“Sawb—­What y’mean, Sawb?  That’s no name for a man.  You mean Schwab?”

“Si, senor—­Sawb.”  He glanced again at the house distrustfully, as if he feared even his murmur might be overheard.

“All right.  Get the water now.”

“Si, senor.”  And he went for it at a trot, that he might the sooner investigate the source of those clinking sounds.

“Schwab!  Uhm-hm—­he looks it, all right.”  He stepped down to the ground, pulled a handful of silver from his pocket and eyed it speculatively, glancing now and then after the receding Mexican.  “He’d tell a lot to get it all,” he decided.  “He’d tell so much he’d make up about four thirds of it.  I guess those birds ain’t taking greasers like him into their secrets, and he’s spilled all he knows when he spilled the fellow’s name.  Four bits more will do him fine.”  Wealth, you will observe, was inclining Johnny toward parsimoniousness.

He got the water from the hopeful Mexican, gave him the half dollar and brief thanks, filled the radiator, and waited for Cliff.  And in a very few minutes Cliff came out, walking as though he were in a hurry.  The florid gentleman stood framed in the doorway, watching him as friendly hosts are wont to gaze after departing guests, out west where guests are few.  Like a departing guest Cliff turned for a last word.

“I’ll be back soon as possible,” he called to the man Schwab.  “A little after sunrise, probably.  Better wait here for me.”

Schwab nodded and waved his cigar, and Johnny grinned to himself while he straddled into his seat.

Cliff went straight to the propeller.  “Take me to Los Angeles, old man.  You can light where you did before; there won’t be any bean vines in the way this time.  I had the Japs clear off and level a strip for a landing.  It’s marked off with white flags, so you can easily see it in this moonlight.  Luck’s with us; I was afraid we might have to wait until morning, but this is fine.  Several hours will be saved.”

“I’ve got you,” Johnny said—­and he did not mean what Cliff thought he meant.  “All ready?  Contact!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

JOHNNY ACTS BOLDLY

Off to the right and flying high, two government planes circled slowly over the boundary line.  Long before the Thunder Bird had put the map of Mexico behind her the two planes veered that way, their fishlike fuselages and the finned rudders gleaming like silver in the moonlight.  Cliff, happening to glance that way, moved uneasily in his seat and cursed the moon he had so lately blessed.

“Better duck down somewhere; can’t you dodge ’em?” he yelled back at Johnny, who was himself eyeing perturbedly the two swift scouts.

“You let me handle this.  It’s what I’m paid for,” he yelled back, and banked the Thunder Bird sharply to the left.  He had not yet crossed the border; until he did so those scouting machines dare not do more than keep him in view.  But keeping him in view was absurdly simple in that cloudless sky, white-lighted by the moon.