etched through okay, an' has ferried some guys
back with him to take this stuff off'n our hands," Perk was muttering,
even as Jack started to clamber aboard the sloop, being closely followed
by a couple of determined looking young men.

"Back again, brother," Jack observed, as he clasped the extended hand of
his partner, then, gave a queer grimace upon taking note of the
splintered coaming of the sloop as well as the badly pockmarked
barricade of mahogany logs. "Say, what's all this mean, I want to
know--looks like you might have been mixed up in some sort of rumpus
while I was away!"

Perk grinned and nodded his head cheerfully.

"Had a heap o' fun, old boss, an' got loads o' thrills out o' it. Mebbe
now you noticed some sort o' crate just vanishing among them clouds off
toward the east as you breezed along?"

"Thought I did," came the immediate reply, "but the visibility was
getting poor, and I couldn't be sure it wasn't a buzzard, or even an
eagle ducking in and out. What's it mean, Perk--was he kicking up a mess
around here?"

"You said it, partner, an' his name was sure Oscar--Oscar Gleeb, 'cause
he got mad as hops when I asked him, an' told me that wasn't any o' my
business. But we sure did have a nice hot spell, Oscar'n me."

"Yes, and I reckon now you got your old right ear touched up again,
Perk, for I can see streaks of half-dried blood running down your
cheek."

"Yeah, he nicked me okay, an' if this keeps on much further I'll soon be
taken for the Manassa Mauler, 'cause it'll gimme a cauliflower ear. Who
are these two lads, Jack--look like they might belong to the Coast
Guard."

"Just what they are--meet Tom Cairns and Red McGrath, who have been sent
along with me to take charge of this contraband and hand it over to Mr.
Philip Ridgeway, temporarily in charge of the Treasury Department
interests along the West Coast here, with headquarters in Tampa--this is
the fine pal you heard me speaking about a few times, boys--Gabe
Perkiser, commonly known simply as Perk, a veteran of the big scrap over
in France where he flew one of those sausage observation blimps, and was
later on considered something of an ace in our flying corps."

So Perk gladly shook the hands extended to him, grinned in his genial
fashion, and from that moment on they were as brothers all.

"While we're stretching our legs, after being cooped up in that cramped
cabin for some hours," suggested Jack, whose curiosity had naturally
bee