Jimmy admitted that he had not.
“But I’ve got the fever to see one,” he grinned. “If you’ll let me have the fifty, I’ll get the Calico Peacock ready for the hop.”
“Where’s your aeroplane?” Weber asked. “Which one is it?”
Jimmy could detect no expression of disappointment in the old man’s face when he pointed out the Calico Peacock. That pleased him, although he knew that Weber had probably never been near an aeroplane before. Paying half his hangar bill, Jimmy and one of the oil station attendants trundled the Calico Peacock up to one of the gasoline sumps where it was filled with gasoline and oil.
The old man’s luggage consisted of a heavy canvas sack filled with provisions and a tarp-covered roll of blankets.
“If you’ve got any blankets ready, you’d better take them along,” he advised Jimmy. “’Tain’t likely that we can get away from Keno until tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to spend tonight under the open sky.”
Jimmy was able to borrow some blankets. The Calico Peacock had been fitted with a couple of passenger seats ahead of the pilot’s cockpit, and there was plenty of space for Weber and the luggage. Jimmy loaned the old man a pair of flying goggles. Weber had provided himself with a bearskin hunting cap which pulled down over his ears. Before they took off, Jimmy got out his maps again and they went over them carefully.
From the spot where he had located Keno, the old man traced the course of the valley on down to a spot where fan-shaped valleys converged to form a single broad, shallow valley.
