Eagles of the Sky Part 5

There were lanterns scattered around, and in the haste with which the afflicted crew had abandoned their ship no one had bothered about extinguishing them. By means of the meagre illumination afforded by them, the two airmen were able to take a fairly comprehensive survey of their surroundings.

"Huh! I kinder guessed we'd find a bunch o' the sc.r.a.ppin' critters stretched out, an' lookin' all b.l.o.o.d.y like," ventured Perk, with possibly a shadow of regret in his voice and manner, "but shucks! never a one do I set my lamps on. Here's a case or two o' wet goods been busted open, seems like, in all that kickup an' mebbe now some o' the wild boys got a taste that helped keep 'em in the roarin', tearin' fight they had but looks as if every man must a' been mighty keen on jumpin'

his bail. Wow! I can't blame 'em any, if the way my eyes feel is a fair sample o' what they got served out to 'em!"

"You said it, partner," echoed Jack, "but keep from rubbing it in, if you know what's good for you. The gas is being carried away right along by the breeze, so let's forget it and take a look around."

"Let's," echoed Perk, always more or less curious and eager to "peek"

when the chance offered.

It seemed as though they were alone on the anch.o.r.ed sloop that was rising and falling on the long rollers coming in off the wide gulf.

Piles of cases lay on the deck around them, ready to be transferred to such smaller craft as were expected to draw alongside with orders for them from some mysterious central clearing house. Possibly there were many more similar packages down below, for the sloop was evidently heavily laden.

Now and then the voluble member of the firm would let out a crisp exclamation as though those keen eyes of his had run across some visible sign of the recent rough-house disagreement that tickled him more or less.

"We sure broke in on a sweet little party all right, Jack," he observed, at one time with a chuckle, "see, here's a broken bottle that I guess must a' been smashed on some poor guy's bean and from the blood spots hereabout he had a plenty, but still he managed to skip out when the grand march started. An' looky what I found--a coat that's tore into shreds. Gee whiz! but that was some hot tamale sc.r.a.p, believe me. I'd give somethin' for a chance to look in on the round."

Jack was apparently puzzling his own head over something that did not hit him as so very humorous.

"Yes," he told Perk, with a grimace, "we've made a bully capture all right, partner, but when you come to think twice it may be we've got a white elephant on our hands after all."

"Huh! what d'ye mean by sayin' that, old pal?" questioned the other, who apparently saw nothing in the affair calculated to create any tendency toward dismay in his mind. "You got me in a tail spin, partner--lift the lid, won't you, an' gimme a look in?"

"Well, we've got the rum-boat okay, haven't we?" demanded Jack.

"Looks thataways, I guess," Perk admitted.

"Just so, and what d'ye reckon we're going to do with it?" continued the head pilot, hitting straight from the shoulder as usual.

"Why--er--ginger pop! that's so, old hoss, _what?_ Mebbe now the shoe's on the other foot, an' it's the blamed sloop that's got us held up. Would it be proper to set the bally boat afire and see all this hot stuff go up in flames? or we might knock a hole in the bottom, an' sink her right where she stands, though that might get us in Dutch with our people, since the rum-runners could come around an' salvage this case stuff again. Only way to settle the puzzle'd be for us to have a bargain day sale, opening case after case, knockin' the neck off each and every bottle and makin' all the fish in this corner o' the gulf dizzy with a mixture o' rum an' seawater."

Jack laughed at hearing all this wild stuff come from the bewildered Perk.

"Strikes me I'm not going to get much satisfaction from you, partner,"

he bluntly told the other. "Our folks expect to see some evidence to prove the big yarn we're bound to tell--about our dropping those tear bombs and scattering the fighting hijackers and rum-runners and all that stuff which means that by hook or by crook we've just _got_ to get clear with this sloop and all the contraband that's aboard--hand it over to some of Uncle Sam's agents along the gulf coast, whose addresses I was given before leaving Washington, to be used in just such circ.u.mstances as these. So try again, and see if you can suggest some way it can be put through."

Thereupon Perk started scratching his tousled head in a fashion he always followed when given a problem to solve, since his wits were apt to be a bit rusty and in need of oiling so as to cause them to function properly.

"Wouldn't that jar you?" he finally exploded, "we jest can't load our crate with the bally stuff, 'cause it couldn't lift a tenth o' the cargo we grabbed so easy-like. An' as to towin' the sloop after us by a hawser, it'd be too much like a caterpiller creepin' along. I own up it's got me buffaloed. Jack, an' if anything's goin' to be done it's bound to come out o' your own coco."

"No hurry at all, brother," the other told him, little chance of those lads making back this way in a hurry, since they got the scare of their lives tonight. "Let's look around some more and possibly a suggestion will pop up to give us the glad hand and see us out of the mire."

"Suits me okay old hoss," agreed Perk, nodding his head confidently as though he had known all along that such a clever partner as Jack would have a spare card up his sleeve to play when things began to look unusually gloomy.

Perk picked up one of the lanterns, for he knew they would need some sort of illumination if they intended to explore the regions below deck which he termed the "hold," not being much of a sea-going man, although capable of filling quite a number of different callings from engineer to air pilot.

He had not taken half a dozen steps after descending the short flight of steps leading below when he came to a sudden halt.

"Glory be! what was that?--sounded real like a groan, Jack!" he exclaimed, trying to peer into the gloom of the hold, where there seemed to be row after row of the same type of wooden cases with foreign inscriptions burned on them.

"Just what it was, Perk," agreed his chum, pressing close behind the holder of the lantern, "lift the light a bit, I think I can make out something stretched out flat--yes, it must be a man, I'm certain."

"Kinder guessed we'd run across one or two o' the sc.r.a.ppers knocked out an' left behind in the getaway rush," commented Perk who had drawn his automatic before starting to explore the lower regions of the rum-runner, not knowing what they were apt to meet there.

He continued to advance, and presently they were bending over a dismal looking object, undoubtedly a man who might be a member of the crew, judging from his rough sea clothes and his bare feet.

There could be no question but that he had been in the fight, since his face was b.l.o.o.d.y and his general appearance betokened rough treatment.

Undoubtedly he had been senseless at the time the tear-gas penetrated every part of the small vessel, and was only now coming to.

Jack lost no time in examining the pitiful looking object while Perk waited to hear what his verdict would be. After all the old fighter bore no malice toward any of these reckless men who were so a.s.siduously engaged in breaking the law of the land by running contraband goods into Uncle Sam's domains and he was just as willing to bind up the wounds of this luckless adventurer as if the other had only been an ordinary sailor in sore trouble.

"Nothing serious, it seems," was Jack's decision. "He has had a pretty hard knock that started the blood from his nose and as like as not laid him out here senseless for there's a fine big lump on his head."

"So we'll have _one_ prisoner to fetch in after all," chortled Perk, as if pleased by the prospect of being able to produce a witness to testify to the work they had just accomplished.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPOILS OF VICTORY

"Take hold, Perk," continued Jack, without losing any time. "We've got to get this poor chap out in the open air for it's pretty bad down below here, and bothers my eyes more or less."

So between them they managed to carry the wounded rum-runner to the deck, where he was laid down, still groaning, although showing no other signs of life.

"Step lively, brother, and see if you can run across any fresh water, so's to pour a little down his throat," Jack went on to say. "I can dip up some salty stuff by reaching down over the gun'l and mop his forehead so's to fetch him around."

"Okay, boss!" snapped the ever ready Perk, "kinder guess I spied a barrel with a faucet--hope now she don't hold spirits instead o' water.

Watch my smoke, that's all."

He was indeed back in what he would term a "jiffy," bearing a battered and rusty tin kettle in his hand which proved to contain something that might, with reservations, be called "drinking" water though it proved to be lukewarm and possibly full of "wigglers," as the larvae of mosquitoes are called.

Jack raised the man's head, which he had succeeded in washing to some extent, and forcing open his mouth allowed some of the contents of the pannikin to drain down his throat.

This set him to coughing and so he came to, showing all the signs of bewilderment that might be expected after going to sleep in the midst of a most clamorous battle with the reckless hijackers, and now waking up to find strange faces bending over him, heads that were encased in close-fitting helmets and the staring goggles of airmen.

"You're all right, brother," Jack a.s.sured the man, on seeing how alarmed he appeared to be. "Your crew skipped out and deserted you, but we'll stand by. Consider yourself a prisoner of Uncle Sam, although you'll not be punished any to speak of if only you open up and tell all you know about the owners and the skipper of this smuggler craft. What's her name and where are you from?"

The man had by this time recovered sufficiently to understand what was required of him. Jack's manner was rea.s.suring, and he came out of his half panic so as to make quite a civil reply to the questions asked.

So they learned that the sloop had been known as the _Cicade_, which Jack knew to mean a locust and that her home port was in the Bahamas, hot-bed of the smuggler league, Bimini, in fact, being its chief port of departure.

"What're we goin' to do with this chap?" Perk was asking. "We don't want him to give us the slip, since he's the on'y prisoner we got, do we, partner?"

"I reckon not, brother, and to make certain that doesn't happen we'll have to tie him up or fasten him to the mast here while we finish looking around. I hope to run across the ship's papers, if they've got any such things aboard."

"Leave that to me, Jack, I'm some punkins when it comes to splicin' up a prisoner o' war, so he can't break away." Perk proved himself a man of his word by securing a piece of rope, wrapping it several times around the ankles of the seaman, and finishing with a succession of hard knots such as would require the services of a sharp knife blade when it came time to liberate the captive.