“Go up head boy, you said it,” his mate told him. “Here, read what it says for yourself—you too, Cyclone, though it’ll be Greek to you since you don’t happen to know the gent who sent it to Cheyenne.”
Perk glued his eager eyes to the yellow slip of paper and as he took in the printed words he held his breath—as if unable to fully grasp the whole meaning of the message with only one reading, he started again, this time going over it aloud.
“Adolph Barkus, 173 Evergreen Street,
“Cheyenne, Wyoming.
“Have received positive information they are in your city. Pay particular attention to the young flyer. Treat him with brotherly kindness and to please me take him for a nice, long ride. Keep me posted. Things down here in something of a snarl. Better drop in and report. I may need you the worst way.
“Kearns.”
“Hot ziggetty dog! what d’ye think o’ that measly rum-runner bobbin’ up like a floatin’ cork to annoy us again?”
Perk gave all the signs of annoyance—he clenched his fist, frowned most horribly and drew a long breath as though his feelings threatened to overwhelm him entirely.
“Oh! we landed that gent behind the bars all right,” Jack remarked, taking things much more coolly than the excitable one, “but it’s hard to keep a man with a big wad of long-green shut up—he hires a celebrated lawyer, gets out on heavy bail, has his case postponed on one account or another until witnesses disappear and the public forgets what it’s all about. Like as not he’s as free as either of us, only it may be he’s forbidden to leave the State of Florida pending his trial—you notice the message was dispatched from Jacksonville.”
“From his getting on our track I kinder guess the gent must feel a bit peeved at the firm o’ Ralston an’ Perkiser. Brotherly kindness, eh?—take him for a nice long ride—how swell that’d be—an’ all jest to please Mr. Oswald Kearns, the high light o’ most o’ the schemes hatched up to run in case goods from Bimimi along the Florida shore.”