Then Jack laughed as the humorous side of his recent thrill had begun to grip him.
“Well, well, seems like I’ll soon have to put a padlock on my lips after this when I hit the hay. It’s a serious offence for a fellow in our profession to give away his secrets like that! Never knew myself to be guilty of babbling that way before. Lucky you were the only one to hear me give the game away so recklessly. The joke is on me, partner.”
“But say, Jack, whoever is this Kearns guy anyhow–I sure never heard his name before tonight an’ I kinder got the idee in my head he must be some big-wig you ran up against when in Washington–somebody who had the orderin’ around o’ poor dicks like me’nd you.”
“That’s a far guess, brother,” Jack told him, “for the fact of the matter is, this Oswald Kearns happens to be a certain party just now under suspicion as being the king-pin of these smugglers who’re giving Uncle Sam a run for his money down along this gulf coast!”
Perk took it with a little break, as though the information fairly staggered him, but he was quickly back again at his fly-casting–seeking information at the fount in which he had so much faith.
“You sent me into a reg’lar tail spin that time, Jack, but after tellin’ me so much, it’d be right cruel to keep me a’guessin’ any longer.”
“I don’t mean to keep you in the dark after this, Perk,” he was told in jerky, broken sentences, as though Jack found it difficult to talk and pay the proper attention to what he was doing, for the amphibian had again commenced a steep dive, seeking a much lower altitude. “There are too many things connected with the story to try and spin it now–just hold your horses till we settle down on that lake, and you’ll get it–all I know, or suspect, anyhow. Just now I can only tell you that this Kearns is a most remarkable personage, a baffling mystery to the Department who’s outsmarted the whole Service and played his game of hide-and-seek before their very eyes–nobody so far has been able to pick up a shred of positive evidence that would convict him.
“Gosh, amighty, we’re flyin’ high, buddy!” was what Perk exclaimed and immediately his wits went into a huddle. He must get busy and figure things out, just as football teams do when a change in signals becomes essential.
They had been passing over the land for some little time and still Jack kept heading almost directly into the northeast. He knew just where he expected to make his goal, due to a close application to his charts and maps of the Florida region.
Debarred from fishing for information while the flight was on, Perk was forced to seek consolation in making good use of his binoculars, sweeping the heavens for signs of other suspicious planes or endeavoring to make out the character of the terrain over which they were speeding.