Johnny's hand trembled when he tried to shake a little tobacco into a
cigarette paper. His lips, too, quivered slightly. But he laughed
unbelievingly.

"Your brother was kidding you, Tom. Nobody would go off and leave an
airplane setting in the desert. Those soldiers that got lost were away
over east of here. Three or four hundred miles. He was kidding you."

"No-o, my brother, she's saw that thing! She's hunt cattle what got
across, and she's saw that what them soldiers flew. Me, I _know_." He
looked at Johnny appraisingly, hesitated and leaned forward, impelled yet
not quite daring to give the proof.

"Well, what do you know?" Johnny returned the look steadfastly.

"You don't tell my brother--I--" He fumbled in his trousers pocket,
hesitated a little longer, and grew more trustful. "Them pliers--I'm
got."

He laid them on the table, and Johnny let his stool tilt forward abruptly
on its four legs. He took up the pliers, examined them with one eye
squinted against the smoke of his cigarette, weighed them in his hand,
bent to read the trade-mark. Then he looked at Tomaso. Those pliers may
or may not have come from the emergency kit of an airplane, but they
certainly were not of the kind or quality that ranchmen were in the habit
of owning. To Johnny they looked convincing. When he had an airplane of
his own, he would find a hundred uses for a pair of pliers exactly like
those.