Perk had not tried to break into this brief confab; truth to tell he was engaged just then in keeping “tabs” on Jethro’s manner of speech, so as to determine how close to the real thing he himself had come when trying to play the part of a genuine Birmingham son of Dixie.
“How are we going to start this racket?” questioned Jack. “All get in your boat, and close in on the working station, so we can see with our own eyes just what sort of a show they’re putting up.”
“Them’s ther ticket, suh,” he was promptly told, showing that the guide had formed some sort of a general plan of campaign. “I be’n right up agin the level groun’ whar them airships land, an’ watched what was happenin’ lots o’ times. ’Taint no great shakes agittin’ clost tuh thet workin’ bunch, ’case they don’t reckon they’s a single stranger inside o’ ten mile. They’d shore skun me alive if they’d run ontuh me; but I knowed my beans, an’ how tuh fool ther best o’ ’em.”
Jack liked the way the other talked—it showed that Jethro had considerable self-confidence; also that the consuming passion running like hot lava through his veins was not apt to warp his judgment in the least. He could be depended on to keep fairly cool and discreet under any trying condition; and should matters ever come to a showdown, such a man would fight like a South Carolina wildcat, of that Jack also felt assured.
“Then we’ll leave the ship concealed here back of this screen, and climb aboard with you, Jethro,” Jack told him. “I put it up to you to say when we ought to make a start.”
“Right away’d be ther right thing ter do, suh,” came the answer; after both Jack and Perk had changed to the reconditioned powerboat. “Yuh see, it’s sum way tuh go, the river’s so crooked in places; so I kalc’late things they’ll be fair hummin’ by ther time we gits thar.”
“Just as you say, Jethro; but perhaps we ought to take certain things with us—no telling just how soon we might find a use for the same. Wally, climb back, and pass them over to me—you know what I mentioned I’d like to have along.”
Evidently Perk had committed the list to memory, for he handed the articles over in rapid succession—guns, along with other things that must have been a rank mystery to the staring Jethro, though he made no remark.
“That’s all, Big Boss,” observed Perk, once more changing to the powerboat, and the seat he had just started to warm up.
Not the ghost of a sound of passing vapor came to Perk’s strained ears as the boat picked up a certain amount of speed, heading directly for the near-by river, which Jack had called the Yamasaw. Perk could hardly believe there could be such a thing as throttling the noisy clamor he had always associated with the passage of a motorboat, usually heard over the water from a distance of several miles. Truly the wizards must be hard at work these days, performing near-miracles right and left—first the aircraft’s noisy discharge conquered; and now the humble powerboat reduced to absolute submission.