wonderfully fine job in attending to the one he had rescued from
drowning after the plane had crashed; for he too, seemed to steal a sly
glance in the other's direction whenever he felt he could do so without
being detected.
For one thing, the near miracle of Buddy's being able to drop down into
the shallows near the sandy shore had doubtless kept the plane from
being wrapped in flames and possibly eased the plunge more or less.
"When I dragged him out," the owner of the shack explained to Jack and
the latter noted how musical his voice seemed, so full and clear in the
bargain, "he would not allow me to even look at his wounds until I had
found and rescued four sacks of mail. You would have thought the
contents of those bags were of greater value than his own life. That is
what I'd call being faithful to a trust. But now I must ask both of you
gentlemen to follow me outside where, as a rule I do my cooking. While
we make ready to have supper, such as the limited stores will allow, we
can talk over things and you may be able to figure just how you expect
to take off again in the morning for it is too late now to consider
going."
A little later on, while Jack was aboard the ship getting certain things
that he wanted, Perk sidled up to the earnest old man with whom their
fortunes had been so strangely thrown, and with one of his capacious
grins remarked casually:
"If you'll excuse me for sayin' it, mister, I kinder guess now your name
might be Doctor Whitelaw Reeves!"
When the other heard him mention that name he started as though he had
been stung and looked Perk over with those keen eyes of his, and then a
faint smile broke out on his stern face.
XXVIII
AROUND THE CAMPFIRE
"How does it come, my young friend," remarked the recluse of Crater Lake
moving closer to the grinning Perk and apparently greatly moved, "that
you are mentioning a name I have not heard spoken for the last seven
years?"
"Huh! it happens, Doc, that I got some memory. Specially o' faces,"
candidly replied the aviator. "Course you've changed a heap since I
knowed you, but back o' it all I could ketch the same look you had then
when you fixed me up so dickey."
"Ah! that is what it means! So you were once a patient of mine. I hope I
served you well, to cause you to remember me so long!" and the hermit
patted Perk on the shoulder in what seemed to be a very friendly way.
"Hot ziggetty dog! I'm sayin' you did, Doc--looky here and see how the
things healed up," and as he said this, Perk rolled up his sleeve,
exhibiting a stout arm marked by a series of red lines zigzagging here
and there and giving evidence of being a reminder of a most serious
wound.
The hermit looked and nodded his head.
"Rather a tough proposition it must have been," he remarked with a show
of interest.
"You jest bet it _was_!" vociferated Perk. "That bally English doctor
wanted to take the arm off--said it'd save my life, but what use would
life be to a birdman with only one arm? Then you came along and done the
trick, Doc. Never could forget what I owed you. Finest operation ever
done on that line, the American surgeon said afterwards."
"Ah! very kind of him, I am sure," said Perk's companion, obviously
appreciating the implied compliment, "and would you mind telling me just
where, and under what conditions all this happened? It may assist me to
remember the particular instance out of the hundreds I handled?"
"In the Argonne, Doc--I came down in flames after sendin' two out o'
four Heinies ahead o' me. 'Member you told me my mother had ought to
feel proud o' her boy--which she sure was, Doc. Course it couldn't
hardly be 'spected you'd 'member me, but I guessed I'd keep think-in'
'bout you as long as I lived. An' to think we'd run up agin each other
like this--it certainly is a small world, as I've said before."
"While I don't happen to remember the particular circumstance, my
friend," the other went on warmly, "it's a pleasure to know that you did
pull through with both arms and have apparently continued to ply your
dangerous, if glorious calling ever since. Shake hands with me, will
you? I'm proud to renew our acquaintance and it comes at a turning point
in my life also."
He glanced affectionately at Buddy lying there on his cot with the girl
hovering over him, smoothing the blanket as only a woman can and
lavishing looks of adoration on her hero pilot.
"For years I have been mourning the fact that after being shell-shocked
on the battle line during the closing month of the war, I had lost my
touch for my vocation; for a surgeon depends a great deal on his hands
for the success of his delicate operations. Then _he_ came into my life
as though dropping down from heaven itself. The necessity for
immediately handling his injuries started me back into the old rut again
and I was thrilled to discover that my finger-tips were as sensitive as
ever. Then I realized that since God was so good as to restore to me
that which I feared had been lost forever, it would be wicked for me to
remain shut up away from my fellows when so many suffering people were
holding out their hands to me for aid. My prayer had been heard and I
have resolved to go back once more to labor in the field that can never
have an over supply of workers."
What he said so seriously, so joyfully, thrilled Perk to the core. He
felt that both he and his chum Jack had had at least a little to do with
this loyal determination on the part of the once expert surgeon to again
offer his services to the uncounted multitude of sufferers in every
great city of the nation, and insofar as he could effect a cure, bring
happiness to many a home that was now shrouded in darkness.
Later on, when Perk had a chance to tell this remarkable happening to
the deeply interested Jack, and they had talked it all over, they came
to the conclusion that the supposed loss of his skill as a result of his
shock, was not the only reason causing Doctor Reeves to have that
mysterious yearning to seek the solitudes of Nature in an effort to shun
his fellow men. He may have met with some bitter disappointment, perhaps
from the hand of the woman he loved, who had proved faithless. But all
this was none of their business and Jack agreed with his pal when Perk
declared they were treading on forbidden ground in even speculating
about it.
"No matter what it was," Jack ended the talk by saying earnestly, "he's
apparently gotten over that upset. Time heals wounds of the heart we
know, and if he's the wonderful surgeon you say, he can do a heap of
missionary work among the hospitals during the rest of his life. I'm
mighty glad we've run across him and he seems to have fixed up Buddy
here just prime--says he'll be able to get back on his job in four weeks
and be just as good as ever."
"Bully for Doc. Reeves!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Perk, still a little
dazed over the amazing coincidence of meeting the professional man to
whom he owed so much.
They found that the hermit--who would be called by that name no longer
if he kept his new resolution--had a stone fireplace close by his
shelter where he was accustomed to carrying on such cooking as was
necessary.
Perk immediately took possession of the "cooking galley" as he was
pleased to call the small addition to the shack where a meagre
assortment of pots and pans were hanging, and proceeded to provide
supper.
He would not allow the proprietor to render the least assistance and
also declined the offered help of Suzanne, telling her she could do more
good as a nurse than trying to help him. He had long been waiting just
such an opportunity to "sling the grub" and was not going to be knocked
out of this fine chance.
Jack, knowing how the other was enjoying himself, offered no objections
so Perk found himself monarch of all he surveyed and boss of the
kitchen.
Perk dragged the clumsy dugout belonging to the late recluse to serve as
a ferry between the anchored amphibian and the shore. Later on Jack saw
him fetching a number of things up to the vicinity of the shack and
chuckled, highly amused, to note that among them was the submachine gun
with its belt of ammunition. He could readily surmise what that meant.
Perk must have remembered seeing that monster silvertip bear waddling
along among the piled-up masses of rock not so very far distant from the
shack of their present host and with some dimly defined notion in his
head that he might wish to again play sentinel and guard to the camp,
was determined to be in condition to meet any situation that might
arise.
Oh! well, if it pleased Perk to imagine dire things hovering over their
heads, and if it afforded him real happiness to assume the duties of a
posted sentry, why should any one wish to cheat him of such an innocent
recreation? It could do no harm but on the other hand would give the
vigilant one a feeling of satisfaction, thought Jack.
"Only I do hope," Jack was telling himself under his breath with a fond
glance toward the object of his soliloquy, "if he's bound to save us all
again, his victim turns out to be a little more ferocious than a
wretched half-starved prairie dog, creeping up to smell out a bone or
two thrown away after a camp supper."
Perk was a busy and willing worker for the next half hour, dodging in
and out, bending over his cooking fire that had been coaxed to a point
approaching perfection with several pots and pans resting on the large
gridiron that the ex-hermit evidently used principally for roasting his
potatoes in their skins, he being no great hand at achieving culinary
triumphs. Some men are born to one profession and others excel in quite
another line. Doc. Reeves' specialty was surgery, that of Jack might be
set down as general excellence along the duties of an air pilot and also
fairly well equipped to play his part as one of Uncle Sam's energetic
Secret Service men while Perk had a notion he shone in no one particular
line, but could get up about as savory a meal, under existing
conditions, as the best woods guide.
He certainly surpassed himself on this particular occasion. The odors
that soon began to permeate the atmosphere all around that lonesome spot
caused Jack to show uneasiness, as though he could hardly wait for Perk
to call them to partake of the glorious feast.
"Why, if this keeps on much longer," he told himself as he walked up and
down near by as a very hungry man is apt to do when waiting for supper
to be put upon the table, especially if it is in camp, where appetite
reigns above ordinary likes and dislikes, "he'll have the whole
neighborhood saturated with the smell of whatever he's cooking. If
there's a hungry mountain lion or a half-starved grizzly within a mile
of here, he'll make a trail to this nook right away. What's that Emerson
wrote, that if a man invents the best mouse trap ever built the world
will make the deepest kind of a trail flocking to his woods cabin to
patronize him? And Perk's sure _some cook_, I admit!"
The agony was finally brought to an end and they settled down on bits of
logs and a couple of ricketty chairs the self-exiled surgeon had
manufactured at some time or other. A small table, also home-made,
fairly groaned under the most bountiful supply of "camp grub" imaginable
and the grinning Perk eager to serve it out in generous portions.
Even the injured Buddy developed an astonishing appetite. Doc. Reeves,
now radiant and full of good nature at the way he had been brought back
to his one consuming passion, which he feared was gone forever, declared
he had not sat before such a gorgeous feast for many a long year.
Suzanne too, saw fit to add her praises while she ate and ate, as if
trying to make up for the several meals she had missed while laboring
under such a heavy load of suspense.
As for the cook himself, he showed no sign of his late labors having
diminished his capacity for stowing away tremendous quantities of food,
as those who prepare meals so often declare. But there was enough for
all and a bit to be thrown out for the squirrels, rabbits, or any larger
species of hungry mountain denizens that might care to investigate the
appetizing odors.
They sat around in the faint light of the only lamp available, used only
occasionally by the doctor on account of the difficulty of transporting
kerosene such a distance on muleback, and talked on a variety of
subjects. Buddy was of course eager to learn what was being said
concerning the mystery of his disappearance and must have been duly
thrilled when Jack and Perk recounted some of the many things they had
read under flaming head-lines in the daily papers coming under their
observation from time to time.
When questioned, he told in simple words just what had happened. It was
nothing original, just such an accident as might happen to the most
skillful of air pilots, though not all of them live through the
experience. Chancing to see the little lake which was not by any means
the first time he had glimpsed it, since on several occasions he had
flown above it while carrying his mail pouches to and from airports, he
had tried to make a halfway safe landing on the strip of sand at that
end of the round pond but failing by a dozen or more feet, plunged into
the water.
He lost all knowledge of what happened, coming to his senses a long time
afterwards to find himself on a cot with the recluse just completing his
wonderful job of attending to his broken arm and the many bruises about
the rest of his person.
Dr. Reeves said but little, seeming quite content to listen to the
voices of his little company of guests thrown so unexpectedly upon his
hands but it was easy to see he was far happier that night than he had
been for many years, with the future again beckoning and looming up as a
wide field where he could apply his services in behalf of his fellows.
It was decided that Buddy must keep his cot for the night. They made up
one for Suzanne with several fairly well cured animal pelts, mementoes
of certain beasts the recluse had shot or trapped, either for their
skins or to be used as a change of diet. Jack and Perk were old
campaigners, and could find an apology for a bed on the ground near the
fire while the surgeon said he meant to sit on a chair in the kitchen
and spend the night in general rejoicing over his good fortune in
"coming back."
Jack teased his chum a bit when he saw the other lugging that
sub-machine gun over to where he was going to sleep, but Perk only
grinned, and nodded, as though he really enjoyed the prospect of once
more remaining on guard.
XXIX
NO PROWLERS ALLOWED
Perk was more than usually sleepy when he lay down with the gun close by
the fire. Perhaps he really did not expect to be called upon to defend
the camp since the doctor had assured him there had never been any
serious trouble from the inmates of the wilderness, though he admitted
he had now and again found some evidence in the morning that a large
beast had been prowling around while he slept behind a closed door.
But having made up his mind to do his full duty, Perk was not to be
turned aside either through arguments or ridicule. He lay there doing
his best to keep awake by reviving long since buried memories of his
activities across the sea when in France.
Then he "passed out," as he himself would have termed it, to awaken and
find the fire in need of replenishing. There was an abundance of wood
close at hand so, still half asleep, Perk got to his knees, picked up an
armful and rising to his full height stepped over to the smoldering
fire.
As he cast his burden on the red ashes some of the smaller stuff started
up instantly, causing the immediate vicinity to appear as though
illuminated by a flash of vivid sunlight.
Perk heard a sound that was not unlike a loud sniff. This startled him
and his returning animation was hastened when he caught a low growl,
thrilling him to the center of his being.
Instantly he stared in the quarter from which these strange sounds
proceeded. A movement concentrated his attention on a certain point.
Some object that resembled a bulky, dark, living thing commenced to rise
up until the startled Perk though it would never stop growing.
There it was standing before him--the same monster he had seen from his
seat aboard the air ship. A full-grown grizzly, the "Mountain Charlie"
of the California ranchers and hunters, a very giant of devilish
ferocity and unafraid of anything that walked on two or four feet,
monarch of the foothills and canyons of the mighty Rockies!
The grizzly growled again, this time with added vigor as if wanting the
wretched invader of his hunting grounds to thoroughly understand he
would put up with no trifling and that he must speedily "skip the ranch"
unless he wished to be scattered around the whole neighborhood in
pieces.
"Holy Smoke!"
That was as far as Perk got in starting to express his agitated feelings
for the standing bear had made a movement that started him toward the
campfire and the amazed aviator. Perhaps by this time Jack may have also
awakened but Perk gave no heed to such a possibility. As the
self-appointed guardian of the slumbering camp it was up to him to stand
like a rock in its defense.
No right or left tackle on the gridiron ever made a more furious plunge
in an effort to stop the hurtling progress of the enemy player carrying
the pigskin toward the goal posts than Perk set in motion just then,
urged on as with a goad by the necessity for clutching that firearm upon
which he was depending so much.
He landed in a huddle, snatched at the gun, dropped it in his wild
excitement, pawed around for what seemed a full agonized minute but
which evidently lasted less than five seconds and finally found himself
clutching the object of his mad groveling. Even then he got mixed a bit
and was presenting the butt of the weapon toward the oncoming growling
bear when, recognizing his mistake he managed to swing it around.
Another blunder just then might have cost him dear but Perk, now fully
alive to the emergency cooled down sufficiently to move the little lever
which would start the machine-gun to spitting out its discharges in
one--two--three style as long as the belt of cartridges held out and he,
Perk, refrained from shutting off the mechanism by which it was worked.
The bear was not twenty feet away when this hurricane of lead began to
rain upon him with oft repeated thuds. His growls had been followed by
the most dreadful roarings to which those near-by cliffs had ever
echoed. He dropped down on all fours, shuffled this way and that, like a
boy trying to evade the attacks of a swarm of maddened yellow jackets
whose nest he had the temerity to strike with a club. But all without
avail, since the now equally aroused Perk had only to switch the muzzle
of his little cannon a trifle to continue bombarding him right along.
The gigantic beast rolled over this way and that, stroke to get upon his
feet again, his bellows becoming less vociferous as his wounds increased
with frightful rapidity. There could be no telling when Perk would ever
have stopped firing only that a hand grasped his weapon and turned it
upward toward the starry heavens while the voice of Jack roared in his
ear:
"Hold hard, brother, you've got him shot full of holes as it is. What's
the use ruining his hide? Some day you'll be proud to rest your feet on
a rug made from a genuine old grizzly you potted all by yourself out
here in the Rockies."
So the fully aroused Perk managed to curb his warlike spirit a bit and
shut off the flow of deadly missiles.
"Gosh amighty Jack, did you see me knock the ole hippopotamus silly when
I opened on him right smart? Some ruction while she lasted, I'll tell
the cockeyed world! Gee whiz! he's kicked his last an' there he lies as
quiet as a lamb."
"He's your meat okay, buddy," Jack assured him after which he turned to
explain the meaning of the frantic outburst of firing for both Dr.
Reeves and Suzanne were in the doorway of the shack, demanding to know
what it was all about and if anybody were hurt.
"Huh! on'y one that's hurt real bad lies over yonder with his toes
pointin' up to the skies!" laughed the proud marksman. "Reg'lar
he-grizzly, with a bellow like a range bull. Tried to rush me, don't you
know, but it turned out he couldn't chaw lead an' so he quit cold. An'
me, I'm figgerin' on having the smartest rug you ever set eyes on made
from his hairy hide if I c'n trim it from his carcass come mornin'. Some
stunt for little Perk to put on the boards, if I do say it myself, as
oughtn't."
"Queer how I have managed to keep the peace with that scamp for so
long," observed the doctor with a whimsical laugh, "and then he chooses
to go on the warpath just when I happen to have company for the first
time in years. But that was the proper caper, Perk, and you deserve to
have a beautiful rug to show when telling this thrilling exploit to your
grandchildren."
"Wow! go easy on a feller, please, Doc," expostulated the embarrassed
Perk, "why, I ain't even got a girl yet. You see, they gimme the
razzberry, mebbe 'cause I'm so handsome. But I'm meanin' to get that rug
fixed up, if the pelt c'n be dragged off the big varmint in the mornin'
an' that's that."
Examination showed that although a number of the bullets sprayed forth
so promiscuously by the ardent sportsman had punctured the hide of the
bear, these small holes would not prevent its being repaired and made
useful, if one chose to spend a little time and cash for the desired
result. So while Perk absolutely refused to call his vigil off and get
some sleep, he had the comforting assurance that his work had not gone
for naught.
"Yeah! don't try to cramp my style, partner," he told Jack who was
trying to argue that lightning seldom struck twice in the same place,
"course I understand how that grizzly ain't goin' to gimme another
scare, but how do we know that he ain't got a mate an' if she comes
prowlin' around this roost an' runs across her big boy lyin' there all
bloody and cashed in, why she might go on a tear an' smash things into
kindlin' wood. Yep, I'll finish the night on my post. Time to pick up
any lost sleep when we're back in old Cheyenne jest loafin' an' waitin'
for orders to start out on a fresh job."
Knowing how stubborn Perk could be when he took a notion, Jack made no
further attempt to persuade him and the last he saw of the bear-killer,
Perk was sitting there, his back against a stump, with the formidable
machine gun across his knees, all set for business at the old stand. Let
all the silvertips in the entire Rocky Mountain section step up and give
him a dare, with that wonderful gun that reminded him of old days in
France when he was with the La Fayette Escadrille, flying for France and
her allies, he felt equal to a full dozen of the shaggy beasts.
So the balance of the night passed and finally came the dawn of a new
day that would thrill the nation with the startling news covering the
finding of the missing air-mail pilot.
XXX
BRINGING IN THEIR MAN
With breakfast out of the way Jack called what Perk termed a "reg'lar
council o' war," for there were numerous matters that would have to be
settled before they could take off and head for civilization.
Dr. Reeves gave it as his opinion that if great care were exercised,
Buddy could be transported to the nearest town but the injured mail
pilot absolutely refused to go unless his prized letter bags accompany
him, such was his devotion to duty.
Then there was Perk also as set on having that valued bear skin, removed
with the help of the doctor, who had learned the art of skinning an
animal while cast upon his own resources. Besides, there would be two
others aboard the amphibian which was apt to make things a bit crowded.
However, Dr. Reeves soon settled the matter by declaring he did not mean
to accompany them. Another day, if Jack and Perk wished to have it so
arranged, they could come for him. He had some things to accomplish that
would take a few hours and there was no necessity for him to be on hand
when Buddy reached town to create the wildest kind of excitement.
Indeed, the eminent surgeon admitted he rather shunned anything that
would be apt to put him in the limelight.