Jack gave him a laugh and hastened over to see for himself just how much truth there could be in what the other had said with so much earnestness.
XIX
OVER-ZEALOUS PERK
“Perk!”
Strangely enough, while the late sharpshooter had seemed so positive concerning the identity and present status of his victim, he had not displayed the eagerness one might reasonably expect in such a sturdy guardian of the camp, to follow at Jack’s heels.
“Yeah! what is it, old hoss?” he now asked, keeping one eye on the cockpit of the nearby Stinson-Detroiter, under the belief he saw a slight movement there, as though the girl pilot had been suddenly awakened from her sound slumber and was peeping out to ascertain the cause of the late terrific bombardment.
“Come over here and see your monster timber wolf,” Jack was saying.
Perk shrugged his shoulders, as though some dim suspicion of the truth might be already knocking at the door of his valiant heart, but since there was nothing else to be done he stiffened up and walked with soldierly tread to where Jack ominously awaited his coming.
“There he lies, fairly riddled,” the other was saying, pointing as he thus greeted the arrival of the vigilant one. “He never had a chance to even give a single peep after you opened up on him—must have imagined yourself away back again on that Argonne front and sending another Hun ship down wrapped in flames, eh Perk?”
“Huh! he don’t look quite as big as I guessed he was,” admitted the now contrite marksman, beginning to weaken. “Mebbe I wasted too many slugs on the onery critter—sorter shot him to pieces you might say.”
Jack laughed and Perk started, under the belief that evidences of feminine amusement drifted out of their cockpit close by as though Suzanne understood, and was not only interested but highly entertained in the bargain.