“Well, ole scout, ain’t yeou thinkin’ ’baout lettin’ me into the game—I somehaow take it fur granted there’s news come ’long that’s agoin’ to start us off agin follerin’ the air trails on the heels o’ some skunks what got themselves outside the law. Lay off, partner, an’ gimme a run fur my money, won’t yeou?”
CHAPTER V
The Cat is Out of the Bag
Jack looked at Perk, and smiled.
“I certainly must ask your pardon, old chap,” he hastened to say; “for keeping you in the dark so long. Fact is, what came to me in this letter gave me such food for thought I clean forgot you were my side partner, and entitled to my full confidence. Forgive it, Perk, wont you?”
“Sure thing, Jack; then I kinder guess the letter must be from Headquarters?”
“No other, Perk.”
“What’s in the wind this time?” demanded the other, eagerly; as though his nostrils could already sniff the burnt powder that went with action.
“That’s a fair question, and I’ll try to answer you,” said Jack. “It isn’t the mere fact that we’re ordered to duty once more, that I was thinking about just now, because such a thing comes along every once in so often in the exercise of our duties—but strangely enough our meeting up to-day with the family of a man we’d help put in jail doesn’t seem to bring our queer list of coincidences to a halt.”
“Hot-diggetty-dig! naow yeou got me a guessin’ good an’ hard, partner—go to it, an’ explain what yeou mean.”
“Well, it looks as if a wish you expressed only a short time ago was going to be fulfilled,” Jack told him.