o’ wild newspaper stuff – no man c’n be on the Atlantic coast an’ out here in the Rockies at the same time. Gosh! but they do pull the wool over some people’s eyes these days – anything for a sensation an’ to get the jump over the other cub reporters.”
“But Perk, we do happen to know that there are quite a number of noted pilots out scouring the entire region and sticking to their job like leeches, under their sporting slogan ‘do as you’d be done by’.”
“Sure thing, partner – that’s legitimate news and not faked,” agreed the other with a grunt as he speared a small boiled onion of which he was very fond, and thrust it into his mouth. “Lindbergh is a wonder, as we all know, but there’s a limit to his activities and it ain’t fair to want him to take hold o’ everything that comes along. Now he’s doubled up and took him a wife. They reckon nothin’ c’n be carried through without his name bein’ tacked on somehow or other. ’Taint fair to that boy, an’ them’s my sentiments.”
Jack shook his head and looked serious.
“Then the mystery is as deep as ever and they haven’t yet found out what happened to poor Buddy?” he asked, to which Perk shook his head in the negative, saying:
“Never a thing – all wrapped up in a black fog – he started off in high spirits and with a joke on his lips an’ then disappeared like he never was. Hang it all, why couldn’t I have been doin’ some other sorter job where they might ’a’ let me off for a spell? Nothin’ I’d like better than to comb the hull countryside in hopes o’ findin’ that bully boy – he told me once ’bout that mother o’ his’n. I kinder guess she must be a peach, he thought so much o’ her. Lands sake! but it might even kill her if her boy ain’t never heard from again. I’d give every dollar I got in the wide world – which ain’t boastin’ none I know – if only I was a free agent an’ goin’ on my own hook.”
“Hard luck, partner,” soothed Jack, laying a hand on the arm of his pal as if to sympathize with the impulsive one; “but of course that’s out of the question, you and me – we’re under a contract that can’t be broken recklessly, no matter what happens and we’ve just got to keep everlastingly on the job till our time is up when we can either renew or get out.”
“I guess you got it down pat, Jack,” agreed the other with a heavy sigh that told of his regret being genuine. Perk was one of those queer chaps who are born with a stubborn itch to find anything that is said to be lost which would account in part for his having thrown in his fortunes with both the Northwest Mounted Police and now the United States Secret Service.
“Besides, there was a sort of intimation in that late letter from the Big Boss,” Jack went on to say, “that seemed to hint at something big coming our way before very long so all we can do is to keep hoping for some luck and doing our daily stunt flying so as to learn all the wrinkles connected with our new cloud-chaser as you like to call the ship we’re attached to right now.”
“Why do you keep on turning your head a little while you’re eating I’d like to know, Perk – got to seeing things again, like you did once before, I remember?” continued Jack.
“Huh! I’m jest takin’ a peep in that mirror over there partner,” replied Perk in a low tone that had a slight air of mystery about it, Jack imagined.
“Pretty girl this time struck you where your heart is soft, eh, buddy?” Jack inquired with a chuckle.
“Not this time old hoss – take a squint yourself – see them two fellers sittin’ at the corner table, where they c’n watch us? – well, seems like they take a heap o’ pleasure keepin’ tabs on us while we sit here and gobble. I’m wonderin’ who and what they are also why they bother to keep an eye on our actions right along.”
“Yes, I can see them out of the tail of my eye,” Jack told him. “Don’t you remember the pair in the big touring car that kept ducking after us? – I reckon these boys are that same couple. Did you notice them sitting there when we came in?”
“Nothin’ doin’ that way, Boss,” Perk told him with a positive ring to his voice. “I chanced to turn my head a few minutes after we got settled down, an’ they were walkin’ over to that corner like they’d sized up the table as if it suited their plans. Ever since, they’ve kept talkin’ in low tones, an’ watchin’ us like I’ve seen a fox do, hidin’ in the brush an’ waitin’ for a fat young partridge to come close enough for him to make a spring and grab his dinner.”
Jack refused to become flustered, even if Perk showed signs of being annoyed.
“Oh!” he went on to remark casually, “chances are they may be some of those pests of newspaper boys, scenting a scoop of a story for their sensation loving sheets – competition is so keen these days they lie awake nights I’m told, and accept all sorts of chances of being kicked out if only they can get the right sort of stuff to build up into a thriller.”
“Mebbe so, mebbe so,” grumbled the indignant Perk, “but anyhow I don’t like it a bit. That dark-faced guy strikes me as a pretty tough sort o’ scrapper, one I’d hate to smack up against in a dark alley an’ the other ain’t much shakes as a good-looker either. Jack, do you think they know who we are and got some sort o’ grudge against us on ’count o’ the trade we foller, eh, what?”
“Oh! it might be so,” replied the other, “anything is possible and while we’ve been lucky enough to hide our light under a bushel all the time we’ve hung around the Cheyenne airport, we couldn’t expect to keep that game up indefinitely, you understand. After all, we hope to be pulling our freight and slipping out of this burg before long. So we’ll just keep our eyes open for stormy weather and be on our guard.”
“Hot ziggetty dog! I sure do hope now they ain’t meanin’ to bust in on our fine ship an’ play hob with her – wouldn’t that jar you though, partner?” and Perk could be seen to grind those big white teeth of his as if gripped by a spasm of rage almost beyond his control. Like the Arab whose love for his horse is said to exceed any affection for his wife, most sky pilots feel an overpowering regard for their ship in which they risk their lives every time they jump off and Perk was peculiarly built that way.
“That would be a calamity for a fact,” admitted Jack, giving the two men under suspicion another little survey, “but we’ve got a good guard keeping tabs over the boat and he’s empowered to shoot if some one tries any funny business out at the hangar, so I reckon there’s nothing to worry over in that direction.”
Perk continued to grumble, half beneath his breath, showing how he felt under the skin about the matter. Jack on his part skillfully directed the low conversation into other and more cheerful channels so that presently, after the two strangers had passed out of the restaurant, Perk seemed to put them aside as “false alarms” and entered into the discussion of the merits of their beloved cloud-chaser with a modicum of his usual good nature which was just what his chum wished to have happen, so as to clear the atmosphere, which, in Perk’s case was getting considerably muddy.
III
THE HOLD-UP
Jack had certainly shown considerable cunning in starting to talk about some of the clever and novel devices with which their new ship was equipped in order to turn the attention of his chum into more pleasant channels for Perk soon became most eloquent in speaking of those wonderful discoveries.
“It sure is a great stunt, us bein’ able to quit the ground in ten shakes o’ a lamb’s tail,” he was speedily remarking, “’stead of havin’ to take such a long an’ often bumpy run. The way that boat acts
