“She’s damn hot to-day, senor,” he said.  “Thank you for the so good water to drink.”

“That’s all right.  Help yourself,” Johnny said languidly.  “Had your dinner?”

“Not this day.  I’m come from Tucker Bly, his rancho.  I ride to see if horses feed quiet.”

“Well, come in and eat.  I cooked some peaches this morning.”

The youth went eagerly, his somewhat stilted English easing off into a mixture of good American slang and the Mexican dialect spoken by peons and some a grade higher up the ladder.  He was not more than seventeen, and while Johnny recalled his instructions to put any greaser on the run, he took the liberty of interpreting those instructions to please himself.  This kid was harmless enough.  He talked the range gossip that proved to Johnny’s satisfaction that he was what he professed to be—­a young rider for Tucker Bly, who owned the “Forty-Seven” brand that ranged just east of the Rolling R. Johnny had never seen this Tomaso—­plain Tom, he called him presently—­but he knew Tucker Bly; and a few leading questions served to set at rest any incipient suspicions Johnny may have had.

They were doing the same work, he and Tomaso.  The only difference was that Johnny camped alone, and Tomaso rode out from the Forty-Seven ranch every day, taking whatever direction Tucker Bly might choose for him.  But the freemasonry of the range land held Johnny to the feeling that there was a common bond between them, in spite of Tomaso’s swarthy skin.  Besides, he was lonely.  His tongue loosened while Tomaso ate and praised Johnny’s cookery with the innate flattery of his race.

“Wha’s that pic’shur?  What you call that thing?” Tomaso pointed a slender, brown finger at a circular heading, whereon a pink aeroplane did a “nose dive” toward the date line through voluted blue clouds.

“That?  Say!  Didn’t you ever see a flying machine?” Johnny stared at him pityingly.

Tomaso shook his head vaguely.  “Me, I’m never saw one of them things.  My brother, he’s tell me.  He knows the spot where there’s one fell down.  My brother, he says she’s awful bad luck, them thing.  This-a one, she’s fell ’cross the line.  She’s set there like a big hawk, my brother says.  Nobody wants.  She’s bad luck.”

“Bad luck nothing.”  Johnny’s eyes had widened a bit.  “What you mean, one fell across the line?  You don’t mean—­say what ’n thunder do yuh mean?  Where’s there a flying machine setting like a hawk?”

Tomaso waved a brown hand comprehensively from east to west.  “Somewhere—­me, I dunno.  My brother, he’s know.  He’s saw it set there.  It’s what them soldiers got lost.  It’s bad luck.  Them soldiers most dead when somebody find.  They don’t know where that thing is no more.  They don’t want it no more.  My brother, she’s tol’ me them soldiers flew like birds and then they fell down.  It’s bad luck.  My brother took one hammer from that thing, and one pliers.  Them hammer, she’s take a nail off my brother’s thumb.  And them pliers, she’s lost right away.”