e, although Perk was
telling himself he did not care a particle whether the smuggler pilot
discovered the mast of the sloop, with its camouflaged deck below or
not.

He was only hoping that the other might not take a notion to fly
overhead and try to drop some sort of a miserable bomb down upon the
spot where things looked a bit suspicious to him. Possibly Perk still
seemed to get a faint whiff of the tear-gas that had drenched the
smugglers' boat at the time he himself hurled those two bombs with such
deadly accuracy and the possibility of being himself made the target of
a similar attack was anything but pleasing for him to contemplate.

This time the Curtiss-Robin sped past not much more than three hundred
feet above, so that he could plainly make out a head, with its
protecting helmet, earflaps, and goggles, that was projected from the
cabin.

"Darn his nerve, if he ain't wavin' his hand to me to say, 'I see you
little boy, you're it!' Spotted me, danged if he didn't, by ginger! an'
now the fun's a'goin' to start right along. Wow! this is what I like,
an' pays up for a wheen o' lazy days. How the blood does leap through a
feller's veins when he feels he's in action again. Oscar, old boy,
here's wishin' you all the compliments o' the season an' I hereby
promise to send back whatever you throw me. Go on and do your stuff, old
hoss--I'm on to your game okay!"

He found further cause for congratulation when he made certain that the
plane was now headed for the smiling surface of the little bay close by,
showing that the pilot intended to make his little splash, and take a
look at the hidden sloop with its illicit cargo of many cases that had
been so mysteriously snatched from the hands of those with whom he was
in close association.

This was as Perk would have it if given any decision in the matter. Once
the amphibian started to taxi toward him and they would be placed on the
same footing, each with a machine-gun to back him up and former
experience in handling such a weapon equally balanced. Could anything be
fairer than that, Perk asked himself, preparing for business at the drop
of the hat?

The plane had made contact with the water and was floating there like an
enormous aquatic fowl of some unknown species. Now the pilot was making
a right turn as though meaning to come down on Perk with the western
breeze--his motor was keeping up more or less of a furore, which told
Perk that shrewd though these up-to-da