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

CHAPTER XV
WITH THE COMING OF THE MOON

“Wall,” Perk was remarking as the sloop passed beyond range of their vision amidst the gathering shades of night, already drawing her sable curtains close, “I hopes they get through without runnin’ smack against a bunch o’ the racketeers.”

“With fair luck they ought to manage to slip along,” Jack went on to observe, confidently. “You heard me warn them to keep a watchful eye out for smugglers and hijackers by land and sea and air? Anyway we’ve finished our part of the job and this paper proves that our find was all I cracked it up to be when I talked with Mr. Ridgeway.”

“Course, you knocked up against the gent then, eh Jack?”

“Sure, or I shouldn’t have been able to fetch those lads back with me to take over the sloop and contraband cargo,” the other told him. “But I was in a tail spin at first when I learned that Mr. Ridgeway had gone down to St. Pete to interview some people who had reasons for not wanting to be seen going into his Government offices in Tampa. But I got his address and jumped my boat, slipped down Tampa Bay, and pulled in at the long municipal pier at St. Petersburg.”

“I first hired a dependable man to keep watch over my ship while I was off hunting my superior officer but I found him after a bit and he was sure glad to see me, shook hands like a good sport, and asked me a bunch of questions before starting to tell me what important fresh news he had picked up through his agents working the spy game for all it was worth.”

“Was he tickled to learn how we managed to run off with that slick little sloop that carried so neat a pack o’ cases marked with foreign stamps?”

“Seemed to be,” came the ready answer. “He isn’t a man of many words, you know, Perk, but what he says he means. He told me they were banking on the pair of us to bring the high-hat chaps at the head of this smuggler league to the bar, with plenty of evidence that would convict them, no matter how many big lawyers they employed to beat the case.”

“That sounds all to the good with me, old hoss,” snapped the pleased Perk. “’Taint often we get half the praise that’s comin’ to us–not that I care a whiff ’bout that, though–satisfied to do my duty by Unc’ Sam, an’ let them high-ups have the main credit. But I guess we’ll get some kick out o’ the game just the same an’ that’s worth all it costs us. Tell me, did this Mr. Ridgeway fork over any news worth knowin’?”

“He did,” the other assured him. “I showed him those papers I found hidden in the cabin of the sloop, with a fine list of names, such as would cover customers who’d ordered the stuff they had aboard and he reckoned that several of them might point to the heads of the combine swinging the big smuggling deal.”

“That would be a clue worth while, I’d say,” Perk asserted warmly, his eyes flashing with renewed zeal as though he might be telling himself they must be getting on a pretty warm scent which would soon lead them to the party they sought above every one else–the capitalist whose word was law, and whose money purchased all the supplies, from liquor and vessels to aircraft and everything else needful for carrying on their business of swindling the Government through the Treasury Department.

Just as he always did in forestalling any likely move when an important case was placed in the hands of himself and Jack, Perk was already engaged in mentally spreading the net destined to gather in the chief culprits–the outlook promised a multitude of warm episodes calculated to stir the blood to fever heat and afford him the wild excitement without which life lost much of its charm–in his eyes at least.

The pulsating throb of the old engine aboard the sloop had long since ceased to make itself heard, so that they could with reason believe McGrath and his pal well on the way to their distant goal, with no sign of stormy weather to be seen in the southwestern heavens.

“How ’bout spendin’ the night here, partner?” Perk queried, as he sat contentedly smoking his favorite pipe after the manner of a man who had good reason to congratulate himself on the close of a perfect day.

“I was just thinking that over, Perk. We might be in a worse situation than this, if locality was all that mattered. I don’t believe the ’gators would keep us awake with their splashing and roaring along towards early morning, but then I’m a bit bothered thinking of the man who skipped out after having his little machine-gun duel with you.”

“You’re jest crampin’ my style when you say that, partner,” complained Perk. “That Oscar happens to be a German, we both know, an’ from what I learned about the breed when over there, they’re some obstinate, once they get workin’ in a game–hate to give it up wuss’n pizen.”

“I see you’re of the same opinion as myself, buddy,” Jack remarked, nodding his head. “You reckon there might be some chance for him to pick up a bunch of his mates and swing back here to do a little bombing on his own account. Well, we’re not hankering to try our own medicine, not if we know it, and on that account I think we’d be wise to pull out of this and find a new refuge–perhaps on some lake back from the coast where we might pick up something interesting in our line.”

“Je-ru-salem crickets! I kinder guess now you’ve got somethin’ danglin’ back o’ them words old hoss,” broke out the newly interested Perk, showing considerable animation. He was used to most of Jack’s habits and could in many instances tell that something lay hidden back of his word–something of a character to promise great happenings when followed to a finish.

That seemingly casual mention of a freshwater lake was not made without some deep meaning–Jack must have been told something very important by the Government official with whom he had gone into conference at Tampa and this was his sly way of starting Perk’s wits to working overtime in the endeavor to figure things out.

“Wait and see what’s in the wind, Perk,” said the head pilot, with a chuckle. “I promise to let you into all I know or suspect before a great while passes. Just now I’ll own up this scheme of slipping over to a certain sheet of fresh water for a change of base has a meaning that connects with our big game of Blind Man’s Buff.”

This seemed to square things with Perk, for he beamed as though pleased. Whatever Jack decided was always all right in his eyes because he felt certain that the bright mind of his comrade just could not make a blunder.

“When do we hop-off, then?” he said.

“Oh, when the moon shows up will be plenty of time,” came the ready answer. “Our objective isn’t so very far distant and you know we can make a hundred miles an hour if necessary. I’d like to pick up a bit of my lost sleep while we wait, unless you object to standing sentry.”

“Not me, matey, I managed to snooze some during the time you were away. Lucky I had everything fixed for company and wasn’t caught nappin’ when our friend Oscar tipped his hat an’ made his bow. Now I was wonderin’ if he had that ole quick-firin’ gun away back when he was riddlin’ things along in the Argonne–wouldn’t it be a queer thing if true? He knew how to rattle that cantankerous bus to beat the band an’ he did nick me in that silly o’ ear o’ mine that keeps on gettin’ in the way every time I have a little spat with a sassy guy.”

Perk insisted on his chum making himself as comfortable as possible, considering the cramped quarters they occupied in the cluttered cabin of their ship, which continued to keep up a soothing movement with the successive waves that worked in from the open gulf inclining a sleepy person to slumber.

“I’ll jest sit here an’ ruminate while I consume my tobacco,” announced the accommodating Perk, making light of his job. “Once in so often I’ll take a look skyward with the glasses, so’s to know if there’s any chance o’ Oscar comin’ back here to try it all over again. When the moon peeps up in the east yonder I’ll put a hand on your arm, so’s to let you know it’s near time. Go to it, partner–do your stuff.”

Jack was feeling pretty tired, since he had enjoyed mighty little decent sleep from one cause or another during the last few nights. It was not at all surprising, therefore, that he should be in slumberland before five minutes passed after he and Perk had exchanged the last word.

The self-posted sentinel did just as he had promised, every little while he would quietly stand up and with the glasses take a keen observation, covering the blue vault above from one horizon to another, then, finding all serene, he would silently resume his seat, with only a sigh to indicate how he felt. Once more he filled his everlasting pipe, began to puff delightedly, and finally lay back in a half reclining position to smoke it out.

He was a great hand at ruminating, as he called it–allowing his thoughts to travel back to events that may have occurred months, and even years before, but which had been of such a nature as to fix themselves in his memory most tenaciously. This afforded him solid enjoyment, together with the charm of his adored pipe and he asked for nothing better.

Thus an hour, two of them, and more passed, with nothing out-of-the-way taking place to attract his attention. He figured that if the pilot of the Curtiss-Robin crate intended to come back that night, he was subject to some sort of delay.

There was frequent splashing in the lagoon near by–at times Perk could tell it must be caused by jumping mullet, but on other occasions the sound being many times exaggerated, he reckoned it had been made by an alligator plunging off a log into the water, either alarmed by some sound further off, or else possessed of a desire to enter a secret underwater den he laid claim to. This would probably have a second entrance, or exit, up on some hummock that Perk had failed to discover when poking around on the preceding day hunting green stuff with which to conceal the deck of the sloop.

Suddenly Perk noticed a slim streak of pale light fall athwart the propeller blade just before him and looking hastily up discovered the smiling face of the moon–a bit battered it is true, for the silvery queen of night was just then on the wane.

It was high time they were moving and making for the goal Jack had mentioned as an inland lake, though at no time did he give the name by which it was known to the settlers and tourists who flocked to Florida during the late Fall and early Winter. So he touched Jack on the shoulder, just he he had promised he would do, nor did he have to give the slightest shake for the other stirred and raised his head, showing he was wide awake.

CHAPTER XVI
THE LOCKHEED-VEGA FLYING SHIP

“Moon coming up, partner!” was all Perk said.

“Then it’s time we were moving,” Jack told him as he started to stretch his cramped arms and yawn. “Feel a heap better now after that little nap and ready for what’s coming.”

They did not have much to do, since everything was in perfect condition for hopping-off–trust Jack for that, with his slogan of “be prepared.”

“All set, Perk?” asked the pilot, presently.

“Shoot!” was the terse answer.

The bright moon would have to take the place of the customary equipment of a landing field in the way of guidelights, markers, and search-lights, but there was no necessity for so much light with the channel before him along which he could taxi unerringly, until, arriving at the point where the great gulf stretched out toward the western horizon, the speed must be advanced for the take-off.

Now they were free from the mangroves and Jack accelerated the pace of his ship accordingly–two twin foam-crested waves rolled out from the pontoons as they sped along until, testing things, Jack found that his charge was impatient to leave the water and leap upward into space.

Perk looked backward toward the scene of his amazing afternoon battle–how many times in the future would the picture rise in his memory to haunt him and bring that quizzical grin to his face.

With the newly risen moon gilding the small waves of the gulf below them, the picture looked most peaceful. Perk, although not much inclined to romance, could not but admire the spectacle after his own rude fashion while Jack fairly drank it in as he continued to pay attention to his manifold duties.

Their course was almost due north, Jack keeping out a score or more of miles from the coast, having reasons of his own for so doing–perhaps he found the wind more favorable out there and this is always an important factor in the calculations of a pilot of experience. Just as in the earlier days of ocean steamers when they were also equipped with masts and sails, the latter were always hoisted when the wind favored, since this helped them make progress and saved coal at the same time.

They had been booming along for something like half an hour when watchful Perk, the observer, made a discovery worth while he believed. He communicated with his companion, the useful earphones chancing to be in place–trust Perk for that.

“Somethin’ doin’ out there to the west, partner–look up to a higher ceilin’ an’ you’ll see it. Headin’ to cross over our trail in the bargain, I guess.”

“A crate, all right,” commented Jack, whose quick eyesight had immediately picked up the moving object.

“Looks like it might a come all the way across the gulf–d’ye think from some Mexican port, Jack?”

“Like as not,” assented the other. “These crooks make a start from any one of a score of jumping-off places, but always with a specified landing field ahead.”

“Then you figger,” continued Perk, “he might be one o’ the gang, fetchin’ Chinks across or mebbe precious stones, bought in Paris, and shipped to Mexico on the way to New York, eh, partner?”

“Chances are three to one that’s what it means,” Jack told him.

Perk continued to wield his important binoculars and presently, when the lofty plane was passing over, he stated his opinion.

“’Taint him, anyway, that’s dead sure, Jack, I guess I ought to know a Lockheed-Vega crate, no matter how far away, or by what tricky moonlight either, ’cause you see I used to run one o’ that breed for nearly a year when I took a whirl at the air-mail business up north out o’ Chicago till I had a bad crash an’ quit cold.”

“That settles it then, partner,” said the pilot, still observing the speck swinging past out of the tail of his eye. “I hadn’t any idea it could be the same chap you had your little picnic with some hours back, for you told me he’d blown off toward the east.”

“Jest what he did,” replied the observer. “Ginger pop! but what wouldn’t I give right now to know jest whar that galoot was meanin’ to drop down, once he gets over the land. How ’bout that, old hoss?”

“It might help out considerable,” admitted Jack although not as much interested as Perk considered he might be. “We’ll sift things out in good time, and for all we know, run across a few surprises in the bargain.”

Perk studied that last part for a minute, feeling almost certain Jack had some deep meaning back of his words, but it proved too much for his capacity in the line of figuring out mysteries, and so he dropped it “like a hot potato,” as he told himself.

The mysterious air voyager had by now disappeared entirely, although they might still have caught the throbbing of his madly working motor had it not been for their own engine kicking up so much racket, Jack not being inclined to make use of the capable silencer just then.

Perk had made up his mind that the unknown aviator, even if other than Oscar Gleeb, was undoubtedly working the same profitable line of business as the pilot of the Curtiss-Robin ship. So, too, Perk considered it worth while to try and figure out the exact course of the high flyer as he was probably making directly for his intended goal and this knowledge was likely to prove useful to them later on.

This he was able to accomplish. Working mental problems come easily to one who has played the part of a navigator aboard a modern galleon of the clouds.

“Huh!” grunted Perk after figuring out his problem twice and both times reaching the same conclusion, “the guy’s really striking in to mighty near the same point Jack’s meanin’ to make and mebee now our lines might cross if we both kept on goin’ long enough.”

He studied this matter for some time, wondering if Jack also realized the fact and had kept silent about it for good and sufficient reasons.

It afforded the ambitious Perk considerable satisfaction to hug the idea to his heart that possibly the chance might be given Jack and himself to locate some of these land stations where all this flagrant smuggling business was going on–the prospect of their’s being the force to deal the outlaw organization a killing blow brought in its train the thrill he loved so well.

Then came the moment when Jack banked and changed his course radically, heading directly into the east where lay the peninsula of Ponce de Leon, seeker after the Spring of Eternal Youth, and finding instead, a land of flowers.

Perk knew what this evidently meant–that Jack had flown far enough up the west coast and was now bent on making for that inland sheet of fresh water he had mentioned to his comrade as a likely place for them to drop down and pass the balance of the night.

The uncertainty was keeping Perk keyed up to a high tension–something told him in no uncertain tones that Jack had a vastly more important reason for attaining that lake than the mere desire to avoid attracting attention–just what it might mean he could not guess, for when he attempted to solve the enigma he found himself floundering in a shoreless sea of doubt and uncertainty that was baffling, to say the least.

Perk was mumbling to himself as if he might be on the verge of reaching some sort of decision. He bent forward several times as if about to make an important remark and on each occasion drew back, as though he could hardly decide how to approach the matter he had in his mind. Then he would chuckle, as if it might have its humorous side as well as a serious one.

Already had they reached a point where he could easily see the shore several thousand feet below and now Jack was sliding down as if bent on striking a ceiling that would be only a few hundred feet above the palmetto fringe Perk could distinguish running along the coast.

It seemed a fitting time for him to give Jack the start he contemplated and so, summoning his courage, Perk began to talk in as unconcerned a tone as possible.

“Partner, would you mind tellin’ me what about this here Oswald Kearns?”

CHAPTER XVII
OKEECHOBEE THE MYSTERIOUS

“Say that again, Perk!” demanded the startled pilot, as though that apparently innocent question had given him a severe jolt.

“Oswald Kearns–kinder queer name, I kinder guess now, an’ I’m wonderin’ if I ever heard it before–that’s all, Jack.”

The pilot was busy with his work in handling the ship and therefore debarred from turning his head to look at his companion but at least he could put the astonishment he felt into words.

“So–you think that’s a queer name, do you? Well, I’m asking you again, where did you ever run across it–who ever spoke it in your hearing, Perk?”

“Why–er, guess it was on’y you, partner,” came the hesitating reply.

“You don’t say?” gasped Jack, tremendously excited, “please tell me when that happened because I don’t remember doing such a thing, though I meant to carry out our partnership arrangement this very night when we had settled down and could have a nice quiet confab–go on, though, and say when I lifted the lid, and let you into this part of our big game, Perk.”

“Huh! you talked in your sleep some, old hoss–first time ever I knew you to do sech a thing–said that name exactly three times, like it meant a heap in the bargain.”

“You mean tonight while I was picking up a few winks of sleep–is that a fact, Perk?”

“Sure thing, boss–course I knew somethin’ must be pesterin’ you like all get-out, so I made up my mind to ask you who that Oswald might be an’ what we’d got to do with such a critter.”

Then Jack laughed as the humorous side of his recent thrill had begun to grip him.

“Well, well, seems like I’ll soon have to put a padlock on my lips after this when I hit the hay. It’s a serious offence for a fellow in our profession to give away his secrets like that! Never knew myself to be guilty of babbling that way before. Lucky you were the only one to hear me give the game away so recklessly. The joke is on me, partner.”

“But say, Jack, whoever is this Kearns guy anyhow–I sure never heard his name before tonight an’ I kinder got the idee in my head he must be some big-wig you ran up against when in Washington–somebody who had the orderin’ around o’ poor dicks like me’nd you.”

“That’s a far guess, brother,” Jack told him, “for the fact of the matter is, this Oswald Kearns happens to be a certain party just now under suspicion as being the king-pin of these smugglers who’re giving Uncle Sam a run for his money down along this gulf coast!”

Perk took it with a little break, as though the information fairly staggered him, but he was quickly back again at his fly-casting–seeking information at the fount in which he had so much faith.

“You sent me into a reg’lar tail spin that time, Jack, but after tellin’ me so much, it’d be right cruel to keep me a’guessin’ any longer.”

“I don’t mean to keep you in the dark after this, Perk,” he was told in jerky, broken sentences, as though Jack found it difficult to talk and pay the proper attention to what he was doing, for the amphibian had again commenced a steep dive, seeking a much lower altitude. “There are too many things connected with the story to try and spin it now–just hold your horses till we settle down on that lake, and you’ll get it–all I know, or suspect, anyhow. Just now I can only tell you that this Kearns is a most remarkable personage, a baffling mystery to the Department who’s outsmarted the whole Service and played his game of hide-and-seek before their very eyes–nobody so far has been able to pick up a shred of positive evidence that would convict him.

“Gosh, amighty, we’re flyin’ high, buddy!” was what Perk exclaimed and immediately his wits went into a huddle. He must get busy and figure things out, just as football teams do when a change in signals becomes essential.

They had been passing over the land for some little time and still Jack kept heading almost directly into the northeast. He knew just where he expected to make his goal, due to a close application to his charts and maps of the Florida region.

Debarred from fishing for information while the flight was on, Perk was forced to seek consolation in making good use of his binoculars, sweeping the heavens for signs of other suspicious planes or endeavoring to make out the character of the terrain over which they were speeding.

Occasionally he managed to discover some tiny light and this gave him an opportunity to speculate as to its meaning–if isolated he concluded it must either be a campfire made by alligator hunters, or a street light in some small hamlet, such as he imagined might be found in this almost wild section of lower Florida where the Everglades with their eternal water kept settlers from picking out locations for starting truck patches or citrus groves–all of which would probably be vastly changed when the great reclamation plans for draining had been fully carried out.

He often felt certain he glimpsed water below and had enough knowledge of the country to understand what that would mean.

“Wonder jest how long he means to keep this up,” Perk was saying to himself when the better part of an hour had passed since they left the open gulf behind, “huh! by this time we must a’gone more’n sixty miles an’ say, in places the hull State ain’t more’n a hundred across from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mex. Gulf. Whoopee! could it mean he’s aimin’ to strike that terrible, big lake–Okeechobee–that overflowed its banks not long ago when they had that nasty hurricane and drowned a wheen o’ poor folks around Moore Haven? Gee whiz! it’s got me a’guessin’ but then Jack knows what he’s tryin’ to do, an’ I’m goin’ to leave it all up to him to settle.”

Somehow this suggestion appealed to Perk as being quite in line with the magnitude of their tremendous task–it was only appropriate to have the scene of their coming operations the biggest freshwater lake by long odds in the entire State, barring none–it would have been what Perk might term as “small pertatoes, an’ few in a hill,” to have such a wizard of an operator as Oswald Kearns pick out an ordinary body of water, say of a mile in diameter, as his secret headquarters where he could continue to keep his whereabouts unknown to the Government revenue men.

Lake Okeechobee–well, that certainly offered some scope for any display of their own cleverness in finding the proofs they so yearned to possess in rounding up the “cantankerous varmint,” as Perk was already calling Kearns in his Yankee vernacular.

It could not be much longer delayed, Perk assured his eager self–less than another hour of this sort of work would take them entirely across the peninsula, and cause the plane to fetch up somewhere along the Atlantic coast between Miami and Palm Beach. Much as Perk would like to set eyes upon those two opulent Southern winter resorts in the midst of their splendor, he felt that such a thing would hardly be proper under the conditions by which their visit would have to be governed–small chance for anything bordering on secrecy to be carried out in such a region of sport seeking and excitement day after day.

Ah! it must be coming closer now, he decided on noting how, far below the plane, he could make out what looked like a vast sea with little wavelets glimmering in the light of the moon–assuredly that must indeed be the lonely lake, long known as the home of mystery, Okeechobee, the mightiest stretch of fresh water in the whole country of the South.

Jack was passing up along the western shore line as though his plan of campaign called for a descent in some obscure quarter where they could find a hideout in which to park their aircraft while they pursued their urgent call ashore.

Not the faintest gleam of light anywhere proved that settlers were indeed few and far between and this fact would also explain just why Oswald Kearns, wishing for secrecy and isolation, had selected this region as best suited to his purpose.

Now Jack was dropping steadily, his silencer in full play–it was time for Perk to get busy and through the use of his marine night glasses keep his pilot posted regarding what lay below them.