CHAPTER XVIIIBlack Water Bayou
Fortune favored them again, it seemed, not only with regard to the skies, but, probably owing in part to the early hour, there were few persons scattered about the aviation grounds when they took off; and the regular attendants already understood the pair constituted a duck-hunting party, viewing the coast shooting stands with a view to getting in some good sport when finally satisfied as to location.
From the beginning they hit up a high pace, fully equal to the best the amphibian had thus far accomplished. Being what might be called “ambidextrous”—doubly able to leave by means of water, or solid land, it had not been necessary for them to locate on any river or bay, where they would not have the benefit of field mechanicians, and a movable filling station, as well as shelter in a comfortable hangar.
Jack had doubtless taken all such matters into consideration when forming his plans, and decided that the good points about staying at the regulation aviation headquarters outweighed the poor ones.
They covered the first fifty miles in short order, keeping at some distance further from the sea than on their previous trips, Jack having a new hunch, to the effect that possibly the rendezvous of the smugglers after all might be situated deeper inland than he had first suspected.
When later on Perk announced that he could just make out some city far off on the right, Jack pronounced it to undoubtedly be Georgetown, which lay at the junction of the Pedee and the Little Pedee.
They had flown directly over the same city on their previous trip, showing how far west of their original course they were now working.
“We’re going to patrol this region most carefully, partner,” Jack told his best pal, who as usual was handling the binoculars to the best advantage, and calling out any discovery worth while, so as to keep his mate posted. “It has all the earmarks to make it a dandy hidingplace, where these sinister operations could be pulled off, day or night, and no one the wiser. What easier than for a sea-going plane to swoop over or around Georgetown, coming from some unknown point east, and then vanishing in the distance, still going west? Get that, don’t you, Wally?”
“Sounds all to the good with me, suh,” the other told him, nodding as he spoke. “I’m atryin’ to make aout some queer things daown there; but it’s all sech a scramble I jest caint do much. Mebbe if we dropped a bit things’d seem different like.”
“I’m going further west, so as to cover the ground,” Jack informed him, as though his immediate plans were made up, and he did not care to change; “but later on in the day I reckon we’ll be back this way, and possibly make camp for the night. I’d like to find out what sort of doings are taking place nights in this section; chances are we’ll pick up some interesting points before striking Charleston again.”
“Which same’d please me a heap, Mister,” quoth Perk; who was by now beginning to grow a little weary of what he termed “inaction;” and sighing for more strenuous times to come along, when there would be some real thrills experienced.
At noon they partook of a “snack,” devouring a few sandwiches, so as to take off the sharp edge of their appetites; Perk apologizing to himself for eating so scantily.
“If so be we’re agwine to dine ashore alongside a gen-u-ine campfire,” he went on in his whimsical fashion, “I wanter be in prime condition to do justice to the grub I’m meanin’ to sling up fo’ jest two gents, known to weuns as Mr. Rodman Warrington, an’ er—Wally Corkendall, of Birmin’ham, suh. So take things easy, an’ jest forget haow yeou’re still hungry, ole man; it’s on’y what that lecturer says is a figment o’ the imagination, an’ so you’re not a bit half starved.”
When about the middle of the afternoon they again arrived in the neighborhood of the sector which had appealed to them both as well worth paying particular attention to, Jack signified that he was meaning to do something in the line of lowering their ceiling, and finding out whether there was a chance of their making a successful drop upon the waters of that queer bayou, alongside of which ran a swift and mysterious looking river he figured might be the Waccamaw.
Closer scrutiny convinced both of them that so far as their settling down on the surface of the lonely bayou was concerned, nothing could be seen that would interfere with such an arrangement.
Jack circled the spot several times, with his exhaust muffled, and even the propeller keeping unusually quiet, as though in full sympathy with their desire for secrecy.
“Cover every rod of both land and water with your glass, partner,” he told Perk; “because it means a whole lot to us to make sure that there isn’t any chance for hostile eyes to take note of our stopping here. Unless I’m away off in my reckoning this same bayou must be the identical place where we are to later on make a rendezvous with that cracker guide, Jethro Hicks, who knows every foot of these water trails—I understood he hid out in this terrible region for several years when at loggerheads with the authorities, though innocent of any crime. How does the ground look to you, buddy?”
“Like the ole Sam Patch, an’ that aint no lie either, Boss,” Perk lost no time in telling his mate; “I never did see sech a awful stretch o’ mixed land an’ water nohaow, nowhere; but jest the same that’s zactly what we want, so’s to make dead sartin they beant nobody araound hyah calc’lated to bother weuns, that’s the way I looks at hit, suh.”
“Quite right too, Wally, boy!” snapped Jack; “and such being the case here goes to settle down on that Black Water Bayou—I think that was the name Mr. Herriott gave the slough.”
“Gosh all hemlock! an’ it couldn’t have a better name, I’m asayin’ suh—tough enough lookin’ to give anybody a shiver; but as we’re itchin’ fo’ to keep aour comin’ secret, it suits aour case to the dot.”
There was plenty of room in the middle of the mysterious little lagoon for their landing, if such it could be called; and so cleverly did the pilot bring the pontoons of his craft in contact with the surface that hardly the slightest splash followed.
Jack lost no time in taxiing over to a certain spot that seemed to hold possibilities for the maneuver he intended putting into effect—thick trees hung low over the water, and if only they could manage to push far enough in, the boat would be beautifully camouflaged—hidden under a fringe of branches, and so well disguised as to be discovered only after a close search.
“Wonderfully fine,” was Jack’s announcement after this had been successfully brought about. “Why, it’s almost like late evening under this thick canopy; and the bayou itself, surrounded as it is with tall cypress trees, with those long trailing beards of gray Spanish moss give it a gruesome look.”
“Urr! jest makes me think o’ the ole graveyard I used to run past a goin’ home late nights, when I was a country kid up in New England,” Perk was saying, toning his voice down to almost a whisper.
It certainly did have a most funereal appearance, with the breeze making all manner of weird sounds through the tops of the trees, and the festoons of dangling moss waving to and fro like mourning banners; some unseen swamp creatures added to the shivering feeling that had attacked Perk by emitting the most gruesome grunts and groans his ears had ever heard.
“But it happens to be just what we were hoping to find,” Jack continued, looking quite pleased at the loneliness of the spot; “small chance of any of those crackers coming in this direction, when they have no business here. I reckon Wally, you’ll be able to have that jolly campfire your heart’s so set on, without its getting us into any trouble.”
“Huh! that all tickles me right smart, Boss,” chuckled the other, rapidly conquering that sensation bordering on awe, and beginning to look at things in a more sensible light. “Kinder gu—reckons as haow there might be mebbe a ’gator or so in sech a slimy place as this same—that is, if sech critters do live as fur north as this South Carolina swampy region; anyhaow I ain’t agwine to take chances awadin’ in them nasty waters, where I kin see snakes aswimmin’, and pokin’ their heads aout to larn what in Sam Hill done drapped daown in their private park. Gee whiz! this is ’baout as cheerful a hole as the gateway to the Lower Regions, if yeou asked me what I thought, suh.”
They soon discovered that they were not to be allowed to take things as easy as Perk may have anticipated; for presently both were employed shooing swarms of voracious mosquitoes from their exposed faces and hands.