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.
THE END
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Transcriber’s notes
1. Silently corrected typographical errors, many unmatched quotes;
retained non-standard spellings and dialect.
2. Italic text in the original is delimited by _underscores_.