He slid his hand down along the blade’s edge and whispered, “It’s you and me for it, old girl.  You back my play like a good girl, and we’ll give ’em hell!”

He stepped back, catching Cliff’s eye as Cliff took a last puff at his cigarette before grinding it under his heel.

“Thought I saw a crack in the blade,” Johnny gruffly explained his action.  “It was the way the light struck.  All right; turn her over, and we’ll go.”

He climbed in while Cliff went to the propeller.  Never before had Johnny felt so keenly the profanation of Cliff’s immaculate, gloved hands on his beloved Thunder Bird.

“Never mind, old girl.  His time’s short—­or ours is,” he muttered while he tested his controls.  “All right—­contact!” he called afterwards, and Cliff, with a mighty pull, set the propeller whirling and climbed hastily into his place.

The kiddies, grouped close to watch the Thunder Bird’s flight, blinked and turned their faces from the dust storm kicked up by the exhaust.  The plane shook, ran forward faster and faster, lifted its little wheels off the ground and went whirring away toward the dark blur of the mountains that rimmed the southern edge of the valley.

Johnny circled twice, getting sufficient altitude to clear the hills, then flew straight for the border.  In the dark Cliff would not know the difference between one thousand feet and five thousand, and Johnny wanted to save his gas.  He even shut off his motor and glided down to one thousand before he had passed the line, and picked up again and held the Thunder Bird steady, regardless of the droning hum, that would shout its passing to those below.

“Isn’t this rather low?” Cliff turned his head to shout.

Johnny did not read suspicion in his voice, but vague uneasiness lest the trip be brought to a sudden halt.

“It’s all right.  They can’t do anything but listen to us go past.  I’ve got to keep my landmarks.”

Cliff leaned and peered below, evidently satisfied with the explanation.  A minute later he was fussing with the flare he meant to set off for a signal, and Johnny was left free to handle the plane and do a little more of that thinking for which he was not paid.

The night sky was wonderful, a deep translucent purple studded with stars that seemed closer, more humanly intimate than when seen from earth even in the higher altitudes.  The earth was shadowy, remote, with now a growing brightness as the moon slid up into sight.  Before its light touched the earth the Thunder Bird was bathed in its glow.  Cliff’s profile emerged clear-cut from the dusk as he gazed toward the east.  Johnny, too, glanced that way, but he was not thinking then of the wonderful effect of the rising moon upon the drifting world below.  He was wondering just why this trip to-night should be so important to Cliff.

It would not be the first time that Johnny had gone ahead with his eyes shut, but that is not saying he would not have preferred travelling with them open.  His lips were set so stubbornly that the three tiny dimples appeared in his chin,—­his stubborn-mule chin, Mary V had once called it,—­and his eyes were big and round and solemn.  Mary V seeing him then would surely have asked herself, “What, for gracious sake, is Johnny up to now?”