It was not an order, but Johnny felt that he was expected to keep himself out of sight, and the suggestion to nap appealed to him.  He found a robe and covered himself, and went to sleep with the readiness of a cat curled behind a warm stove.  He did not know how long it was before Cliff woke him by pulling upon the car door.  He did not remember that the garage man had fussed much with the car, though he might have done it so quietly that Johnny would not hear him.  The man was standing just outside the door, and presently he signalled to Cliff, and Cliff backed out into the empty street.  He nodded to the man and drove on to the corner, turned and went a block, and turned again.  The streets seemed very quiet, so Johnny supposed that it was late, though the clock set in the instrument board was not running.

They went on, out of the town and into a road that wound up long hills and down to the foot of others which it straightway climbed.  Cliff did not drive so fast now, though their speed was steady.  Twice he stopped to walk over to some house near the road and have speech with the owner.  He was inquiring the way, he explained to Johnny, who did not believe him; Cliff drove with too much certainty, seemed too familiar with certain unexpected twists in the road, to be a stranger upon it, Johnny thought.  But he did not say anything—­it was none of his business.  Cliff was running this part of the show, and Johnny was merely a passenger.  His job was flying, when the time came to fly.

After a while he slid farther down into the seat and slept.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“MY JOB’S FLYING”

The stopping of the motor wakened him finally, and he sat up, stretching his arms and yawning prodigiously.  His legs were cramped, his neck was stiff, he was conscious of great emptiness.  By the stars he knew that it was well toward morning.  Hills bulked in the distance, with dark blobs here and there which daylight later identified as live oaks.  Cliff was climbing out, and at the sound of Johnny’s yawn he turned.

“We’ll camp here, I think.  There’s no road from here on, and I rather want daylight.  Perhaps then we will decide not to go on.  How would a cup of coffee suit you?  I can get out enough plunder for a meal.”

“I can sure do the rest,” Johnny cheerfully declared.  “Cook it and eat it too.  Where’s there any water?”

“There’s a creek over here a few yards.  I’ll get a bucket.”  With his trouble-light suspended from the top of the car, Cliff moved a roll of blankets and a bag that had jolted out of place.  In a moment he had all the necessary implements of an emergency camp, and was pulling out cans and boxes of supplies that opened Johnny’s eyes.  Evidently Cliff had come prepared to camp for some time.

Over coffee and bacon and bread Johnny learned some things he had wanted to know.  They were in the heart of the country which Cliff had shown him on the relief map, miles from the beaten trail of tourists, but within fifteen miles of the border.