back contents forward {{frabfp017.png}} || eagles of the sky || to call himself a Yankee; and yet for a period of several years he had been a valued member of the Northwestern Mounted Police, doing all manner of desperate stunts up in the cold regions of Canada. He was considerably older than his gifted chum and had seen pretty hot service flying in ocr> France while with Pershing's array in the Argonne. fix> France while with Pershing's army in the Argonne. It was his knowledge of aviation in general that had caused Jack to pick him as his assistant when the Government decided to fight fire with fire, by pitting their own pilots and aircraft against those employed by the powerful combine of smuggling aces. Sometimes it chanced that Jack, for good and sufficient reasons of his own, did not fully explain the necessity for making plans along certain lines. This was not because he lacked confidence in his loquacious chum's ability to keep a still tongue in his head or exercise due caution, but usually through a desire to make doubly sure of his own ground before submitting the arrangement to Perk's sharp criticism, which Jack valued even more than the other suspected. Consequently Perk, with the Yankee half of his blood stirred by an ever present curiosity, wanted to know and invariably asked numer- [[17]] back contents forward