XVWINGING INTO THE NORTHLAND
Perk was still in a high rage because of their having been subjected to that shower of whistling lead.
“For two cents—if you ’lowed me to do it partner,” he boomed with many a shake of his head, “an’ swooped down once more, I’d a let loose on them pesky jayhawkers an’ rum-runners with my bully o’ machine gun. It’d seem jest like ol’ times come back agin an’ you bet I’d a pickled a few o’ the rattlesnake bunch!”
“Remember Perk, we’re not up here to pickle anybody. This is only what you might call a little side-show—the big round-up lies further north where we’ve been given a job to tackle—we’re just on our way—that’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”
As usual Perk soon calmed down, being sensible enough to realize that no injury had been done either their ship or themselves. They had met up with a stirring little adventure and come out of the row with credit which ought to be satisfactory, on their side at least.
“What dye s’pose them yaps think ’bout us flyin’ so low down over their heads like we wanted to take a peep at the mule pack train?” he presently asked the one at the stick.
“That’s something we can only give a guess at,” Jack told him. “They’re just naturally suspicious as all lawbreakers are and I reckon right now they’re likely comparing notes to try and get a line on our standing.”
“Huh! guess now you might mean whether they had anything to fear ’bout our ship or not, eh partner?”
“That’s the idea, buddy. Up in this part of the country air craft are a rarity, I should say and they must be a whole lot suspicious after having us dip down as we did. I don’t imagine any one saw that you were taking a snapshot of the pack train, for they had no glasses that I noticed.”
“Oh! that part worked okay ol’ hoss,” quickly announced Perk, “I didn’t make any show when I snapped the gun off but we sure got ’em guessin’ if I know my beans an’ I figger I do. If you don’t mind mentionin’ the fact partner, how do you mean to get in touch with Mister Maxwell so’s to let him know what’s goin’ on up here on these mountain trails?”
“I’ll find a way to do that before long,” came the confident answer. “Of course, he may not be able to lay a trap for this particular pack-train but they keep on coming, and like as not the next convoy will run up against a snag. Mr. Maxwell I imagine, is a corker of an operator, one who never lets the grass grow under his feet when there’s need for quick action. Some fine morning, after we get back from this trip, we’ll be apt to read all about how this rum-running business with mules carrying the stuff over the mountains, has been smashed to a powder and all the head men put behind bars.”
“Unless I’m away off my guess,” further remarked the loquacious Perk—who seemed wound up and just must keep going for so long before cooling off—“that clippin’ said somethin’ ’bout a warehouse on this side o’ the line. Reckon now there’s anythin’ in that report, Jack?”
“You’re a little off the track there, brother,” he was told. “No such thing as a warehouse was mentioned. It simply stated that it was believed the pack trains all centered at a certain point where they had big, powerful trucks in waiting to carry the smuggled cases to certain cities where they were in cahoots with the authorities—meaning of course, that the officers sworn to carry out the laws of the country and their own State, are taking graft and closing their eyes to what is going on.”
“Huh! nice kettle o’ fish when such things c’n go on with the jails so full now they’re turnin’ the real criminals out to make room for these pizen snakes in the grass.”
“That’s none of our business, Perk. We’re only a part of the Secret Service layout with our work mapped out for us. When we’ve shown up with results, that’s as far as we’ve got to consider—let the solons do the rest.”
Something in Jack’s decisive manner of saying this must have warned the talkative one the matter had been threshed out as far as was needful for the time being and that it would be just as well if they relapsed into silence so as to consider other matters that were really more important.
So Perk clamped on the lid and talked only to himself for a long time afterwards, a sport that generally afforded him considerable joy and satisfaction.
Time passed, with their ship keeping up its swift passage, now close to the tops of outlying ridges and anon passing over valleys so far beneath the voyagers that objects to the naked eye assumed very diminutive proportions.
No further mule pack-trains were sighted but then Jack had considered this fact and had no expectation of meeting up with a second caravan. Because of the existing necessity for guarding the high-priced booze they dealt in, so as to be prepared to resist an encounter with bandits known in the rum racket under the name of hijackers, the expeditions could only be sent off at stated periods and there might not be another for a week or two.
It was all pretty wild country over which they swept as on the wings of an eagle heading for the breeding places of its species far up toward the Arctic Circle and in due time Perk began to weary of staring down at such monotonous pictures.
Once they passed over a railroad and he felt thrilled by the thought that man’s ability to invade the most inaccessible regions of the earth had put a bit and bridle into the mouth of even so wild a horse as such a land could be compared to in the mind of a visionary fellow like Perk.
On they went, still penetrating deeper into the mysterious northland and heading for that isolated post of the Canadian Mounted Police that was said to be at the extreme edge of the uninhabited stretch lying south of those desolate barrens touching on the Arctic regions where, according to Perk’s way of describing things, might be found the jumping-off place that gradually fades away into the near Polar ice-cap.
It was as Jack had learned, a great country for pelts and with signs of gold cropping out of the soil in a myriad of places. The only living human beings likely to be met with would be lone trappers running lines of traps in the dreadful winter season, occasional daring prospectors and stray Indian villagers during the summer when they carried on their annual hunt for meat to be cured for winter use.
Here too, might be found in secret hideouts more than a few fugitives from justice—men who had fled from the long arm of the law and lived the lives of hermits, their hand against all others and compelled by necessity to play the part of desperadoes.
Such a dominating character as the Hawk would not be long amidst such surroundings before he gathered to his standard a select number of like bold spirits. These would be only too willing to follow him in his raids on the stores of isolated fur-takers, white or red, it mattered not, since all men looked alike in their eyes or making occasional more ambitious forays upon some outpost and trading center of the great Hudson Bay Company.
Even the Mounties it seemed had thus far been baffled in all their efforts to break up this powerful and elusive corporation of evildoers, so cleverly handled were the go-getters under the Hawk that they had a rare faculty for slipping out of any trap set for them, just as the Irishman’s flea never was where he jabbed his finger down.
It tickled Perk’s vanity considerably to think a problem that had so long been too much of a knotty one to be solved by those wonderfully smart members of the Mounties had now, after a fashion, been transferred to the shoulders of himself and comrade—that the stern resolution on the part of the Government at Washington to recapture the criminal who had given the penitentiary at Leavenworth French leave had so worked out as to form a sort of partnership between the Secret Service and the constabulary of the Great Northwest country.
Having himself served in the ranks with some of those Mounties, it was puzzling Perk tremendously as to just how his former comrades had fallen down on the job of bringing in the Hawk. He had always believed that they never failed to get their man, sooner or later, being ready to follow him to the Pole itself if necessary and to ease his worried mind of this strain he now, as usual, turned his batteries on Jack once more.