“Oh! nothing at all, Perk; let him run his rope; only we’ll keep along streets where there’s plenty of company, and be prepared for any sort of ambush; though I can’t believe he’d be crazy enough to start anything so early in the evening—if the hour was close to midnight, things might be different. There are any number of tough cases in this old Creole city ready to handle a sticking game for the coin in it—blacks and yellows and whites it doesn’t matter which—all of them are assassins at heart.”
“Then you don’t care if he shadows us straight to the hotel?” demanded Perk.
“Much good that will do him.” said Jack with a light laugh; “the chances are two to one he already knows where we’ve put up, and has had some spy dog me to the Federal building. When the time comes for us to jump off we’ll find a slick way to hop our ship without giving these boys a show-down.”
Presently they arrived at the hotel entrance, without any untoward incident arising to mar the quiet of the evening. Perk cast a parting glance toward their rear just before entering, and seeing the shadowy figure hovering not far away, considered it a part of his duty to place his thumb to his nose, and wiggle his fingers derisively, at the same time uttering a snarl like a bobcat at bay, to express his utter contempt.
Once in their room, Jack first of all cast about as if to decide whether any uninvited guest had intruded on their preserves while they were absent.
“Everything seems to be just as we left it,” he told his running mate, after making this little survey, “and even if some busybody did get in here with the aid of a pass-key borrowed from a chambermaid, he was shrewd enough not to mess things up like they did with our friend Scotty of the air mail bunch.”
“I guess now they must acome to the conclusion you keep the letter o’ instructions ’bout your person,” suggested Perk, wisely, “which, bein’ the case mebbe now they figger on sneakin’ in here while we’re sound asleep, an’ agoin’ through your clothes in regulation style. They do tell me there be sneak thieves right clever in this same burgh, equal to the ones out in India, where they c’n steal the sheet from under a sleeper, without wakin’ him up.”
“I understand that’s really true, partner,” Jack agreed; “but we’re not going to let them have half a chance, even if they hired all the crooks in New Orleans to play the game.”
“Sounds good to me, boss,” Perk declared. “We’ll manage to sleep with one eye open, an’ if any critter tries to give us the once over, he’ll wish he’d never been born, that’s all I know.”
Before turning in, Jack placed a chair so nicely balanced that in case of the door being ever so slightly opened it would crash to the floor, making enough noise to arouse the Seven Sleepers. Perk grinned at seeing him prepare this “guardian angel” as he termed it, and lost no time himself in “hitting the hay.”