The Sky Detectives; Or, How Jack Ralston Got His Man

It was one of the longest nights Perk ever knew. The mountain air, too, was cold, especially along toward the last few hours and since they were debarred from the joy of indulging in a campfire, Perk could only lie there and shiver. He never was so glad to see the pink sky in the east as on that occasion.

The day was but a repetition of their former afternoon with their sole recreation being the chance it gave them to watch Slippery Slim’s movements whenever he appeared coming out of what seemed to be a cavern of some sort from which at several times when the racket from many tongues died down Perk could catch a strange rumbling sound, accompanied by what seemed to be a blow, and which he could easily believe must be the working of the printing press that had been carried all the way from the States in order to be able to produce those wonderfully clever notes that had deceived many shrewd bank tellers by their deceptive qualities.

Then at last Jack discovered, just as night had begun to fall, three columns of smoke rising toward the heavens from far down the wild Sierra, telling how that Morales and his troop had arrived, and that the curtain was about to rise on the last scene of the international drama.

CHAPTER XXX

JACK GETS HIS MAN

Immediately on discovering the welcome signal, Jack dispatched Perk to put a match to the heap of brush they had arranged well out of sight from the depression where the skeleton revolutionary army was slowly assembling its pitiful force of the dissatisfied generals who had been counted out in the last national election.

Perk understood what was expected of him, and managed to send up a single smoke signal, allowing it to have but a brief life and then hastening to smother the fire. As Morales was expected to be on the watch for just such a sign, he would lose little time in starting to carry out his part in the attack.

“In three hours they will be climbing the mountain by way of the old Yaqui trail we followed,” Jack was telling his chum, when the other returned to his side, flushed with the success of his labors. “It is time for us to make a forward move, so that we may be ready to strike as soon as the camp quiets down and corral our man, leaving it to Morales to carry the fort itself by storm.”

This they set about doing without any further delay. Dodging from rock to rock, taking advantage of every outlying spur, as well as patches of hardy bushes, and other objects that were likely to conceal their movements from any watchful eyes but always creeping downward, they crawled along like two great lizards such, as Perk could remember seeing when in the Philippines.

By the time they were ready to slip into the underground pressroom of the lawless printing company’s plant, Jack figured the three hours had just about expired, and that it was now up to them to make the first hostile move that would precipitate the assault.

In thus deciding to make a start he was influenced by seeing an agreed upon signal from the same hiding place he and Perk had held for so many hours, and which told him the troopers had finally succeeded in climbing to the position assigned to them when plans for action were formed.

Flattening themselves out against the dark wall of a small cliff Jack and Perk glided along until they arrived at that aperture in the solid rock they knew to be the entrance to the wonderful underground retreat that had been described by Simeon at the time when in his desperation he gave his confederates away and from which they had watched Slippery Slim come and go during those long hours of their espionage.

Slipping inside, they found themselves in a corridor that led into the body of the mountain with a gleam of light beckoning them to advance. In this fashion they kept moving, gliding from one point to another, until eventually they had a clear view of the little machine that was working so industriously in turning out the bogus money, hour after hour, as though the demand were without limit.

How Perk did stare, and hold his breath when realizing that they were upon the verge of accomplishing their great undertaking. Slippery Slim was doing no actual manual labor himself, but he kept close watch over the two men who ran the press, closely scrutinizing the printed bills as if to detect the slightest inaccuracy, and correct it without delay.

No wonder, Jack told himself, the product of his skill had startled the financial world by its genuine appearance, when such a master in his particular line took such personal pains to see that the work was carried out in its most minute details.

In whispers Jack informed his backer what his duty would be when the roar of guns and hoarse shouts from without announced that the picked troopers had actually launched their long deferred assault. Jack had taken it upon himself to close in on the chief worker in that little coterie, and have the glory of capturing Slippery Slim unaided but meanwhile Perk might find plenty of action in holding up those two others who were second in importance only to the leading figure.

The tension had become almost unendurable when suddenly there broke out a frightful uproar – women were shrieking, children’s high pitched voices told of intense alarm; men gave tongue, and above it all guns began to sound with deadly import, until the basin rocked with the dreadful clamor.

Jack waited no longer, but giving Perk a kick on the shins to tell him to get busy he rushed headlong toward Slippery Slim, holding his automatic ready for instant service, knowing as he did that such a desperate bad man as Slim was reckoned from all accounts, would not be apt to surrender so long as there remained the slightest chance for a getaway.

Nor was he mistaken in judging the character of the man who had so long defied the shrewdest detectives of the United States Secret Service for when Slim found his way to the open air barred by such a determined looking figure, he snatched out his handy gat and made as if to open fire.

For once he was just a trifle too slow with his service gun, for Jack, clever lad that he was along the line of firing off-hand, managed to send a bullet through Slim’s right shoulder that crippled him, so that his own weapon went rattling to the stone under his feet.

“Put ’em up!” Jack was saying, covering his man as he spoke and having no desire to commit suicide, Slippery Slim obeyed the call; and instantly afterwards suffering the painful ignominy of having his wrists encircled by a pair of nice new steel bracelets.

So far so good, with Jack, his own share of the capture an accomplished fact, able to turn in order to lend Perk a helping hand. It was not needed, for Perk had descended on those two muscular chaps like a thunderbolt, knocking one down with a terrific jolt under the chin and causing the other to look along the short barrel of his blued automatic, he having discarded the repeating rifle for the time being in favor of the easier handled pocket gun.

When the trio of discomfited rogues were all handcuffed, Jack and his reliable partner turned and faced the other way, so as to be ready for a rush, should some of those valorous generals decide to take advantage of the defensive security of the rock cave, and bolt into its gaping mouth.

This being actually attempted they met with a demoralizing surprise when they found themselves the objects of a hot fire, that brought about a complete right-about face movement and presently forced their ignominious surrender to the gallant Colonel Morales and his fierce fighters, who had once before gone through an interesting campaign in that same old extinct volcano vent, with warlike redskins as their opponents.

The end was not long in coming, with many of the would-be revolutionists holding up their hands in complete surrender others escaping by losing themselves along the scraggly sides of the mountains and not a few either slain outright, or seriously wounded.

Jack and his chum had a chance to meet the doughty Colonel Morales, pride of the Mexican army, and be congratulated on their clever work of rounding up such a jack-o’-lantern, fly-by-night as Slim Garrabrant. Of course the two comrades were eager to start back to the other side of the border, since complications might come up over their legal warrant to arrest a criminal so badly wanted by the Washington authorities, but who had made his headquarters south of the international line.

Accordingly they handed over Slim’s two lieutenants, who would have to answer to a charge of being hand-in-glove with those plotting generals, and doubtless find themselves incarcerated in a Mexican dungeon for some years, a fate that made Perk shudder to contemplate.

While he stood guard over their prisoner, Jack sent Perk off at dawn, mounted on one of the cavalry horses, and accompanied by a soldier who would fetch back both animals, Perk’s duty being to get the stranded ship off the ground, and drop down at a more convenient spot closer to the former mountain stronghold of the tiger-like Yaquis.

By nightfall they were hundreds of miles on their way over Arizona and New Mexico, Jack having decided to carry his prisoner, whose wound did not prove to be very serious, though painful enough – all the way to Washington, and present him to his superior, with his customary air of not realizing that he had done anything extraordinary.

That this thrilling feat was only a common occurrence in the lives of such intrepid manhunters as serve the Government through the agency of the Secret Service and that from time to time Jack and Perk might with reason be expected to duplicate such adventurous feats can be set down as certain; indeed, the title of the next number in the Sky Detective Series, “Eagles of the Sky; or With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes,” a tale of the smugglers of the Florida Coast, will grip the reader from start to finish, and prove to be one of the most thrilling stories ever written for lovers of action and valor.

THE END