“Sorry we ain’t got any coffee up here,” he said, a bit sadly; “but it stands to reason yeou jest caint ’spect everythin’ when yeou’re on the trail o’ bad gunmen like we air right naow. I ain’t kickin’, remember, Jack, ole man.”
Presently, when they had about finished their frugal lunch Jack asked his companion to make his report. This Perk did, giving many different suggestive happenings that he had noted in rotation, and emphasizing his words at certain points.
“You’ve done a good job, Perk,” the other assured him, when the end of the story was reached. “In lots of ways what you’re reporting strengthens our previous convictions—there can be no possible doubt about the cook being our fellow worker, Simeon; and so it goes without saying that when we kick out of here its got to be with two others in our company—Slippery Slim, and Simeon.”
“That’s okay with me, partner,” agreed Perk, eagerly; “an’ we’ll keep on deck in this here nest o’ snakes ’til we kin put the game through—no matter if we gotter go withaout a bite o’ chow fur a hull week—kinder guess I kin stand it as long as yeou kin.”
“Nothing else you noticed, partner?” queried Jack.
“On’y that the ole crate she skipped off ’bout a hour after I settled daown back o’ them nice bushes,” came the ready reply; after which Perk went on to describe how the man they knew as Slippery Slim seemed to be so careful of the several packages, and the leather bag he handed over to the pilot of the plane; and which Perk was so dead certain must contain the latest printing of notes off the press they could sometimes hear rumbling down at one of the cabins, in and out of which some of the men were so frequently passing.
This additional information seemed to please the listening Jack exceedingly, to judge from the way he nodded his head, and smiled knowingly.
“Things are breaking for us, I’d say, buddy,” he told his mate, to the other’s satisfaction; “and by slow degrees we’ll carry on, step by step, until one of these nights we can explode our bomb, and play the game to a finish. But it happens that you haven’t got a monopoly of the good news.”
“Hully gee! then yeou been a nosin’ ’raound this queer hole back o’ the cliff, an’ mebbe run acrost somethin’ wuth knowin’, eh, what, partner?”
“Just what I have, Perk—I started in to explore the black, tunnel-like passage that you kept your eye on last evening.”