Wings Over the Rockies; Or, Jack Ralston's New Cloud Chaser

“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.”

“Why do you keep on turning your head a little while you’re eating I’d like to know, Perk – got to seeing things again, like you did once before, I remember?” continued Jack.

“Huh! I’m jest takin’ a peep in that mirror over there partner,” replied Perk in a low tone that had a slight air of mystery about it, Jack imagined.

“Pretty girl this time struck you where your heart is soft, eh, buddy?” Jack inquired with a chuckle.

“Not this time old hoss – take a squint yourself – see them two fellers sittin’ at the corner table, where they c’n watch us? – well, seems like they take a heap o’ pleasure keepin’ tabs on us while we sit here and gobble. I’m wonderin’ who and what they are also why they bother to keep an eye on our actions right along.”

“Yes, I can see them out of the tail of my eye,” Jack told him. “Don’t you remember the pair in the big touring car that kept ducking after us? – I reckon these boys are that same couple. Did you notice them sitting there when we came in?”

“Nothin’ doin’ that way, Boss,” Perk told him with a positive ring to his voice. “I chanced to turn my head a few minutes after we got settled down, an’ they were walkin’ over to that corner like they’d sized up the table as if it suited their plans. Ever since, they’ve kept talkin’ in low tones, an’ watchin’ us like I’ve seen a fox do, hidin’ in the brush an’ waitin’ for a fat young partridge to come close enough for him to make a spring and grab his dinner.”

Jack refused to become flustered, even if Perk showed signs of being annoyed.

“Oh!” he went on to remark casually, “chances are they may be some of those pests of newspaper boys, scenting a scoop of a story for their sensation loving sheets – competition is so keen these days they lie awake nights I’m told, and accept all sorts of chances of being kicked out if only they can get the right sort of stuff to build up into a thriller.”

“Mebbe so, mebbe so,” grumbled the indignant Perk, “but anyhow I don’t like it a bit. That dark-faced guy strikes me as a pretty tough sort o’ scrapper, one I’d hate to smack up against in a dark alley an’ the other ain’t much shakes as a good-looker either. Jack, do you think they know who we are and got some sort o’ grudge against us on ’count o’ the trade we foller, eh, what?”

“Oh! it might be so,” replied the other, “anything is possible and while we’ve been lucky enough to hide our light under a bushel all the time we’ve hung around the Cheyenne airport, we couldn’t expect to keep that game up indefinitely, you understand. After all, we hope to be pulling our freight and slipping out of this burg before long. So we’ll just keep our eyes open for stormy weather and be on our guard.”

“Hot ziggetty dog! I sure do hope now they ain’t meanin’ to bust in on our fine ship an’ play hob with her – wouldn’t that jar you though, partner?” and Perk could be seen to grind those big white teeth of his as if gripped by a spasm of rage almost beyond his control. Like the Arab whose love for his horse is said to exceed any affection for his wife, most sky pilots feel an overpowering regard for their ship in which they risk their lives every time they jump off and Perk was peculiarly built that way.

“That would be a calamity for a fact,” admitted Jack, giving the two men under suspicion another little survey, “but we’ve got a good guard keeping tabs over the boat and he’s empowered to shoot if some one tries any funny business out at the hangar, so I reckon there’s nothing to worry over in that direction.”

Perk continued to grumble, half beneath his breath, showing how he felt under the skin about the matter. Jack on his part skillfully directed the low conversation into other and more cheerful channels so that presently, after the two strangers had passed out of the restaurant, Perk seemed to put them aside as “false alarms” and entered into the discussion of the merits of their beloved cloud-chaser with a modicum of his usual good nature which was just what his chum wished to have happen, so as to clear the atmosphere, which, in Perk’s case was getting considerably muddy.

III

THE HOLD-UP

Jack had certainly shown considerable cunning in starting to talk about some of the clever and novel devices with which their new ship was equipped in order to turn the attention of his chum into more pleasant channels for Perk soon became most eloquent in speaking of those wonderful discoveries.

“It sure is a great stunt, us bein’ able to quit the ground in ten shakes o’ a lamb’s tail,” he was speedily remarking, “’stead of havin’ to take such a long an’ often bumpy run. The way that boat acts under your pilotin’ makes me think o’ how a clumsy buzzard when scared, gives a hop up into the air for a few feet, starts them big wings o’ his’n workin’ and goes hoppetty-skip-petty off on an upward slant. Seems like the next thing we know we’ll have some sorter contraption that’ll jest give us a toss, like you’d fling a pigeon up, for a gunner to smack after it’d started to fly out o’ bounds.”

“I understand,” Jack told him, smoothly enough, “they’ve got something mighty near as wonderful as that, only it lacks just a little finishing touch to make it sure pop. Five years from now the boys who’ve come through with their lives will be looking back to our day as being still in the woods, and us pilots rough neck amateurs – such staggering things will be the regular line by then.”

“Jest see how the’ve changed a heap o’ the instruments we used to swear by in them days o’ the big war over in France, eh Jack? You don’t see so much difference, but us boys who were in that scrap sometimes c’n hardly believe it’s the same aviation world we’re livin’ in. From compass to pontoons, a dozen or two things have been vastly improved. Look at the new ship; we got aluminum pontoons to let us light on the water of a river, lake or the sea itself and with the wheels set in the shoes so as to make a landin’ on dry land whenever we feel like it.”

“Pretty slick trick that, I own up, buddy,” admitted Jack, “and best of all they seem to work like magic in the bargain. And of course we still go under the same old name of amphibian, for we can drop down anywhere with only a fair-sized opening.”

“Too bad they didn’t give the fine boat a name – havin’ only a number gives it a sorter orphan look, strikes me,” continued Perk, thus voicing an old grievance that thus far he had kept to himself.

“I knew that bone was bothering you some, partner,” Jack told him, “and now you’ve mentioned it we might as well have it out. Names are all very fine for ordinary airships because there’s every reason for giving them publicity, which helps business along; but in our case that’s exactly what we want to avoid like a sick tooth. Get that now, brother, do you?”

“Huh! I flop, partner – queer how I didn’t think o’ that before you mentioned it jest now. Some day mebbe I’ll be workin’ in a line that don’t have to keep things shady all the time – gettin’ my fill o’ sneakin’ an’ snoopin’ so’s to pull in results.”

“Here’s wishing you luck, boy,” Jack was saying with a vein of seriousness in his voice, “but see here what’s bearing down on us like a ship under full sail? – he must have been out of sight behind that partition all the time we’ve sat here – got a wide grin on his sunburned face, which looks kind of familiar to me. Know him, Perk?”

“Zowie! I’d jest say I do partner, don’t you see, it’s my old friend Cyclone Davis, the cowboy we’ve seen more’n once doin’ his stunts on the screen. Hey there, Cyclone, where’d you pop up from, old pard?”

Perk in evident excitement had jumped up from his chair and with outstretched hand met the oncoming grinning range rider with tumultuous joy, slapping him on the back, wringing his hand furiously and giving a most energetic display of delight at the unexpected meeting.

“Sit down here an’ have a little chin, Cyclone – meet my side partner, Jack Ralston. Got to walk back to our room with us so’s to tell how you happened to break into the movies an’ make such a big hit. Glory! didn’t it bring back old times when I saw you prancin’ around, knocking some big guy on his back like you used to do when in the prize ring as a comin’ welterweight champion. Now, start doin’ your stuff, old pard.”

Innumerable questions from the excited Perk brought out more or less interesting information for Cyclone proved to be quite a good talker. They managed to keep their voices lowered, although it could be plainly seen Jud Davis was as a rule built along the jolly and noisy type of optimistic chap, such as make hosts of friends wherever they roam; but he seemed to sense the fact that the two in whose company he now found himself wished to keep strangers from overhearing the subject of their confab and thus toned down his effusiveness accordingly.

That was a subject Jack kept constantly in mind – the avoidance of anything calculated to put the spot-light of public attention on his doings – he would have been broken hearted if some morning, after having played a big game to a successful conclusion, with his man safely lodged behind the bars, to see on the front page of the daily papers a picture of himself, no matter how poorly executed and thus holding a member of the Government Secret Service up for every lawbreaker in the wide land to stamp on his mind as something to be never forgotten and thus greatly lessen his capacity for efficient work.

“We’re jest about through here, old hoss,” Perk finally told the other “an’ you jest got to fall in so’s to sit with us a while in our room so we c’n tell you what we’re a’doin’ as boon pals. I know right well it’ll never go any further, ’cause you happen to be one o’ them fellers what c’n button their lips tight as a clam, with never a single leak.”

“That’s all right, Perk,” came the other’s reassuring answer, “I’ve got a few hours more to spend in Cheyenne and then I’m heading direct for the old motion picture studios at Hollywood to do a few easy stunts in a new picture they’re going to build up – I’m a cow puncher again, you understand, Perk, though I own up now and then my old fighting profession comes in pretty well when there’s some scrapping taking place between the cowboy mob and the cattle rustlers or Mex outlaws of the border.”

Perk listened to everything the other said with an enraptured expression upon his face, he doubtless was able to mentally picture some of those exciting episodes described by Cyclone and felt an itch to be in similar hand-to-hand battles where real blows were exchanged in order to make the scene realistic when depicted on the silver screen.

Jack could hear him giving many a full-sized sigh when Cyclone was running off some of his many adventures with a vein of real humor back of his provocative words and from this could readily believe his chum was having the time of his life.

After a while they all arose, and paying their reckoning at the desk, the proprietor eyed the trio as though he rather suspected they must be Tom Mix and some of his movie friends off on a holiday jaunt – possibly there must have been a certain jaunty air about Cyclone’s manner that stamped him as belonging to those who moved out on location and cut all manner of amazing capers before the camera.

It proved to be pretty dark on the street with few persons abroad, although the hour was not late. The neighborhood happened to be a bit lonely, Jack noticed as they walked along three abreast, Cyclone continuing a recital of some comical as well as near tragic happening through which he had lately passed.

They would not have very far to go to reach their destination which had been one of the reasons for Jack selecting the Emporium as their dining place its convenience appealing to him more than anything else.

At a certain point where the gloom was somewhat more dense than in other localities, Jack noticed a motor standing close to the curb and with one of its rear doors standing open. The engine was running, for its steady throb could be plainly heard. But then such a thing is no uncommon occurrence when some busy folks have trouble in starting the engine and prefer to leave it running while they dash into the house for a minute or so.

Just as they came opposite, he noted that it was a large touring car but the significance of this was borne in upon Jack’s mind with a rush when two dark figures suddenly sprang out from behind the waiting motor, and with outstretched hands confronted himself and companions while a deep bass voice snapped out the words:

“Put ’em up, and be snappy about it too, boys!”

IV