CHAPTER IX
ENGINEER PERK ON DECK
Everything else being in readiness Jack and his muscular comrade startedto work the deck winch in order to get the anchor "apeak," as Perkcalled it, being desirous of showing off with his limited knowledge ofthings nautical.
"She's amovin' okay, old hoss!" gasped Perk who had been doingconsiderable straining, anxious to display his ability as a mudhooklifter. "A few more good pulls an' we'll have the old gink where we wantit."
The task being completed, the sloop began to move backward, very muchlike those fiddler crabs Perk had watched retreating before his attackon one of the sandy Florida beaches.
"Looks like I'd better go aboard our ship and get away from here beforeanything happens to disable a wing," Jack hastened to remark, sensingpossible trouble which would be in the nature of a serious calamity justthen.
"Go to it then, matey," Perk told him, light-heartedly enough, "I'mready to do my stuff as a half-cooked engineer. Don't worry a bit aboutmy gettin' there with both feet if the bally motor only holds together.Don't like its looks any too much, but then Lady Luck seems to be givin'us a heap o' favors, so we're goin' to finish after the Garrisonstyle--heavy on the home stretch."
Before Perk reached the last word his chum had gained his seat in thecubbyhole of the amphibian, and almost immediately called out:
"Cut that rope and let me get away, partner--hurry up before I getanother and harder bump!"
Ten seconds afterward the airship was entirely free from contact withthe drifting sloop. Then came the roar of the motor showing that Jackhad given her the gun. Instantly there was a forward movement of theamphibian, which increased rapidly until it was rushing along with greatspeed presently lifting its nose toward the heavens and leaving therolling surface of the gulf, soared aloft in repeated circles.
Perk, after seeing that his pal was well on his way, turned hisattention to his own job. He had no particular trouble in coaxing theengine to start, although it did considerable "grunting" as though itsjoints might be rusty and in need of lubricating oil, thus telling thatthe late skipper had allowed his engineer to neglect his duties in aclimate where the salt in the air always rusted the inside of gunbarrels, machinery of all descriptions, and in many ways played havocwith exposed metal parts.
However, after the engine got well warmed up it began to work moresmoothly so that Perk lost some of his first anxiety.
"Goin' to get along okay I guess," he assured himself and then, keepingthe prow of his vessel headed due south, he found time to try anddiscover where Jack and his soaring crate might be.
The engine was a gas motor and well supplied with an abundance of fuel,since the winds on their recent voyage around the Florida Keys must havebeen favorable as a whole and with the motive power idle there had beenno drain on the gas.
Perk was feeling prime at that particular moment in his checkeredcareer. It afforded him much pride to thus be in sole charge of acaptured rum-runner with a cargo of contraband aboard. Then, too, alldoubts concerning his ability to serve as an engineer were alreadydissipated for the sloop was making fair time and carried a bone in herteeth, as the white lines of foam running out on either side attested.
Perk was softly singing to himself some marine ditty he had picked up inthe course of his adventurous life afloat and ashore and which had for atitle "Rolling Down to Old Mohea"--it thrilled him to the core to feelthat he was luckily able to afford Jack just the assistance the otherrequired so as to perfect his plan of campaign.
Now he believed he could glimpse the amphibian overhead--yes, the moon,poking her nose out from behind a bank of clouds, allowed him to makecertain--Jack had swung back and was circling, so as to keep the sloopwithin range of his vision.
"Just like a guardeen angel," mused the enraptured Perk, standing at hispost and sending frequent curious as well as proud glances aloft, "as hetold me he meant to be. Say, ain't this simply great stuff we'vestruck?--never felt so joyous in all my life as when I smashed them twotear-bombs down on the deck here an' busted up that fightin' mob. Zowie!how quick they got a move on, every single man but the one lone dickeywe found knocked out down below-stairs. Ev'rything movin' along likesilk--who cares whether school keeps or not, with us boys on the topwave o' success."
Then he concluded to stop premature boasting, knowing very well that asin a game of baseball nothing is settled until the last man has been putout.
So the voyage down the coast continued steadily enough, the minutesrunning along into hours, with faithful Perk keeping steadfastly at hisnew job.
From time to time he would find the plane hovering directly over hishead, and was able to catch certain signals which he could understandbecause of a previous arrangement he and Jack had.
Although the moving sloop was not over a mile or so from the shore line,it was next to impossible for Perk to catch a fleeting glimpse of land,so as to get his bearings.
"Huh!" he told himself at one time after he had received instructions todraw a bit further toward the open gulf, as he was approaching somepoint of land jutting into the water, and thus making a shoal possiblycovered with coon-oysters, on which he was apt to pull up hurriedly withdisastrous results, "this here is like flyin' blind at a fivethousand-foot ceilin',--Jack, he c'n see the land by usin' the nightglasses, so it's a good thing I c'n get tips from him right along. Gee!this sure is gettin' some monotonous, keepin' this old motor hummin'when it's on the blink so bad. Must be a wheen past midnight, I'd say,an' we ought to be clost to them Ten Thousand Islands by now."
He had been keeping close watch on the stars and although making noclaims to being a first-class woodsman, Perk could tell the time ofnight by the heavenly bodies setting one after another, which wouldaccount for his late confident assertion that morning could not be sovery far distant.
Once only during all this time did Perk happen to see a far distantlight out at sea. It interested him more or less and naturally causedhim to speculate as to whether it might have any connection with thegreat game in which he and Jack were now engaged. Everything he had everheard or read connected with the Mexican Gulf seemed to pass in reviewthrough his active mind--there was a halo of romance hovering about thathistorical sheet of salt water and while Perk was not much given toflights of fancy, he found himself picturing some of the thrillingscenes he had recently read about, after learning that the next localityin which he and Jack would play their adventurous part was along theFlorida Gulf Coast.
Then he suddenly found himself listening intently, for above thepounding of the old motor, with an occasional "miss" to break themonotony, he fancied he had caught the signal Jack was to give him whenthe time arrived for making a turn toward the coast.
"Bully boy, Jack!" Perk cried out when he found that he had not beendeceived. "I'll be right pleased to drop this tiresome job an' thinkmyself some lucky to miss havin' the tub run on a reef, or the ballymotor kickin' off an' quittin' cold. Yes, an' there's what looks like abunch o' cabbage palms stickin' their tops against the sky-line. Betterslow up, Perk, old scout, afore you hit some stump or get aground offshore."
So he throttled the motor a bit and fairly crept along. He even foundhimself wishing he had fixed things so that the prisoner might stand bywith a sounding pole in the bow of the sloop to sing out the depth andgive warning of sudden shallows but it was too late now to attempt sucha thing, even if he had dared take the chance of the fellow jumpingoverboard and either drowning or getting ashore to give warning as tothe menace hovering above the operations of the far-flung smugglercombine.
But fortune was still kind and presently Perk found himself softlygliding past the outermost mangrove islands. Here, he remembered, it washis duty to come about and lay to until Jack could drop down and taxiover to where the sloop lay so as to consider their further plans in thecoming dawn.