“Get aboard, partner; I guess the measly critters are acomin’ down on us like hot cakes right now. Lookit how they start arunnin’ thisaway, will you?”
Jack did not bother looking, as every second might be valuable; he climbed aboard with alacrity, and settled down in his seat; at the same time calling out to the helpers to stand aside. Then he pulled the gun, with the motor responding instantly, so well had Perk done his work when checking up the ship that morning.
Perk was still glueing his eyes on the several figures now racing madly in their general direction, and waving their arms wildly; no doubt they had started to shout in addition, but the descending air mail crate was making more or less racket, which, added to by their own motor’s thunder, prevented any one from hearing what they may have been whooping.
Perk was trembling with an excess of emotion—evidently they had just escaped “by the skin of their teeth,” for he felt certain he could distinguish the uniforms of the police in the little bunch of runners.
“Played your hand just a mite too late, gents!” Perk was whooping as he in turn waved a mocking adieu backward; “thought you’d ketch a weasel asleep, I guess, but not so easy, you gate crashers. Wow! here we go spinnin’ along like the wind, and it’s goodnight to the bunch. Huh! shootin’ at us, air you—jest awastin’ ammunition, that’s all, boys. Go ’way back an’ sit down.”
Then Jack lifted her in an upward fling, and they were off like a startled hawk!
There was some shooting going on back there, for although of course the watchful Perk failed to catch the sound of discharges of guns, he did see flash after flash, proclaiming that the police, under the impression that important criminals were beating them to it, wished to show their warlike spirit by such a bombardment.
If the flying missiles came anywhere near the ascending plane that fact was not manifest to the two occupants of the cockpit; their movements must have been too speedy for such an attack to be successful and almost immediately they had risen beyond the danger line.
Perk was feeling vastly relieved, for it would have been a bad beginning of their special mission were they detained for days in the Southern city, while the agents of the great counterfeit league held the upper hand.