Perhaps one of them happened to make a slight sound—either that, or else the man’s guilty soul caused him to fancy he heard something for he turned his head. It chanced that the light of the lantern fell full upon his dark face, and disclosed the distended eyes filled with terror, as well as the expression so ghastly that passed athwart his countenance.
“Put ’em up!” commanded Jack, sharply, in a voice that would brook no nonsense and as if mechanically influenced to obey, the wretched trapped distributor of bad notes raised both hands, the packet falling to the floor as if his nerveless fingers could no longer retain their grip.
Jack and Perk stepped blithely into the lighted shack, the former with his ready automatic covering the badly shaken rogue, Perk trailing his rifle in a suggestive way, as if able to back his boss up on the slightest provocation.
First frisking the other, and removing a gun from his back pocket, Jack made a motion with his hand as he set Perk to work.
“Get the bracelets on him, partner, then we’ll ask him a few leading questions before we make up our minds what the next step’ll be.”
“But—hold on, Mister,” whined the poor devil, all aquiver as he groveled there on his knees; “I ain’t done nawthin’—this hear ain’t my stuff—I jest suspicioned Jud he must a had somethin’ hid out this way, ’case he kep’ comin’ an’ agoin’, so I kim tuh see what it mout be. Now I knows he must a robbed thet bank over in Tucson when he went off with a gang he runs with.”
“Stow that gab,” said the disgusted Perk, “that’s all too flimsy to wash. We got you to rights an’ where the hair’s short, an’ you’ll have a chanct to see what the inside o’ the pen at Atlanta’s like. This here’s counterfeit long-green, an’ you knows it, mister,” with which cutting remark he snapped a pair of steel handcuffs upon the other’s wrists with the skill only one accustomed to handling such “safety-first” contraptions could display, proving that for one of Slippery Slim’s active lieutenants the show was indeed over.
CHAPTER XXI
PICKING UP CLUES
By this time the man whom Uncle Sam’s two clever sky detectives had trapped, showed signs of being almost in a state of collapse. Too late did he realize what a terrible mistake he had made when yielding to the blandishments of Slippery Slim Garrabrant, and acting under the belief that he could defy the law and get away with it.
“What’s the big idea, partner,” Perk was asking after he and Jack had fixed things so there was no possible chance for their prisoner to break away, and give them the laugh. “Do we jump off right now, or wait till mornin’, I’d like to know?”