“Sure is,” assented Jack, as though that small circumstance assumed some importance in his eyes, as well as those of his comrade.
“Ginger pop! but mebee I ain’t glad we didn’t show any hurry to kick off this camouflage green stuff, thinkin’ it’d served its purpose okay and could be knocked into the discard. See how they keep dodging’ in an’ out like they might be scourin’ every foot o’ shore line, little bays back o’ these mangrove islands an’ all. Strikes me they’re a’searchin’ for somethin’, Jack, which might be the pair o’ us, eh, what?”
“Right you are!” snapped Jack, without hesitating a second.
“Which, I take it, would mean there might a’been some sort o’ little leak up at Headquarters, hang the luck, when we figured we’d got the gang buffaloed right smart. Don’t think they c’n lamp us lyin’ here, do you, Boss?”
“Small chance of that, boy, if only we lie low, and make no move apt to attract their attention,” Perk was told in a confident tone that effectually calmed his rising alarm.
He hastened to settle down in a position where he could thrust his glasses between interstices in the green covering of the fusilage and wings so as to keep close tabs on the advancing plane without making any particular movement of arms or body.
“How?” asked Jack, a few seconds later, when he fancied his mate must have made up his mind as to the identity of the flying ship.
“Curtiss-Robin crate, that’s right, Jack an’ the same we saw before,” replied the observer, excitedly. “Hey! guess now they got a glass up there too. I sure saw the sun shinin’ on somethin’ bright, ’cause the old boy’s still on deck to chaps that high up.”
“I’ve discounted that fact long ago, Perk; men engaged in the desperate game they’re playing night after night would need such a useful instrument, so’s to keep a sharp lookout for Coast Guard boats or bunches of revenue men lying in ambush close to the place they expected to land a wet cargo, or a couple of high-pay Chinks, it might be.”
“Then you got an idea they must have a spy up in Washington–a sneaker who c’n find out what’s bein’ hatched up so’s to cook their goose an’ that he manages to get warnin’ down here to the workin’ crews so’s to put ’em on their guard–is that it, partner?”