“‘Gold hunters of the air,’” he repeated once more. “Wonder how they do it? Perhaps I’ll learn that business. Sounds thrilling. And gold! Man! It might make a fellow rich!
“But I wonder—”
He had asked Johnny how it was done, this gold hunting in the air. Johnny had said,
“How much time you got to spare?”
“Two minutes. Must get back to my motor,” Curlie had replied.
“Not enough by two hours,” had been Johnny’s laughing rejoinder. “Drop in and stay all night on your next trip and I’ll tell you all about it.
“And by the way!” he had exclaimed. “Be sure not to pass us up on that next trip. May have something mighty important to send down by you. New stuff; that is, new to us. Worth about a million dollars an ounce. How does that strike you between the ears?”
“Million an ounce,” Curlie murmured sleepily. “Million dollars an ounce! Wonder what that could be?”
* * * * * * * *
Curiously enough, at the very hour in which Curlie had decided to sleep out a storm, Johnny Thompson, many miles away in a place where the storm had not yet struck, was telling some one else, an old-time friend of Curlie’s as well as his, some things about gold hunting in the air. He was talking in no uncertain terms, and the facts he revealed were as much a surprise to the listener as they might have been to Curlie.