The Thunder Bird, B. M. Bower [top 10 most read books in the world txt] 📗

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.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO JOHNNY MAKES UP HIS MIND

"No political prejudices—hunh!" Johnny was filling the gas tank, and while he did it he was doing a great deal of thinking which he was not paid to do. "This newspaper business—say, she's one great business, all right. It's nice to have a boss that jumps your wages up a couple of hundred at a lick, and tells you you needn't think, and you mustn't have any political prejudices. Fine job, all right. Will I fly by moon-light? Will I? And them government planes riding on my tail like they've been doing the last two trips? Hunh!"

Cliff came then with a bundle under his arm. Johnny cast a suspicious eye down at him, and Cliff held up the package.

"I want to take this along—rockets; to let them know we're coming.
Then they'll have flares for us to land by."

"Been planning on some night-riding, hunh?"

"Naturally; I would plan for every contingency that could possibly arise."

"Hunh. That covers them planes that have been line-riding over this way, too, I reckon." Johnny climbed down and prepared to pump a little more air into one tire.

"Possibly. Don't let those airplanes worry you, old man. They have to catch us, you know."

"No? I ain't worrying about 'em. The one that does the thinking on this job can do the worrying. I'm paid to fly." Johnny laughed sourly as he glanced up from where he squatted beside the wheel.

"Let it go at that. Are you about ready? It will be dark in another half hour—dark enough to fly, at least." Cliff was moving about restlessly in the gloom under the tree. For all his earlier exhilaration he seemed nervous, in haste to be done.

"You said moonlight," Johnny reminded him, putting away the pump.

"I know, but it's best to get out of here and over the line in the dark, I think. The moon will be up in less than an hour. Be ready to leave in half an hour—and don't start the motor until the very last minute. Mateo has not come back yet. If they are holding him—"

"I'm ready to go when you are. Let's run her out before it's plumb dark under here. She can't be seen in this light very far—and if a man comes close enough to see her, he'd get wise anyway. Uh course," he apologized quickly, "that's more thinking than I'm paid to do, but you got to let me think a little bit now and then, or I can't fly no two thousand dollars worth to-night."

"I meant thinking about my part in the game. All right, I've got her right, on this side. Take up the tail and let's run her out."

In the open the children were running back and forth, playing tag and squealing over the hazards of the game. When the Thunder Bird rolled out with its outspread wings and its head high and haughty, they gave a final dash at one another and rushed off to get wheelbarrow and stick horses. They were well trained—shamefully well trained in the game of cheating.

Johnny looked at them glumly, with an aversion born of their uncanny obedience, their unchildlike shrewdness. Fine conspirators they would make later on, when they grew a few years older and more cunning!

"Head her into the wind so I can take the air right away quick," he ordered Cliff, and helped swing the Thunder Bird round.

Dusk was settling upon the very heels of a sunset that had no clouds to glorify and therefore dulled and darkened quickly into night, as is the way of sunsets in the southern rim of States.

Already the shadows were deep against the hill, and in the deepest stood the Thunder Bird, slim, delicately sturdy, every wire taut, every bit of aluminum in her motor clean and shining, a gracefully potent creature of the air. Across her back her name was lettered crudely, blatantly, with the blobbed period where Johnny had his first mental shock of Sudden's changed attitude toward him.

While he pulled on his leather helmet and tied the flaps under his chin, and buttoned his leather coat and pulled on his gloves, Johnny stood off and eyed the Thunder Bird with wistful affection. She was going into the night for the first time, going into danger, perhaps into annihilation. She might never fly again! He went up and laid a hand caressingly on her slanted propeller, just as he used to stroke the nose of his horse Sandy before a hard ride.

"Good old Thunder Bird! Good old Mile High! You've got your work cut out for yuh to-night, old girl. Go to it—eat it up."

He slid his hand down along the blade's edge and whispered, "It's you and me for it, old girl. You back my play like a good girl, and we'll give 'em hell!"

He stepped back, catching Cliff's eye as Cliff took a last puff at his cigarette before grinding it under his heel.

"Thought I saw a crack in the blade," Johnny gruffly explained his action. "It was the way the light struck. All right; turn her over, and we'll go."

He climbed in while Cliff went to the propeller. Never before had Johnny felt so keenly the profanation of Cliff's immaculate, gloved hands on his beloved Thunder Bird.

"Never mind, old girl. His time's short—or ours is," he muttered while he tested his controls. "All right—contact!" he called afterwards, and Cliff, with a mighty pull, set the propeller whirling and climbed hastily into his place.

The kiddies, grouped close to watch the Thunder Bird's flight, blinked and turned their faces from the dust storm kicked up by the exhaust. The plane shook, ran forward faster and faster, lifted its little wheels off the ground and went whirring away toward the dark blur of the mountains that rimmed the southern edge of the valley.

Johnny circled twice, getting sufficient altitude to clear the hills, then flew straight for the border. In the dark Cliff would not know the difference between one thousand feet and five thousand, and Johnny wanted to save his gas. He even shut off his motor and glided down to one thousand before he had passed the line, and picked up again and held the Thunder Bird steady, regardless of the droning hum, that would shout its passing to those below.

"Isn't this rather low?" Cliff turned his head to shout.

Johnny did not read suspicion in his voice, but vague uneasiness lest the trip be brought to a sudden halt.

"It's all right. They can't do anything but listen to us go past.
I've got to keep my landmarks."

Cliff leaned and peered below, evidently satisfied with the explanation. A minute later he was fussing with the flare he meant to set off for a signal,