Kitabı oku: «The Sky Detectives; Or, How Jack Ralston Got His Man», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XXVIII
CLOSE TO THE TIGER’S LAIR
“We’re about due for a landing, Perk,” finally announced the pilot, after he had used the glasses for a spell, and again took over the stick.
“Huh! some hike that’s agoin’ to be, I’d say, old hoss,” grunted Perk; “but I guess it can’t be helped – got to take the bitter with the sweet lots o’ times – the way o’ the world, seems like. Go to it then, boss; if anybody c’n make a safe landin’ by moonlight it’s jest you!”
His confidence was not misplaced, as Jack proved when he brought the ship down in as perfect a three-point drop as the best of aces could have carried out.
“She’ll have to lie here till we need her again,” he observed, on climbing out of his confined quarters, and stretching his cramped legs after the manner of air mail pilots in from a long and irksome run.
Perk stared around him – they were on the sandy desert without a doubt, and off toward the east could be seen the dim crests of the high and ragged peaks comprising the main ridges of the Sierra Madres – old-time home of the fierce Yaqui Indians, whom the soldiers of Mexico had for so many years labored so hard and in vain to conquer; nor was it until the day the airplane came along that they were able to accomplish this much to be desired end.
But now other equally annoying thorns in the flesh had made a hideout of those same inaccessible mountains – defeated aspirants for the presidency of the Republic, always generals, took to gathering groups of malcontents and mercenary adventurers in these mountain depths, defying the troops sent to rout them out, and proving the latest source of trouble in the political problems of the authorities.
Jack soon completed his preparations for abandoning their ship. He looked it all over, to satisfy himself its camouflage would prevent it from being sighted by any air pilot chancing to pass overhead at a reasonable altitude then he gathered a few articles, the possession of which might turn out to be of value when it came to closing the mouth of the bag and finally announced himself as ready to make a move.
“Got all you wanted, Perk?” he inquired, incidentally, for he had reason to feel certain such was the case.
“Yeah! from the binoculars an’ my rifle, down to what’s left o’ the eats,” the other assured him. “Guess we’ll get along somehow or other.”
“Oh! don’t bother your head about the grub part, comrade; I’m carrying a small packet with me that holds enough to keep two men alive for a whole week – all we’ll have to do is to run across some sort of spring, where we can get all the drinking water we’ll need, while we wait for the wagon.”
“Huh! in this case you’re meanin’ a hearse, ’cause mebbe we’ll have to shoot him up afore he calls quits,” and Perk grinned horribly at his own wit.
So they left the ship stranded there, sprawled out like a gigantic dragon-fly or a monstrous toad. If Fortune proved kind they might yet live to make good use of it again when the time came to fly back to God’s country on the other side of the border where defeated candidates are in the habit of accepting the dictum of the voters, and retiring from the field of battle await the next call to arms, with ballots instead of bullets as their method of settling elections.
Side by side they set forth, like a pair of adventurers starting out in search of Fortune’s smiles, and careless alike as to whether they met with success or not, so long as the excitement they craved came their way.
Perk managed to conceal the chagrin with which he buckled down to his unwelcome task, walking always gave him a pain, mental rather than physical but on the whole he was a good scout, and could follow the beckoning finger of duty, even though he loathed the conditions attached to the performance of his role.
The sand was far from compact, and allowed them to sink in somewhat, so this made the going more difficult in contrast to that on the seashore which being beaten down by incoming waves is often as hard as concrete and a pleasure to walk over; whereas this of the desert was dry and sifted at the least puff of wind.
Perk having had some previous experience with deserts, felt no love for the uninviting waste places of the earth only such useless vegetation as sage, greasewood, cactus and yucca would grow between the sand dunes amidst the blistering fangs of the infernal heat and always vowed he disliked such arid regions with a violence too deep for mere words.
Yet he kept his own counsel and plodded away alongside his pal as if he had no personal feelings in the matter whatsoever. Far off in front of them they could see the line of peaks studded against the sky once or twice Perk felt certain he had caught a fluttering light aloft such as might spring from a passing plane but in every instance he finally decided it must be some shooting star, ducking behind the mountain range, leaving a trailing wake behind that but reflected its passing glory.
One hour, two, and then a third dragged along before Jack thought fit to call a halt. Never did poor weary footsore Perk, almost used up, listen to more welcome and delightful words than when Jack as he drew to a halt went on to say:
“Time to rest, partner, you know – I’d like to find a bunch of shady trees that would afford us a decent shelter from the blazing sun, should we be so unfortunate as to get adrift after leaving all landmarks behind.”
“Oh! bless you for sayin’ that, buddy,” Perk was saying hoarsely, for his throat seemed as dry as tinder, the fine sand even affecting his vocal cords so that he would not have recognized his own voice. “By your leave I guess I’ll lie down and get the kinks outen my legs. Wow! that must abeen fi’ miles if she was one – my shoes are full o’ sand, an’ altogether I don’t feel half the man I was on startin’ out.”
“There are some trees over yonder, you may notice, Perk; so after we’ve caught our second wind we’ll take chances, and cut across to where they lie, perhaps when morning comes tripping along, we may climb up the face of the mountain and get a look-in at the printing establishment that’s set itself up in opposition to the U. S. Treasury Department, and the Federal Bank. Come on then, a little further where we can drop down, and rest our weary feet.”
Shortly afterwards the pair had crept in among the sheltering trees, where Jack called a rest, although under the impression that they should get along further before break of day.
He talked matters over with his partner, speaking almost in whispers, since in this enemy country no one could take anything for granted and for all they knew hostile ears might chance to be close by, ready to listen in.
It was Perk himself who proposed to move along while the going was good.
“Seems like we might be a heap better off, old hoss, if on’y we located up thar on the side o’ the mountain, where we could see without our bein’ watched. I’m okay now, an’ ready for b’ar.”
That was the spirit Jack liked in his mate – a readiness to take hold and reach a decision. They moved along toward the base of the forbidding height, keeping a watchful eye on the eastern sky lest dawn come and surprise them in the open, where it would not be easy to find a hiding place during the entire day.
Fortune favored them, for they managed to get under cover before the first gray streaks appeared in the east. It was bound to be a strenuous task climbing that formidable mountain side but Jack had prepared for even this part of the adventure.
From various sources he had learned how there were three separate means for subduing that grim pyramid of rocks and trees and tangled growth – in order to lessen the chances of discovery, with unpleasant consequences, Jack had decided to try and negotiate the most difficult of these mountain trails in the belief that it would offer a safer passage since evidently none of the seething revolutionists, or their allies, the bad men from across the border, would be likely to follow that canyon trail when others less difficult could be utilized.
Down there hidden by the bushes and spurs of outlying rock they employed their time in munching what must serve as their breakfast. Then quenching their thirst at a convenient pool they proceeded to climb the face of the steep elevation, making for the quaint hollow in the crater of a long dead volcano and which had once been a Yaqui fort.
CHAPTER XXIX
NEARING THE GOAL
They had now reached that most thrilling point in their bold venture, where they would have to “watch their steps” most carefully, lest an incautious act precipitate a calamity that must end all their hopes as well as snuff out their lives.
This breeding place for inflammatory embers of Mexican revolutionary disappointed political generals, and their immediate retainers, was about as safe for the two sky detectives as a cage of Bengal tigers would have been once let their presence be suspected, and the entire neighborhood would be scratched over as with a fine-tooth comb in the endeavor to discover their hiding place and should they be rounded up it needed no magician to prophesy what their fate must be.
Jack led the way, with Perk following at his heels, every sense on the alert. The native cougar of that historical group of mountains could hardly have crept along with greater care than did the two human sleuth hounds of the law. Every advance was attempted only after a careful survey of the entire neighborhood – at the sound of some faint bird-call Jack would sink down and flatten himself upon the ground, his example being imitated by his shadow.
All this caused their progress to be exceedingly slow but time did not enter into their calculations so much as security – many hours must pass ere Jack could figure on the arrival of those upon whom everything depended and they might as well make use of the entire morning in climbing higher and higher toward their ultimate goal.
Once when they chanced to be resting their tired limbs, snug in a sheltered nook behind a mass of brushwood, Jack turned and looked back. The site was especially fine for looking out on the level stretch toward the spot where they had landed during the preceding night.
Perk, watching the actions of his comrade, could easily give a close guess as to what Jack had in mind. This opinion was made more convincing when he saw the other get out the useful binoculars, and apply them to his eyes.
Keenly he kept tabs on the others and was finally thrilled to note the pleased nod Jack gave as if wholly satisfied.
Perk touched him on the arm, and as Jack turned made motions with his head, while his eyebrows went up, his expression without a single word being spoken signifying:
“How come?”
“Take a look for yourself, and tell me if you can get the first glimpse of our old crate” suggested Jack.
“Nothin’ doin,” whispered Perk, after a most diligent search; “an’ if we can’t get a whiff o’ the boat, with these glasses, I kinder guess nobody ain’t agoin’ to locate it with their naked eyes.”
“Which same lets us out from any danger in that quarter,” came softly from Jack, whose face for the moment lost some of the strained look it had borne during the last few hours.
“Never saw a better sample o’ camouflage when I was across the big pond alistenin’ to the smash o’ the rip-roarin’ German guns,” asserted Perk; and then “dried up” when he saw the other press a finger on his lips.
Higher they climbed, like monkeys, taking all manner of desperate chances when necessity arose but so cautious was Jack in leading the way that nothing amiss came about, every obstacle being successfully surmounted until shortly before the noon hour they found themselves in a position to spy upon the camp of their intended prey.
Jack was intensely interested in what he now visioned. The old crater, resembling an immense football bowl, as adopted by some Eastern colleges, looked as though it might have proven well nigh impregnable as a fortress where the fighting Yaquis were able to hold an army at bay – which feat history records as an actual fact.
Scattered about the depression were scores of rude dwellings, some built of rocks, while others more modern had walls composed of sun-baked bricks, known throughout all Mexico as adobes. Men and women, also children, could be seen moving about, preparing the noonday meal or partaking of their customary frijoles, hot tamales, or it might be maize cakes cooked in the hot ashes of fires, and with black coffee as a beverage.
The picture appealed to Perk, who delighted in novel scenes nor did it seem to lose any of its thrill from the fact that, as he very well knew, the men he was staring at so eagerly were most likely as tough a brand of desperadoes and villains as could be grouped together anywhere on earth – ready to fight, hold up trains, or commit all manner of pillage at the drop of a hat.
He marveled at the sagacity shown by Slippery Slim in deciding to join forces with these firebrands of the back country, with the idea of thus securing the greatest safety for his own lawless operations.
All this while Jack had been keeping close watch, in hopes of being able to pick out the figure of the man he had been deputized to bring back to the States so he might be prosecuted for his crimes, and sent to Atlanta. There he would possibly end his days in seclusion, with a large portion of the Southwest breathing more freely since they need no longer fear the avalanche of counterfeit currency that had been demoralizing business for such a long spell.
After all it was Perk who made the discovery, he chancing to be carefully handling the binoculars at the time. He handed the glasses over to his mate, and told Jack just where to look, using as few words as possible, and keeping his voice very low.
Long and earnestly did Jack follow the movements of the remarkable character who had been described in his hearing so many times. What satisfaction it afforded him to know he was actually in sight of the big game and if only his plans carried through his hour of triumph was steadily drawing closer and closer. In imagination, as he continued to watch the moving figure, he could vision the pleasure it would afford him when he could turn in his report to his Chief, and mark it as completed.
The afternoon drifted along, and night approached. Nothing could be done to hasten the crisis; they must wait patiently, and continue to shape their plans until the expected smoke signal told them Morales and his rough riders had reached the foot of the Sierra Madres ten miles further south and when assured by means of a counter signal that everything was working well, start to cover the last lap of their long ride, leave their mounts at a safe distance, and complete the journey on foot.
When darkness fell the picture was even more fascinating to Perk than before, with a number of fires lighting up the huge bowl, the sound of women chattering in Spanish, and children playing just as all youngsters might do while from time to time he could catch strains of music, telling that some amorous swain might be practicing on his guitar, as all who have a drop of Spanish blood in their veins invariably love to do when at leisure.
Perk doubtless made many a grimace while partaking of the light refreshment afforded by the tough pemmican Jack had produced, as their sole means for staying their empty stomachs for when the evening breeze wafted some of the odors from the cooking fires down below it almost set him wild with a desire to partake of hot food. But he knew what he was up against, and sternly repressed the inclination to groan his protest.
It was one of the longest nights Perk ever knew. The mountain air, too, was cold, especially along toward the last few hours and since they were debarred from the joy of indulging in a campfire, Perk could only lie there and shiver. He never was so glad to see the pink sky in the east as on that occasion.
The day was but a repetition of their former afternoon with their sole recreation being the chance it gave them to watch Slippery Slim’s movements whenever he appeared coming out of what seemed to be a cavern of some sort from which at several times when the racket from many tongues died down Perk could catch a strange rumbling sound, accompanied by what seemed to be a blow, and which he could easily believe must be the working of the printing press that had been carried all the way from the States in order to be able to produce those wonderfully clever notes that had deceived many shrewd bank tellers by their deceptive qualities.
Then at last Jack discovered, just as night had begun to fall, three columns of smoke rising toward the heavens from far down the wild Sierra, telling how that Morales and his troop had arrived, and that the curtain was about to rise on the last scene of the international drama.
CHAPTER XXX
JACK GETS HIS MAN
Immediately on discovering the welcome signal, Jack dispatched Perk to put a match to the heap of brush they had arranged well out of sight from the depression where the skeleton revolutionary army was slowly assembling its pitiful force of the dissatisfied generals who had been counted out in the last national election.
Perk understood what was expected of him, and managed to send up a single smoke signal, allowing it to have but a brief life and then hastening to smother the fire. As Morales was expected to be on the watch for just such a sign, he would lose little time in starting to carry out his part in the attack.
“In three hours they will be climbing the mountain by way of the old Yaqui trail we followed,” Jack was telling his chum, when the other returned to his side, flushed with the success of his labors. “It is time for us to make a forward move, so that we may be ready to strike as soon as the camp quiets down and corral our man, leaving it to Morales to carry the fort itself by storm.”
This they set about doing without any further delay. Dodging from rock to rock, taking advantage of every outlying spur, as well as patches of hardy bushes, and other objects that were likely to conceal their movements from any watchful eyes but always creeping downward, they crawled along like two great lizards such, as Perk could remember seeing when in the Philippines.
By the time they were ready to slip into the underground pressroom of the lawless printing company’s plant, Jack figured the three hours had just about expired, and that it was now up to them to make the first hostile move that would precipitate the assault.
In thus deciding to make a start he was influenced by seeing an agreed upon signal from the same hiding place he and Perk had held for so many hours, and which told him the troopers had finally succeeded in climbing to the position assigned to them when plans for action were formed.
Flattening themselves out against the dark wall of a small cliff Jack and Perk glided along until they arrived at that aperture in the solid rock they knew to be the entrance to the wonderful underground retreat that had been described by Simeon at the time when in his desperation he gave his confederates away and from which they had watched Slippery Slim come and go during those long hours of their espionage.
Slipping inside, they found themselves in a corridor that led into the body of the mountain with a gleam of light beckoning them to advance. In this fashion they kept moving, gliding from one point to another, until eventually they had a clear view of the little machine that was working so industriously in turning out the bogus money, hour after hour, as though the demand were without limit.
How Perk did stare, and hold his breath when realizing that they were upon the verge of accomplishing their great undertaking. Slippery Slim was doing no actual manual labor himself, but he kept close watch over the two men who ran the press, closely scrutinizing the printed bills as if to detect the slightest inaccuracy, and correct it without delay.
No wonder, Jack told himself, the product of his skill had startled the financial world by its genuine appearance, when such a master in his particular line took such personal pains to see that the work was carried out in its most minute details.
In whispers Jack informed his backer what his duty would be when the roar of guns and hoarse shouts from without announced that the picked troopers had actually launched their long deferred assault. Jack had taken it upon himself to close in on the chief worker in that little coterie, and have the glory of capturing Slippery Slim unaided but meanwhile Perk might find plenty of action in holding up those two others who were second in importance only to the leading figure.
The tension had become almost unendurable when suddenly there broke out a frightful uproar – women were shrieking, children’s high pitched voices told of intense alarm; men gave tongue, and above it all guns began to sound with deadly import, until the basin rocked with the dreadful clamor.
Jack waited no longer, but giving Perk a kick on the shins to tell him to get busy he rushed headlong toward Slippery Slim, holding his automatic ready for instant service, knowing as he did that such a desperate bad man as Slim was reckoned from all accounts, would not be apt to surrender so long as there remained the slightest chance for a getaway.
Nor was he mistaken in judging the character of the man who had so long defied the shrewdest detectives of the United States Secret Service for when Slim found his way to the open air barred by such a determined looking figure, he snatched out his handy gat and made as if to open fire.
For once he was just a trifle too slow with his service gun, for Jack, clever lad that he was along the line of firing off-hand, managed to send a bullet through Slim’s right shoulder that crippled him, so that his own weapon went rattling to the stone under his feet.
“Put ’em up!” Jack was saying, covering his man as he spoke and having no desire to commit suicide, Slippery Slim obeyed the call; and instantly afterwards suffering the painful ignominy of having his wrists encircled by a pair of nice new steel bracelets.
So far so good, with Jack, his own share of the capture an accomplished fact, able to turn in order to lend Perk a helping hand. It was not needed, for Perk had descended on those two muscular chaps like a thunderbolt, knocking one down with a terrific jolt under the chin and causing the other to look along the short barrel of his blued automatic, he having discarded the repeating rifle for the time being in favor of the easier handled pocket gun.
When the trio of discomfited rogues were all handcuffed, Jack and his reliable partner turned and faced the other way, so as to be ready for a rush, should some of those valorous generals decide to take advantage of the defensive security of the rock cave, and bolt into its gaping mouth.
This being actually attempted they met with a demoralizing surprise when they found themselves the objects of a hot fire, that brought about a complete right-about face movement and presently forced their ignominious surrender to the gallant Colonel Morales and his fierce fighters, who had once before gone through an interesting campaign in that same old extinct volcano vent, with warlike redskins as their opponents.
The end was not long in coming, with many of the would-be revolutionists holding up their hands in complete surrender others escaping by losing themselves along the scraggly sides of the mountains and not a few either slain outright, or seriously wounded.
Jack and his chum had a chance to meet the doughty Colonel Morales, pride of the Mexican army, and be congratulated on their clever work of rounding up such a jack-o’-lantern, fly-by-night as Slim Garrabrant. Of course the two comrades were eager to start back to the other side of the border, since complications might come up over their legal warrant to arrest a criminal so badly wanted by the Washington authorities, but who had made his headquarters south of the international line.
Accordingly they handed over Slim’s two lieutenants, who would have to answer to a charge of being hand-in-glove with those plotting generals, and doubtless find themselves incarcerated in a Mexican dungeon for some years, a fate that made Perk shudder to contemplate.
While he stood guard over their prisoner, Jack sent Perk off at dawn, mounted on one of the cavalry horses, and accompanied by a soldier who would fetch back both animals, Perk’s duty being to get the stranded ship off the ground, and drop down at a more convenient spot closer to the former mountain stronghold of the tiger-like Yaquis.
By nightfall they were hundreds of miles on their way over Arizona and New Mexico, Jack having decided to carry his prisoner, whose wound did not prove to be very serious, though painful enough – all the way to Washington, and present him to his superior, with his customary air of not realizing that he had done anything extraordinary.
That this thrilling feat was only a common occurrence in the lives of such intrepid manhunters as serve the Government through the agency of the Secret Service and that from time to time Jack and Perk might with reason be expected to duplicate such adventurous feats can be set down as certain; indeed, the title of the next number in the Sky Detective Series, “Eagles of the Sky; or With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes,” a tale of the smugglers of the Florida Coast, will grip the reader from start to finish, and prove to be one of the most thrilling stories ever written for lovers of action and valor.
