Johnny laughed. "You'll have some trip if you do. You take it from me,
Tom, I don't know your brother, but I know he was kiddin' you. It was
away over east of here that those fellows got lost."

After Tomaso had mounted reluctantly and ridden away, however, Johnny
discovered himself faced southward, staring off toward Mexico. It was
just a yarn, about that airplane over there. Of course there was nothing
in it--nothing whatever. He didn't believe for a minute that an airplane
was sitting like a hawk on the sands a few miles to the south of him. He
didn't believe it--but he pictured to himself just how it would look, and
he played a little with the idea. It was something new to think about,
and Johnny straightway built himself a dream around it.

Riding the ridges in the lesser heat of the early mornings, his physical
eyes looked out over the meager range, spying out the scattered horse
herds grazing afar, their backs just showing above the brush. Behind his
eyes his mind roved farther, visioning a military plane sitting, inert
but with potentialities that sent his mind dizzy, on the hot sand of
Mexico--so close that he could almost see the place where it sat.

This was splendid food for Johnny's imagination, for his ambitions even,
though it was not particularly good for the Rolling R. He was not
bothered much. Evenings, the foreman or Sudden would usually call him up
and ask him how things were. Johnny would say that everything was all
right, and had the stage driver made a mistake and left any of his mail
at the ranch? Because he had been to the mail box on the trail and there
was nothing there. The speaker at the ranch would assure him that nothing
had been left there for him, and the ceremony would be over.

Johnny was fussy about his mail. He had spent twenty-five dollars for a