“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.