.

penetrating gas from the tear bombs would be carried off on the night wind and it might be reckoned safe for them to go aboard.

      He could vision the terrified hijackers after their speedy plunge overboard managing to find their several boats and dragging themselves over the gunwales with but one thought in their bewildered minds, and that to put as much distance between themselves and the rum-runner as possible.

      He even told himself he could catch the sound of splashing and oars working madly in the locks, although this may have been only imagination on Perk’s part, but for one thing, he did glimpse a moving light and could detect a chugging movement such as would accompany the inglorious flight of the speedboat, racing for some shore harbor.

      Silence followed, as though all the human elements in that late wild tumult had managed to leave the scene of their defeat. Still Jack continued to swing around in a short circle, showing how even with the spoils of victory close within their reach he could keep to his standard maxim of “watch your step!”

      Minutes passed, and it went without question that the penetrating gas must be well swept away by the night wind so that it would be safe for them to board their prize and take a quick inventory of the illicit cargo.

      Perk knew the time for action had arrived when he felt the plane head toward the surface of the gulf, as though it was Jack’s intention to drop just back of the sloop’s stern when they could taxi alongside and readily climb to the low deck.

      There was nothing surprising about their coming in contact with the surface of the water–Jack had acquired a habit of making perfect landings whether ashore or with pontoons. Knowing this, Perk never looked for anything else.

      They came down with hardly any more of a splash than a pelican might have made and almost instantly Jack started taxiing ahead in the direction of the nearby anchored sloop.

      Perk had set the third tear-bomb down with the belief that there would be no necessity for his using it. Silence hung about the sloop, and he had decided there could be no one around, unless, when they clambered over the side, they should discover some poor chap who had succumbed to the provoking gas or else been stunned by a blow in the wild melee that had raged previously.

      Just the same wise old Perk did not mean to be caught off his guard and so he dragged out a formidable looking automatic, supplied by the Secret Service to all its accredited agents as a means for compelling a surrender on the part of any “wanted man” when overtaken in his flight.

      The head-phones had been disconnected so there was nothing to hinder a prompt boarding of the captured boat when Jack gave the word. With the glorious flush of victory thrilling his whole frame Perk stood by to fend off as they drew close to the squatty stern. It would be his duty to clamber out on one wing and get aboard, carrying a rope by means of which the floating airship could be secured to the water craft.

      This he managed to accomplish without much difficulty, wondering while so doing whether he and Jack might not be making history, for he suspected that never before in the annals of aviation had an amphibian plane been afforded a chance to take a prize of war in such an original fashion as bombarding the enemy crew with tear-gas bombs and causing them to flee in mad haste.

      It was an exultant Perk who stood erect on the deck and waved his flying helmet with the proud air of a neophyte hunter planting his foot on the body of his first slain lion or tiger.

      CHAPTER VII

      A WHITE ELEPHANT ON THEIR HANDS

      “Come on in, Jack old hoss, the water’s fine!” was the way Perk greeted his chum after gaining the deck of the captured rum-runner.

      “First make that rope fast somehow so we’ll run no risk of losing our floating crate,” Jack advised him.

      “Yeah, that’s just what I’m goin’ to do, buddy,” continued the other, as he proceeded to make fast to the sloop’s wheel after which Jack managed to clamber aboard.

      There were lanterns scattered around, and in the haste with which the afflicted crew had abandoned their ship no one had bothered about extinguishing them. By means of the meagre illumination afforded by them, the two airmen were able to take a fairly comprehensive survey of their surroundings.

      “Huh! I kinder guessed we’d find a bunch o’ the scrappin’ critters stretched out, an’ lookin’ all bloody like,” ventured Perk, with possibly a shadow of regret in his voice and manner, “but shucks! never a one do I set my lamps on. Here’s a case or two o’ wet goods been busted open, seems like, in all that kickup an’ mebbe now some o’ the wild boys got a taste that helped keep ’em in the roarin’, tearin’ fight they had but looks as if every man must a’ been mighty keen on jumpin’ his bail. Wow! I can’t blame ’em any, if the way my eyes feel is a fair sample o’ what they got served out to ’em!”

      “You said it, partner,” echoed Jack, “but keep from rubbing it in, if you know what’s good for you. The gas is being carried away right along by the breeze, so let’s forget it and take a look around.”

      “Let’s,” echoed Perk, always more or less curious and eager to “peek” when the chance offered.

      It seemed as though they were alone on the anchored sloop that was rising and falling on the long rollers coming in off the wide gulf. Piles of cases lay on the deck around them, ready to be transferred to such smaller craft as were expected to draw alongside with orders for them from some mysterious central clearing house. Possibly there were many more similar packages down below, for the sloop was evidently heavily laden.

      Now and then the voluble member of the firm would let out a crisp exclamation as though those keen eyes of his had run across some visible sign of the recent rough-house disagreement that tickled him more or less.

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      See “The Sky Detectives; or How Jack Ralston Got His Man.”