PARACHUTE JUMPERS
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.”