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This set him to coughing and so he came to, showing all the signs of bewilderment that might be expected after going to sleep in the midst of a most clamorous battle with the reckless hijackers, and now waking up to find strange faces bending over him, heads that were encased in close-fitting helmets and the staring goggles of airmen.
The commandant reddened with anger at their stubbornness. "All right. Take them to the guardhouse," he ordered. As the MP's marched the hijackers off, Tom asked how their case would be handled. "The crime is a federal offense," the commandant explained. "Air Force Intelligence will co-operate on the case, but the prisoners will be turned over to a federal marshal."
"You heard me warn them to keep a watchful eye out for smugglers and hijackers by land and sea and air? Anyway we've finished our part of the job and this paper proves that our find was all I cracked it up to be when I talked with Mr. Ridgeway." "Course, you knocked up against the gent then, eh Jack?"
"It's a fight, and a lively one at that," admitted the pilot, "but I reckon you're away off when you figure it's a ruction between those on the schooner and the boys of that speedboat." "You got me guessin' partner," said the puzzled Perk; "then who's mixed up in the shindy, I want to know?" "Sounds a whole lot like hijackers to me, Perk." "Ginger pop!
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.
Jack meanwhile had his hands full attending to his part of the business it was of course of prime importance that they should drop down as close to the deck of the schooner as possible so the full effect of the bursting tear-bombs might be felt by those struggling smugglers and hijackers, but there was the mast of the cruising vessel to bear in mind since it towers many feet in the air.
"How come you mentioned the Jupiter prober, skipper? Do you think those hijackers were after information?" Tom shrugged. "I'm wondering myself, Bud. If they were, it could mean our enemy hasn't found it yet!" When they arrived at the experimental station, Tom made a full report to Harlan Ames, the slim, dark-haired security chief. Ames listened thoughtfully but was as baffled as Tom.
"Our folks expect to see some evidence to prove the big yarn we're bound to tell about our dropping those tear bombs and scattering the fighting hijackers and rum-runners and all that stuff which means that by hook or by crook we've just got to get clear with this sloop and all the contraband that's aboard hand it over to some of Uncle Sam's agents along the gulf coast, whose addresses I was given before leaving Washington, to be used in just such circumstances as these.
At one time Perk out of curiosity as well as a desire to be in a condition to state the amount of spoils he and Jack had "corraled" in their swoop upon the fighting smugglers and hijackers took a pad of paper and a pencil and proceeded to go over the entire vessel, securing a rough invoice of the numerous piled-up cases bearing that foreign, burnt brand.
"Yeah, we've heard lots o' that kind o' stuff but just the same the lads makin' up the crew o' this sloop didn't keep their eyes open, or they'd never been taken unawares by them hijackers. Leave it to Gabe Perkiser to hold fast to what he's got; they'd have to be a regiment, armed with machine-guns, bombs, an' even gas, to knock me off'n my perch an' I don't mean that for boastin' either, Jack."
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