“Meanin’ the storm, Jack?”
“That was one thing,” admitted the other.
“Knockin’ us out o’ our reckonin’, like, an’ makin’ us take a forced landin’ on the open prairie where we run across that flimsy ol’ shack—does that cover what you mean, Jack?”
“After a fashion it does,” the other told him, adding: “like the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet left out, it falls flat. You omitted the chief reason for my making this change in plans.”
“I guess you must mean Simeon here, eh boy?” asked Perk, as if suddenly waking up to the fact.
“Sure thing—what are we going to do with him, tell me, Perk? It’d be impossible for us to lug him everywhere we mean to go, flying across into Mexico, and baiting the wolf in his own lair, as you might say. He’d be a constant hindrance to our being free to act besides, we’d run a fat chance of having him give us away, just when we thought it was all over but the shouting.”
“I get you, Jack—it means you don’t trust his promises to lend us a helpin’ hand, and goin’ back on his pals—ain’t that the idea?”
“You said it,” replied Jack, never bothering to drop his voice a particle, knowing as he did that without the aid of those valuable ear-phones Simeon, humped up against the side of Perk, could not have caught what was said even though it had been shouted at the top of his voice.
“Well, what then, partner?” continued Perk, apparently still groping in the dark.
“Nothing to hinder our tripping right along till we fetch up at Angeles, when we can find a way to hand him over to the Federal agents located there. He’s connected with the big gang against which Uncle Sam’s declared war to the knife; and as a material witness, ready to turn State’s evidence, they’ll be only too well pleased to hold him incommunicado, so he can’t do a thing to warn the bunch the big push is on.”