On that same Saturday afternoon, at about the time when Mary V sighted
Bland at the southeast corner of Sixth and Spring, Johnny stood just
under the peak behind Mateo's cabin and saw a lone horseman ride across
the upper neck of the little valley and disappear into the brush on the
side opposite him. He waited impatiently. The rider did not reappear,
but presently he saw what looked like a human figure crouched behind a
rock well up the slope. Johnny stared until his eyes watered with the
strain, but he could not be sure that the object was a man. If it
were, the man was without a doubt placed there for purposes of
observation. The thought was not a pleasant one.
He waited, himself crouched now behind a jutting fragment of rock, and
thought he saw the object move. A little later the sun, sliding
farther down the sky, reflected a glittering something just above that
rock. A bit of glass would do that--the lenses of a field glass, for
instance. Two lenses would shine as one, Johnny believed, and was
thankful that his slope was in shadow.
Taking it for granted that some one was watching the valley, he studied
the spot where the glitter had already winked out--possibly because the
man had moved the field glasses, sweeping the valley. It was a good
place for a spy, Johnny admitted. There was a slight ridge just there,
so that the view was clear for some distance in either direction;
Mateo's cabin was in plain sight, and the surrounding hills. He hoped
the fellow would see nothing suspicious and would presently give up
that post; in the meantime he was effectually treed. There was no
shelter that he dared trust on the first rocky half of the descent, and
to climb up and over the peak he would surely reveal himself, unless
the fellow's attention happened to be centered on something else.
Johnny studied his predicament. The man could see everything--but
could he hear? He was half a mile off, Johnny judged, estimating the
distance with an accuracy born of long living in the country of far
skylines. The spy would need sharp ears indeed to hear anything less
than a shout.
Johnny picked up a pebble, aimed, and threw it at the roof of Mateo's
cabin. The pebble landed true and rattled off, hitting the ground with
a bounce and rolling away in the grass. The children, playing in the
open as they always did, stopped and looked up inquiringly, then went
on with their play. Mateo came cautiously from the back door and to
him Johnny called, thankful that the observer on the hillside could not
see through the cabin to where Mateo stood.
"Stay where you are," he called. "Can you hear me?"
Mateo nodded emphatically.
"All right. Take your gun and start off across the flat, down the way
Cliff will come. Act like you didn't want to be seen. There's
somebody across on the hill, up here, and I want to see if he'll follow
you. You get me?"
"Si, yes. I'm go."
"After awhile you can come back. If you see Cliff, tell him he's after
ducks. Sabe?"
"Yo se. I'm onderstan'."
"All right. Go back in the house and come out the front door and start
off."
Mateo waved his hand and disappeared. In five minutes or less Johnny
saw him walking away from the cabin and glancing frequently at the
hills upon either hand. His manner might have been called stealthy, if
one were looking for stealth. Johnny was looking for something else,
and presently he gave a grunt of satisfaction. The object behind the
rock stood up and levelled his glasses at Mateo. Johnny waited until
he was sure and then scrambled down to the protection of another
bowlder. He peered from there up the valley and after some searching
discovered his man working carefully along a side hill, evidently
anxious to keep Mateo in sight. Johnny worked down another rod or two,
reconnoitered again, made another sliding run for it, and stopped
behind a clump of brush. In that way he reached the shelter of the
oak, feeling certain that he had not been seen.
Through the screen of branches he looked out across the little valley,
but he could not see any one at all, not even Mateo. So he turned to
his one solace, The Thunder Bird, and dusted it as carefully as a young
girl dusts her new piano. With a handful of waste he went over the
motor, wiping it until it shone wherever shining was possible, and
tried not to think of the man on the hillside. That was Cliff's
affair--until Johnny was ready to make the affair his.
"I wish I knew just what he's up to," Johnny fretted. "If I just
_knew_ something! I'd look like a boob now, wouldn't I, if the guards
nabbed us? They might try to pin most anything on me, and I wouldn't
have any comeback. It don't look good, if anybody asks me! And if
they--"
"Man's come here," Rosa announced close behind him in a tense whisper.
"Walking."
Johnny jumped and went on his toes to a spot where he could look
through the foliage.
"Walking down," explained Rosa, and waved a skinny hand toward the hill
behind them.
"Did you see him?"
"No, senor. I'm seeing rocks falling where somebody walks down."
There was nothing to do but wait. Johnny pushed the girl toward the
cabin and saw her scramble under the lowest branches and join the
others unconcernedly, tagging the boy Josef, and, then running off into
the open--where she could see the hillside--with Josef running after.
She did not seem to be watching the hill, while she was apparently
absorbed in dodging Josef, but Johnny gathered from her gestures that
the man was still coming and that he was making for the cabin. He was
wondering what she meant by suddenly sinking to the ground in shrill
laughter, when he heard a step behind him. He whirled, startled, his
hand jerking back toward the gun he wore.
"I approve your watchfulness, but you happened to be watching in the
wrong direction," said Cliff, brushing dirt from his hunting clothes.
"Well, they are getting warm, old man. They have eliminated Riverside
as a probable hang-out for the mystery plane, and--" He waved a hand
significantly while he stood his shotgun against the bole of the tree.
"Some one saw us land in this valley," he added. "Luckily they do not
suspect Mateo yet. I saw him going down the flat and sent him on to
tell the patrol a lot they already knew. He saw the plane come down,
but has not been able to find the exact spot. He thinks it took the
air again. His ninos told him of a big bird flying east. Great boy,
Mateo. Great kids. Did they see me coming?"
"Sure they did. Rosa's eagle eye spotted a rock or two rolling down
and came and told me."
"Good girl, Rosa. The car's over in another valley, parked under a
tree very neatly and permanently and in plain sight. Its owner is off
hunting somewhere. By its number plates they will never know it. Good
old car."
"You seem tickled to think they're after you," Johnny observed, rolling
a cigarette by way of manifesting complete unconcern. "What's the next
move?"
"Get me across without letting them see where we come from. Can you
fly at night?"
"Sure, I can fly at night. Don't the Germans fly at night all over
London? I won't swear I'll light easy, though."
"There'll be a moon," said Cliff. "I've got to get over, and I've got
to light, and I've got to get back again. There are no if's this time;
it's _got_ to be done."
"A plane chased us, day before yesterday," Johnny informed him, fanning
the smoke from before his face and squinting one eye while he studied
Cliff. "It was a long way off, and I got down before it was close
enough to see just where I lit. It came back yesterday and scouted
around, flying above five thousand feet up. To-day I saw two of them
sailing around, but they didn't fly over this way. They were over
behind this hill, and high. We'd better do our flying at night,
old-timer."
"You can dodge them. You've got to dodge them," said Cliff.
"If I fly," Johnny qualified dryly.
"You've got to fly. You're in to your neck, old man--and there's a
loop ready for that." Then, as though he had caught himself saying
more than was prudent, he laughed and amended the statement. "Of
course, I'm just kidding, but at that, it's important that you make
this flight and as many more as you can get away with. There's
something to be brought back to-night--legitimate news, understand, but
of tremendous value to the Syndicate." He reached into his pocket and
drew out an envelope such as Johnny had learned to associate with money.
"Here's two thousand dollars, old man. The boss knows the risk and
added a couple of hundred for good measure, this week. When you land
me over there to-night I'll give you this." He smiled disagreeably.
"I think you'll fly, all right--for this."
"Sure, I'll fly--for that. I was kidding. For two thousand I'd fly to
Berlin and bring back a lock of old Kaiser Bill's hair."
"That's the way to talk, old man! I knew you were game. I told the
boss so, when he asked if we could count on you. I said you had nerve,
no political prejudices, and--that you need the money."
"That's my number, I guess," Johnny admitted, grinning.
Cliff laughed again, which made three distinct impulses to laughter in
one conversation. This was not like Cliff's usual conservatism. As
Johnny had known him he laughed seldom, and then only at something
disagreeable. He was keyed up for something; a great coup of some sort
was in sight, Johnny guessed shrewdly, studying Cliff's face and the
sparkle in his eyes. He was like a man who sees success quite suddenly
where he has feared to look upon failure. Johnny wondered just what
that success might mean--to others.
"I bet you're putting over something big that will tickle Uncle Sam
purple," he hazarded, giving Cliff a round-eyed, admiring glance.
"It will tickle him--purple, all right!" Cliff's tone had a slight edge
on it. "You're sitting in a big game, my boy, but you aren't paid to
ask questions. You go ahead and earn your two thousand. You do the
flying, and let some one else do the thinking."
"I get you," said Johnny laconically and took himself and his thinkless
brain elsewhere.