icient 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, and Johnny was left free to handle the plane and
do a little more of that thinking for which he was not paid.

The night sky was wonderful, a deep translucent purple studded with
stars that seemed closer, more humanly intimate than when seen from
earth even in the higher altitudes. The earth was shadowy, remote,
with now a growing brightness as the moon slid up into sight. Before
its light touched the earth the Thunder Bird was bathed in its glow.
Cliff's profile emerged clear-cut from the dusk as he gazed toward the
east. Johnny, too, glanced that way, but he was not thinking then of
the wonderful effect of the rising moon upon the drifting world below.
He was wondering just why this trip to-night should be so important to
Cliff.

It would not be the first time that Johnny had gone ahead with his eyes
shut, but that is not saying he would not have preferred travelling
with them open. His lips were set so stubbornly that the three tiny
dimples appeared in his chin,--his stubborn-mule chin, Mary V had once
called it,--and his eyes were big and round and solemn. Mary V seeing
him then would surely have asked herself, "What, for gracious sake, is
Johnny up to now?"

But Mary V was not present, and Cliff Lowell was fully absorbed in his
own thoughts and purposes; wherefore Johnny's ominous expression went
unnoticed.

In the moonlight the notched ridge showed clear, and toward it the
Thunder Bird went booming steadily, as ducks fly south with the first
storm wind of November. A twinkling light just under the notch showed
that Cliff's allies were at home, whether they expected him or