“I’m not thrilled by what you say, Perk, because I’ve been more than half expecting to hear that discovery. Glad you got on to him okay; because it’s always best to know what’s in the wind. What sort of a chap is he like?”
Jack spoke in his usual calm way, and the other realized he had undoubtedly been prepared for the sudden news.
“Nothin’ out o’ the way ’bout his looks, far as I c’n see,” was Perk’s reply; “on’y got a few squints at the guy; but he’s keepin’ tab o’ our movements I guess now.”
“Reckon he might be one of those lads in the Ryan ship that crashed in flames after they’d flown the coop?” asked Jack.
“Huh! just can’t be dead sure, partner,” chuckled Perk; “but there’s somethin’ ’bout his walk that gets me into believin’ he’s the kiwi that pilot was keepin’ on our tail so long, stickin’ like a leech from a mud-hole.”
“I wonder,” the other went on to say, as if talking to himself; “if that’s the case then, both those duffers pulled through with their lives, and not so badly hurt. Honestly I’m a bit glad that’s so, for up to the present I’ve never had occasion to take a human life.”
Perk snorted on hearing this.
“Well, if so be you’d been ten years older, my boy, mebbe you’d not be able to say that—chances are you’d a been mixed up in that mess across the Atlantic, when Yanks an’ Johnny Rebs were fightin’ shoulder to shoulder, and it was a case o’ a Heine pilot’s life or our’n. But if you keep on with Uncle Sam’s service as you’re adoin’ right now, the time’ll come for you to fetch back a dead man who jest wouldn’t let hisself be captured.”
“Like as not,” remarked Jack; “but there’s no need of crossing a river till you come to it; so I’m not taking trouble by the forelock away ahead of time.”
“What’ll we do ’bout this dickey bird that’s bobbin’ at our heels so gaily, tell me, partner?” pursued Perk, eagerly, as though in his fighting heart he was actually hoping his superior would give the order to turn on their persistent pursuer, and at least blacken both his eyes.