“Men don’t,” Tomaso contradicted solemnly.  “Men sets down like in little, small boat.  Me, I’m set there.  With wheel for drive like automobile.  With engine like automobile.  My brother, she’s try starting that engine.  She’s don’t go.  Got no crank nowhere.  She’s got no gas.  Me, I’m scare my brother starts that engine.  I’m jomp down like hell.  I’m scare I maybe would fly somewhere and fall down and keel. No importa. She’s jus’ sets.”

Johnny turned white around the mouth, but he shook his head.  “Pretty good, Tommy.  But you better look out.  If there’s a flying machine over there, it belongs to the government.  You better leave it alone.  There’s other folks know about it, and maybe watching it.”

Tomaso shook his head violently. “Por dios, my brother she’s fin’ out about that,” he said.  “She’s don’t tell nobody, only me.  She’s fin’ out them hombres what ride that theeng, they go loco for walking too much in sand and don’t get no water.  Them hombres, they awful sick, they don’t know where is that thing what flies.  My brother, she’s fin’ out that thing sets in Mexico, belongs Mexico.  Thees countree los’.  Jus’ like ship what’s los’ on ocean, my brother she’s tell from writing.  My brother, she’s smart hombre.  She’s keep awful quiet, tell nobody.  She’s theenk sell that thing for flying.”

“Huh!” Johnny grunted.  “What you telling me about it for?  Your brother’d skin yuh alive if he caught you blabbing it all out to me.”

Tomaso looked a little scared and uneasy.  He dropped his eyes and began poking a hole in the sand with his toe.  Then he looked up very candidly into Johnny’s face.

“Me, I’m awful lonesome,” he explained.  “I’m riding here and I’m see you jus’ like friend.  You boy like me.  You got picshurs them thing what flies.  You tell me you don’t say nothing for my brother when I’m tell you that things sets over there.”  He waved a dirty, brown hand to the southward.  “Me, I’m trus’ you.  Tha’s secret what I’m tell.  You don’t tell no-body.  You promise?”

“All right.  I promise.”  Very gravely Johnny made the sign of the cross over his heart.

Tomaso’s eyes lightened at that.  More gravely than Johnny he crossed himself—­forehead, lips, breast.  He murmured a solemn oath in Spanish, and afterwards put out his hand to shake, American fashion.  All this impressed Johnny more than had the detailed description of the thing which sat.

If he still laughed at the story, his laugh was not particularly convincing.  Nor was his jibing tone when he called after Tomaso when that youth was riding away: 

“Tell your brother I might buy his flying machine—­if he’ll sell it cheap!”

CHAPTER FIVE

DESERT GLIMPSES