The Sky Pilot's Great Chase; Or, Jack Ralston's Dead Stick Landing

“Cap. Hawk an’ his gang. Ain’t been gone more’n three hours – stole all my whole season’s ketch o’ pelts an’ robbed Old Jimmy o’ his money an’ a heap o’ stores ’sides. I kinder feel like I’m meanin’ to skip out o’ this blasted kentry if so be they jest can’t nab that wild critter, ’er else make him turn up his toes. What ails the Mounties, I wanter know, when they slip up on a job like this? Don’t seem like the days when ye was workin’ in the outfit, Gabe Perkiser.”

“Hold out a little longer, Birdseye, ol’ hoss!” exclaimed Perk jerking off goggles and helmet, “mebbe it’ll all come out okay. They’s things on the programme that’re goin’ to cut a big figger in this game. Just you wait an’ see ’fore you cuss the Mounties black an’ blue.”

Then, as if noting the absence of Old Jimmy the factor, Perk continued, looking anxiously around:

“But where’s Jimmy right now, I want to know? ’Taint like him to be stickin’ in his coop yonder when strangers come to town!”

“He’s on his back, Perk – got into ruction with them bushrangers an’ they tore him up somethin’ scandalous. Nuthin’ real dangerous, get me, but he sure needs the attention o’ a doc. I’m told they’s sech a man up to the fort name o’ Hamilton but we ain’t no way o’ gettin’ word to him in a hurry.”

“That’s okay, ol’ hoss,” said Perk quickly, “my boss here, Mister John Jacob Astorbilt is aimin’ to strike Fort Laney, hopin’ to get some big game shootin’ thereabouts. We c’n fetch the sawbones back with us if so be he’s still around.”

“Good boy, Perk,” said the old fur-trapper enthusiastically, “but come in an’ see the old man – he’ll be right glad to meet up with ye again – often talked ’bout ye when I kim back from my trap line in the Spring.”

Perk looked as happy as a schoolboy carrying home her books for the first time – showing that after all he was not quite so hard-boiled as he wished to appear and that a little flattery could bring the blushes to his well tanned weather-stained cheeks.

“Let’s go, partner,” he said motioning to Jack who had been listening to all this talk with increasing interest, since it had more or less to do with the lawless actions of the desperado whom he had been dispatched to bring back to the States so as to be returned to Leavenworth penitentiary, with considerably more time added to his original sentence.

The moment they entered the post they could easily see that something like an eruption must have occurred only recently. Everything was upset as though there had been a thorough search made for hidden treasure. Piles of dried pelts lay scattered around, the richer prizes having evidently been carried off.

The raiders had doubtless shown rare discrimination as though among their number were those who themselves had once been trappers and therefore knew all about the value of black fox pelts, sables and mink that bring such top-notch prices in the fur markets of St. Louis and other busy places in the country.

Birdseye Baker led them through all this mess straight over to the door communicating with the factor’s private room. This apartment also looked as if an earthquake of first dimensions had struck it and over on a cot against the further log wall they could see a man with a gray beard holding himself up on his elbow, having evidently heard strange voices and being filled with curiosity as well as wonder as to what all the fresh row was about.

“Hello there, Uncle Jimmy!” sang out Perk breezily as he pushed ahead with outstretched hand. “Ain’t quite forgot Gabe Perkiser, have you, ol’ top? Sorry to hear what’s happened to you an’ as me an’ my boss, Mister John Jacob Astorbilt here, mean to head for the fort right away, we aim to get thet medicine man back to look after you. It happens we got a cloud chasin’ airship waitin’ outside to carry us wherever we wanter go.”

The old Scotch factor looked as pleased as a man suffering from recent severe injuries might be expected to under the circumstances. He allowed the newcomer to squeeze his hand and even took Jack’s who fancied the other from the first – the stern honesty of the man from bonny Scotland was to be seen in his clear eye and undismayed look.

“They treated me some scandalous, Perk,” the injured man was saying with a quirk, but little in the way of Scotch brogue cropping up in his speech, “but ye ken I’m a tough old bird and have pulled out o’ many a bad scrape in the past so it may be I’ll weather this knockout, if only that doctor can gi’e me a fair start.”

“Hamilton, they say his name is,” ventured Perk, musingly, “somehow I don’t ’member the name, so like as not he must be a new one around here since I kicked out some years ago.”

“Ay; that’s the truth, laddie – he dropped in on us something like a year back, sayin’ he was sick o’ civilization and a’ its cheats and wanted to live out his life where the primitive ways still held forth. I am o’ the opinion the man must have met with some serious trouble – had his wife run awa’ with a younger chap, more’n likely, as they sometimes do, ye ken. But for a’ that he’s a clever physician and he’ll pull me out o’ this slump if on’y he can be fetched before it’s too late.”

XXII

PICKING UP CLUES

“Make your mind easy on that score, Uncle Jimmy,” Perk went on to say as he bent over the wounded man, “we’ll get up to the river post and my ol’ haunts in a rush, pullin’ out inside the hour an’ either fetch the doctor back with us in the ship or on hossback, all that dependin’ on how things happen to be with Colonel Ascot, who I understand is still in charge o’ the Mounties.”

Perk gave his mate a questioning glance as he said this, and was pleased to see Jack nod in the affirmative, as though thus putting the seal of his approval to the plan as given by his assistant.

“An’ now, ol’ friend,” Perk continued in a soothing fashion, for he knew the Scotch nature of the other and could understand how the McGregor must be inwardly fuming concerning the robbery that had taken place and the losses to the great fur company of which he was an old and efficient official, “’fore we pull outen here you must let my boss take a look at them cuts an’ bruises. It happens he’s a fair surgeon – amatoor one, I mean – an’ could fix you up to carry on till the reg’lar doc gets here. How ’bout that, Jack?”

If either the factor or the ancient trapper noticed the rather odd familiarity existing between Perk and his supposedly wealthy employer, it did not strike them as strange – away up in this jumping-off place, as far as civilization was concerned, men were more or less equals, being judged more from what their accomplishments might be than from their money and besides, they doubtless remembered that Perk had always been a sort of free and easy independent fellow when with the Mounties.

“That’s just about what we aim to do, Perk,” Jack immediately told the other. “I don’t claim to be much of a surgeon, but if there’s anything I can do to stop the bleeding, or bind up the cuts, I’ll be only too glad to lend a helping hand, Mr. McGregor.”

He was as good as his word for inside of five minutes Jack had stripped off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves and commenced to examine the injuries suffered by the determined old factor when he dared take his life in his hands and try to defend the property of his employers.

It turned out that there were some pretty bad cuts and it was a wonder no fatal blows had been given for there could be little doubt that the aggressors shot and stabbed in a most reckless fashion. But evidently the factor’s luck held good and Jack did not feel as though there was much danger of a fatal ending to the affair, providing no blood poisoning set in.

He called for warm water and clean cotton, which, being provided, he started to cleanse the wounds and apply some healing salve. So confidently did he work that the quaint looking old trapper, Birdseye, watching everything with wonder, might have been seen to nod his shaggy mane approvingly as though in his private opinion the young fellow was some surgeon indeed.

As he thus worked Jack entered into conversation with the factor, having two good reasons for doing so. He wished to distract the attention of his patient from himself and also to extract as much information as possible covering the recent raid. A description of the miscreants was given and especially of their savage leader known as the Hawk because of his faculty for striking a swift blow in one place and being heard of in another in such a short time as to make people believe he could fly like the speedy bird of prey.

“As far as I could say,” Old Jimmy told him in answer to a question, “he’s along about thirty years old, a shortish sort o’ a man, quick as a flash in his movements and with eyes that bore in like a gimlet might. He’s had his nose broken at some time or other, which gives him a bit o’ a look like an eagle or a hawk. It may be he got his present name from that. But he’s a devil, I’m thinking and ready to do anything, law or no law when he smells rich booty in the game.”

Jack gave Perk a knowing look accompanied by a wink for that description, brief though it might be, coincided with what had been in the secret information sent by his chief at Washington – the broken nose stamped it as a positive thing that the man he wanted was close at hand, engaged in his same old line of business, that of a hold-up man, robber of banks and payroll bandit with a record for masterly exploits second to none.

So too with regard to the sudden surprise and attack – it seemed as though the marauders must have had accurate information as to when the trading post would prove to be a rich prize and also weakly defended.

“They had their plans a’ set, I am fain to believe,” the factor told him as though he had somehow figured this out during the time he lay there on his cot, “for ye ken it is only a few days now when the customary Spring clean-up o’ the posts come to pass so they would know we had rich pickings on hand. They lookit over the whole o’ the bales an’ picked out a’ the high-priced pelts like they might be connoiseurs in that line, for I recognised two former trappers in the gang – Squatty Bings an’ Welchy, as tough an’ hard drinkin’ lads as ever lived.”

“I’ve been told they left here just about three hours back – is that correct, Mr. McGregor?” asked Jack, wishing to make certain, for a great deal might depend on the question of elapsed time.

“I am no so sure, for I have not looked at my watch since being carried in the house,” the factor informed him, “but Birdseye here would know, for he and the others were being herded in a bunch and kept under several guns. That was after I had been so badly mauled and lay helpless on the ground outside. They were in no great hurry – took their time, feasted on a’ the food they could stow away – did a lot more up in bundles and wi’ the choice pelts as well as a stock o’ ammunition, finally pulled out, leaving the few men next to helpless since their guns had been carried awa’.”

Taken in all, with a little imagination thrown in for good measure, Jack could picture the stirring happening as the outlaws, having accomplished all they planned to do, pulled up stakes and with jeering shouts as well as waving their hats defiantly, left the scene of their daring foray.

“They certainly had their inning,” he observed as he finished his fairly decent surgical work and rose to his feet, “but I’ve an idea they’re due for a little surprise before long when the tables may be turned. I came up here to hunt big game and if it happens to run on two legs, why, what’s the odds? A lot depends on how the colonel of the Mounties happens to figure when he learns what’s been going on around here – how these scoundrels are snapping their fingers and saying to the devil with the Mounties, whose glory has departed. I’m wondering just how it comes the Hawk and his crowd have been able to stave off arrest this long and if the reputation of your famous Northwest Police force has indeed been eclipsed.”

“Don’t you b’lieve that for a second, Jack!” cried the aroused Perk, jealous concerning the fame of the organization of which he used to be a proud member, “chances are they’ve been after this bunch right along an’ even now may be settin’ plans to net the hull gang – how ’bout that, Uncle Jimmy?”

“There have been a number of fierce fights within the past year between Colonel Ascot’s troopers and the Hawk’s gang – indeed, two of the Mounties have lost the number of their mess and three others had to be sent to the hospital at Winnipeg, seriously wounded in the encounters. This Hawk is said to be the toughest nut ever doing business in all this great region. He seems to bear a charmed life and bullets fail to bring him down. The chances are, when you reach the post, it will be to find that some sort of expedition is off on a seemingly warm trail for whenever the Hawk plans to make one of his brilliant raids he always fixes things so that the troopers will at the same hour be many miles away, heading for some threatened post and out of communication.”

Jack seemed very well satisfied with what he had gleaned – having been dispatched these many hundreds of miles just to apprehend this bandit, it pleased him to know what a thorn in the flesh Leonard Culpepper was proving to be in the lives of the guardians of the Northwest Territory.

Perk too, was grinning as if his thoughts might be rather pleasant.

“Huh! if that skunk could be picked up an’ carried back to the States where he belongs,” he went on to say with a chuckle, “I kinder guess Colonel Ascot he’d sleep some sounder. Wall, let’s hope it’ll come to pass afore many more days slip by.”

Apparently neither Old Jimmy nor yet the ancient skin-gatherer Birdseye noticed how Perk, a new-comer, seemed to know something they had never before heard, about the Hawk having drifted up from across the border but then in all the excitement taking place within the last few hours such a slip could pass unnoticed.

XXIII

THE NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE POST

It was now high time they were once more afloat.

Jack was well content to be on the wing since apparently nothing more was to be picked up at the devastated trading post. He and Perk should be heading for the station of the Mounties, so as to inform their commander with regard to what had happened at Frazer’s, further south.

Accordingly, after telling the old factor not to worry as they meant to start the Mounties on the way to the scene of the outrage with the least possible delay, both he and Perk pressed the hand of the wounded man and passed outside, followed by the admiring Birdseye who would never cease from sounding the praises of Jack’s surgical work.

The next thing to concern the pals was in line with their expected hop-off. Would it be possible to make the jump from such a wretched field, with its many bumpy spots calculated to cause the moving craft to wobble fiercely?

Together they walked over the anticipated course, examining the nature of the ground, to toss aside, when possible, such rocks as threatened to jar them seriously. When finally they had thus surveyed the entire stretch, Jack pronounced the decision in which his comrade concurred – that although they would assume some risks, still in the course of their experiences in the past both of them had successfully climbed out of even worse traps than the one they were now up against.

So they went aboard, watched by every living creature about the post saving Old Jimmy himself. As usual Jack checked his dials and the motor with a skill that only comes from long experience added to that peculiar air-minded wizardry possessed by just a few pilots, like Lindbergh.