“Jest so, Jack, we doant need to try an’ slip past the sentry we reckoned was on duty at the narrer pass—kinder got my goat wonderin’ haow in tarnation we was agoin’ to chuck him overboard when the time kim along. Naow we needn’t bother headin’ thataway, ’less we wanted to keep them boobs plugged up inside the big hole. Doant furgit I fetched along some bombs that cud do the trick, an’ mebbe blow up that ere pass sky-high, makin’ a reg’lar jumble o’ things which they couldn’t climb over, it might be.”
“Not a bad idea at all, brother,” Jack told him, with an admiring look. “When it comes to doing big things, especially with all kinds of bombs, (even to mustard and the tear sort) you take the cake. Wait until we get our final plan going, and we’ll see what can be done to give them a great scare. With their leader missing, and the entrance to their valley fort laid in ruins, I reckon they’d cut and run for it, thinking Uncle Sam would now send a force by air ship to round them up.”
“Gosh amighty! but things do look good to me, partner,” Perk could not help saying again, with his face wreathed in smiles.
“Well, I’m first meaning to take you down through that passage, and let you have a glimpse out through the second fissure in the cliff. I’d like to make certain, if we dared take the risk, that the sloping little trail is safe enough to let us creep down, and come up again, in case we decided to try and get in touch with Simeon this very night!”
“Wow! that same ’peals to me like all get-aout, partner. Le’s shake a foot right away an’ go,” was Perk’s energetic appeal, as he got to his feet, primed for fresh adventure and discoveries—always ready to “do things.”
Accordingly Jack led the way into the hole in the wall, his little hand-electric torch lighting up the passage, so there was no risk of either of them stumbling when they “took a chance,” as Perk would say.
Later on, after they had arrived at the terminus of the down-grade, Jack whispered directions in his chum’s ear, and started him off to take his first view of the valley floor from that lower level. Perk was extra careful not to expose even his nose, in securing this thrilling survey, and came back fairly bubbling over with excitement, also enthusiasm.
They sat there within sight of the daylight streak, talking in whispers, and exchanging comments on the situation. Afterwards they both crept forward, and commenced a careful survey, even to poking out a head when it seemed judicious and safe to do so.
“Perhaps,” suggested wise Jack, after a while, “we’d better get busy at the old stand, where it’s easy to watch everything that goes on in the enclosed valley. I want to fix the points so carefully in my mind, that I could move around in the blackest night, and keep clear of the different huts and shacks.”
“You would—that’s right,” commented Perk, firm believer that he was in his best pal’s ability to carry on where most other men must give up, and seek help; “any feller what could fly blind through the worst sea o’ fog that ever was seen, kin do like he had cat’s eyes, an’ could see things in the pitch dark.”