Johnny’s jaw lengthened.  Making due allowance for the lying tongue of Tomaso’s brother, it would take a week to get the thing home.  And that would mean that Johnny would have no job when he returned; which would mean that he would have no fifty dollars a month coming in; which would mean that he would be broke and would have to hunt another job.  And you couldn’t pack a government airplane around under your arm.  Not once did it occur to Johnny that he might sell it for more money than he had ever possessed in his life, for more than what a full course in aviation would cost him.  As his own precious plane he saw it.  His to keep.  His to fly, his to worship—­but never to sell.

He looked away to the southward where the land stretched gray and dreary to the low skyline broken here and there with the pale outline of distant hills.  A night and half a day of riding to take them there, and an airplane to haul back through brush and rocks, maybe, and across draws and gulches—­Good Lord!  The thing might almost as well be in Honolulu!

“But the desert places—­me, I’m making the plan how it can be brought across the sand, with little brush to cut away.”  Tomaso’s brother began arguing away his unspoken fears.  “We fix that, you bet!  Two days, that’s all.  You got strong, good fence; horses, they don’t go away in such little time, you bet!”

Johnny stood irresolute, tempted, weakly trying to beat back the temptation while he hugged it to his soul.

“Why don’t you—­” Johnny was on the point of asking Tomaso’s brother why he didn’t sell it to the government, but he shut his teeth on the words.  Tomaso’s brother evidently had not thought of that; and why put the idea into his head?  “Why don’t you and Tomaso go after it and bring it here?  Then if it’s all right, I might buy it—­for fifty dollars.  I can give you a check on the Arizona State Bank in Tucson.”

Tomaso’s brother shrugged his shoulders in true Mexican eloquence.  “That puts me all the troubles for notheeng, maybe.  Maybe you say she’s no good—­what I’m going to do?  Not drag it back for notheeng?  Not leave her set here for notheeng.”  He shrugged again with an air of finality that sent a shiver over Johnny’s nerves.  “Twenty-fi’ dollar when you look at her and say she’s all right.  Twenty-fi’ dollar when she’s here.  That suits me.  It don’t suit you, no importa.”

It did matter, though.  It mattered a great deal to Johnny, hard as he tried to hide the fact.

“Well, I’ll think about it.  I’d have to ride fence first, anyway, and make sure everything’s all right.  And you’d have to tell Tomaso to drift over this way and kinda keep an eye out.  I—­you come back to-morrow.  If I take the offer at all, which I ain’t sure of, we can start to-morrow night.  But I’m not making any promises.  It’s a gamble; I’ve got to think it over first.”

In that way did Johnny invite temptation to tarry with him and wax stronger while it fed on his resistance, while thinking that he was being very firm and businesslike and cautious, and that he was in no danger whatever of yielding unless his reason thoroughly approved.