Читать книгу The Sky Detectives; Or, How Jack Ralston Got His Man - Newcomb Ambrose - Страница 6

Just then Jack hurriedly banked, and swung around as though to double back on their late course. This of course told Perk the pilot must be already aware of the terrible tragedy that was being enacted close at hand, and meant to see its finish with his own eyes.

With the abrupt change in their course he was in time to catch a glimpse of the flaming object still spiraling earthwards, a billow of fire that glowed suggestively in the darkness.

Then far below it seemed to strike the ground – they heard no sound whatever, but the fire became stationary; although increasing in fury, since the wind created by its passage no longer whipped the devouring flames. Evidently by the time the conflagration stopped for want of further material on which to feed, nothing inflammable would be left of the once haughty little Ryan masterpiece save the engine, and other metal parts.

“What’s the big idea, old hoss?”

Perk asked this as a leader, wishing to get a better grip on his own nerves, since they had been dreadfully shocked at the dire result of his random shot.

“Going to circle around a few times, and drop down a bit,” came the illuminating reply; “though I reckon it’s no use, since nothing could live in all that awful blast.”

“Mebbe not, Jack,” remarked Perk, a bit cheerily; “but there’s a fair chance neither o’ them guys got snagged in the flash o’ that gas.”

“See here, Perk, have you some foundation for saying that?” demanded the other, eagerly.

“Sure – they jumped all right, boss,” Perk told him.

“You saw them do it then, did you, boy?” continued Jack.

“They bailed out okay – I saw two take the jump right after the first flash came – went down like plummets in the bargain – smart lads those guys are, I’m tellin’ you, partner.”

No doubt Jack was glad to hear this bit of news, for it had filled him with horror to realize that in order to escape they had been compelled to ruthlessly take human life. He was much younger than Perk, veteran of the World War, who had grown more or less hardened to such happenings when staking his own life against that of a tricky German air pilot.

“Still goin’ down, are you?” asked Perk shortly afterwards, on finding that they were still swinging around in a wide circle, that burning pyre far below being the hub of the wheel of which their boat was the outer tire.

“Might as well,” came the ready answer, showing that Jack had made up his mind hurriedly.

“Guess now they’ll get down somehow, boss; a whole lot depends on what kind o’ landin’ they’ll be able to make – if its rocks, or trees, they got to strike it’s apt to be some hard sleddin’ for the boys. Say, ’taint possible now you’re fixin’ to try an’ lend ’em a helpin’ hand? I’d hate to know they’d been wiped off the map in that hot fire; but somehow I don’t feel like playin’ the part o’ the Good Samaritan to such man devils as them two.”

“No danger of my trying to make a landing where the chances are ten to one it just can’t be done,” explained Jack, seeing that his companion was almost ready to mutiny if any such mad proceeding were contemplated. “I’d just feel better if I knew they’d reached ground okay; then we could keep on our way, and it’d be up to them to get out of the scrape.”

“Huh! I get you, partner,” grunted the relieved Perk. “Don’t think I’m bitter about the thing, ’cause they’re sure hot stuff all right; but I’m a bit slow to accept that forgive and forget stuff, specially after any guy’s tried his level best to gimme a dirty deal.”

“We’ll try the thing out while on the job,” Jack announced. “Our own wonderful escape from meeting just that same kind of fate makes me kind of soft. Perhaps we’ll not be able to learn a single thing; you know how it often is when you’ve finally struck ground after quitting the ship by the chute route – all out of breath – sometimes knocked up a bit, if you escape broken bones – not any shape to shout, or do anything but just lie there, and suck in the air in big gasps.”

“Yeah, that’s right for you, old hoss,” Perk readily agreed. “Me, I once got a collar bone smashed that way. No harm in our makin’ a few swings around these diggin’s ’fore we put out for Orleans. That fire keeps burnin’ like things they got sprinkled right well with the juice when the tank blew up. Go to it, Jack, just as you please, never mindin’ a few squeals from a hard-boiled guy like Perk Perkiser.”

“I’m going to shut down on the engine, and take a little glide, so we can pick up anything like a yell,” announced the pilot a minute later.

“Go to it – duck then, boy!” snapped Perk, as he temporarily relieved himself of his ear-phones in order to catch anything bordering on a shout from the ground below.

The simple expedient was carried out successfully, and when once again they leveled out, to continue circling, Jack asked eagerly:

“Get anything, Perk?”

“Not a bleat, partner,” replied the other, who had hurriedly held his earphones in position so as to cover the emergency.

“Sorry for that, but we’ll try a couple more times before calling it all off,” suggested Jack, who could be more or less persistent when the occasion arose for such action, though never carrying it so far as to be reckless.

So a dozen seconds or so afterwards he again gave warning that it was time for another drop of a few hundred feet – not that they meant to take any chances by getting too close to the unknown terrain lying in the pitch blackness under the flying ship; but simply to be able to listen with the horrid clamor of the bustling engine momentarily stilled.

No better success followed this second maneuvre – all was deathly silent around, above, below, as though never a solitary living human being existed within miles of the spot where the destruction of the Ryan monoplane had taken place.

“We’ll give a third and last try,” was Jack’s announced decision, to which Perk added:

“Three times, and batter’s out – by then I rather guess we’ll be down close enough to the solid ground to make another drop dangerous. Either way I’m satisfied we’ve done the right thing, old hoss. Suit yourself when you see fit to coast,” whereupon he once more denuded his ears of the exceedingly useful and really indispensable phone harness, to await the occasion of the last try in the line of an aviator’s duty.

“How about it, Perk? – get a whisper?”

They had completed the glide, and were once more on a level course, with Jack even turning the nose of the ship a bit heavenward; since neither of them knew what the nature of the ground below must be – whether some hill lay directly ahead, against which they might smash for a complete wipeout.

“Huh! a heap more’n that, partner!” came the triumphant reply. “Heard a shout, an’ then another some distance off – struck me both jumpers had lit okay, and were tryin’ to communicate, so’s to get together again. Guess things ain’t so bad after all with them guys, an’ we c’n be movin’ on our way without botherin’ any more ’bout their safety. Some two-legged varmints seem to be watched over by Old Satan hisself, they bein’ that venomous, and evil-minded.”

Jack made no rejoinder to this remark, tinged with bitterness as it was, only pointed the nose of his craft upward, and started to spiral for altitude. Undoubtedly he was feeling greatly relieved because of their having escaped so miraculously from the hovering peril; and best of all managed to turn the tables on those who would have encompassed their destruction just in order to defend the lawless game in which they were engaged in connection with Slippery Slim.

Perk must have been doing a little hard thinking as the time passed and they raced on their way, for later on he started to speak; and as usual his line of chatter told that he was seeking information, trying to find a solution of certain exasperating puzzles that were “twisting his intellects,” as he himself described matters.

“Things kind o’ got me goofy, partner, an’ I’d like you to raise the curtain some, if so be you feel so bent. First place I guess it goes without questionin’ that these huskies must be in cohunks with that there big gun, Slippery Slim Garrabrant?”

“Oh! that’s a dead certainty – who else would have any reason for waylaying us in Atlanta, and setting up this trap for us to fall into?”

“Shucks! then it stands to reason, boss, he’s got means for findin’ out what the Secret Service aims to do; an’ so has been able to play the boys for suckers every time they set out to lay him by the heels, eh, Jack, old hoss?”

“That’s past history, Perk; even the Big Boss got wise to it, and tried everything possible to learn where the great leak happened; but our experience proves they haven’t discovered it so far. I’m making up my mind that the closer we draw to the headquarters of this rotten clique of crime, where they make the bogus long-green that’s been flooding the whole West for a year and more, why, the harder our job is bound to be.”

“Which tickles me a heap, boy – I’m just yearnin’ for comin’ to grips with that gazaboo o’ a Slim; and now we’re on to the job I’ll never be happy ’till he’s on his way to that big Government pen we glimpsed in Atlanta, where some other lads we helped to pinch are doin’ time.”

“Well, if you keep on as you’ve started, Perk, we’ll flatten the whole gang like pancakes – they’ve stacked up against a new sort of revenue dog when they started a shooter of your calibre on the trail. First you smashed their searchlight, and then sent a chuck of lead into the gas tank that broke up the game. That’s the kind of a pinch hitter you are, partner; and right now I want to congratulate you on such dandy marksmanship.”

“Lay off that stuff, Jack – nothin’ but great luck fetched the bacon home for this lad. But me, I’m shakin’ hands with myself ’cause I had that hunch a bear gun mightn’t be such a bad thing to tote along on a trip that’s goin’ to carry us across the border, an’ into Old Mex, like as not; where the greasers are sometimes tough nuts an’ hard to handle they tell me. ’Spose we’ll run across them two hill billies again, partner?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if we did,” replied the pilot, leveling off at a three thousand foot ceiling, and still heading due southwest. “Like as not they’ve got plenty of ready cash along; and after having been so cleverly upset in their calculations, due to your beating them silly with a barrage of hot lead, they’ll be hot to wipe out their disgrace. Oh! yes, we’re going to run up against that foxey pair again before the book is closed for keeps.”