nd levelled his glasses at Mateo. Johnny waited until
he was sure and then scrambled down to the protection of another
bowlder. He peered from there up the valley and after some searching
discovered his man working carefully along a side hill, evidently
anxious to keep Mateo in sight. Johnny worked down another rod or two,
reconnoitered again, made another sliding run for it, and stopped
behind a clump of brush. In that way he reached the shelter of the
oak, feeling certain that he had not been seen.

Through the screen of branches he looked out across the little valley,
but he could not see any one at all, not even Mateo. So he turned to
his one solace, The Thunder Bird, and dusted it as carefully as a young
girl dusts her new piano. With a handful of waste he went over the
motor, wiping it until it shone wherever shining was possible, and
tried not to think of the man on the hillside. That was Cliff's
affair--until Johnny was ready to make the affair his.

"I wish I knew just what he's up to," Johnny fretted. "If I just
_knew_ something! I'd look like a boob now, wouldn't I, if the guards
nabbed us? They might try to pin most anything on me, and I wouldn't
have any comeback. It don't look good, if anybody asks me! And if
they--"

"Man's come here," Rosa announced close behind him in a tense whisper.
"Walking."

Johnny jumped and went on his toes to a spot where he could look
through the foliage.

"Walking down," explained Rosa, and waved a skinny hand toward the hill
behind them.

"Did you see him?"

"No, senor. I'm seeing rocks falling where somebody walks down."

There was nothing to do but wait. Johnny pushed the girl toward the
cabin and saw her scramble under the lowest branches and join the
others unconcernedly, tagging the boy Josef, and, then running off into
the open--where she could see the hillside--with Josef running after.
She did not seem to be watching the hill, while she was apparently
absorbed in dodging Josef, but Johnny gathered from her gestures that
the man was still coming and that he was making for the cabin. He was
wondering what she meant by suddenly sinking to the ground in shrill
laughter, when he heard a step behind him. He whirled, startled, his
hand jerking back toward the gun he wore.

"I approve your watchfulness, but you happened to be watching in the
wrong direction," said Cliff, brushing dirt from his hunting clothes.
"Well, they are getting warm, old man.