“Okay, partner!” he sang out blithely, after one brief look at the heavens, a portion of which was visible from the hotel window; “agwine to be jest fine, an’ never a whiff o’ fog aout there on Charleston harbor an’ bay.”
“Then we’ll get busy, and make as early a start as possible,” Jack announced, also quitting his cot.
“An’ we doant kim back thisaway tonight, either, I shore reckons, Boss,” Perk went on to add, with a happy ring in his voice; for he did yearn to eat one camp meal, when the chance came along, and no harm might follow their change of a set programme.
“That depends on a good many things,” Jack warned him; “so I wouldn’t count too heavily on our stick-it-out idea, if I were you, Wally, boy. If all goes well, no accidents happen to our boat, and we get so far away from home along about the middle of the afternoon, why we’ll decide then on our doings for the night. You might as well, I suppose, carry a few necessary things along, such as you’d like to eat at a campfire supper—if we think it wise to have any fire, I mean.”
“Oh! please doant throw any gloom on aour trip today, partner; we kin make shore to drop daown in a region where there aint a Chinaman’s chanct o’ a solitary Tarheel bein’ inside o’ ten miles; an’ the swamps araoun’ makin’ it ab-solutely impossible fo’ sech to git to aour camp short o’ six days anyway, havin’ to cut his path through dense thickets; wade sloughs where the pizen water moccasins air thicker’n molasses on a cold mawnin’; with twelve-foot ’gators alayin’ in wait to bite off a gink’s leg quicker’n yeou could wink an eye. Shucks! we jest gotter have that same campfire—withaout the same it’d be like the play o’ Hanblett with him left aout.”
Jack only grinned, but Perk seeing the look on his face, took courage.
“There’s one thing I haven’t touched on as yet, brother, which might just as well be taken up now.” Jack was telling his comrade, as they sat eating an early breakfast, there being hardly any one besides themselves in the diningroom; so they could talk in low tones, and keeping an eye on the waiters, so as to change the subject should one of them draw near.
“Huh! somethin’ mebbe naow Mr. H been atellin’ you-all, eh, suh?”
“Just that, Wally; but a matter of the utmost importance, it happens, as you’ll soon understand, buddy. It concerns a certain party who’s going to have a hand with us in closing the net, and making a big dent in this same syndicate we’re up against. His name—bend a bit closer to me—is Jethro Hicks.”
“Sho! never heard it afore, give yeou my affidavy, partner!” returned Perk.