energetic Perk had landed everything in the line of eatables and such truck as Ma Warner—bless her dear old heart, Perk was saying to himself as he noted what a volume of good stuff lay in the mound he had erected—had denuded her pantry in order that her beloved boy should have enough to keep starvation at bay, when Suzanne had eventually found him.