CONTENTS
The Sky Pilot’s Great Chase
CHAPTER I
THE CLANG OF THE FIRE BELL
“Well, I kinder guess now this here little ol’ ho-tel in Salt Lake City’s got our experience in Cheyenne knocked all to flinders. Good room, twin beds that keep you from hoggin’ all the covers on a cool night an’ as to eats, say it’s sure prime stuff, though mebbe I ain’t no judge ’long any line ’cept quantity. How ’bout it, Jack, ol’ hoss?”
The happy-go-lucky speaker was an old friend of ours, one Perk, and the companion to whom he addressed his question was his bosom pal, Jack Ralston of the U. S. Secret Service. Nevertheless, it seemed that Perk was now known as Gabe Smith, a woods guide of wide experience who in the course of his wanderings had managed to pick up a smattering of aviation, a particularly useful thing in these air-minded days.
And Jack, whenever there was a third party within hearing, was always referred to as Mr. John Jacob Astorbilt, a wideawake young millionaire sportsman always seeking novel thrills hunting big game by means of the latest type airship.
All this had a good and sufficient reason back of it, which will be placed before the reader ere we have gone deeply into this log covering the latest undertaking of the two redoubtable sky detectives.
“Oh! things suit me okay, Perk,” was Jack’s rather indifferent reply, as he smiled at his companion’s grinning, enthusiastic face. “Somehow I don’t seem to set quite as much store by my meals as you do but I’ll say the food is pretty decent—better than the restaurant stuff we used to eat three times a day over in old Cheyenne.”