Even the Mounties it seemed had thus far been baffled in all their efforts to break up this powerful and elusive corporation of evildoers, so cleverly handled were the go-getters under the Hawk that they had a rare faculty for slipping out of any trap set for them, just as the Irishman’s flea never was where he jabbed his finger down.

It tickled Perk’s vanity considerably to think a problem that had so long been too much of a knotty one to be solved by those wonderfully smart members of the Mounties had now, after a fashion, been transferred to the shoulders of himself and comrade—that the stern resolution on the part of the Government at Washington to recapture the criminal who had given the penitentiary at Leavenworth French leave had so worked out as to form a sort of partnership between the Secret Service and the constabulary of the Great Northwest country.

Having himself served in the ranks with some of those Mounties, it was puzzling Perk tremendously as to just how his former comrades had fallen down on the job of bringing in the Hawk. He had always believed that they never failed to get their man, sooner or later, being ready to follow him to the Pole itself if necessary and to ease his worried mind of this strain he now, as usual, turned his batteries on Jack once more.

XVI
BAFFLED BY HEAD WINDS

During the last hour or two their progress had not been so entirely satisfactory as they might have wished, on account of head winds that held them back more or less. This, however, did not give Jack the slightest uneasiness for as he so often told his more impatient companion, they were in no haste and that more battles were won by slow resistless pressure than by mere swiftness, as history would testify.

“Jack,” observed Perk when he felt in dire need of receiving information on the special subject that was giving him distress, “c’n you put me wise jest how come the Mounties ain’t never yet been able to grab this Hawk, as they call him—the feller we’ve set out to yank off’n his high perch? From what I know ’bout the boys, thar didn’t ever come along any problem they couldn’t straighten out. It’s a sorter slogan, as you might call it, with the Mounties that once they sets off on the track o’ a marked man he’s goin’ to be fetched in, no matter how far he runs or how many pals he’s got to back him up. I’m sure bothered a heap to know what’s happened to the force if they’ve fallen down on this here job.”

Jack made light of the matter, however.

“Nothing queer about that, partner,” he told the mourning Perk. “Your friends the Mounties are only human after all. It’s true they’ve the reputation of always getting their man but you must take that with a grain of salt, Perk. There must have been occasions—rare enough I’ll grant you—when in spite of all they could do their game got away or else kept on giving them the slip until perhaps he got into a row with some of his own gang and was wiped out.”

“Yeah! that does seem reasonable I own up, ol’ hoss,” Perk admitted a bit against his will as the other could understand, “but this critter keeps on thumbin’ his nose at ’em and playin’ hob with decent folks’ affairs. Don’t seem as if the boys might be keepin’ up with the reputation they had when I chanced to be playin’ in their backyard.”

“I wouldn’t say that if I were you, Perk,” remonstrated Jack, “we’ve got to consider that lots of changes have come along in the last few years to alter the conditions. For instance, just see what we’re doing right now, hopping along so merrily at the rate of two miles a minute with nobody to hold us up. Suppose the Mounties were hot on the track of a desperado,—then all at once they heard a great clatter and saw an airship rising above the pines with two men aboard, one waving his hat at them and making gestures of disdain—what could they do about such a getaway? He could be a thousand miles distant in ten hours and none of them know whether he went south, east or out over the ocean.”