CHAPTER XXIA Motor-Truck Caravan
“I say, buddy!”
They were bobbing in and out of the fleecy drift clouds, just as that other ship had done, almost indistinguishable from the ground, being about two miles up, when Jack thus called out.
Perk had been taking account as to the amount of fuel yet remaining in their tanks, and was amusing himself doing some sort of calculation with a stub of a pencil and a pad of paper.
“Yeah! what is it, boss?” he sang out, looking over to where his mate sat at the stick, with the exhaust racket of both motors cut-off effectually.
“We’re just whiffing over that delightful little ghostly bayou you fell in love with; and heading so as to pass above the region from which we heard that unseen ship settle down.”
“I reckoned that was so, partner; go ahead an’ say what’s on yeour mind.”
“There’s one thing that so far has escaped our scrutiny,” spoke up the pilot, with Perk quickly adding:
“Meanin’, I reckons, suh, we aint seen nary a sign o’ any sorter vehicle sech as mout be atakin’ the stuff to market—is that so, suh?”
“Good guess, all right, for you, Wally, boy,” replied Jack. “Pick up your glasses again, and keep an eye on the ground down below. If by good luck you light on anything suspicious, let me know; because I want to see for myself, as it might help me figure out certain things worth while.”
“Ay! ay! Cap; here goes!” Perk told him, suiting the action to the words with the greatest eagerness.
Jack loitered somewhat, not wishing to skip over that prospective battlefield too speedily, lest it fail to reveal some of its most valuable secrets; accordingly he circled while still sticking to the cloud screen, now in and out like a fluttering butterfly amidst the thistle blooms of an old quarry.
Their aerial steed could not be seen from the far distant surface of the earth, unless one chanced to have a very powerful pair of binoculars similar to the beautiful ones Perk was just then handling—the Government at least was a generous employer, since the question of price never entered into the purchase of such instruments as were necessary.
Suddenly Perk let out a loud crow.
“Gimme the stick, gov’nor!” he called out, shoving in behind his mate. “Aplenty in sight right naow, I’d say, if yeou asked me. Jest peek yeour eye on that ere stretch o’ marsh, I take the same to be, clost alongside yonder stretch o’ pine woods—must be some sorter corduroy road built through the muck, screened mostly by cypress trees covered with a heap o’ trapsin’ moss.”
“I’ve got it, partner—just as you’re saying in the bargain, a corduroy road made of logs laid parallel, and looking a bit new as if it had only been constructed lately, for some special purpose.”
“See anythin’ amovin’, boss?” continued the excited Perk, eagerly.
“Not yet,” he was told; “but whatever you saw may be hidden behind some patch of dense timber at the moment. Ha!”
“Ketched ’em jest then, did yeou?”
“One—two—three motor-trucks in a line, close to each other, and making fair time over that bumpy log-road, considering that they seem to be heavily laden with something covered by dirty tarpaulins.”
“Somethin’—huh! weuns ought to know what kinder stuff, eh, partner?” laughed Perk, jubilantly enough.
“Keep circling around, using these hazy clouds for a screen, whenever possible, brother,” urged Jack. “I want to get an eyeful of this same picture, because it’s going to give me the one thing that was lacking—a knowledge of the way they get the stuff out of such a boggy country without being detected by sharp-eyed revenue men.”
“But say, boss, didn’t we make up aour minds they might have a bunch o’ landin’-places, so’s to switch aroun’ when things begun to get too hot at any one roost?”
“Yes, and I still believe that way,” Jack told him, his eyes continuing to be glued to his glasses, as though what he saw fairly fascinated him; “but just the same, they could make use of one main road out of the swamp country.”
So he kept close tabs until eventually the line of heavily laden trucks had passed from his sight.
“You can pick up the course to Charleston now, buddy,” he told the acting pilot. “I’ve seen that those trucks are heading north by nor-west, and chances are they mean to make Baltimore before they halt for good; though like as not they may have a half-way station for stopping over during part of a day, so as to cover the last and most risky section of their long run by darkness, or moonlight.”
“An’ partner,” Perk blurted out, as he relinquished the stick to the masterhand of his mate, “do yeou know they’s somethin’ that’s been abotherin’ me right smart.”
“As what, buddy?” asked the other, keeping up his run among the friendly screen of fleecy clouds.
“Things they seem to come an’ go with these here smuggler lads like everything might be part o’ a well greased machine—never a click, er a squeak, but movin’ ’long with hardly a missfire—jest haoweverdothey fix it—how kin they know near to the minute when a cargo’s acomin’ to port, so’s to have them trucks and men awaitin’ fo’ the same.”
“Oh! that’s dead easy, partner,” Jack sang out, as though on his part he felt little doubt.
“Yeah! seems to me them chaps ’way back in Columbus’ time said them same words arter the man as diskivered America stood a egg up on end, fust knockin’ the small end, and making a rest fo’ the same—anything’s soft enough arter you been told haow—naow I wanter be shown.”
“Listen then, Wally, boy—there isn’t the least doubt in my mind but what the gang has an excellent radio station rigged up somewhere along the coast; they can keep in constant touch both with the mother ships we saw anchored twenty miles out, and also with headquarters on shore—down where those three motor-trucks loaded up, after some speed boat ran in here last night. Get it now, do you, old pal?”
“Gosh! seems like us boys gotter be settin’ up nights fixin’ traps fo’ the sharp foxes, they’s up to sech big stunts. Sometimes I find myself wonderin’ haow in Sam Hill weuns kin beat ’em atall at their pesky games.”
“Well, that’s what we’re here to put through,” Jack stated, off-hand like; “and it seems that usually we do come out on top. But even if we succeed in putting their freight air ships, and fast launches out of business, this game of ours can never be called complete until we’ve managed to discover the location of that powerful sending radio station—and blown it sky-high in the bargain.”
“Bully boy!” cried Perk; “an’ more power to aour elbow, is what I’m asayin’ right naow. Big Boy. Wekindo it, an’—watch aour smoke, that’s all.”
“I begin to think the time for our departure is getting close at hand, Pal Wally,” Jack remarked some time later, as they glimpsed the familiar smoke cloud hovering over the city ahead. “If my last talk with our good friend tonight pans out as I feel pretty certain it must, we’ll figure on making our big jump some time day after tomorrow. That will give us plenty of time to get everything aboard we expect to need; for once we leave Charleston we’ll not be likely to see the place again in a hurry.”
“Sure pleases me a heap, suh,” Perk told him, nodding his head approvingly, as though he might be some species of war-horse scenting the battle-smoke and acrid odor of burnt powder in the breeze, calling him to action.
In due time the big amphibian dropped down on the field, and was hurriedly conveyed to its hangar; the two airmen hovering around for a brief time examining certain parts of their ship, to make doubly certain there was nothing amiss. Jack did not intend going out on the following day, if things worked as he was now planning; they would fix up a last day program, by following which everything necessary would be carried out in the customary way of such careful adventurers as they had always proven to be.
“Huh! been a right full day, I’d call hit,” was Perk’s last word, as they started back to the hotel, so as to clean up for supper; after which Jack meant to keep an engagement with Mr. Herriott, who would be apt to have some news of importance to communicate.
“Taking things as they go, it certainly has, brother,” Jack told his “side push,” as Perk often called himself. “We’ve picked up some facts that plug the vacant holes in my scheme; and I feel confident we’re getting close to the big finish.”