Eagles of the Sky; Or, With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes Read online

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  AVIATION

  EAGLES OF THE SKY

  OR

  With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes

  BY

  AMBROSE NEWCOMB

  Author of "The Sky Detectives," etc., etc.

  Published by

  THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING CO.

  CHICAGO

  Eagles of the Sky

  Copyright 1930

  The Goldsmith Publishing Co.

  Made in U. S. A.

  CONTENTS

  I Ready for Business 13 II The Curtiss-Robin Plane 26 III Like a Night Owl on the Wing 35 IV The Dance of the Fireflies 42 V A Battle Royal 51 VI The Tear-Bomb Attack 58 VII A White Elephant on Their Hands 67 VIII The Spoils of Victory 74 IX Engineer Perk on Deck 83 X Tampa Bound 90 XI Perk Holds the Fort 99 XII Old Enemies Face to Face 108 XIII When Greek Met Greek 115 XIV The Coast Guard Men 124 XV With the Coming of the Moon 131 XVI The Lockheed-Vega Flying Ship 140 XVII Okechobee, the Mystery Lake 147 XVIII The Master Crook 154 XIX The Scent Grows Warmer 161 XX Denizens of a Florida Swamp 168 XXI The Mysterious Coquina Shack 175 XXII The Man of Many Faces 182 XXIII A Pugnacious Rattler 189 XXIV On Hands and Knees 196 XXV Perk Demands More Water 203 XXVI The Fight at the Well 211 XXVII At Bay 218 XXVIII The Come-Back 225 XXIX A Last Resort 232 XXX Fetching in Their Man 239

  EAGLES OF THE SKY

  CHAPTER I

  READY FOR BUSINESS

  When the "Big Boss" at Secret Service Headquarters in Washington sentJack Ralston and his pal, Gabe Perkiser, to Florida with orders to combthe entire Gulf Coast from the Ten Thousand Islands as far north asPensacola and break up the defiant league of smugglers, great and small,that had for so long been playing a game of hide-and-seek with the CoastGuard revenue officers, the task thus assigned was particularly to theliking of those two bold and dependable sky detectives.

  They loved nothing better than _action_--never felt entirely happyunless matching their wits against those of skulking law breakers--whileto sup with danger, and run across all manner of thrillingadventures--that was a daily yearning with them.

  Since so much of their work must of necessity take them over that vaststretch of salt water lying between the Florida coast and the fardistant Mexican shore line, the wise men in Washington had supplied Jackwith a speedy plane of the amphibian type, capable of making landingseither on shore or in any of the numerous inlets dotting the coast, itbeing equipped with both aluminum pontoons and adjustable wheels.

  Jack had spent several days at the Capital, conferring with various highofficials, being thus put in possession of every available scrap ofreliable information at the disposal of the Department.

  He had also been given documents of authority, calling upon each andevery Government agent in all Florida to afford him any possibleassistance, should he require such backing while learning the identityof the "higher-up" capitalists guilty of financing the secret cliquethat had been giving the revenue men such trouble recently.

  The fact was well known that besides the valuable _caches_ of unsetdiamonds, and other precious stones, coming surreptitiously into thecountry without yielding the customary heavy duty imposed on them, therewas also being smuggled into the innumerable lonely bayous and inlets ofthe lengthy coast line vast quantities of contraband in violation of theeighteenth amendment, also batches of undesirable aliens like Chinese,anarchists and Bolsheviks, such riffraff as Uncle Sam had been holdingoff under a strict ban.

  So, too, it was understood that besides the fleet of swift, smallpower-boats employed night after night in this profitable game ofmocking the Treasury Department, latterly the smugglers had beenfreighting their cargoes by means of airplanes that would be able toland the contraband stuff in lonely places far back of the low coastsections.

  It was therefore a monumental task, covering a wide field of operationand with constant peril hovering over the heads of the two adventurousaviators who had undertaken so joyously to spread the net and draw itsmeshes about the offenders.

  Their preparations having been completed, they were waiting in anisolated little bayou surrounded by inaccessible swamps and mangroveislands ready to take off with the coming of the friendly shades ofnight.

  To those who enjoyed reading the preceding volume of this series ofaviation adventures, where Jack and "Perk," in order to get theirman--one of the boldest and most successful counterfeiters known in theannals of crime--found it necessary to fly across the Mexican boundaryline and snatch their victim out of an extinct volcano crater that hadonce been the fort of the fierce Yaqui Indian tribe,[1] will think it arather far cry for the Sky Detectives to be detailed to active duty somethousands of miles distant, and in the extreme southeastern corner ofthe republic.

  So it always must be with the famous Secret Service men--their motto,like that of our present day Boy Scouts, is "Be Prepared"; for day andnight they must hold themselves in readiness to start to the other sideof the world if necessary--China, Japan, India, the Philippinesperhaps--detailed to fetch back some notorious malefactor wanted byUncle Sam, and information of whose presence in distant lands hasreached Headquarters.

  As a rule it was Perk's duty to see that their flying ship was wellstocked with all necessary supplies, from liquid fuel and lubricatingoil down to such food stores as they would require, even if forced toremain for days, or a week, without connections along the line ofgroceries and commissary stuff.

  Perk himself was an odd mixture of New England and Canuck blood, onebranch of his family living in Maine, while the other resided across theborder. Hence Perk sometimes chose to call himself a Yankee; and yet fora period of several years he had been a valued member of theNorthwestern Mounted Police, doing all manner of desperate stunts up inthe cold regions of Canada.

  He was considerably older than his gifted chum and had seen pretty hotservice flying in France while with Pershing's army in the Argonne. Itwas his knowledge of aviation in general that had caused Jack to pickhim as his assistant when the Government decided to fight fire withfire, by pitting their own pilots and aircraft against those employed bythe powerful combine of smuggling aces.

  Sometimes it chanced that Jack, for good and sufficient reasons of hisown, did not fully explain the necessity for making plans along certainlines.

  This was not because he lacked confidence in his loquacious chum'sability to keep a still tongue in his head or exercise due caution, butusually through a desire to make doubly sure of his own ground beforesubmitting the arrangement to Perk's sharp criticism, which Jack valuedeven more than the other suspected.


  Consequently Perk, with the Yankee half of his blood stirred by an everpresent curiosity, wanted to know and invariably asked numerousquestions in the endeavor to find a leading clue.

  It was in the late Fall and already the advance guard of the wintertourist crowds had begun to arrive from the North, in ever increasingnumbers, all set for an enjoyable winter in the sunny resorts of bothcoasts.

  Jack had already made quite a thorough investigation and picked up someimportant clues that he meant to run down in hopes one of them mightlead to definite results.

  The amphibian floated on the surface of the isolated bayou with glimpsesof the open gulf toward the golden west forming an alluring picture asseen between the jaws of sand points, with palmettoes guarding theentrance to the sheltered nook.

  It was just sunset, and inside another hour the night would haveadvanced far enough to permit their departure on the first leg of theirintended flight up the coast.

  Perk was exceedingly fond of his pipe and choice tobacco, and looked thepicture of contentment as he squatted in his seat, scratching his ankle,where a burning sensation told him he had once again been visited by thetiny but venomous red-bug pest which he hated with all his heart.

  "Drat the little beggars," he was muttering as he kept on digging at hisleg, "they sure do beat anything I ever run acrost in all my wanderin's.It ain't so bad to be slappin' at pesky skeeters, 'cause I'm used tosich bloodsuckers; but sandflies, and' jiggers, an' redbugs make acombination that'd be hard to beat."

  "Try that kerosene again, brother," advised Jack, who somehow seemed tobe a favored one, since he was immune from similar attacks, and greatlyenvied on that account by his unlucky; pal.

  "Yeah!" growled the usually good tempered Perk, "I've rubbed that on,an' witch hazel, an' all sorts o' lotions till I guess now I smell likea stick-pot set out, with old rags smoulderin' to keep the skeets away.Salt water helps a mite, but this scratchin' which I just can't let upon to save my life, makes things worse right along."

  Thereupon he kicked off his shoes, removed his socks, and thrust bothfeet over the side to dabble them in the saline water of the lagoon.

  "Keep an eye out for that big 'gator we scared off the bank a whileback," warned Jack, wickedly, "he might think it was a wild ducksplashing, and try to pot it for his supper."

  "Huh! mebbe now that's about the only way to get relief--let him snapthe foot off an' it won't itch me any more."

  Nevertheless, despite this reckless assertion Perk quickly ceased hissplashing and resumed his footgear, heroically refraining from rubbingthe affected parts. After a short interval of staring at the glowingheavens, as if the sight fairly fascinated him, Perk again spoke, thistime finding something of more importance than insect bites to talkabout.

  "Wall," he drawled in his customary slow fashion, "here's hopin' weain't agoin' to be knocked out in our calculations tonight, but get aline on what the boys are doin' up the coast, eh, partner?"

  "Won't be our fault if we don't," said Jack, who doubtless recognizedfrom the signs that his mate had something in his mind, which he meantto spring on him by cautious insinuations and half questions.

  "A right decent crate that was we saw pass over early this morning I'dsay, old hoss," continued Perk, nodding his head as if to punctuate hisremarks and also to cause his thoughts to flow more smoothly. "I had agood peep at it as we lay behind that bunch o' saw palmetto out front,an' unless I'm away off in my guess, she was a Curtiss-Robin ship--a bigcrate in the bargain."

  "They need them big in their line of business," Jack went onsignificantly. "A full cargo of wet goods is pretty heavy, you know,Perk."

  "You said it, partner," assented the other, grinning amiably and yetwith a shade of Yankee cunning. "An' what's more to the p'int the guyhandlin' the stick was no slouch at his job, b'lieve me. I wonder nowcould he have been that Oscar Gleeb we been hearin' so much about sincecomin' down here,--got an idea he might abeen, ain't you, Boss?"

  "Just as like as not," Jack told him.

  "Huh! Some go as far as to say he used to be a Boche pilot in that fussacross the big water," continued Perk, reflectively, as though certainmemories of the long-ago had awakened in his brain--recollections thatbreathed of action, staccato machine-gun fire, exploding shells, and theterrible odor of gas that had poisoned so many of his former mates.

  "Yes, they said there wasn't any doubt about that," Jack asserted."After the war was over and he couldn't find work in his home country,he managed to get to America and has cut quite a figure in flyingcircles. I reckon he was tempted by the big money in the smuggling gameto take a job with this combine along the coast and has been fetchingheaps of cargoes ashore from vessels anchored far out on the gulf, oreven across from Bimini or Santa Fe Beach near Havana over in Cuba."

  "By jinks!" ejaculated Perk, "that there's the place we learned they wasshippin' Chinks over to Florida from, ain't it Jack, boy?"

  "Just what it was," admitted the other. "It seems that this big combine,made up of rich American sporting men, with a mixture of Cubans andadventurers from all nations, doubles up in crashing Uncle Sam's coastgates with aliens, as well as hard stuff in bottles and barrels."

  "Me, I'm jest awonderin'?" continued Perk, "whether it could a'happenedthat this same Oscar Gleeb an' me ever hit it up and had an air dueltryin' to strafe each other when flyin' across No-Man's-Land over there.Kinder like to meet up with him so we could run over our scraps an' seeif one o' us sent t'other down in a blazin' coffin. It'd be funny if itturned out that way."

  "Queer things do happen sometimes," agreed Jack, yawning. "This warmday's made me feel a bit lazy but as soon as we get a move on all thatwill slip away like fog under the morning sun."

  "I say, partner, how 'bout that Greek sponger we talked with when wedropped in at Tarpon Springs t'other day--you kinder s'pected he knew aheap more about these goin's-on than he wanted us to grab, even if wewas jest s'posed to be Northern tourists, bent on havin' a fishin' spreelater on when big tarpon strike in around Fort Myers--could themspongers have a hand afetchin' in bottled stuff, or ferryin' Chinks overfrom some island halfway point?"

  "Some folks seem to think that possible," he was told. "After lookingover the ground, and getting the opinion of a heap of people who oughtto have an intelligent opinion covering the facts known and suspected,I've come to the conclusion that if ever there was a time when you couldplay safe by suspecting everybody you met of having some sort of moneyinterest in this big game, it's down along the Florida west coast andlike as not over toward Miami just the same. I'm not trusting my secretsto a living soul, saving a few Government agents to whom I've beendirected by my superiors--and I'm even a bit leery about some of thatbunch."

  "Yeah! From this time on seems to me we'd be wise to play a lone hand,an' not bother about takin' any gyps into our confidence, eh what,Jack?"

  "You never said truer words, my boy," assented the other, smiling as henoted the look of pleasure flashing across the bronzed face of his palat thus having his own opinion confirmed; for Perk valued a few words ofpraise from Jack far above any other source.

  "Kinder get to thinkin' that Greek sponger--Alexis was his name, if mymemory ain't gimme the bounce--was a bit o' a sharper, an' knew beans inthe bargain from the way them black eyes o' his'n kept watchin' us allthe time we asked questions, just like we'd heard people sayin' queerthings concernin' how easy it was to grab any quantity o' bottled stuffif on'y you had the ready cash, an' a good eye for winkin'."

  "We may know more about Alexis before we're through with this trip," wasall Jack would say concerning the matter. "On my part I'm shaking handswith myself because we were smart enough to camouflage our ship withgreen stuff for that pilot passed over and could have glimpsed our cratelying half hidden here, and through his glasses--which I understand theyall carry--made out how it didn't match up with any of the aircraft theyuse in their business."

  "Thanks to you, partner," Perk hastened to confess. "If it all dependedon my poor head I kinder gue
ss I'd a'slipped up right then an' there an'give the hull scheme away which would a'been a danged shame, an' bustedthe game higher'n a kite."

  "We make a pretty good team, matey," said Jack. "Sometimes it's you thatgoes loco, and threatens to step off your base, and then another time Ifeel myself side-slipping and have to lean on you to hold my own. That'sjust how it should be with partners--give and take, with never a bleatif our calculations go wrong."

  "It's right nice o' you to talk that way, brother," Perk hastened toassert, beaming with pride and making out as if tempted to beginscratching again when Jack reaching around, gently steered his clutchingfingers away from the itching locality, at which Perk heaved a relievedsigh and nodded his thanks.

  "The sky has lost most of that glorious color," mentioned the headpilot, "and before long now we can be hopping-off. Our first job will beto swing down the coast and learn if there seems to be anything going onamong the southern islands in this beastly mangrove section where a mancould easy enough lose himself for keeps among the countless waterpassages and inlets. See here, what's the matter with you, staring thatway, Perk?"

  "Wouldn't that jar you now," snapped the other, "that Robin ship isheadin' back this way; or else some other crate that looks like itstwin!"

  [Footnote 1: See "_The Sky Detectives_; or _How Jack Ralston GotHis Man_."]