Like a couple of creeping ghosts the air service boys now advanced. The cars stood close together, facing the same way, which Jack considered a lucky thing for their designs.
Tom pressed him back as if to bid him wait, pail in hand, while he took upon himself the task of learning what they might expect. Making his way to the nearest car he peeped in. To his satisfaction there was no occupant. Repeating his action he ascertained that the second car also was empty.
So he gave a low chirp. Jack recognized an old signal, often used between them in days past. It meant he could come on without fear of trouble. And Jack, eager, as he was, to secure some of the petrol, did not linger a second longer than was absolutely necessary.
"Let's get busy, Jack," his chum told him, as he came up behind the nearest car. "Ill keep watch, and you try your hand at cribbing some of their gas juice."
While Jack did not claim to be an expert at the business of transferring petrol from one tank to another, or into a gaping vessel, he believed he would be able to manage. They must get what they needed, if not one way, then through other means. Necessity knows no law, and their very lives, certainly their liberty, was placed in peril by this impotence on the part of their plane.
