with both hands clapped over his mouth. He writhed and
kicked and rolled in the sand. His round, blue eyes grew moist with the
tears of a boy's exuberant mirth. From behind his palms came muffled
_who-who-who-oo-oos_ of laughter.

He believed that he was laughing at the trick he had played on Tomaso's
brother. He was doing more than that: he was making up for all the sober
longing, for all the fears and the discouragements of his barren life.
There had been so much hoping and sighing and futile wishing--it had been
so long since Johnny Jewel had really laughed--and he was young, and
youth is the time of carefree laughter. Now nature was striking a balance
for him.

Tomaso's brother went up over the rim of the basin, disappeared, and then
came plodding back through the heat. Johnny had laughed all that while;
laughed until his sides were sore; until his eyes were red with the tears
he had shed; until he was so weak he staggered when he first crawled out
from under the plane and stood up. But it did him good, for all that, to
have laughed so hard and so long over an impish trick that came from the
boy in him.

"Me, I don't find him that damn fuz'lawge," said the brother of Tomaso,
wiping his swarthy countenance that was beaded with sweat. "That Tomaso,
he has took, I bet. He brings it to you queeck when I'm through with
him." He looked at Johnny expectantly. "I'm promise you it comes back
all right, if perhaps Tomaso has take. Perhaps now you pay twenty-fi'
dollar?"

"No, I don't; I pay you ten dollars now." Johnny, remember, had a full
two days' acquaintance with the brother of Tomaso. He was taking a
certain precaution, rather than an unfair advantage. He honestly believed
that the brother of Tomaso was best dealt with cautiously.

"When this airplane is safe at Sinkhole, and you've brought me every
darned thing that's been packed off, I'll pay you the rest of the fifty.
There's more," he added meaningly, "that's missing. The fuselage ain't
all."

The brother of Tomaso seemed unhappy. He took the ten dollars with a
sigh, promised himself much unpleasantness for Tomaso, and wearily set
about making camp, too dispirited to care that Johnny spent the time in
fussing around the machine, making a thin pretense of looking it over for
breakages and defects when all the while he was simply adoring it.

"At daybreak," Johnny announced with a new dignity in his voice--the
dignity of one having valuable possessions and a p