Johnny stood where he was and stared at it.  From where he was he could not see which side was uppermost, and he was afraid to go and look.  But he had to look.  He had to know, for he was still boy enough to feel solemnly bound by the toss.  He walked slowly toward it, stared hard—­and pounced like a kid after a hard-won marble.

“Heads, I go!  That’s the way I flipped ’er; it’s a fair throw.”

At the sound of his voice ringing in the confined space, Sandy lifted his head and looked at Johnny tolerantly.  Johnny came toward him grinning, tossing the half-dollar and catching it, his steps springy.  The last few yards he took in a run, and vaulted into the saddle without touching the stirrups at all.  Even that did not seem to ease him quite.  So he gave a whoop that echoed and re-echoed from the rock walls and made Sandy squat, lay back his ears, and shake his head violently.

At the mouth of the hidden nook Johnny turned to take a last, gloating survey of the place in the deepening dusk.  “She sure will make one bird of a hangar!” he told Sandy glowingly.  “Golly!  Oh, good golly!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

FINDER, KEEPER

From the crest of a low, sandy ridge that had on it a giant cactus standing with four spiney, knobbed fingers uplifted like a warning hand, Johnny surveyed with wide, red-rimmed eyes the hidden basin that held his heart’s desire.  Tomaso’s brother sat his sweaty horse beside Johnny and eyed both the gazer and the object of his gaze.  A smile split whitely the swarthiness of Tomaso’s brother’s face.

“She’s settin’ there jus’ like I told,” he pointed out with a wilted kind of triumph, for the day was hot.

“Unh-hunh,” Johnny conceded absent-mindedly.  He was trying to make the thing look real to him after all the visions he had had of it.

He had had his spells of doubting the probity of Tomaso’s brother; of secretly wondering whether the story of the plane might not be a ruse to lure him away from Sinkhole.  But then, how would Tomaso or his brother know that Johnny would care anything about whether an airplane “sat” over in Mexico within riding distance of the Border?  Johnny did not think of Tex as a possible factor in the proposition.

Well, there it was, anyway, not a quarter of a mile away.  Between him and the object of his quest the sand lay wrinkled in tiny drifts, with here and there a ragged gray bush leaning forlornly from the wind.  One wing of the machine was tilted, as though it had careened a little in the winds, but from that distance Johnny could not tell what damage had been done.  He kicked Sandy in the ribs and led the way down the hill.  Tomaso’s brother, still grinning, followed close behind.

“It’s going to be some sweet job getting the thing home,” Johnny growled, trying to disguise his excitement.  “I expect I’ve had my trip for nothing.  She don’t look to be in very good condition.”