"Then do it. Just that. On this side of the notch you will see--when
you are close enough--a few adobe buildings. I want to pass over those
buildings at a height of, say, five hundred feet; or a little lower
will be better, if you can make it. Then circle and come back again.
And try and make the return trip as high as you did coming down, until
you are well past those mountains we passed over, just inside the line.
Then come down at camp as inconspicuously as possible. I may add that
as we pass over the buildings I mentioned, please start your motor. I
am not expected at just this time, and I wish to attract attention."
"Hunh!" grunted Johnny. "You'd sure attract attention if I
didn't--because how the deuce would you expect me to climb back from
five hundred feet to eight thousand or so, without starting the motor?"
Cliff did not answer. He was busy with something which he had brought
with him; a square package to which Johnny had paid very little
attention, thinking it some article which Cliff wanted to have in camp.
Evidently this was not to be a news-gathering trip, though Johnny could
not see why not, now they were over here. Why just sail over a few
houses and fly home? He could see the houses now, huddled against the
ridge. A ranch, he guessed it, since half the huddle appeared to be
sheds and corrals. A queer place to gather news of international
importance, thought Johnny, as he volplaned down toward the spot. He
threw in the motor and was buzzing over the buildings when Cliff
unstrapped himself, half rose in his seat and lifted something in his
arms.
"Steady," he cried. "I want to drop this over." Whereupon he heaved
it backward so that it would fall clear of the wing, and peered after
it through his goggles for a minute. "You can go home now," he shouted
to Johnny, and settled down in his seat with the air of a man who has
done his duty and has nothing more on his mind.
Mystified, Johnny spiraled upward until he had his altitude, and
started back for the United States. Clouds favored him when he crossed
the boundary, hiding him altogether from the earth. Indeed, they
caused him to lose himself for a minute, so that when he dropped down
below the strata of vapor he was already nearly over the double-pointed
hill that was his landmark. But Cliff did not notice, and a little
judicious manoeuvering brought him into the little valley and headed
straight for the oak, easily identified because Mateo was standing
directly in front of it waving a large white cloth.
They landed smoothly and stopped exactly where Johnny had planned to
stop. He climbed out, Cliff following more awkwardly, and the three of
them wheeled the Thunder Bird under the oak where it was completely
hidden.
It was not until he had come out again into the warm sunshine of
mid-morning that Johnny observed how the kiddies were playing their
part. They had a curious little homemade wheelbarrow rigged, and were
trundling it solemnly up and down and over and around the single mark
made by the tail drag. A boy of ten or twelve rode the barrow solidly
and with dignity, while a thin-legged girl pushed the vehicle. Behind
them trotted two smaller ones, gravely bestriding stick horses.
Casually it resembled play. It would have been play had not Mateo gone
out where they were and inspected the result of stick-dragging and
barrow-wheeling, and afterwards, with a wave of his hand and a few
swift Mexican words, directed them to play farther out from the oak,
where the Thunder Bird had first come to earth. Solemn-eyed, they
extended the route of their procession, and Johnny, watching them with
a queer grin on his face, knew that when those children stopped
"playing" there would be no mark of the Thunder Bird's landing left
upon that soil.
"I've sure got to hand it to the kids," he told Cliff, who merely
smiled and pulled out his cigarette case for a smoke.