“Do you feel that you earned this money?”

“Well—­taking everything into consideration—­yes, sir, I do.  I think now I worked for them much cheaper than any other aviator would have done.

“Yes.  Well, you spoke of that four hundred being honest money, thus differentiating it from this money.  Don’t you consider this is honest money?  What do you mean by honest?”

Johnny flushed unhappily.  “Well, it’s kinda hard to explain, but I guess I meant that I wasn’t doing the right thing when I was earning that money you’ve got.  I meant it wasn’t clean money, the way I look at it now.  Because it was crooks I was working for, and I don’t know how they got it.  I worked honestly for it, for them, but the work wasn’t honest with the government.  It’s kinda hard—­”

“I think I’ll just give you a receipt for this.  How much is it?”

“There ought to be about seventy-two hundred there, all told, sir.”

Captain Riley looked at him queerly and proceeded to count the astounding wealth of John Ivan Jewel.  Then he very matter-of-factly wrote a receipt, which Johnny accepted with humility, not at all sure of what the captain thought or intended.

“Now, tell me this.  Is this young man—–­the one you brought in—­is he the only one you know who has been concerned in this—­er—­business?

“Yes, sir, on this side he is.  Cliff spoke about his boss several times, but he never told me who his boss was.  An International News Syndicate, he claimed.  But I know now that was just a stall.  I don’t think there was any such thing.  There’s a Mexican, Mateo, down where we kept the plane—­”

“Mateo—­yes, we have Mateo.”  Captain Riley sat drumming his fingers gently on the table, studying Johnny with his chin dropped a little so that he looked up under his eyebrows, which grew long, unruly hairs here and there.

Johnny’s eyes rounded with surprise.  He wanted to ask how they had come to suspect Mateo when they had seemed so unsuspicious, but he let it go.

“There’s another one, named Schwab, over in Mexico where we always went,” he divulged.  “He’s the one Cliff got those papers from—­whatever they were.  And he’s the one that expects to get some money in the morning.  I heard that much.  I—­I could get him, too,” he added tentatively.

“Out of Mexico?” Captain Riley stirred slightly in the chair.

“Yes, sir.  I’m pretty sure I could.  I was planning to nab him, if you’d let me.”

“You mean you could bring him—­as you brought this man Lowell?”

Johnny’s lips tightened.  “If I had to—­yes, sir.  I’d knock him on the head same as I did Cliff.  Only I wouldn’t hit quite so hard next time.”

Captain Riley bit his lip.  “Better hit hard if you hit at all,” he advised.  “That’s a very good rule to remember.  It applies to a great many things.”

Then he straightened his shoulders a bit and called his orderly, who again impressed Johnny with his military preciseness when he stood at attention and saluted.  Captain Riley’s whole manner seemed to stiffen to that military preciseness, though Johnny had thought him stiff enough before.