INTO MEXICO AND RETURN

Bright-eyed, eager for the adventure trail, Johnny swung the propeller of the Thunder Bird over three times and turned to Cliff.  “Here’s where you learn one of the joys of flying.  Hold her there while I climb in.  When I holler contact, you kick her over—­if you’re man enough.”

Cliff smiled, dropped his cigarette and ground it under his heel, then reached up and grasped the propeller blade.  “I never actually did this, but I’ve watched others do it.  I suppose I must learn.  Oh, before we go up, I ought to tell you that I’d like to go on over the line this morning if possible.  If you can fly very high, and when you near the line just glide as quietly as possible, I think it can be managed without our being seen.  And since it is only just daylight now, it should not be late when we arrive.”

“It should not,” Johnny agreed.  “Arriving late ain’t what worries a flyer—­it’s arriving too doggone unexpected.  Where do we light, in Mexico?  Just any old place?”

“Straight toward Mateo’s camp, first—­flying very high.  From there on I’ll direct you.  Shall we start?”

“You’re the doctor,” grunted Johnny, not much pleased with Cliff’s habit of giving information a bit at a time as it was needed.  It seemed to betray a lack of confidence in him, a fear that he might tell too much; though how Johnny could manage to divulge secrets while he was flying a mile above the earth, Cliff had probably not attempted to explain.

Because he was offended, Johnny gave Cliff what thrills he could during that flight.  He went as high as he dared, which was very high indeed, and hoped that Cliff’s ears roared and that he was thinking pleasant thoughts such as the effect upon himself of dropping suddenly to that sliding relief map away down below.  He hoped that Cliff was afraid of being lost, and of landing on some high mountain that stuck up like a little hill above the general assembly of dimpled valleys and spiny ridges and hills.  But if Cliff were afraid he did not say so, and when the double-pointed hill that Johnny had reason to remember slid toward them, Cliff pointed ahead to another, turned his head and shouted.

“See that deep notch in the ridge away off there?  Fly toward that notch.”

Johnny flew.  The double-pointed hill drifted behind them, other hills slid up until the two could gaze down upon their highest peaks.  Beyond, as Cliff’s maps had told him, lay Mexico.  At eight thousand feet he shut off the motor and glided for the notched ridge.  The patrol who sighted the Thunder Bird at that height, with no motor hum to call his attention upward, must have sharp eyes and a habit of sky-gazing.  Cliff, peering down over the edge of the cockpit, must have thought so, for he laughed aloud triumphantly.

“Fine!  I think we are putting one over on my friends, the guards,” he cried, with more animation than Johnny had yet observed in him.  Indeed, it occurred to Johnny quite suddenly that he had never heard Cliff Lowell laugh heartily out loud before.  “How far can you keep this up—­without the motor?”