“What ails you now, comrade?” asked Jack, smilingly for he always found the strongly expressed likes and dislikes of his chum a never failing well of interest that frequently brought out one of his seldom used chuckles.
“Why, seems like they never let a chance get past to fetch Lindbergh into the picture, no matter if he’s three thousand miles off as the crow flies. Here one account tells that it’s ‘reported our distinguished air pilot’s set out to lend a hand at findin’ poor Buddy Warner,’ who, the story goes, ‘used to be a blanket pal o’ Lindbergh’s away back in them balmy days when Charles jumped with his little chute at county fairs an’ did the barn-stormin’ racket. Not that he wouldn’t be on the job if on’y he didn’t happen to be away off around New York right now, up to his eyes in business connected with the new air line he’s at the head of. Course lots o’ good folks’ll swallow this story without a question but it’s jest a sample o’ wild newspaper stuff—no man c’n be on the Atlantic coast an’ out here in the Rockies at the same time. Gosh! but they do pull the wool over some people’s eyes these days—anything for a sensation an’ to get the jump over the other cub reporters.”
“But Perk, we do happen to know that there are quite a number of noted pilots out scouring the entire region and sticking to their job like leeches, under their sporting slogan ‘do as you’d be done by’.”
“Sure thing, partner—that’s legitimate news and not faked,” agreed the other with a grunt as he speared a small boiled onion of which he was very fond, and thrust it into his mouth. “Lindbergh is a wonder, as we all know, but there’s a limit to his activities and it ain’t fair to want him to take hold o’ everything that comes along. Now he’s doubled up and took him a wife. They reckon nothin’ c’n be carried through without his name bein’ tacked on somehow or other. ’Taint fair to that boy, an’ them’s my sentiments.”
Jack shook his head and looked serious.
“Then the mystery is as deep as ever and they haven’t yet found out what happened to poor Buddy?” he asked, to which Perk shook his head in the negative, saying:
“Never a thing—all wrapped up in a black fog—he started off in high spirits and with a joke on his lips an’ then disappeared like he never was. Hang it all, why couldn’t I have been doin’ some other sorter job where they might ’a’ let me off for a spell? Nothin’ I’d like better than to comb the hull countryside in hopes o’ findin’ that bully boy—he told me once ’bout that mother o’ his’n. I kinder guess she must be a peach, he thought so much o’ her. Lands sake! but it might even kill her if her boy ain’t never heard from again. I’d give every dollar I got in the wide world—which ain’t boastin’ none I know—if only I was a free agent an’ goin’ on my own hook.”
“Hard luck, partner,” soothed Jack, laying a hand on the arm of his pal as if to sympathize with the impulsive one; “but of course that’s out of the question, you and me—we’re under a contract that can’t be broken recklessly, no matter what happens and we’ve just got to keep everlastingly on the job till our time is up when we can either renew or get out.”
“I guess you got it down pat, Jack,” agreed the other with a heavy sigh that told of his regret being genuine. Perk was one of those queer chaps who are born with a stubborn itch to find anything that is said to be lost which would account in part for his having thrown in his fortunes with both the Northwest Mounted Police and now the United States Secret Service.
“Besides, there was a sort of intimation in that late letter from the Big Boss,” Jack went on to say, “that seemed to hint at something big coming our way before very long so all we can do is to keep hoping for some luck and doing our daily stunt flying so as to learn all the wrinkles connected with our new cloud-chaser as you like to call the ship we’re attached to right now.”