“Yeah! I grab what you mean, partner,” said the astounded Perk; “but I got to hand it to you when it comes to hatchin’ up big things—it’s jest wonderful how you manage. An’ I sure do hope everything’ll slide along like greased lightnin’, once it gets started.”
Jack had planned to drop down in some isolated spot where with the coming of dawn, with the aid of the strong glasses they could pick up the rocky Sierra Madre range with its canyons and valleys, where, unless all his leads have been false clues, those whom they sought would have their secret den and stronghold.
Perk got to thinking these matters over, and of course he was bound to run across some things that still seemed a bit hazy in his mind. Accordingly he sought for information at headquarters.
“Say, now, d’ye know I’m jest beginnin’ to get on to why you had the wings an’ fuselage o’ this here ship painted the color o’ sand—took a pattern from the way they striped the steamers on the Atlantic durin’ the big war, an’ colored batteries on the battle front, so flyers couldn’t pick ’em out to drop their bombs down on—camouflage, ain’t that the right word, Jack?”
“Slow to get on to my little schemes, partner; but in the end you make a smart stab—yes, that was what I had in mind, for I knew we’d have to park the old bus somewhere in the open; and I didn’t want any hostile eye to glimpse her from a soaring plane, or a mountain crag—for you see I reckoned Slim was too smart a lad not to have binoculars handy so as to watch for trouble.”
More than ever was Perk impressed with an overwhelming admiration for the ability of his pal to lay plans capable of covering every possible necessity that could arise in carrying out the job they had tackled.
He asked no more questions, confident that everything was bound to move along smoothly, when the casting of the play was in such capable hands.
“Anyway,” he told himself as he thus pondered, “we ain’t seen anything more o’ that moon ship, which makes it certain we’ve knocked her outen the runnin’. Wonder now if that was really an’ truly ol’ Slim, totin’ a swell bunch o’ machine guns, so’s to bolster up the new revolution they say is bein’ fostered an’ nursed in this corner o’ poor ol’ Mexico. Queer what international jingles a feller c’n get mixed up in, when he runs in harness with Uncle Sam’s revenue boys; but it’s all pie to me, just the same, ’cause they allers did say my middle name was Scrap.”
He was now starting to make use of the binoculars, which were fitted with lens capable of making them useful during the night-time, at least when there was a certain amount of moonlight. In a general way Perk could decide where to turn his attention, for it went without saying that the mountain chain lay toward the southeast for had he not studied the lay of the land upon the small but accurate map with which Jack had armed himself before leaving Washington to take up this hazardous adventure?
When he felt assured that he could make out the distant ridges he announced his pleasing discovery to his mate and then at the other’s request took over the controls so that Jack in turn might use the glasses and thus make assurance doubly safe.