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

“Go up head, Perkiser–you got the answer first clip, for that’s just what has to be put through. I’ll start off presently and make a bee line for Tampa where they told me our immediate boss, Colonel Tranter, is stopping with his sick wife. I’ll make my report direct to him and take further orders. He’ll like enough detail a couple of revenue men on duty along the East Coast to come back with me to where you’re lying here so they can take the sloop and her wet cargo to Tampa to be given over to the proper officers who will see that no clever smuggler has half a chance to run away with her.”

“I c’n easy enough see how you’ve thunk ev’ry thing out, an’ on’y need a little time to put the scheme through with a rush. Tell me, Jack, will you be apt to get any further lines on the way things stand down here?–there was some talk, I ’member, about them bein’ able to give us a few pointers concernin’ them higher-ups the Government is so anxious to cage so as to break this whole gang up for keeps.”

“Certainly, I intend to ask about that very thing,” came Jack’s ready reply, “and I’m also in great hopes they’ll be able to add some news worth while, that, in conjunction with what we already know, or suspect, will put us sleuth hounds on the hot trail of the big millionaire they feel certain has been the main backing of the whole ugly bunch while keeping in the background himself all the while. They’re depending on you and me, Perk, to produce the evidence that’s going to convict him of conspiracy against the Government, which may send him to Atlanta for a dozen years or more.”

“Know how long you’ll be away, Jack?” demanded the other casually as if it was really a matter of but little moment to him what the answer might be, since he could be depended on to hold to their booty with the tenacity of a leech.

“That all depends on circumstances–I may be back by noon, and again not till late in the afternoon or evening. I expect to fetch a couple of sandbaggers along who will take over the sloop and stuff that’s aboard. Having washed our hands clean of those encumbrances we’ll be in fit shape to delve deeper into the game and see what we get out of the grab-bag. Anyway, don’t expect me until you see me heading this way and keep a sharp lookout, for from all accounts this crowd we’re up against is said to be a tricky combination, always stepping on their toes and doing big things.”

“Yeah, we’ve heard lots o’ that kind o’ stuff but just the same the lads makin’ up the crew o’ this sloop didn’t keep their eyes open, or they’d never been taken unawares by them hijackers. Leave it to Gabe Perkiser to hold fast to what he’s got; they’d have to be a regiment, armed with machine-guns, bombs, an’ even gas, to knock me off’n my perch an’ I don’t mean that for boastin’ either, Jack.”

Later on Jack decided it would be just as well for him to jump off and be on his way to Tampa. Contrary winds or something else might delay his arrival, and an early start was bound to be of much help toward bringing a quick return.

He first used the binoculars in order to scan the heavens as well as they could be covered when he was so surrounded by those strange mangrove islands and discovering no sign of any cruising, spying crate, he bade Perk goodbye and taxied in the direction of the open gulf, which he knew lay due west.

Perk answered his signal ere the amphibian turned a bend in the tortuous channel and saw Jack vanish from view; nor could he long detect any sound to indicate the presence of an airship since cautious Jack had again made use of that wonderful “silencer” which they had found so useful while conducting their search during the preceding night. Then the appointed guardian of the captured contraband sloop turned his attention to matters which had to do with his making the tied-up craft as thoroughly invisible from the upper air as he knew how.

CHAPTER XI

PERK HOLDS THE FORT

First of all Perk set about getting the one boat that had been left aboard the smuggler sloop into the water as he would need it for conveying his green material with which he intended to cover the exposed deck.

There was little trouble about accomplishing that and when he dropped into the rowboat with a pair of excellent oars in his possession, he felt considerably encouraged.

So he started to poke around, hoping to run across some island that was more than a mere patch of the omnipresent mangrove tangle. This he succeeded in doing without much loss of time and his pleasure redoubled at finding a mass of dwarf saw palmetto that would yield him a plentiful supply of fronds with their queer serrated edges such as would stab cruelly unless one took care to handle them properly.

Here, too, were some young palmetto trees with the new leaves within easy reach. Working with a vim Perk speedily loaded his small boat with green stuff, after which he returned to the sloop and proceeded to scatter his material to the best advantage all over any exposed part of the contraband vessel.

It necessitated a second trip before he felt satisfied for whatever his shortcomings might be in other respects, Perk always tried to fulfill his whole duty whenever he tackled a job.

By the time he had finished he was “reeking wet” as he called it, with “honest-to-goodness sweat,” not perspiration, but it was worth all it cost to be able to feel that the sharpest vision on the part of a sky pilot passing over the spot, and even equipped with powerful binoculars, would not be able to detect the presence of the sequestered runaway sloop.

“Good enough,” he told himself, as he lay down to rest a bit and scan the blue heavens so as to learn whether there was any sign of a cloud chaser from horizon to horizon where the clumps of mangroves allowed him a clear vision.

Several times he gave a little start, and proceeded to strain his eyes so as to make doubly sure, but in every instance the moving dot he had noted far away to the north or nor’east proved to be a circling buzzard, keeping up his eternal weaving to and fro in search of a belated breakfast after his own peculiar kind.

So the time passed, and Perk even dozed, lying there amidst his “Palm Sunday greens,” as he fancifully called the camouflage stuff, for the climbing sun kept getting warmer, and induced somnolence, especially after such an eventful night as the one he and Jack had just passed.

Later in the morning he sat up, took another cautious look around at the clear sky, and then proceeded to enjoy a good, old-fashioned smoke, for Perk was a lover of his under-slung pipe a la Dawes.

Noon found him thus, picturing his chum arriving at Tampa and interviewing the Government official who could give him what assistance he required so as to turn over the captured sloop and the contraband it carried, both above and below decks.

At one time Perk out of curiosity–as well as a desire to be in a condition to state the amount of spoils he and Jack had “corraled” in their swoop upon the fighting smugglers and hijackers–took a pad of paper and a pencil and proceeded to go over the entire vessel, securing a rough invoice of the numerous piled-up cases bearing that foreign, burnt brand.

Then a temptation gripped him, and, as he took another “eyeful” sweep of the azure arch overhead, to again find the coast clear, he tortured himself with the vision of a pot of boiling coffee to go with his otherwise dry midday snack of lunch.

“Huh! no use talkin’, I jest can’t stand it any longer–got to have my coffee if I want to keep happy as a clam at high tide. Nothin’ to prevent me paddlin’ across once more to where I got these here greens. I noticed heaps an’ heaps o’ dry wood, broken branches, stems o’ palmetto leaves an’ such dandy trash for a quick fire. Might as well tote the machine-gun along, so’s to be ready for anything that comes–it could be a frisky twelve-foot ’gator wantin’ to climb me or mebbe one o’ them sly painters I been told they got down in this queer old country. Anyway, here you go, Perk, coffee pot an’ all.”

He was soon busily engaged in building his little fire, hoping no hostile eyes might detect the trailing smoke ascending above the tops of that palmetto clump. Then came the pleasing task of watching his coffee pot as it stood on the tilting firewood, a job that required constant vigilance if he hoped to save its precious contents from spilling.

Presently the odor began to fill him with delight and later on he found himself sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, and swallowing gulp after gulp of the amber fluid he loved so well.

Taken altogether it proved to be as satisfactory a little lunch as Perk had partaken of in some time. After finishing the entire contents of his coffee pot, he concluded it would be just as well for him to clean up, destroying all signs of the fire, and return to the sloop.

He had good reason to shake hands with himself because of this exhibition of caution, for later on, as the afternoon began to lengthen, with the sun starting down toward the western horizon, he suddenly began to catch faint sounds such as sent a sudden thrill through his whole nervous system.

“Dang it if I ain’t hearin’ somethin’ right like human voices,” he told himself, cocking up his head the better to listen, and applying a cupped hand to his right ear. “Yep, that’s a fact, an’ over in that quarter to boot,” nodding toward the northeast where his instinct told him the mainland must lie, even if some miles distant.

So, too, he decided later that the suspicious sounds kept growing louder, from which fact he judged the speakers were slowly but surely approaching his hiding place.

“All right, let ’em come along,” Perk muttered grimly as he clutched that deadly little hand machine-gun with which he could pour a rain of missiles in a comparatively speedy passage of time. “They can’t ditch me, I kinder guess, an’ nobody ain’t agoin’ to grab this crate if I have to shoot up the hull mob o’ galoots.”

Nevertheless, since there was always a fair chance that the secreted sloop might escape discovery, Perk finally concluded to dispose of his own person, at the same time meaning to keep in readiness to give the intruders a hot reception, did the occasion warrant such a course.

Then he could hear what he knew to be the splash of oars, and squeaking sounds of the row-locks. But he had already discounted this fact, knowing as he did the impossibility of anyone ever reaching the fringe of that vast wilderness of mangrove islands in which many a fisherman had been lost, never to find his way out of the myriad of zigzag channels without the possession of some manner of boat.

On they came until finally Perk realized they were just around the corner, for he could pick up every word that was uttered as well as see specks of foam from the working oars as it carried past, the tide being on the ebb just then.

“Told yuh it was a steamer runnin’ past thet sent up yer smoke trail, Zeb,” a harsh jeering voice was saying, accompanying the words with a string of oaths as though he felt more or less “mad” because of the exertion necessitated in working at the oars so long and on a bootless errand at that.

“Wall,” came another drawling voice in which keen disappointment could be detected. “I judged it shore lay in this direction, but like yuh says, it must’a ben a steamer out yonder on the gulf–mebbe thet rev’nue boat they done tole us to watch out fur er else some o’ them spongers frum up Tarpon Springs way. Anyhow, I got all I wants o’ exercise so I move weuns call hit a day an’ get back to the shanty.”

“Yas, thet’s the best thing we kin do,” agreed the other, with a snarl in his heavy voice, “we got heaps o’ work ahead tonight, if so be thet Fritz airpilot does drop over with his batch o’ yeller boys like weuns been told he’d do. I’d like tuh see the whole caboodle o’ Chinks dropped inter the middle o’ the gulf, I hate ’em so, but thar’s good money in the game, we happens tuh know, Zeb, which I jest caint hold back on nowhow. Les go!”

Greatly to the relief of the listening Perk he heard the sound of splashing gradually recede until finally it died away completely. This gave him a feeling bordering on relief, for while Perk was an old hand at the fighting game and stood ready to give a good account of his ability to defend their prize; at the same time he had no violent desire to open up on the two occupants of the unseen rowboat nor yet was the idea of the sloop being discovered at all to his taste.

“Lucky lads you might count yourselves if on’y you knew how I was layin’ right here in ambush, ready to sink that boat an’ make the biggest sort o’ a splash. An’ I’m guessin’ I got off right smart ’bout that cookin’ fire racket, come to think of it–might a’spilled the beans all right, and made all sort o’ trouble for our crowd.”

Talking in this fashion to himself, Perk again set about taking things comfortably nor did he ever hear of that pair again. Still, he treasured up in his mind what he had heard the man with the harsh voice say in connection with the smuggling of unwelcome Chinese immigrants who were ready to pay so well for an opportunity to beat the Government regulations in their eagerness to join the foreign colony in Mott Street, New York City, where the vast majority of them were bound. It would naturally interest Jack when he heard the news, although it could hardly be considered startling, since they already knew full well this sort of thing was being carried on by daring airplane pilots in the service of the far-flung smuggling combine.

By now it was well past the middle of the afternoon. Light fleecy, white clouds had been drifting up from the direction of the Dry Tortugas and Key West but this far they did not look at all portentous, as though any kind of a storm might be brewing. Perk hoped that would not turn out to be the case since they had work planned for a part of the coming night, which would be greatly hampered by unsettled weather.

Then, on making one of his habitual observations of the upper air, he discovered a moving speck that he soon decided must be a plane heading in his direction. At first Perk fancied it must be Jack on his way back, but later on he realized the air craft bore a great resemblance to the Curtiss-Robin boat which they had figured belonged to the Hun pilot, Oscar Gleeb.

CHAPTER XII

ODDENEMIES FACE TO FACE

“Je-ru-salem crickets!” Perk told himself as he stared, “I do b’lieve that’s the same Curtiss-Robin crate we saw before, an’ making direct for this here section o’ the map in the bargain! Now I wonder what he wants to barge in for when things seem to be doin’ their prettiest for us fellers? Guess I’d better get ready for boarders. If that smart guy took a notion to swoop down for a close-up o’ these mangrove islands, he’d be apt to pick me up, ’specially if he happens to own a pair o’ glasses, which stands to reason he sure does. Huh! what a bother. Better be slow ’bout foolin’ with a buzz-saw, that’s all I c’n say to him.”

No sooner said than done, which was Perk’s usual way of playing the game. He changed his position for one that offered less chance for discovery and while about it Perk started to build up something in the shape of a formidable fortification.

“What luck to have all these logs lyin’ around when I need them,” he went on to tell himself with many a dry chuckle. “Guess now they had ’em aboard to pull the wool over the eyes o’ any customs men that happened to board the sloop lookin’ for contraband stuff–meant to claim they was fetchin’ mahogany logs to a States market. Gee whiz! they sure are a tough proposition to move around but here’s the cutest little fort any playboy could wish for. Let him come along–who cares a red cent what he does, so long’s I got this here machine-gun with plenty o’ cartridges in the belts to riddle things with. Ring up the curtain, an’ let the play start. Makes me think I’m back in the old line again along the Argonne, an’ say, jest ’magine how it all works out with one o’ them same Hun pilots swooping down on me! It sure is to laugh, boys.”

By this time the oncoming plane was drawing perilously near and Perk wisely settled himself so that he could see all that occurred.

He possessed a pair of marvelously keen eyes and while it would have simplified matters considerably had he been handling those wonderful binoculars, just the same he could get on without them.