“Please tell me all you know about him,” pursued Jack eagerly, just as if he was trying to clutch some minute shred of hope that was difficult to capture.
Bart Hicks laughed shortly.
“I can tell you all that in a jiffy Mr. Ralston,” he hastened to reply, “because none of us happen to know anything at all about who and what the old party is. About twice a year, spring and fall, he bobs up here with a sure footed mule and buys all sorts of grub and stores. He never stays overnight and seems to hate the sight of a real house. Some curious minded folks, thinking that perhaps he had struck a rich mine there in that rockhouse district, have tried to follow him but had to give it up and come back beaten. He doesn’t fetch free gold out with him but plain, everyday Government yellow-back bills. We don’t know a thing about the secret trail he takes to make his way through all that riotous land.
“I’ve heard pilots tell how they’d seen spirals of wood smoke rising and those who happened to be flying low say they could see his campfire was close to the brim of that crater lake—for some say it lies in the crater of an extinct volcano. That’s about the whole story as far as any of us know it, Mr. Ralston and I’m winding up by saying again it would be just one lone chance in a thousand that a poor air pilot dropping down there would be found and rescued by that mysterious old hermit.”
“As you say, it’s a desperately small opening and not very promising at best,” Jack told his new friend with the same resolute look on his face, “but it may be we’ll have to place our hopes on such a slender chance after all. At any rate I’m meaning to look into that matter before giving up the game as impossible. It wouldn’t be the first time such a mere thread turned into a stout cable that’s saved the ship from destruction.”
“Never say die, eh? I’d think that’d be your motto, Mr. Ralston,” observed the field superintendent who apparently had come to have more or less admiration for the young air pilot who carried himself so buoyantly, so confidently, as though he absolutely believed in himself.
By now Perk had finished his job of refueling the plane and was rubbing his soiled hands with a bit of waste.
“All fixed, are we brother?” asked Jack and for almost the first time on record, those close by learned that Perk was not at all dumb, but had a fluent voice of his own.
“Wall,” he drawled with a wicked wink toward Jack, “guess now she’s loaded to capacity an’ then some ’cause I’ve got six gallon cans o’ juice stowed away where they ain’t goin’ to take up much room, an’ll keep us on the wing a bit extra. Then too, partner, here’s a waiter comin’ from our hotel joint carryin’ a package o’ eats in the shape o’ sandwiches which I took the trouble to order an’ which you’ll have the pleasure o’ payin’ a hull dollar for right on the spot.”
“Good for you, Perk!” laughed Jack, who seldom had to worry about a sufficiency of food when traveling in the company of such an excellent provider as Gabe Perkiser who never had any difficulty in hearing the “call of the eats” so many times per diem.