juns. I still
have hopes of saving our lives, Bland. We'll scare 'em to death.
We'll be their Thunder Bird for 'em. Now lemme tell yuh, before we
start--oh, we're safe for the present. They'll stutter some before
they attack us in here--say, good golly, Bland! Is that your teeth
chattering? Hold your jaws still, can't yuh, while I tell yuh what
we'll do?"

"F'r cat's sake, hurry! I seen another one peekin' around the corner
of the house!"

"Now listen, Bland. The Navajos have got a Thunder Bird mixed up in
their religion, and I guess maybe these Injuns will have, too. If so,
we are reasonably safe. They must not know we're plain human--we've
got to be gods come down to earth, and this is the Thunder Bird. Or
another kind of bird. We'll make 'em think that. They don't sabe
flying machines--see? And we'll find out where they're all at, and fly
low over their heads to convince them that didn't see us come down.
It'll scare 'em, and work on their superstition, so when we come down
again to locate that motor trouble, they'll stand in awe of us long
enough to give us time to get in shape. You leave the soaring to me,
Bland. I'll pull us through all right. Think she'll lift us off the
ground?"

"She's _gotta_ lift us!" Bland chattered. "She's runnin' better since
we landed. And say, bo, don't go any closer to them--"

Johnny told him to shut up; he was running things. Whereupon he
circled and taxied back down the field, thankful that the soil was
sun-baked and hard. The motor ran smoothly again--a fact which Bland
was too scared to notice. He gasped when Johnny turned back toward the
huts, but beyond a protesting look over his shoulder he gave no sign of
dissent.

They started to climb, got fifty feet from the ground and the motor
began to spit and pop again. Then it stalled completely, and they came
down and went bouncing over the uneven surface and stopped again, a rod
or so nearer the willows than before.

Several scuttling figures left that particular hiding place like
rabbits scared out of a covert, and Bland took heart again. A few
minutes he spent crouched down in the cockpit, watching the willows,
and when nothing happened he ventured forth, armed with pliers and
wrench, and went at the motor.

"Sounds to me like poor contact," he diagnosed the trouble. "Like the
breaker-points are roughened, maybe. You'll have to work the gawd
stuff, bo, and work it right. Because if I start tearin