river and let him go.

"I've got to go around to a supply house and get me a new propeller,"
he said afterwards. "And a control wire snapped. We made a bum
landing last night--or my mechanic did. He claimed he knew this field,
so I let him go ahead."

"Where is he? Did you let him out?"

"I didn't, but I will if he don't show up; pronto." Johnny's tone was
the tone of accustomed authority. "He failed to report, this morning."

Cliff reached into an inner pocket and drew out a flat package, which
he proceeded to open, using a wing for a table. "I've been busy this
morning," he announced, laying his cigarette down on the wing. Johnny
promptly swept the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his
heel. Wing coverings are rather inflammable, and he was not taking any
chances.

"Pardon the carelessness. I don't know much about airplanes, old man.
Well, I went to the boss and had a talk with him, after I left you last
night. I put the proposition up to him, and he is rather keen on it.
He sees the value of getting news by airplane. The saving of time and
the avoidance of publicity will double its value--to say nothing of the
chance that we may be able to pick up something of immense importance
to the government. Mexican situation, you know--all that sort of thing.

"So he put me in touch with parties that could furnish this." _This_
was a large photographic bird's-eye map of a country which looked very
much like Arizona, or the wild places anywhere next the Mexican
borderline. "Where I got it I am not at liberty to say. It's a
practice map--done for the training in aerial photography that is
essential nowadays in warfare. The government is going in rather
strong on that sort of thing. This is authentic. Take a good look at
it through this glass and tell me what you think of it. Can you see
any place that would make a possible secret landing for an airplane,
for instance?"

"Golly!" Johnny whispered, as Cliff's meaning flashed clean-cut through
the last sentence. He studied the photograph with pursed lips, his
left eye squinted that his right eye might peer through a small reading
glass. "It would depend on the ground," he answered after a minute.
"I'd want to fly over it before I could tell exactly. If it was soft
sandy for instance--" (Bland would have snickered at that, knowing what
reason Johnny had for realizing the disadvantages of soft sand as a
landing place.) "But the topography lo