oks very practicable for the
purpose." (Nothing like talking up to your audience. Johnny was proud
of that sentence.)

"All right. We'll lay that aside for further investigation. I'm glad
you have the plane out here away from every one. We'll take a run over
to that locality in my car--it's open season for ducks, and there's
that lake you see on the map. A couple of shotguns and our hunting
licenses will be all the alibi we'll need. You must know how to get
about in the open country, living in Arizona as you have, and I'm
counting a good deal on that. That's one reason why I made you the
offer, instead of these flyers around here--and by the way, that's one
point that made you look like a safe bet to the old man.

"I was talking to him about salary, and he's willing to go stronger
than I said, if you make good. He said it would be worth about two
hundred a day, which is considerably better than the thousand a week
that I named."

Cliff knew when to stop and let the bait dangle. He fussed with a
fresh cigarette, paying no apparent attention to Johnny, which gave
that young man an idea that he was wholly unobserved while he dizzily
made a mental calculation. Fourteen hundred a week--go-od golly! In a
month--or would it last for a month?

"How long a job is this?" he demanded so suddenly that the words were
out before he knew he was going to ask the question.

"How long? Well--that's hard to say. Until you fail to put me across
the line safely, I suppose. There's always something doing or going to
be done in Mexico, old man--and it's always worth reporting to the
Syndicate. How long will people go on reading their morning paper at
breakfast?" He smiled the tolerant, bored smile that Johnny associated
with his first sight of Cliff. "I should say the job will last as long
as you make good."

"Well, that puts it up to me, then. I'd want an agreement that I'd be
paid a week in advance all the time. That's to cover the risk of
costly breakage and things like that. At the end of every week I'd be
free to quit or go on, and you'd be free to let me out if I didn't
suit. With that understanding I'll try her out--for a week, starting
to-morrow morning." He added, by way of clinching the matter, "And
that goes."

Cliff Lowell blew a thin wreath of smoke and smiled again. "It goes,
far as I am concerned. I think the old man will agree to it, providing
you take oath you'll keep the whole thing secret.