Eagles of the Sky: or, With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes

Still, at any moment now the man with the crooked mind was apt to notice how his purpose had been baffled. Then he would make a second and possibly more successful attempt to destroy all incriminating evidence as to his connection with the smuggling of rum, aliens and precious stones into the country, contrary to the laws of the land.

What could he do should this crisis come upon him, Jack was asking himself as he crouched there and counted the minutes passing by? There was only one means for counteracting such a move on the part of the enemy and Jack had already convinced himself the occasion was fully ripe for it to be tried out.

On a previous occasion the same thing had handily proved its efficacy, so why not again? Desperate cases require desperate remedies, he kept telling himself as he groped in his pocket and extracted some small object therefrom, holding it tightly clinched while he again moved the orange leaves across the lower part of the window without extracting a shot from the guardian of the shack.

Then he nerved himself to take a look and received a shock for he was just in time to see Kearns down on his knees striking a match which he hastened to apply to the crumpled papers.

Seeing there was not a second to waste, Jack proceeded to hurl the tear-bomb he had been holding in his fist straight through the glass, so as to strike against the stone chimney and be shattered, releasing its powerful contents that would almost instantly fill the room and blind the man whose fingers held the burning match.

CHAPTER XXX

FETCHING IN THEIR MAN

There was now no further need for caution.

Jack saw the man inside stagger to his feet, drop his gun and throw both hands up to his face–he was starting to rub his eyes as though they had already commenced to feel the terrible effect of the pungent acid that would start the tears flowing in streams and render him temporarily blind before he could exercise his brain sufficiently to unbar the door and rush outside.

But already that tiny blaze on the open hearth was increasing, and would presently gain such headway as to threaten the utter destruction of the precious papers that they had come so far and braved all sorts of dangers to get. Something must be done instantly in order to prevent this threatening catastrophe.

So Jack, always quick to act, with one smashing blow sent the entire window sash flying into the room. He did not even stop to learn whether he had cut himself, but gave an upward spring, gained a precarious knee-hold on the window-sill and allowed himself to fall inside the room with its unseen gas contents which would of necessity act upon his eyes even as it already had done in the case of his intended prey.

Across to the fireplace went Jack–he could never tell just how he made that trip of a dozen feet with his sight already growing dim and his senses commencing to reel, but he knew that he started to stamp out every atom of those greedy flames, working like one possessed.

Then he clutched the reeling man by the arm and dragged him across to the window and bundled him out with as little ceremony as if he had been a sack of oats.

Blinded himself by this time and hardly knowing what he was doing, Jack managed to climb through the opening and drop down on top of the writhing figure on the ground.

Here Perk found them both as he came full tilt around the corner, realizing something not down on the bills as far as his knowledge went, must have taken place.

“Jack–what’s happened–are you bad hurt, buddy?” Perk demanded excitedly as he bent down over his chum.

“All right–only had to use the tear-gas again–be better right off–don’t let Kearns get away on your life!”

“Hot ziggetty! you jest bet I won’t old hoss!” whooped the delighted Perk as he squatted alongside the still writhing Oswald, his automatic held in readiness only waiting for Jack to recover enough to take things in charge.

“Look in the room–see if the papers are safe–in the fireplace–he started to burn the whole batch and beat us to the scratch–had to give him the whole works to save ’em!”

Thus enlightened, Perk stood up and took a look then burst out in a joyous shout that would have done credit to any cow-puncher on earth.

“It’s all dandy, Jack–papers safe an’ we got our man ditto. Mebbe now I’ll soon get a chance to treat my tummy to some decent grub, ’cause my ribs’re stickin’ to my backbone, I’m that empty.”

Before long Jack’s eyes ceased to sting and his vision once more became almost normal. By then, too, Kearns had come to his senses, with Perk keeping him subdued by means of prodding a weapon in his ribs.

Jack hunted around and found some rope with which they temporarily bound the arms and ankles of their prisoner. That accomplished he made haste to secure all the papers as well as the ledger which Kearns had been so eager to destroy when realizing that at last his scorn for the minions of the law had reaped its inevitable result–the pitcher gone once too often to the well–and that his game was up.

“What next, Boss?” Perk was asking, “mean to kidnap both o’ these guys Jack?”

“It’ll make our chances better with one showing a yellow streak and turning on his employer for State’s evidence,” was Jack’s quick rejoinder, the idea being quite to Perk’s liking as he speedily made manifest.

“Jumpin’ jimcracks! we c’n tote the pair right nifty an’ I’m meanin’ to see that other guy gets all that’s comin’ to him, after that nasty crack on the coco he gimme with them irons. Say Jack, take a look at my head an’ see if it’s sound still–gee whiz! but it felt like the sky’d gone an’ dropped down on me.”

Jack speedily reassured him that although there was a lovely lump on the top of his head, it was nothing very serious. It was understood that there was not a minute to waste if they were wise. The Lockheed-Vega might blow in any time and give them trouble.

“We’ll get both the prisoners together and Perk, you stand guard over them while I taxi our boat around here so as to save ourselves the job of moving them along the trail. Is it all right with you, buddy?”

“Sure is,” came the ready reply. “I’ll start a little chin with our honorable guest here an’ see how he likes the idee o’ sittin’ up next Mr. Philip Ridgeway o’ the Treasury Department an’ findin’ out that this time he’s in the soup for keeps.”

Already the prisoner had recovered his customary nerve for on hearing what Perk was saying he broke out in a laugh.

“Looks a bit serious for me, I own up, boys,” he said. “I give you credit for being ace high above all your class, for you’ve played a clever game and beat me by a mile. So that was tear-gas you tossed into the room, was it?–thought I recognized the smell and I want to tell you, once that hits a chap’s eyes and he doesn’t care if a church steeple topples down on him, he’s that paralyzed.”

Jack lost no time in starting back to where the ship was hidden and having negotiated the distance along the perilous trail without running afoul of anything, he managed to toss the palmetto leaves overboard since there was no further necessity for camouflage. After coaxing his charge out of the narrow slip, and once on the open lake, he taxied down to the cove close to the coquina rock shack.

They managed to lug their prisoners aboard and stowed them away as well as circumstances permitted. Then Jack gave her the gun and they were off.

Once they found themselves on their way at a three thousand-foot ceiling and headed almost due northwest with Tampa as their goal, Perk slapped his pal on the back and gave vent to his high spirits.

“Oh how joyful it does seem, partner,” he was saying, “to be startin’ on the home stretch with our game played to a finish, the ducks bagged an’ nigh ready for the spit. Somethin’ to crow about this time, I guess boy. Mebbe the Big Boss up at Washington ain’t goin’ to be tickled pink when he gets the news an’ knows we’ve grabbed Oswald by the heels with evidence aplenty to send him to Atlanta for a term o’ years. This night flight promises to be the happiest ever for the pair o’ us. I know I’m actin’ like a loon, partner, but I jest can’t help it–such bully occasions are too few an’ far between in our line. An’ now I wonder where we’ll be sent for the next big job we tackle?”

“We’ll know all that soon enough Perk,” he was told by his comrade. “We deserve a little rest after this business is cleaned up, then we’ll be ready to start out fresh and dandy, no matter if it takes us to the Wild West this time.”

“Huh! why not?” grunted Perk with the air of one who was utterly indifferent as to whether he was given a mission that would take him to the other side of the world, as long as he had at his side the pal whom he loved so well and the backing of the Government to stand for expenses.

“We’ve worked the Mexican border to the limit, have jest cleaned up the worst smugglin’ bunch along the Florida coast an’ when the call comes for us to take a fling over the Colorado canyon, or above the snow capped mountain ranges, it’ll find us ready an’ all to the good!”

Although at the time Perk had not the slightest idea that he was posing as a prophet, it will be seen that such was the case as the title of the next story in this series will indicate, it being “Wings Over the Rockies; or Jack Ralston’s New Cloud-Chaser.”

THE END

notes

1

See “The Sky Detectives; or How Jack Ralston Got His Man.”