“You’re Moran, eh?” he said in a raucous voice, and his face, scarred by innumerable wrecks, split into a genial grin. “Glad to see you. The boys’ll unwire your suitcase. Come on over and meet the gang.”
Moran relaxed a bit. So the C.O. wasn’t going to hop on him about that landing right away, he reflected gratefully. He removed his helmet in the withering heat, baring the coarse, unruly black hair which had given him his nickname. Perhaps his beard had had something to do with it, too. Sometimes he shaved twice a day in an endeavor to control it, but his heavy jaw always looked dark and bristly, nevertheless.
“Sure glad to see you,” repeated Kennard, his bowed legs moving faster than Moran’s unusually long ones. “They’re flying us ragged, and a new man’s welcome.”
“I heard something was up, but no one seemed to know much about it,” ventured Moran.
“We don’t know a ⸺ of a lot, ourselves,” Kennard told him. “But it’s pretty plain that they’re watching a gang in Mexico who’ve been running chinks and other immigrants over. The runners get around a thousand per man, delivered in San Antone. Army of ’em. Anyway, it’s patrol all day, and be on the alert all night, with a dozen false alarms every hour. Must be good and big and tough, this gang, or Washington wouldn’t be acting as though there was a war on.
“Attention, boys and girls. Here’s the latest victim. Moran, shake hands with Tex MacDowell, Slim Evans, Pop Cravath, George Hickman, and last, but not least, Dumpy Scarth.”
Moran recognized all but the last man from things he’d heard about them. Lean, lounging “Tex” MacDowell; “Slim” Evans, who was nearly six feet six inches tall and as thin as a rail; big, blond Hickman and “Pop” Cravath, who were observers.
“Dumpy” Scarth was a new name to him, and he had thought he knew every member of the flight by name and description. Scarth was a short, fat, little fellow, with a pug nose, a full moon-face, and boyish eyes, which looked the big, new man over with a critical air.
“I know of all of you,” Moran told them slowly. “That is, except Scarth here. I—er—never heard—”
“He just joined the outfit,” Kennard informed him.