A WHITE ELEPHANT ON THEIR HANDS
"Come on in, Jack old hoss, the water's fine!" was the way Perk greeted
his chum after gaining the deck of the captured rum-runner.
"First make that rope fast somehow so we'll run no risk of losing our
floating crate," Jack advised him.
"Yeah, that's just what I'm goin' to do, buddy," continued the other, as
he proceeded to make fast to the sloop's wheel after which Jack managed
to clamber aboard.
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 scrappin' critters
stretched out, an' lookin' all bloody 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 anchored 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 scrap, 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
circumstances 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 scrappers 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 bloody 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 assiduously
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.