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CHAPTER VI
By the Skin of Their Teeth

Once settled down in the taxi Perk felt much better. He had been casting suspicious glances this way and that, eying a number of parties, as though he more than half anticipated the slick newspaper man might be hanging around the Grady in some clever disguise, bent on tracking them to the aviation field.

“Huh! kinder guess – ev’rything’s okay with us naow – glad Jack didn’t hear me asayin’ that forbidden word, er he’d be kickin’ agin. Tarnel shame haow a life-long habit do stick to a guy like glue – didn’t realize haow things keep acomin’ an’ agoin’ year after year, when yeou git ’customed to doin’ the same.”

Perk was muttering this to himself half under his breath as the taxi took off, and immediately headed almost straight toward the quarter where the fast growing Candler Field lay outside the thickly populated part of Atlanta.

He was just about to thrust his head out of the open upper part of the door on the left side when Jack jerked him violently back.

“Hey! what in thunder – ”

“Shut up! and lie back!” hissed the other, almost savagely.

“Gosh-a-mighty! was he hangin’ ’raound after all?” gasped the startled Perk, who could think of but one reason for the other treating him so unceremoniously.

Jack had turned, and was trying to see through the dimmed glass – he even rubbed it hastily with his hand as if to better the chances of an observation; but as they whirled around a corner gave it up as next to useless.

“It was that boy all right, and making straight for the hotel in the bargain; which proves he’d located our layout okay,” he explained to the excited Perk.

“Doant tell me he done spotted us, partner?”

“I don’t just know,” came back the answer, hesitatingly. “I thought I’d yanked you back before he looked our way; but as sure as anything he came to a full stop, and stared after our taxi. For all we know he may be jumping for some kind of conveyance to follow at our heels.”

“Hot-diggetty-dig! but things shore air gettin’ some int’restin’ like, I’d say, if yeou asked me, boy! An’ even if he keeps on agoin’ to the Grady the night clerk’ll tell him as haow we done kicked aout. Kinder wish we was a zoomin’ long on aour course, an’ givin’ Jimmy the horse laugh. Caint yeou git the shover to speed her along a little, ole hoss?”

“We’re already hitting up the pace as far as safety would advise,” Jack told him, as they both swayed over to one side, with another corner being taken on the jump. “It’d spill the beans if we had any sort of accident on the way to the ship; better let well enough alone, partner.”

“Huh! the best speed a rackabones o’ a taxi kin make seems like crawlin’ to any airman used to a hundred miles an hour, an’ heaps more’n that,” grumbled the never satisfied Perk; but just the same it might be noticed that Jack did not attempt to urge the chauffeur to increase their speed at the risk of some disaster, such as skidding, when turning a sharp corner.

On the way Perk amused himself by taking various peeps from the rear, gluing his eye to the dingy glass. Since he raised no alarm it might be taken for granted he had made no discovery worth mentioning; and in this manner they presently arrived at the flying field, which they found fully illuminated, as though some ship was about to land, or another take off.

This suited them exactly, as it would be of considerable help in bringing about their own departure.

Jumping out Jack paid the driver, and after picking up their bags they hastened in the direction of the hangar in which they had been assured their ship was to be placed.

A new field service motor truck was moving past them, evidently bent on servicing some plane about to depart east, west, north or south; which Perk eyed with admiration; for he knew what a comfort it was to have one of these up-to-date contraptions swing alongside, and carry out all the necessary operations of fitting a ship out, which in the old days had to be done by hand, with the assistance of field hostlers.

“Anyhaow, we doant need a single thing to set us on aour way, which is some comfort,” he remarked to his mate as they arrived at their destination.

While Jack was making all arrangements for their big Fokker to be taken out of the hangar, and brought in position for taking off, Perk continued to look eagerly around him, as usual deeply interested in all that went on in connection with a popular and always growing airport, of which Candler Field was a shining example.

“By gum! if there aint one o’ them new-fangled air mail flags, painted on the fuselege o’ that Southern Air Fast Express ship gettin’ ready to pick off; an’ say, aint she a beaut though – regulation wings in yellow, with the words ‘U. S. Air Mail’, an’ the upper an’ lower borders marked with red an’ blue painted lines. Gosh! I’d be some proud naow to be handlin’ sech a nifty ship in the service I onct worked by; but no use kickin’, what I’m adoin’ these days is heaps more important fo’ Ole Uncle Sam than jest acarry’n’ his letter sacks. An’ mebbe that ship means to head back jest where we come from, Los Angeles, an’ San Diego, by way o’ Dallas, Texas. Haow they keep askippin’ all araoun’ this wide kentry, day an’ night, like grasshoppers on a sunny perairie – the times o’ magic have shore come to us folks in the year nineteen thirty-one.”

Other sights greeted his roving eyes as he held himself impatiently in check waiting for Jack to give him the word to start. Both of them had hurriedly changed their clothes, and were now garbed in their customary working dungarees, stained with innumerable marks of hard service, yet indispensable to those who followed their calling.

It certainly did not take long for their ship to be trundled out on to the level field, and brought into position for taking off. There was considerable of a gathering, considering that it was now so late in the night; and Perk, giving a stab at the fact, came to the conclusion there was something out of the common being, as he termed it, “pulled off” – possibly the presence of that beautiful emblem of the air mail service on the fuselage of the western bound mail and express matter carrier had to do with the occasion – a sort of honorary christening, so to speak – he was content to let it go at that.

Jack was still talking with some one he seemed to know, some one who must surely be a fellow pilot, for he was dressed in regulation dingy overalls, and kept hovering near that fine multi-motored Curtiss Kingbird plane that he, Perk, understood belonged to the new fleet of the line to be operated in a short time between Atlanta and Miami, Florida, carrying passengers, the mail, and express between the two airports.

Thus far there had been no sign of the ubiquitous newspaper man, and Perk continued to bolster up his hope this might continue to be the case to the very moment of their departure. It would be a bit exasperating should the fellow suddenly burst upon them, jumping out of a taxi, and tackling Jack with a beastly shower of questions that were suited to the ends he had in view of building up a fanciful story that must tickle the palates of the numerous readers of his department on aviation in the paper he served.

There, thank their lucky stars, was his companion giving the wished for call for him to stand by, as everything was fixed for immediate departure. In less than three minutes they would be taking the air, and leaving lighted Candler Field behind them – once that happy event had taken place and they could snap their fingers derisively at any attempt on the part of their determined annoyer to give them trouble.

“Huh! it’s to be hoped the pesky guy doant take a notion to hire a ship, an’ try to stick to aour tail, ashoutin’ aout his crazy questions like he spected us to done hole up, an’ hand him his story on a plate! Kinder gu – reckon as haow there aint much danger ’long them lines – it’d be a whole lot too hard fur him to manage. Okay, suh, right away!”

As Perk was supposed to be a pilot in the employ of Mr. Rodman Warrington, of course it was only right for him to be at the throttle of the ship when they took off. Accordingly he hastened to settle down in his seat where he could grip the controls, and manipulate things in the dash along the field that would wind up in a swing upwards toward the starry heavens.

Having given a last hasty inspection of his gadgets, and the numerous dials as arranged on the black dashboard before him, Perk called out, the propeller started to roar and spin like lightning; and in that very last second of time, as the ship commenced to leap forward, Perk caught a glimpse of the man whom they had believed left in the lurch – no other than Jimmy himself!

CHAPTER VII
On the Air-line to Charleston

Jimmy was leaping from a taxi that had come whirling almost up to the spot where their ship was in the act of taking off. Perk in that hasty look – when truth to tell he had no business to be taking his eyes away from his course ahead, lest he make a slip that would upset all their calculations – had seen the printer’s ink man heading in leaps toward their plane – yes, and sure enough he was holding a pad of paper in one hand, and doubtless a sharpened pencil in the other, a typical up-to-the-minute knight of the press bent on snatching up his facts on the run.

Then Perk – still paying strict attention to his special task – gave a grunt of satisfaction, coupled with derision. To himself he must have been thinking, if not saying, “that’s the time we jest made a slick get-away by the skin o’ aour teeth – yeou’re five seconds too late, Jimmy, boy – try some o’ yeour tricks on slower game, not we-uns. Whoopla! here she goes!”

As they were just then about to leave the ground and start their upward climb of course it was absolutely out of the question for the one holding the stick to twist his head around so as to see what their tormentor was doing; but then he felt certain Jack must be taking in everything that occurred, and in good time he would be told of each little incident.

Perk had his instructions, and knew just what he was doing. Accordingly, when the ship had reached a comfortable ceiling of say half a thousand feet, he banked, and swung around so as to head toward the southwest.

“Shore thing,” Perk was telling himself, in a spirit of pride and astuteness. “Sense the gent’s is aimin’ to git a black bear in them canebrakes o’ ole Louisiana, we gotter be headin’ thataways at the start. Hoopla! aint it jest the limit, apullin’ the wool over the eyes o’ one o’ the darnedest sharpest newspaper boys as ever was?”

It had been arranged that they were to keep on that course for a brief time, and when sufficient distance had been covered – so that the hum of their exhaust could no longer be heard at Candler Field – they would change to another quarter, swing around the distant city, pick up the light at Stone Mountain, and from that point industriously follow the beacons that flashed every ten miles or so all the way to Richmond, Virginia.

Jack soon displaced his assistant pilot at the controls, and Perk was able to take hold of other special duties, such as were usually left to his direction.

One of the very first things he carried out was to attach the harness of the invaluable telephone, that, when connected with their ears allowed of such exchange of views as they saw fit to indulge in; and Perk was burning up with eagerness to find out what Jack must have seen after they made their start.

The big ship was speeding at a merry clip, and before long Stone Mountain would be reached with the first beacon flashing its welcome light to beckon them on their well marked course.

“Was that him as I guess – reckoned I done seed, jest as we started to move, hey, partner?” Perk demanded; and as Jack knew only too well he would have no peace until he handed over such information as he possessed, he lost no time in making answer.

“No other, brother – he came in a taxi, and was in such a hurry it’s plain to be seen he’d picked up a clew at the hotel that sent him whooping things up, and burning the minutes until he got there at Candler Field. Unfortunately – for Jimmy – he dallied a half minute too long, trying to get some lead from that night clerk, and so we slipped one off on him.”

“Yeou doant reckon as haow he’d be so brash as to hire a ship, to try an’ sit on aour tail, do yeou, ole hoss?” demanded Perk, who had even looked back once or twice, as though such a possibility had begun to bother him.

“Not a Chinaman’s chance of such a happening, Wally – we’ve got a clear field ahead of us, and I feel pretty certain that’s the last we’ll see of our friend Jimmy. Just the same, leave it to him to concoct a thrilling yarn to feed to his readers to-morrow morning – imagination will supply the missing facts; and I’d like to set eyes on what he hatches up.”

“Me too, partner,” echoed Perk, greedily; “an’ if it’s possible while we hang aout araound Charleston I’m meanin’ to look up all the Atlanta papers, and read all the air news they carry.”

“Go to it, partner; but that must be Stone Mountain over there on our larboard quarter; look sharp, and you’ll glimpse a flashing light, for we’re about to pick up our first beacon.”

“Bully for that, ’cause afterwards it’ll be the softest sailin’ ever, with aour course charted aout fur us most all the way.”

“I’m holding her down a bit,” explained Jack, “because we’d better stick to the beacons until dawn; after that we can depend on our compass and chart to carry us the rest of the way to Charleston.”

“I get yeou, ole hoss, an’ agree with yeou to a hair. No hurry whatever, yeou done tole me the Chief sez in his cipher letter o’ instructions – slow an’ sure, that’s agoin’ to be aour motto this campaign,” and Jack must have chuckled to hear the impetuous Perk say that, it was so foreign to his customary way of rushing things.

The line of beacons was now picked up, and Perk could see sometimes as many as three at the same time – the one they were passing over; that left behind shortly before; and still a third faint flash at some distance beyond.

They had climbed to a ceiling of some two thousand feet, which might still be increased when passing over such outspurs of the Allegheny or Smoky Range Mountains as would be met on the regular air mail course to Richmond.

As the air seemed unusually free from any vestige of fog, being very clear, of course visibility was prime, which fact added to Perk’s happiness, he being unduly fond of such favorable weather conditions.

Such a voluble chap could not keep silent long, when it was so easy to chat with an accommodating companion; and hence presently Perk found something else to mention to the working pilot.

“I say, partner,” he sang out, “tell me who yeour friend was, the pilot I seen yeou talkin’ with, an’ who sure seemed to be ’quainted with yeou.”

“Knew you had that question up your sleeve, buddy,” Jack replied, always ready to satisfy any reasonable amount of curiosity on the part of his chum, “Yes, he was an old friend of mine, and I expect you’ve heard me speak of him more than a few times – one of the most adept pilots connected with the Curtiss people, – no other than Doug Davis, who back in twenty-nine won the country’s speed race at Cleveland, with a record of a hundred-and-ninety miles an hour.”

“Gee whiz! haow I’d liked to amet up with him!” exclaimed Perk, showing a trace of keen disappointment in his tone.

“I’d have introduced you, partner, only the conditions wouldn’t admit it.” Jack threw out as a bit of apology.

“But, say – what if that speed hound, Jimmy, happened to learn he was atalkin’ with yeou, wouldn’t your friend Doug be apt to give us away, withaout knowin’ the reasons why we wanted to keep shady right naow?”

Jack gave him the laugh.

“Not on your life, buddy,” he announced, without hesitation; “I managed to let Doug know what line I was in, and how just at present I’m a New York millionaire sportsman and aviator, Rodman Warrington by name, headed toward some shooting-grounds for a whack at big game. He’s a lad you could never catch asleep at the switch; and make up your mind our secret’s as safe with him as anything could be. Jimmy’d have all his trouble for his pains, if he ever tried to pump Doug Davis, who’s as keen as they make them in our line.”

“But, partner, didn’t he introduce yeou to another pilot – I reckon I seen him adoin’ that same, an’ heow yeou shook hands with the other guy.”

“Yes, but I’d already tipped Doug off, and he strung his friend with the story we’ve hatched up about our meaning to try the shooting in those wonderful canebrakes in Louisiana. And that’s all he’ll ever tell connected with my identity, till the cows come home, or water runs uphill.”

“An’ who did the other chap happen to be, if it’s a fair question, suh?” continued Perk, who, once he started on an investigating tour, never would let go until he had extracted every particle of information available.

“Sorry that I didn’t catch his name clearly; but Doug told me he was connected with the U. S. Air Reserve Corps operations functioning there at Candler Field,” Jack explained.

He certainly stirred up something when he said that.

“Well, well, what dye know ’baout that naow,” gushed Perk, apparently thrilled more or less by what he had just heard. “I’ve been gettin’ wind o’ that ere movement, and meanin’ to look it up whenever the chanct drifted along.”

“A most interesting subject, buddy, and one I’d think you’d want to look into, seeing you’re a veteran of flying in the Great War over in France, and could join without any trouble. From what Doug told me, and what I’ve read concerning the game, the organization is growing stronger every day – made up of men especially fitted to step in and man fighting planes, should any occasion arise, such as another foreign war. Right in the southeast district there are something over two-hundred-and-thirty pilot members, who could be mustered by Uncle Sam in an emergency, just twenty-two of whom belong in Atlanta, Doug told me.”

“Wheel haow fine that’d be fo’ a feller o’ my makeup,” Perk chortled, in glee. “I done gue – reckons, suh, as haow they may have meetin’s, an’ all that sorter thing – how ’baout it, partner?”

“That’s one of the necessary things about the Air Reserve Officers Corps,” continued Jack who evidently considered the organization an especially fine thing for the airminded public to support. “All through the winter they meet twice a week in classes, to keep up with modern military and aviation activities; and they get their new up-to-date flying experience by taking off in one of five army training ships kept ready in the new reserve hangar at Candler Field – these are an Oil Curtiss Falcon regular attack plane; a 2-B Douglass dual control basic training ship, with 450 horsepower engines; and three other primary training ships. All the equipment connected with the Fourth Corps hangar is at Atlanta headquarters, – so Doug told me, and he ought to know if any one does.”

“Gee whiz! an’ to think o’ what I been missin’ all this time,” moaned poor Perk, disconsolately. “Mebbe though it wouldn’t ever do to apply fo’ admission to such a organization, ’jest ’cause we-uns gotter to hid aour light under a bushel, while serving aour Uncle Sam in his ole Secret Service. Dye know I got half a mind to throw it all up, an’ go back to carryin’ the air mail, when a guy could show his own face, an’ not live under a dark cloud; – but not so long as yeou sticks on the job, partner, I doant break away ever.”

CHAPTER VIII
Ships Passing in the Night

They were by this time fully embarked on their night flight, Perk continued to watch the flash beacons as though they fascinated him, more or less.

“What I’d call a big snap, if anybody asked me,” he kept telling himself from time to time. “Huh! when I was an air-mail pilot fur a short time, things wasn’t so dead easy – not a blamed light on earth or in the sky, nawthin’ but black stuff every-which-way yeou looked. Naow the guy at the stick jest keeps afollerin’ a string o’ blinkin’ ’lectric lights that point aout his course fur him. Purty soft, I’d call it, an’ no mistake either.”

When they were passing directly over one beacon that kept blinking at them apparently, with about ten seconds between each flash, he could by turning his head, see a far-away swirling gleam marking the light in their rear; while dead ahead another, equally distant, kept up an enticing flash as though bent on assuring them everything was “all right.”

“Jest one thing still wantin’ to make these here air-mail boys right happy,” he told himself; “which is a ray to beat the danged fog that mixes things up like fun. When some wise guy finds a way to send a ray o’ light through the dirty stuff, so’s yeou kin see a mile away as if the air was clear as a bell, then flyin’ blind is agoin’ to lose all its terrors to the poor pilot. I shorely hopes to see the day that’s done.”

Later on Perk suddenly made a discovery that gave him a little fresh thrill – there was some sort of queer light almost dead ahead, that he fancied moved more or less; at any rate it was steadily growing brighter, beyond any question.

“Hot-diggetty-dig!” he muttered, still watching critically, as if hardly able to make up his mind concerning its meaning. “Looks mighty like a shootin’ star; but then I never did see one that didn’t dart daown, like it meant to bury itself in the earth. Must be a ship aheadin’ this way – mebbe a mail carrier goin’ to Atlanta to land on the same Candler Field we jest quitted – yep, that’s what it is, with a light in the cabin to keep the passengers from worryin’ – sandbags ain’t any too joyful when they got to sit in the dark, with the ship hittin’ up eighty miles an hour.”

Having thus settled the identity of the strange moving light, Perk hastened to inform his mate of the discovery he had made.

“Ship’s agoin’ to pass us in the night, buddy,” he called through the aid of the indispensable earphones. “Yeou kin lamp the light straight ahead naow.”

“Yes, I’d already noticed the same, partner,” came steady Jack’s answer, as if he were not in the least disturbed, or excited by the occurrence.

“Gee whiz! but I shore hopes we doant meet head on, an’ crash,” ventured Perk, really to coax his chum to express an opinion, and thus reassure him.

“No danger of that happening, old scout!” snapped Jack; “but I’ll veer off to starboard a bit, to make doubly sure against a possible collision. Strike up our cabin light, boy, so’s to put them on their guard.”

Of course they could not catch the slightest sound to corroborate their opinion, since their own ship was making so much racket. The light came closer and closer; at the same time Jack felt positive the other aerial craft must be following his own tactics looking to safety, and steering somewhat to the right, as discretion demanded.

Perk had snatched up a kerosene lantern and hastily lighted the wick. This he now moved up and down; then swung the same completely around his head, as though he thus meant to give the other pilot a signal in the line of fellowship and aerial courtesy.

Thus the two ships passed not three hundred feet apart, yet only vaguely seen by watchful eyes. Then they were swallowed up in the gloom of the night, the moon being under a passing cloud at the time.

“Fancy aour meetin’ in space,” Perk was saying, as though rather awed by such a circumstance; “it couldn’t happen again in a month o’ blue moons, aour comin’ to grips thisaway, with millions o’ miles all ’raound us, an’ nawthin’ but chance to guide both pilots.”

“You’re on the wrong track again, partner,” Jack hastened to tell him. “Chance had little to do with this meeting; but that chain of brilliant flash beacons was wholly responsible. Just like two trains passing on a double-track railroad line – both airships were following the same marked course, and couldn’t hardly miss meeting each other. In these latter days flying has become so systematized that the element of chance has been almost wholly eliminated from the game.”

That remark kept Perk silent for some little time, the subject thus brought up was so vast, so filled with tremendous possibilities, he found himself wrestling with it as the minutes crept on.

So, too the night was passing by degrees, with their reliable Fokker keeping steadily on its way, putting miles after miles in their wake. Perk found himself growing more and more anxious for the first streak of coming dawn to show itself far off in the east, where the sun must be climbing toward the unseen horizon, and daylight making ready to disperse the cohorts of night.

Still it was always possible for him to make out the next beacon, with the aid of his binoculars, if he happened to be using them, as was often the case.

An hour and more after their “rubbing elbows” (as Perk termed it,) with the south-bound air-mail plane, once more Perk caught a suggestive beam of light ahead that told of yet another aircraft afloat, and advancing swiftly toward them, only at a much lower altitude.

“Naow I wonder who that guy kin be,” he mused, while watching the light grow steadily larger. “Some kinder big ship in the bargain; but hardly one o’ the mail line, ’cause they doant run ’em in doubles the same way. Hi! there, partner, we got a second neighbor, agoin’ to pass under us in a minit er so. Jest a bit to the left – no danger o’ bangin’ noses this time, seems like. Gettin’ to be thickly populated, as the ole pioneer settler said when a new fambly moved in ’baout ten mile off. Mebbe we’ll live to see the day when the air o’ night’ll be studded with movin’ lights thick as the stars be – looks thataways to me, anyhaow.”

Again he signaled his good wishes with his lantern, showing as much glee as a schoolboy whirling around his first fire spitting Roman candle, on the night of the Glorious Fourth.

“Gee whiz! looky, partner – they’re answerin’ me, as shore’s yeou’re born! This is gettin’ somewhere, I’d say; an’ I’d give thirty cents to know who that guy might be.”

“Just as well there’s no way to exchange cards,” sensible Jack told the excited one. “Never forget for a minute, partner, who and what we are; and how it’s a prime part of this business to keep our light hidden under a bushel right along. Others flying for sport, or carrying on in commerce, may get a thrill from exchanging names, and hobnobbing with each other; but all that stuff is strictly taboo with men of the Secret Service.”

“Squelched again!” Perk told himself, with one of his chuckles; “an’ jest as always happens, Jack, he’s in the right – I’m forgettin’ most too often what goes to make up a successful officer of the Government, ’specially in aour line o’ trade. Guess – I mean I reckons as haow I’ll have to subside, and take it aout in thinkin’.”

Perk was certain they must have long since passed over the eastern extremity of Georgia, and were even then swinging along with South Carolina soil beneath them. Yes, and he began to figure that he could detect the faintest possible rim of light commencing to show up far off to the east, as though dawn could not be far away.

“Huh! aint agoin’ to be many more o’ them bully flash beacons lightin’ us on aour course,” he was telling himself. “Chances air we’ll be bustlin’ over aour objective right soon; when it’s goodbye to the air-mail route, an’ us a turnin’ aour noses near due south, headin’ fo’ Charleston on the seaboard, when the real fun is slated to begin. Caint come any too quick fo’ a boob that answers to the name o’ Gabe Perkiser. Yeah! that line is gettin’ some broader, right along, which tells the story as plain as print.”

Shortly afterwards he picked up a myriad of gleaming lights, that proclaimed the presence of a city of some magnitude; evidently the first sector of their flight had been reached, with a change in their course indicated.