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

CHAPTER IX
ENGINEER PERK ON DECK

Everything else being in readiness Jack and his muscular comrade started to work the deck winch in order to get the anchor “apeak,” as Perk called it, being desirous of showing off with his limited knowledge of things nautical.

“She’s amovin’ okay, old hoss!” gasped Perk who had been doing considerable straining, anxious to display his ability as a mudhook lifter. “A few more good pulls an’ we’ll have the old gink where we want it.”

The task being completed, the sloop began to move backward, very much like those fiddler crabs Perk had watched retreating before his attack on one of the sandy Florida beaches.

“Looks like I’d better go aboard our ship and get away from here before anything happens to disable a wing,” Jack hastened to remark, sensing possible trouble which would be in the nature of a serious calamity just then.

“Go to it then, matey,” Perk told him, light-heartedly enough, “I’m ready to do my stuff as a half-cooked engineer. Don’t worry a bit about my gettin’ there with both feet if the bally motor only holds together. Don’t like its looks any too much, but then Lady Luck seems to be givin’ us a heap o’ favors, so we’re goin’ to finish after the Garrison style–heavy on the home stretch.”

Before Perk reached the last word his chum had gained his seat in the cubbyhole of the amphibian, and almost immediately called out:

“Cut that rope and let me get away, partner–hurry up before I get another and harder bump!”

Ten seconds afterward the airship was entirely free from contact with the drifting sloop. Then came the roar of the motor showing that Jack had given her the gun. Instantly there was a forward movement of the amphibian, which increased rapidly until it was rushing along with great speed presently lifting its nose toward the heavens and leaving the rolling surface of the gulf, soared aloft in repeated circles.

Perk, after seeing that his pal was well on his way, turned his attention to his own job. He had no particular trouble in coaxing the engine to start, although it did considerable “grunting” as though its joints might be rusty and in need of lubricating oil, thus telling that the late skipper had allowed his engineer to neglect his duties in a climate where the salt in the air always rusted the inside of gun barrels, machinery of all descriptions, and in many ways played havoc with exposed metal parts.

However, after the engine got well warmed up it began to work more smoothly so that Perk lost some of his first anxiety.

“Goin’ to get along okay I guess,” he assured himself and then, keeping the prow of his vessel headed due south, he found time to try and discover where Jack and his soaring crate might be.

The engine was a gas motor and well supplied with an abundance of fuel, since the winds on their recent voyage around the Florida Keys must have been favorable as a whole and with the motive power idle there had been no drain on the gas.

Perk was feeling prime at that particular moment in his checkered career. It afforded him much pride to thus be in sole charge of a captured rum-runner with a cargo of contraband aboard. Then, too, all doubts concerning his ability to serve as an engineer were already dissipated for the sloop was making fair time and carried a bone in her teeth, as the white lines of foam running out on either side attested.

Perk was softly singing to himself some marine ditty he had picked up in the course of his adventurous life afloat and ashore and which had for a title “Rolling Down to Old Mohea”–it thrilled him to the core to feel that he was luckily able to afford Jack just the assistance the other required so as to perfect his plan of campaign.

Now he believed he could glimpse the amphibian overhead–yes, the moon, poking her nose out from behind a bank of clouds, allowed him to make certain–Jack had swung back and was circling, so as to keep the sloop within range of his vision.

“Just like a guardeen angel,” mused the enraptured Perk, standing at his post and sending frequent curious as well as proud glances aloft, “as he told me he meant to be. Say, ain’t this simply great stuff we’ve struck?–never felt so joyous in all my life as when I smashed them two tear-bombs down on the deck here an’ busted up that fightin’ mob. Zowie! how quick they got a move on, every single man but the one lone dickey we found knocked out down below-stairs. Ev’rything movin’ along like silk–who cares whether school keeps or not, with us boys on the top wave o’ success.”

Then he concluded to stop premature boasting, knowing very well that as in a game of baseball nothing is settled until the last man has been put out.

So the voyage down the coast continued steadily enough, the minutes running along into hours, with faithful Perk keeping steadfastly at his new job.

From time to time he would find the plane hovering directly over his head, and was able to catch certain signals which he could understand because of a previous arrangement he and Jack had.

Although the moving sloop was not over a mile or so from the shore line, it was next to impossible for Perk to catch a fleeting glimpse of land, so as to get his bearings.

“Huh!” he told himself at one time after he had received instructions to draw a bit further toward the open gulf, as he was approaching some point of land jutting into the water, and thus making a shoal possibly covered with coon-oysters, on which he was apt to pull up hurriedly with disastrous results, “this here is like flyin’ blind at a five thousand-foot ceilin’,–Jack, he c’n see the land by usin’ the night glasses, so it’s a good thing I c’n get tips from him right along. Gee! this sure is gettin’ some monotonous, keepin’ this old motor hummin’ when it’s on the blink so bad. Must be a wheen past midnight, I’d say, an’ we ought to be clost to them Ten Thousand Islands by now.”

He had been keeping close watch on the stars and although making no claims to being a first-class woodsman, Perk could tell the time of night by the heavenly bodies setting one after another, which would account for his late confident assertion that morning could not be so very far distant.

Once only during all this time did Perk happen to see a far distant light out at sea. It interested him more or less and naturally caused him to speculate as to whether it might have any connection with the great game in which he and Jack were now engaged. Everything he had ever heard or read connected with the Mexican Gulf seemed to pass in review through his active mind–there was a halo of romance hovering about that historical sheet of salt water and while Perk was not much given to flights of fancy, he found himself picturing some of the thrilling scenes he had recently read about, after learning that the next locality in which he and Jack would play their adventurous part was along the Florida Gulf Coast.

Then he suddenly found himself listening intently, for above the pounding of the old motor, with an occasional “miss” to break the monotony, he fancied he had caught the signal Jack was to give him when the time arrived for making a turn toward the coast.

“Bully boy, Jack!” Perk cried out when he found that he had not been deceived. “I’ll be right pleased to drop this tiresome job an’ think myself some lucky to miss havin’ the tub run on a reef, or the bally motor kickin’ off an’ quittin’ cold. Yes, an’ there’s what looks like a bunch o’ cabbage palms stickin’ their tops against the sky-line. Better slow up, Perk, old scout, afore you hit some stump or get aground off shore.”

So he throttled the motor a bit and fairly crept along. He even found himself wishing he had fixed things so that the prisoner might stand by with a sounding pole in the bow of the sloop to sing out the depth and give warning of sudden shallows but it was too late now to attempt such a thing, even if he had dared take the chance of the fellow jumping overboard and either drowning or getting ashore to give warning as to the menace hovering above the operations of the far-flung smuggler combine.

But fortune was still kind and presently Perk found himself softly gliding past the outermost mangrove islands. Here, he remembered, it was his duty to come about and lay to until Jack could drop down and taxi over to where the sloop lay so as to consider their further plans in the coming dawn.

CHAPTER X
TAMPA BOUND

“Congrats, Perk,” said Jack, as soon as he came close enough, “you did the thing up in first-class shape. If all other jobs went back on you I reckon you could get your papers along the engineering line. A bit tired in the bargain I take it, partner?”

“Lay off on that stuff, matey,” replied the other, scornfully, “me, I never get what you’d call tired, but jest the same I’m right glad it’s all over an’ the rotten crate didn’t get sunk out there–hate to lose all this bottled juice we come by in such a queer way. Climb aboard, Jack, an’ let’s have a little talk-fest while we rest up.”

“Later on I’d be glad to do that,” he was told. “We’d be wise to push further in among these islands before morning comes along if any sponger or fisherman happened to glimpse this pair of odd sea and air craft he’d spread the story far and wide and get us in Dutch. I’ll fasten a tow line on to the ship here, if you’ll toss me a coil and taxi away back where there wouldn’t be one chance in a thousand of our being seen.”

“I get you, buddy,” Perk hastened to say, as he made ready to toss the bight of stout rope to his waiting chum, “and it’s all to the good with me. Dandy luck we’ve been havin’ for a fact, on’y hope it keeps on that way to the finish line. Here you are, Boss!”

After Jack had made the small hawser fast he started the taxi stunt and presently they were moving past the outlying clumps of mangroves with never a bit of trouble. Perk made himself comfortable by throwing his really fatigued form flat on the deck and stretching his muscles to the limit.

This continued for some little time until finally Jack shut off his power and came alongside, ready to climb aboard the sloop.

“We’ll tie her up to this nearby clump of mangroves, where you’ll notice there’s a bunch of tall palmetto trees growing, showing there must be ground, such as few of these islands can boast. I’m picking this place especially because those cabbage palms will keep the mast of the sloop from sticking up and betraying its location to any flyer passing over.”

“I’d call that a mighty fine idea, partner,” declared Perk enthusiastically. “Never would athought o’ anything like that myself–my old bean don’t work along them lines I guess. An’ when I’ve done that camouflage act again nobody ain’t agoin’ to spy out a single thing down this-aways. Great work, if I do say it myself, Jack old boy.”

After he had managed to fasten the bow of the sloop to one of the palmetto trees, Jack crawled aboard. He must have also felt more or less tired, after being caged in the small confines of the cockpit so long, for he followed Perk’s example and dropped down on the deck to stretch out while they exchanged opinions.

“None too soon for our safety,” was the first remark Jack made, “see, there in the east the sky has begun to take on a faint rosy tint which means the sun must be making ready to rise.”

“Things are workin’ just lovely for us, I’d mention, old hoss,” suggested Perk, with one of his good-humored chuckles that told how well pleased he must be on account of the many “breaks” that persisted in coming their way. “Let the mornin’ come along when it pleases, it don’t matter a red cent to us back here in this gloomy solitude.”

They started to exchange opinions concerning the remarkable happenings of the night just passed and in this way many things that had not been very clear to Perk were made plain. On his part he was able to offer several suggestions that added to the stock of knowledge Jack already possessed so that it was a mutual affair after all.

“I rather reckon somebody’s going to get a surprise packet when I finish explaining just how this contraband sloop and cargo fell into our hands,” Jack was saying at one time, apparently vastly amused himself. “Fact is, I wouldn’t blame the Commissioner for believing I was drawing the long bow when he hears about those tear-bombs you tossed out that scattered the crowd like I’ve heard you tell a shell used to do when it dropped into a dugout over in the Argonne.”

As they lay there taking things easy, the heavens in the east assumed a most wonderful range of various delicate tints that made even Perk gasp with admiration. Birds started singing, mocking birds and cardinals among others, crows could be heard cawing close by as though there might be a hidden bird roost not far distant. This was corroborated later on when streams of white egrets flew past, scattering to find their morning meal.

So, too, circling buzzards could be seen far above as they searched for signs of a feast in the shape of a dead fish cast ashore on some sandbar or mudbank–a heavy plunge not far away told of a monster alligator that had been lying asleep on some log, taking a dive as he noticed the presence of two-legged human enemies whom he had reason to suspect of designs on his life.

“How about a little grub for a change, partner?” demanded Perk, after they had been talking for quite some time.

“I reckon it wouldn’t come amiss,” admitted Jack; “but if you’ve got any idea of starting a fire and making coffee, better throw that overboard right away, for in the first place you’d find it a hard job to run across any solid ground among all these mangrove islands and then besides it might not be the wisest thing going to send up a column of smoke to attract attention to this quarter. Get that do you, Perk?”

“Y–es,” admitted the other, with a disconsolate shrug of his shoulders as if he had no liking for the scheme being thus tabooed, “s’pose it’s jest like you put it, Jack, though I own up I was hopin’ we might make a pot o’ coffee. Just the same we got plenty o’ fresh water along, even if it is sorter warm an’ coffee’d taste just prime, but I c’n stand anything when necessity drives. So let’s get our teeth in some eats without botherin’ further, ’cause I’m half starved an’ them sandwiches’d go fine.”

Accordingly they started operations, Perk clambering aboard the amphibian to fish out the package of “eats”, he knowing best where it had been secreted on the previous evening after they had supper near this same spot.

As they munched their dry food they continued to talk, finding plenty of subjects bearing on their work that would be the better for further study.

“There’s only one way we can arrange things so as to keep our clutch on the spoils we’ve rustled so far and do our duty according to orders.”

“I kinder guess I c’n smell a rat already, Jack,” chuckled Perk as he wrapped up the remnant of the food supply which he had taken from their main stock–“I’m the goat in the deal–you figger on me stayin’ here in this ’gator hole to stand by the ship an’ knock the block off’n anybody what tries to get away with our property–how’s that for a straight hit square in the bullseye?”

“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.