Then he suddenly found himself listening intently, for above the pounding of the old motor, with an occasional “miss” to break the monotony, he fancied he had caught the signal Jack was to give him when the time arrived for making a turn toward the coast.
“Bully boy, Jack!” Perk cried out when he found that he had not been deceived. “I’ll be right pleased to drop this tiresome job an’ think myself some lucky to miss havin’ the tub run on a reef, or the bally motor kickin’ off an’ quittin’ cold. Yes, an’ there’s what looks like a bunch o’ cabbage palms stickin’ their tops against the sky-line. Better slow up, Perk, old scout, afore you hit some stump or get aground off shore.”
So he throttled the motor a bit and fairly crept along. He even found himself wishing he had fixed things so that the prisoner might stand by with a sounding pole in the bow of the sloop to sing out the depth and give warning of sudden shallows but it was too late now to attempt such a thing, even if he had dared take the chance of the fellow jumping overboard and either drowning or getting ashore to give warning as to the menace hovering above the operations of the far-flung smuggler combine.
But fortune was still kind and presently Perk found himself softly gliding past the outermost mangrove islands. Here, he remembered, it was his duty to come about and lay to until Jack could drop down and taxi over to where the sloop lay so as to consider their further plans in the coming dawn.
CHAPTER X
TAMPA BOUND
“Congrats, Perk,” said Jack, as soon as he came close enough, “you did the thing up in first-class shape. If all other jobs went back on you I reckon you could get your papers along the engineering line. A bit tired in the bargain I take it, partner?”
“Lay off on that stuff, matey,” replied the other, scornfully, “me, I never get what you’d call tired, but jest the same I’m right glad it’s all over an’ the rotten crate didn’t get sunk out there–hate to lose all this bottled juice we come by in such a queer way. Climb aboard, Jack, an’ let’s have a little talk-fest while we rest up.”
“Later on I’d be glad to do that,” he was told. “We’d be wise to push further in among these islands before morning comes along if any sponger or fisherman happened to glimpse this pair of odd sea and air craft he’d spread the story far and wide and get us in Dutch. I’ll fasten a tow line on to the ship here, if you’ll toss me a coil and taxi away back where there wouldn’t be one chance in a thousand of our being seen.”
“I get you, buddy,” Perk hastened to say, as he made ready to toss the bight of stout rope to his waiting chum, “and it’s all to the good with me. Dandy luck we’ve been havin’ for a fact, on’y hope it keeps on that way to the finish line. Here you are, Boss!”