Eagles of the Sky Part 1

Eagles of the Sky.

by Ambrose Newcomb.

CHAPTER I

READY FOR BUSINESS

When the "Big Boss" at Secret Service Headquarters in Washington sent Jack Ralston and his pal, Gabe Perkiser, to Florida with orders to comb the entire Gulf Coast from the Ten Thousand Islands as far north as Pensacola and break up the defiant league of smugglers, great and small, that had for so long been playing a game of hide-and-seek with the Coast Guard revenue officers, the task thus a.s.signed was particularly to the liking of those two bold and dependable sky detectives.

They loved nothing better than _action_--never felt entirely happy unless matching their wits against those of skulking law breakers--while to sup with danger, and run across all manner of thrilling adventures--that was a daily yearning with them.

Since so much of their work must of necessity take them over that vast stretch of salt water lying between the Florida coast and the far distant Mexican sh.o.r.e line, the wise men in Washington had supplied Jack with a speedy plane of the amphibian type, capable of making landings either on sh.o.r.e or in any of the numerous inlets dotting the coast, it being equipped with both aluminum pontoons and adjustable wheels.

Jack had spent several days at the Capital, conferring with various high officials, being thus put in possession of every available sc.r.a.p of reliable information at the disposal of the Department.

He had also been given doc.u.ments of authority, calling upon each and every Government agent in all Florida to afford him any possible a.s.sistance, should he require such backing while learning the ident.i.ty of the "higher-up" capitalists guilty of financing the secret clique that had been giving the revenue men such trouble recently.

The fact was well known that besides the valuable _caches_ of unset diamonds, and other precious stones, coming surrept.i.tiously into the country without yielding the customary heavy duty imposed on them, there was also being smuggled into the innumerable lonely bayous and inlets of the lengthy coast line vast quant.i.ties of contraband in violation of the eighteenth amendment, also batches of undesirable aliens like Chinese, anarchists and Bolsheviks, such riffraff as Uncle Sam had been holding off under a strict ban.

So, too, it was understood that besides the fleet of swift, small power-boats employed night after night in this profitable game of mocking the Treasury Department, latterly the smugglers had been freighting their cargoes by means of airplanes that would be able to land the contraband stuff in lonely places far back of the low coast sections.

It was therefore a monumental task, covering a wide field of operation and with constant peril hovering over the heads of the two adventurous aviators who had undertaken so joyously to spread the net and draw its meshes about the offenders.

Their preparations having been completed, they were waiting in an isolated little bayou surrounded by inaccessible swamps and mangrove islands ready to take off with the coming of the friendly shades of night.

To those who enjoyed reading the preceding volume of this series of aviation adventures, where Jack and "Perk," in order to get their man--one of the boldest and most successful counterfeiters known in the annals of crime--found it necessary to fly across the Mexican boundary line and s.n.a.t.c.h their victim out of an extinct volcano crater that had once been the fort of the fierce Yaqui Indian tribe,[1] will think it a rather far cry for the Sky Detectives to be detailed to active duty some thousands of miles distant, and in the extreme southeastern corner of the republic.

So it always must be with the famous Secret Service men--their motto, like that of our present day Boy Scouts, is "Be Prepared"; for day and night they must hold themselves in readiness to start to the other side of the world if necessary--China, j.a.pan, India, the Philippines perhaps--detailed to fetch back some notorious malefactor wanted by Uncle Sam, and information of whose presence in distant lands has reached Headquarters.

As a rule it was Perk's duty to see that their flying ship was well stocked with all necessary supplies, from liquid fuel and lubricating oil down to such food stores as they would require, even if forced to remain for days, or a week, without connections along the line of groceries and commissary stuff.

Perk himself was an odd mixture of New England and Canuck blood, one branch of his family living in Maine, while the other resided across the border. Hence Perk sometimes chose to call himself a Yankee; and yet for a period of several years he had been a valued member of the Northwestern Mounted Police, doing all manner of desperate stunts up in the cold regions of Canada.

He was considerably older than his gifted chum and had seen pretty hot service flying in France while with Pershing's army in the Argonne. It was his knowledge of aviation in general that had caused Jack to pick him as his a.s.sistant when the Government decided to fight fire with fire, by pitting their own pilots and aircraft against those employed by the powerful combine of smuggling aces.

Sometimes it chanced that Jack, for good and sufficient reasons of his own, did not fully explain the necessity for making plans along certain lines.

This was not because he lacked confidence in his loquacious chum's ability to keep a still tongue in his head or exercise due caution, but usually through a desire to make doubly sure of his own ground before submitting the arrangement to Perk's sharp criticism, which Jack valued even more than the other suspected.

Consequently Perk, with the Yankee half of his blood stirred by an ever present curiosity, wanted to know and invariably asked numerous questions in the endeavor to find a leading clue.

It was in the late Fall and already the advance guard of the winter tourist crowds had begun to arrive from the North, in ever increasing numbers, all set for an enjoyable winter in the sunny resorts of both coasts.

Jack had already made quite a thorough investigation and picked up some important clues that he meant to run down in hopes one of them might lead to definite results.

The amphibian floated on the surface of the isolated bayou with glimpses of the open gulf toward the golden west forming an alluring picture as seen between the jaws of sand points, with palmettoes guarding the entrance to the sheltered nook.

It was just sunset, and inside another hour the night would have advanced far enough to permit their departure on the first leg of their intended flight up the coast.

Perk was exceedingly fond of his pipe and choice tobacco, and looked the picture of contentment as he squatted in his seat, scratching his ankle, where a burning sensation told him he had once again been visited by the tiny but venomous red-bug pest which he hated with all his heart.

"Drat the little beggars," he was muttering as he kept on digging at his leg, "they sure do beat anything I ever run acrost in all my wanderin's.

It ain't so bad to be slappin' at pesky skeeters, 'cause I'm used to sich bloodsuckers; but sandflies, and' jiggers, an' redbugs make a combination that'd be hard to beat."

"Try that kerosene again, brother," advised Jack, who somehow seemed to be a favored one, since he was immune from similar attacks, and greatly envied on that account by his unlucky; pal.

"Yeah!" growled the usually good tempered Perk, "I've rubbed that on, an' witch hazel, an' all sorts o' lotions till I guess now I smell like a stick-pot set out, with old rags smoulderin' to keep the skeets away.

Salt water helps a mite, but this scratchin' which I just can't let up on to save my life, makes things worse right along."

Thereupon he kicked off his shoes, removed his socks, and thrust both feet over the side to dabble them in the saline water of the lagoon.

"Keep an eye out for that big 'gator we scared off the bank a while back," warned Jack, wickedly, "he might think it was a wild duck splashing, and try to pot it for his supper."

"Huh! mebbe now that's about the only way to get relief--let him snap the foot off an' it won't itch me any more."

Nevertheless, despite this reckless a.s.sertion Perk quickly ceased his splashing and resumed his footgear, heroically refraining from rubbing the affected parts. After a short interval of staring at the glowing heavens, as if the sight fairly fascinated him, Perk again spoke, this time finding something of more importance than insect bites to talk about.

"Wall," he drawled in his customary slow fashion, "here's hopin' we ain't agoin' to be knocked out in our calculations tonight, but get a line on what the boys are doin' up the coast, eh, partner?"

"Won't be our fault if we don't," said Jack, who doubtless recognized from the signs that his mate had something in his mind, which he meant to spring on him by cautious insinuations and half questions.

"A right decent crate that was we saw pa.s.s over early this morning I'd say, old hoss," continued Perk, nodding his head as if to punctuate his remarks and also to cause his thoughts to flow more smoothly. "I had a good peep at it as we lay behind that bunch o' saw palmetto out front, an' unless I'm away off in my guess, she was a Curtiss-Robin ship--a big crate in the bargain."

"They need them big in their line of business," Jack went on significantly. "A full cargo of wet goods is pretty heavy, you know, Perk."

"You said it, partner," a.s.sented the other, grinning amiably and yet with a shade of Yankee cunning. "An' what's more to the p'int the guy handlin' the stick was no slouch at his job, b'lieve me. I wonder now could he have been that Oscar Gleeb we been hearin' so much about since comin' down here,--got an idea he might abeen, ain't you, Boss?"

"Just as like as not," Jack told him.

"Huh! Some go as far as to say he used to be a Boche pilot in that fuss across the big water," continued Perk, reflectively, as though certain memories of the long-ago had awakened in his brain--recollections that breathed of action, staccato machine-gun fire, exploding sh.e.l.ls, and the terrible odor of gas that had poisoned so many of his former mates.

"Yes, they said there wasn't any doubt about that," Jack a.s.serted.

"After the war was over and he couldn't find work in his home country, he managed to get to America and has cut quite a figure in flying circles. I reckon he was tempted by the big money in the smuggling game to take a job with this combine along the coast and has been fetching heaps of cargoes ash.o.r.e from vessels anch.o.r.ed far out on the gulf, or even across from Bimini or Santa Fe Beach near Havana over in Cuba."

"By jinks!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Perk, "that there's the place we learned they was shippin' c.h.i.n.ks over to Florida from, ain't it Jack, boy?"

"Just what it was," admitted the other. "It seems that this big combine, made up of rich American sporting men, with a mixture of Cubans and adventurers from all nations, doubles up in crashing Uncle Sam's coast gates with aliens, as well as hard stuff in bottles and barrels."

"Me, I'm jest awonderin'?" continued Perk, "whether it could a'happened that this same Oscar Gleeb an' me ever hit it up and had an air duel tryin' to strafe each other when flyin' across No-Man's-Land over there.

Kinder like to meet up with him so we could run over our sc.r.a.ps an' see if one o' us sent t'other down in a blazin' coffin. It'd be funny if it turned out that way."

"Queer things do happen sometimes," agreed Jack, yawning. "This warm day's made me feel a bit lazy but as soon as we get a move on all that will slip away like fog under the morning sun."

"I say, partner, how 'bout that Greek sponger we talked with when we dropped in at Tarpon Springs t'other day--you kinder s'pected he knew a heap more about these goin's-on than he wanted us to grab, even if we was jest s'posed to be Northern tourists, bent on havin' a fishin' spree later on when big tarpon strike in around Fort Myers--could them spongers have a hand afetchin' in bottled stuff, or ferryin' c.h.i.n.ks over from some island halfway point?"

"Some folks seem to think that possible," he was told. "After looking over the ground, and getting the opinion of a heap of people who ought to have an intelligent opinion covering the facts known and suspected, I've come to the conclusion that if ever there was a time when you could play safe by suspecting everybody you met of having some sort of money interest in this big game, it's down along the Florida west coast and like as not over toward Miami just the same. I'm not trusting my secrets to a living soul, saving a few Government agents to whom I've been directed by my superiors--and I'm even a bit leery about some of that bunch."