“Me, I’m jest awonderin’?” continued Perk, “whether it could a’happened that this same Oscar Gleeb an’ me ever hit it up and had an air duel tryin’ to strafe each other when flyin’ across No-Man’s-Land over there. Kinder like to meet up with him so we could run over our scraps an’ see if one o’ us sent t’other down in a blazin’ coffin. It’d be funny if it turned out that way.”
“Queer things do happen sometimes,” agreed Jack, yawning. “This warm day’s made me feel a bit lazy but as soon as we get a move on all that will slip away like fog under the morning sun.”
“I say, partner, how ’bout that Greek sponger we talked with when we dropped in at Tarpon Springs t’other day–you kinder s’pected he knew a heap more about these goin’s-on than he wanted us to grab, even if we was jest s’posed to be Northern tourists, bent on havin’ a fishin’ spree later on when big tarpon strike in around Fort Myers–could them spongers have a hand afetchin’ in bottled stuff, or ferryin’ Chinks over from some island halfway point?”
“Some folks seem to think that possible,” he was told. “After looking over the ground, and getting the opinion of a heap of people who ought to have an intelligent opinion covering the facts known and suspected, I’ve come to the conclusion that if ever there was a time when you could play safe by suspecting everybody you met of having some sort of money interest in this big game, it’s down along the Florida west coast and like as not over toward Miami just the same. I’m not trusting my secrets to a living soul, saving a few Government agents to whom I’ve been directed by my superiors–and I’m even a bit leery about some of that bunch.”
“Yeah! From this time on seems to me we’d be wise to play a lone hand, an’ not bother about takin’ any gyps into our confidence, eh what, Jack?”
“You never said truer words, my boy,” assented the other, smiling as he noted the look of pleasure flashing across the bronzed face of his pal at thus having his own opinion confirmed; for Perk valued a few words of praise from Jack far above any other source.
“Kinder get to thinkin’ that Greek sponger–Alexis was his name, if my memory ain’t gimme the bounce–was a bit o’ a sharper, an’ knew beans in the bargain from the way them black eyes o’ his’n kept watchin’ us all the time we asked questions, just like we’d heard people sayin’ queer things concernin’ how easy it was to grab any quantity o’ bottled stuff if on’y you had the ready cash, an’ a good eye for winkin’.”
“We may know more about Alexis before we’re through with this trip,” was all Jack would say concerning the matter. “On my part I’m shaking hands with myself because we were smart enough to camouflage our ship with green stuff for that pilot passed over and could have glimpsed our crate lying half hidden here, and through his glasses–which I understand they all carry–made out how it didn’t match up with any of the aircraft they use in their business.”
“Thanks to you, partner,” Perk hastened to confess. “If it all depended on my poor head I kinder guess I’d a’slipped up right then an’ there an’ give the hull scheme away which would a’been a danged shame, an’ busted the game higher’n a kite.”
“We make a pretty good team, matey,” said Jack. “Sometimes it’s you that goes loco, and threatens to step off your base, and then another time I feel myself side-slipping and have to lean on you to hold my own. That’s just how it should be with partners–give and take, with never a bleat if our calculations go wrong.”