Flying the Coast Skyways. Jack Ralston's Swift Patrol. Newcomb Ambrose

he was told by his comrade; “while I’m down below settling our joint account, and securing a taxi. I’ll be back in a short while; and then for business.”

      “Yeah! that strikes me where I live, buddy. Take yeour time, an’ doant come back atellin’ me that pesky Jimmy’s squatted in the hotel lobby, alookin’ over everybody as goes aout, er comes in.”

      Jack was gone as much as ten minutes, and then opened the door quietly, to have the other snatch a quick inquiring look at his face and say:

      “Ev’rything lovely, an’ the goose flyin’ high, ole hoss?”

      “We’re going to kick off right away; and so far the coast seems clear.”

      CHAPTER VI

      By the Skin of Their Teeth

      Once settled down in the taxi Perk felt much better. He had been casting suspicious glances this way and that, eying a number of parties, as though he more than half anticipated the slick newspaper man might be hanging around the Grady in some clever disguise, bent on tracking them to the aviation field.

      “Huh! kinder guess – ev’rything’s okay with us naow – glad Jack didn’t hear me asayin’ that forbidden word, er he’d be kickin’ agin. Tarnel shame haow a life-long habit do stick to a guy like glue – didn’t realize haow things keep acomin’ an’ agoin’ year after year, when yeou git ’customed to doin’ the same.”

      Perk was muttering this to himself half under his breath as the taxi took off, and immediately headed almost straight toward the quarter where the fast growing Candler Field lay outside the thickly populated part of Atlanta.

      He was just about to thrust his head out of the open upper part of the door on the left side when Jack jerked him violently back.

      “Hey! what in thunder – ”

      “Shut up! and lie back!” hissed the other, almost savagely.

      “Gosh-a-mighty! was he hangin’ ’raound after all?” gasped the startled Perk, who could think of but one reason for the other treating him so unceremoniously.

      Jack had turned, and was trying to see through the dimmed glass – he even rubbed it hastily with his hand as if to better the chances of an observation; but as they whirled around a corner gave it up as next to useless.

      “It was that boy all right, and making straight for the hotel in the bargain; which proves he’d located our layout okay,” he explained to the excited Perk.

      “Doant tell me he done spotted us, partner?”

      “I don’t just know,” came back the answer, hesitatingly. “I thought I’d yanked you back before he looked our way; but as sure as anything he came to a full stop, and stared after our taxi. For all we know he may be jumping for some kind of conveyance to follow at our heels.”

      “Hot-diggetty-dig! but things shore air gettin’ some int’restin’ like, I’d say, if yeou asked me, boy! An’ even if he keeps on agoin’ to the Grady the night clerk’ll tell him as haow we done kicked aout. Kinder wish we was a zoomin’ long on aour course, an’ givin’ Jimmy the horse laugh. Caint yeou git the shover to speed her along a little, ole hoss?”

      “We’re already hitting up the pace as far as safety would advise,” Jack told him, as they both swayed over to one side, with another corner being taken on the jump. “It’d spill the beans if we had any sort of accident on the way to the ship; better let well enough alone, partner.”

      “Huh! the best speed a rackabones o’ a taxi kin make seems like crawlin’ to any airman used to a hundred miles an hour, an’ heaps more’n that,” grumbled the never satisfied Perk; but just the same it might be noticed that Jack did not attempt to urge the chauffeur to increase their speed at the risk of some disaster, such as skidding, when turning a sharp corner.

      On the way Perk amused himself by taking various peeps from the rear, gluing his eye to the dingy glass. Since he raised no alarm it might be taken for granted he had made no discovery worth mentioning; and in this manner they presently arrived at the flying field, which they found fully illuminated, as though some ship was about to land, or another take off.

      This suited them exactly, as it would be of considerable help in bringing about their own departure.

      Jumping out Jack paid the driver, and after picking up their bags they hastened in the direction of the hangar in which they had been assured their ship was to be placed.

      A new field service motor truck was moving past them, evidently bent on servicing some plane about to depart east, west, north or south; which Perk eyed with admiration; for he knew what a comfort it was to have one of these up-to-date contraptions swing alongside, and carry out all the necessary operations of fitting a ship out, which in the old days had to be done by hand, with the assistance of field hostlers.

      “Anyhaow, we doant need a single thing to set us on aour way, which is some comfort,” he remarked to his mate as they arrived at their destination.

      While Jack was making all arrangements for their big Fokker to be taken out of the hangar, and brought in position for taking off, Perk continued to look eagerly around him, as usual deeply interested in all that went on in connection with a popular and always growing airport, of which Candler Field was a shining example.

      “By gum! if there aint one o’ them new-fangled air mail flags, painted on the fuselege o’ that Southern Air Fast Express ship gettin’ ready to pick off; an’ say, aint she a beaut though – regulation wings in yellow, with the words ‘U. S. Air Mail’, an’ the upper an’ lower borders marked with red an’ blue painted lines. Gosh! I’d be some proud naow to be handlin’ sech a nifty ship in the service I onct worked by; but no use kickin’, what I’m adoin’ these days is heaps more important fo’ Ole Uncle Sam than jest acarry’n’ his letter sacks. An’ mebbe that ship means to head back jest where we come from, Los Angeles, an’ San Diego, by way o’ Dallas, Texas. Haow they keep askippin’ all araoun’ this wide kentry, day an’ night, like grasshoppers on a sunny perairie – the times o’ magic have shore come to us folks in the year nineteen thirty-one.”

      Other sights greeted his roving eyes as he held himself impatiently in check waiting for Jack to give him the word to start. Both of them had hurriedly changed their clothes, and were now garbed in their customary working dungarees, stained with innumerable marks of hard service, yet indispensable to those who followed their calling.

      It certainly did not take long for their ship to be trundled out on to the level field, and brought into position for taking off. There was considerable of a gathering, considering that it was now so late in the night; and Perk, giving a stab at the fact, came to the conclusion there was something out of the common being, as he termed it, “pulled off” – possibly the presence of that beautiful emblem of the air mail service on the fuselage of the western bound mail and express matter carrier had to do with the occasion – a sort of honorary christening, so to speak – he was content to let it go at that.

      Jack was still talking with some one he seemed to know, some one who must surely be a fellow pilot, for he was dressed in regulation dingy overalls, and kept hovering near that fine multi-motored Curtiss Kingbird plane that he, Perk, understood belonged to the new fleet of the line to be operated in a short time between Atlanta and Miami, Florida, carrying passengers, the mail, and express between the two airports.

      Thus far there had been no sign of the ubiquitous newspaper man, and Perk continued to bolster up his hope this might continue to be the case to the very moment of their departure. It would be a bit exasperating should the fellow suddenly burst upon them, jumping out of a taxi, and tackling Jack with a beastly shower of questions that were suited to the ends he had in view of building up a fanciful story that must tickle the palates of the numerous readers of his department on aviation in the paper he served.

      There, thank their lucky stars, was his companion giving the wished for call for him to stand by, as everything was fixed for immediate departure. In less than three minutes they would be taking the air, and leaving lighted Candler Field behind them – once that happy event had taken