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diff --git a/16871.txt b/16871.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b56f51 --- /dev/null +++ b/16871.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7943 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Skyrider, by B. M. Bower, Illustrated by +Anton Otto Fischer + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Skyrider + + +Author: B. M. Bower + + + +Release Date: October 14, 2005 [eBook #16871] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKYRIDER*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 16871-h.htm or 16871-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/8/7/16871/16871-h/16871-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/8/7/16871/16871-h.zip) + + + + + +SKYRIDER + +by + +B. M. BOWER + +with frontispiece by Anton Otto Fischer + +1919 + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Johnny dared a volplane, slanting steeply down at the +herd.] + + + +Boston +Little, Brown, and Company + + + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + + I A Poet without Honor + + II One Fight, Two Quarrels, and a Riddle + + III Johnny Goes Gaily Enough to Sinkhole + + IV A Thing that Sets like a Hawk + + V Desert Glimpses + + VI Salvage + + VII Finder, Keeper + + VIII Over the Telephone + + IX A Midnight Ride + + X Signs, and No One to Read Them + + XI Thieves Ride Boldly + + XII Johnny's Amazing Run of Luck Still Holds its Pace + + XIII Mary V Confronts Johnny + + XIV Johnny Would Serve Two Masters + + XV The Fire that Made the Smoke + + XVI Let's Go + + XVII A Rider of the Sky + + XVIII Flying Comes High + + XIX "We Fly South" + + XX Men Are Stupid + + XXI Mary V Will not be Bluffed + + XXII Luck Turns Traitor + + XXIII Dreams and Darkness + + XXIV Johnny's Dilemma + + XXV Skyrider "Has Flew"! + + + + +SKYRIDER + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +A POET WITHOUT HONOR + + + Before I die, I'll ride the sky; + I'll part the clouds like foam. + I'll brand each star with the Rolling R, + And lead the Great Bear home. + + I'll circle Mars to beat the cars, + On Venus I will call. + If she greets me fair as I ride the air, + To meet her I will stall. + + I'll circle high--as if passing by-- + Then volplane, bank, and land. + Then if she'll smile I'll stop awhile, + And kiss her snow-white hand. + + To toast her health and wish her wealth + I'll drink the Dipper dry. + Then say, "Hop in, and we'll take a spin, + For I'm a rider of the sky." + + Through the clouds we'll float in my airplane boat-- + +Mary V flipped the rough paper over with so little tenderness that a +corner tore in her fingers, but the next page was blank. She made a sound +suspiciously like a snort, and threw the tablet down on the littered +table of the bunk house. After all, what did she care where they +floated--Venus and Johnny Jewel? Riding the sky with Venus when he knew +very well that his place was out in the big corral, riding some of those +broom-tail bronks that he was being paid a salary--a _good_ salary--for +breaking! Mary V thought that her father ought to be told about the way +Johnny was spending all his time--writing silly poetry about Venus. It +was the first she had ever known about his being a poet. Though it was +pretty punk, in Mary V's opinion. She was glad and thankful that Johnny +had refrained from writing any such doggerel about _her_. That would have +been perfectly intolerable. That he should write poetry at all was +intolerable. The more she thought of it, the more intolerable it became. + +Just for punishment, and as a subtle way of letting him know what she +thought of him and his idiotic jingle, she picked up the tablet, found +the pencil Johnny had used, and did a little poetizing herself. She could +have rhymed it much better, of course, if she had condescended to give +any thought whatever to the matter, which she did not. Condescension went +far enough when she stooped to reprove the idiot by finishing the verse +that he had failed to finish, because he had already overtaxed his poor +little brain. + +Stooping, then, to reprove, and flout, and ridicule, Mary V finished the +verse so that it read thus: + + "Through the clouds we'll float in my airplane boat-- + For Venus I am truly sorry! + All the stars you sight, you witless wight, + You'll see when you and Venus light! + But then--I'm sure that I should worry!" + +Mary V was tempted to write more. She rather fancied that term "witless +wight" as applied to Johnny Jewel. It had a classical dignity which +atoned for the slang made necessary by her instant need of a rhyme for +sorry. + +But there was the danger of being caught in the act by some meddlesome +fellow who loved to come snooping around where he had no business, so +Mary V placed the tablet open on the table just as she had found it, and +left the bunk house without deigning to fulfill the errand of mercy that +had taken her there. Why should she trouble to sew the lining in a coat +sleeve for a fellow who pined for a silly flirtation with Venus? Let +Johnny Jewel paw and struggle to get into his coat. Better, let Venus sew +that lining for him! + +Mary V stopped halfway to the house, and hesitated. It had occurred to +her that she might add another perfectly withering verse to that poem. It +could start: "While sailing in my airplane boat, I'll ask Venus to mend +my coat." + +Mary V started back, searing couplets forming with incredible swiftness +in her brain. How she would flay Johnny Jewel with the keen blade of her +wit! If he thought he was the only person at the Rolling R ranch who +could write poetry, it would be a real kindness to show him his mistake. + +Just then Bud Norris and Bill Hayden came up from the corrals, heading +straight for the bunk house. Mary V walked on, past the bunk house and +across the narrow flat opposite the corrals and up on the first bench of +the bluff that sheltered the ranch buildings from the worst of the desert +winds. She did it very innocently, and as though she had never in her +life had any thought of invading the squat, adobe building kept sacred to +the leisure hours of the Rolling R boys. + +There was a certain ledge where she had played when she was a child, and +which she favored nowadays as a place to sit and look down upon the +activities in the big corral--whenever activities were taking place +therein--an interested spectator who was not suspected of being within +hearing. As a matter of fact, Mary V could hear nearly everything that +was said in that corral, if the wind was right. She could also see very +well indeed, as the boys had learned to their cost when their riding did +not come quite up to the mark. She made for that ledge now. + +She had no more than settled herself comfortably when Bud and Bill came +cackling from the bunk house. A little chill of apprehension went up Mary +V's spine and into the roots of her hair. She had not thought of the +possibilities of that open tablet falling into other hands than Johnny +Jewel's. + +"Hyah! You gol-darn witless wight," bawled Bud Norris, and slapped Bill +Hayden on the back and roared. "Hee-yah! Skyrider! When yo' all git done +kissin' Venus's snow-white hand, come and listen at what's been wrote for +yo' all by Mary V! Whoo-_ee_! Where's the Great Bear at that yo' all was +goin' to lead home, Skyrider?" Then they laughed like two maniacs. Mary V +gritted her teeth at them and wished aloud that she had her shotgun with +her. + +A youth, whose sagging chaps pulled in his waistline until he looked +almost as slim as a girl, ceased dragging at the bridle reins of a balky +bronk and glanced across the corral. His three companions were hurrying +that way, lured by a paper which Bud was waving high above his head as he +straddled the top rail of the fence. + +"Johnny's a poet, and we didn't know it!" bawled Bud. "Listen here at +what the witless wight's been a-writin'!" Then, seated upon the top rail +and with his hat set far back on his head, Bud Norris began to declaim +inexorably the first two verses, until the indignant author came over and +interfered with voice and a vicious yank at Bud's foot, which brought +that young man down forthwith. + +"Aw, le' me alone while I read the rest! Honest, it's swell po'try, and I +want the boys to hear it. Listen--get out, Johnny! '_I'll circle high as +if passing by, then--v-o-l--then vollup, bank, an' land--_' Hold him +off'n me, boys! This is rich stuff I'm readin'! Hey, hold your hand over +his mouth, why don't yuh, Aleck? Yo' all want to wait till I git to +where--" + +"I can't," wailed Aleck. "He bit me!" + +"Well, take 'im down an' set on him, then. I tell yuh, boys, this is +rich--" + +"You give that back here, or I'll murder yuh!" a full-throated young +voice cried hoarsely. + +"Here, quit yore kickin'!" Bill admonished. + +"Go on, Bud; the boys have got to hear it--it's _rich_!" + +"Yeh--shut up, Johnny! Po'try is wrote to be read--go on, Bud. Start +'er over again. I never got to hear half of it on account of Johnny's +cussin'. Go on--I got him chewin' on my hat now. Read 'er from the +start-off." + +"The best is yet to come," Bill gloated pantingly, while he held the +author's legs much as he would hold down a yearling. "All set, Bud--let +'er go!" + +Whereupon Bud cleared his throat and began again, rolling the words out +sonorously, so that Mary V heard every word distinctly: + + "'Before I die, I'll ride the sky; + I'll part the clouds like foam. + I'll brand each star with the Rolling R, + And lead the Great Bear home.'" + +"Say, that's _swell_!" a little fellow they called Curley interjected. +"By gosh, that's darned good po'try! I never knowed Johnny could--" + +He was frowned into silence by the reader, who went on exuberantly, the +lines punctuated by profane gurgles from the author. + +"Now this here," Bud paused to explain, "was c'lab'rated on by Mary V. +The first line was wrote by our 'steemed young friend an' skyrider poet, +but the balance is in Mary V's handwritin'. And I claim she's some poet! +Quit cussin' and listen, Johnny; yo' all never heard this 'un, and I'll +gamble on it: + +"'_Through the clouds we'll float in my airplane boat--_' That, there's +by Skyrider. And here Mary V finishes it up: + + "'For Venus I am truly sorry! + All the stars you sight, you witless wight, + You'll see when you and Venus light! + But then--I'm sure that I should worry!'" + +"I don't believe she ever wrote that!" Johnny struggled up to declare +passionately. "You give that here, Bud Norris. Worry--sorry--they don't +even rhyme!" + +"Aw, ferget that stuff! Witless wight's all right, ain't it? I claim Mary +V's some poetry writer. Don't you go actin' up jealous. She ain't got the +jingle, mebby, but she shore is there with the big idee." + +"'_Drink the dipper dry_'--that shore does hit me where I live!" cried +little Curley. "Did you make it up outa yore own head, Johnny?" + +"Naw. I made it up out of a spellin' book!" Johnny, being outnumbered +five to one, decided to treat the whole matter with lofty unconcern. +"Hand it over, Bud." + +Bud did not want to hand it over. He had just discovered that he could +sing it, which he proceeded to do to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" and the +full capacity of his lungs. Bill and Aleck surged up to look over his +shoulder and join their efforts to his, and the half dozen horses held +captive in that corral stampeded to a far corner and huddled there, +shrinking at the uproar. + +"_And kiss 'er snow-white ha-a-and, and kiss 'er snow-white ha-and_," +howled the quartet inharmoniously, at least two of them off key; for Tex +Martin had joined the concert and was performing with a bull bellow that +could be heard across a section. Then Bud began suddenly to improvise, +and his voice rose valiantly that his words might carry their meaning to +the ears of Johnny Jewel, who had stalked back across the corral and was +striving now to catch the horse he had let go, while his one champion, +little Curley, shooed the animal into a corner for him. + +"_It would be grand to kiss her hand, her snow-white hand, if I had the +sand!_" Bud chanted vain-gloriously. "How's that, Skyrider? Ain't that +purty fair po'try?" + +"It don't fit into the tune with a cuss," Tex criticized jealously. "Pass +over that po'try of Johnny's. Yo' all ain't needin' it--not if you aims +to make up yore own words." + +"C'm _'ere_! You wall-eyed weiner-wurst!" Johnny harshly addressed the +horse he was after. "You've got about as much brains as the rest of this +outfit--and that's putting it strong! If I owned you--" + +"_I'd cir-cle high 's if pass-in' by, then vol-lup bank an' la-a-and_," +the voice of Tex roared out in a huge wave that drowned all other sounds, +the voices of Bill, Aleck, and Bud trailing raucously after. + +Johnny, goaded out of his lofty contempt of them, whirled suddenly and +picked up a rock. Johnny could pitch a very fair ball for an amateur, and +the rock went true without any frills or curving deception. It landed in +the middle of Bud Norris's back, and Bud's vocal efforts ended in a howl +of pain. + +"Serves you right, you devil!" Mary V commented unsympathetically from +her perch on the ledge. + +Three more rocks ended the concert abruptly and started something else. +Curley had laughed hysterically until the four faced belligerently +Johnny's bombardment and started for him. "Beat it, Johnny! Beat it!" +cried Curley then, and made for the fence. + +"I will like hell!" snarled Johnny, and gathered more rocks. + +"Oh, Johnny! Sudden's comin'!" wailed Curley from the top rail. "Quit it, +Johnny, or you'll git fired!" + +"I don't give a damn if I do!" Johnny's full, young voice shouted +ragefully. "It'll save me firing myself. Before I'll work with a bunch of +yellow-bellied, pin-headed fools--" He threw a clod of dirt that caught +Tex on the chin and filled his mouth so that he nearly choked, and a +jagged pebble that hit Aleck just over the ear a glancing blow that sent +him reeling. The third was aimed at Bill, but Bill ducked in time, and +the rock went on over his head and very nearly laid out Mary V's father, +he whom the boys called "Sudden" for some inexplicable reason. + +Mary V's father dodged successfully the rock, saw a couple of sheets of +paper lying on the ground, and methodically picked them up before he +advanced to where his men were trying to appear very busy with the +horses, or with their ropes, or with anything save what had held their +attention just previous to his coming. + +All save Johnny, who was too mad to care a rap what old Sudden Selmer +thought of him or did to him. He went straight up to the boss. + +"I'll thank you for that paper," he said hardily. "It's mine, and the +boys have been acting the fool with it." + +"Yeh? They have?" Selmer turned from the first page and read the second +without any apparent emotion. "You write that?" + +Johnny flushed. "Yes, sir, I did. Do you mind letting--" + +"That what I heard them yawping here in the corral?" Selmer folded the +paper with care, his fingers smoothing out the wrinkles and pausing to +observe the place where Mary V had torn off a corner. + +"Poets and song birds on the pay roll, eh? Thought I hired you boys to +handle horses." Having folded the papers as though they were to be placed +in an envelope, Sudden held the verses out to Johnny. "As riders," he +observed judicially, "I know just about what you boys are worth to me. As +poets and singers, I doubt whether the Rolling R can find use for you. +What capacity do I find you in, Curley? Director of the orchestra, or +umpire?" + +Curley climbed shamefacedly off the fence and picked up his rope. The +business of taming bronks was resumed in a dead silence broken only by +the trampling of the horses and a muttered oath now and then. A lump over +Aleck's ear was swelling so that the hair lifted there, and Bud limped +and sent scowling glances at Johnny Jewel. Tex spat dirt off his tongue +and scowled while he did it; indeed, no eyes save those of little Curley +seemed able to look upon Johnny with a kindly light. + +Mary V's father stood dispassionately watching them for five minutes or +so before he turned back to the gate. Not once had he smiled or shown any +emotion whatever. But he had a new story to tell his friends in the clubs +of Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, Los Angeles. And whenever he told it, Sudden +Selmer would repeat what he called _The Skyrider's Dream_ from the first +verse to Mary V's last--even unto Bud's improvisation. He would paint +Johnny's bombardment of the choir practice until his audience could +almost hear the thud of the rocks when they landed. He would describe the +welt on Aleck's head, the exact shade of purple in Curley's face when his +boss called him off the fence. He would not smile at all during the +recital, but his audience would shout and splutter and roar, and when he +paused as though the story was done, some one would be sure to demand +more. + +Then a little twitching smile would show at the corner of Sudden's lips, +and he would drawl whimsically: "Those boys were so scared they never +chirped when the poet actually went sky-riding to an altitude of about +ten feet above the saddle horn, and lit on the back of his neck. Johnny's +a good rider, too, but he was mad. He was so mad I don't believe he knows +yet that he was piled. Afterwards? Oh, well, they came to along about +supper time and yawped his poetry all over the place, I heard. But that +was after I had left the ranch." + +There were a few details which Sudden, being only human, could not +possibly give his friends. He could not know that Mary V went back down +the hill, sneaked into the bunk house and got Johnny's coat, and sewed +the sleeve lining in very neatly, and took the coat back without being +seen. Nor did he know that she violently regretted the deed of kindness, +when she discovered that Johnny remained perfectly unconscious of the +fact that his coat sleeve no longer troubled him. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +ONE FIGHT, TWO QUARRELS, AND A RIDDLE + + +Rolling R ranch lies down near the border of Mexico--near as distances +are counted in Arizona. Possibly a hawk could make it in one flight +straight across that jagged, sandy, spiney waste of scenery which the +chance traveler visions the moment you mention southern Arizona, but if +you wanted to ride to the Border from the Rolling R corrals, you would +find the trip a half-day proposition. As to the exact location, never +mind about that. + +The Selmer Stock Company had other ranches where they raised other +animals, but the Rolling R raised horses almost exclusively, the few +hundred head of cattle not being counted as a real ranch industry, but +rather an incidental by-product. Rolling R Ranch was the place Sudden +Selmer called home, although there was a bungalow out in the Wilshire +District in Los Angeles about which Sudden would grumble when the tax +notice came in his mail. There was a big touring car in the garage on the +back of the lot, and there was a colored couple who lived in two rooms of +the bungalow for sake of the fire insurance and as a precaution against +thieves, and to keep the lawn watered and clipped and the dust off the +furniture. They admitted that they had a snap, for they were seldom +disturbed in their leisurely caretaking routine save in the winter. Even +Mary V always tired of the place after a month or two in it, and would +pack her trunk and "hit the trail" for the Rolling R. + +Speaking of Mary V, you would know that a girl with modern upbringing +lived a good deal at the ranch. You could tell by the low, green bungalow +with wide, screened porches and light cream trim, that was almost an +exact reproduction of the bungalow in Los Angeles. A man and woman who +have lived long together on a ranch like the Rolling R would have gone on +living contentedly in the adobe house which was now abandoned to the sole +occupancy of the boys. It is the young lady of the family who demands +up-to-date housing. + +So the bungalow stood there in the glaring sun, surrounded by a scrap of +lawn which the Arizona winds whipped and buffeted with sand and wind all +summer, and vines which the wind tousled into discouragement. And fifty +yards away squatted the old adobe house in the sand, with a tree at each +front corner and a narrow porch extending from one to the other. + +Beyond the adobe, toward the sheltering bluff, a clutter of low sheds, +round-pole corrals, a modern barn of fair size, and beside it a square +corral of planks and stout, new posts, continued the tale of how progress +was joggling the elbow of picturesqueness. Sudden's father had built the +adobe and the oldest sheds and corrals, when he took all the land he +could lawfully hold under government claims. Later he had bought more; +and Sudden, growing up and falling heir to it all, had added tract after +tract by purchase and lease and whatever other devices a good politician +may be able to command. + +Sudden's father had been a simple man, content to run his ranch along +the lines of least resistance, and to take what prosperity came to him +in the natural course of events. Sudden had organized a Company, had +commercialized his legacy, had "married money," and had made money. Far +to the north and to the east and west ran the lines of other great +ranches, where sheep were handled in great, blatting bands and yielded +a fortune in wool. There were hills where Selmer cattle were wild as +deer--cattle that never heard the whistle of a locomotive until they were +trailed down to the railroad to market. + +These made the money for Selmer and his Company. But it was the Rolling +R, where the profits were smaller, that stood closest to Sudden's heart. +There was not so much money in horses as there was in sheep; Sudden +admitted it readily enough. But he hated sheep; hated the sound of them +and the smell of them and the insipid, questioning faces of them. And +he loved horses; loved the big-jointed, wabbly legged colts and the +round-bodied, anxious mothers; loved the grade geldings and fillies and +the registered stock that he kept close to home in fenced pastures; loved +the broom-tail bronks that ranged far afield and came in a dust cloud +moiling up from their staccato hoof beats, circled by hoarse, shouting +riders seen vaguely through the cloud. + +There was a thrill in watching a corral full of wild horses milling round +and round, dodging the whispering ropes that writhed here and there +overhead to settle and draw tight over some unlucky head. There was a +thrill in the taming--more thrills than dollars, for until the war +overseas brought eager buyers, the net profits of the horse ranch would +scarcely have paid for Mary V's clothes and school and what she demurely +set down as "recreation." + +But Sudden loved it, and Mary V loved it, and Mary V's mother loved +whatever they loved. So the Rolling R was home. And that is why the +Rolling R boys looked upon Mary V with unglamoured eyes, being thoroughly +accustomed to the sight of her and to the sharp tongue of her and to the +frequent discomfort of having her about. + +They liked her, of course. They would have fought for her if ever the +need of fighting came, just as they would have fought for anything else +in their outfit. But they took her very calmly and as a matter of course, +and were not inclined to that worshipful bearing which romancers would +have us accept as the inevitable attitude of cowboys toward the daughter +of the rancho. + +Wherefore Johnny Jewel was not committing any heinous act of treason when +he walked past Mary V with stiffened spine and head averted. Johnny was +mad at the whole outfit, and that included Mary V. Indeed, his anger +particularly included Mary V. A young man who has finished high school +and one year at a university, and who reads technical books rather than +fiction and has ambitions for something much higher than his present +calling,--oh, very much higher!--would naturally object to being called +a witless wight. + +Johnny objected. He had cussed Aleck for repeating the epithet in the +bunk house, and he had tried to lick Bud Norris, and had failed. He +blamed Mary V for his skinned knuckles and the cut on his lip, and for +all his other troubles. Johnny did not know about the coat, though he had +it on; and if he had known, I doubt whether it would have softened his +mood. He was a terribly incensed young man. + +Mary V had let her steps lag a little, knowing that Johnny must overtake +her presently unless he turned short around and went the other way, which +would not be like Johnny. She had meant to say something that would lead +the conversation gently toward the verses, and then she meant to say +something else about the difficulty of making two lines rhyme, and the +necessity of using perfectly idiotic words--such as wight. Mary V was +disgusted with the boys for the way they had acted. She meant to tell +Johnny that she thought his verses were very clever, and that she, too, +was keen for flying. And would he like to borrow a late magazine she had +in the house, that had an article about the growth of the "game"? Mary +V did not know that she would have sounded rather patronizing. Her girl +friends in Los Angeles had filled her head with romantic ideas about +cowboys, especially her father's cowboys. They had taken it so for +granted that the Rolling R boys must simply worship the ground she walked +on, that Mary V had unconsciously come to believe that adoration was her +birthright. + +And then Johnny stepped out of the trail and passed her as though she +had been a cactus or a rock that he must walk around! Mary V went hot +all over, with rage before her wits came back. Johnny had not gone ten +feet ahead of her when she was humming softly to herself a little, +old-fashioned tune. And the tune was "Auld Lang Syne." + +Johnny whirled in the trail and faced her, hard-eyed. + +"You're trying to play smart Aleck, too, are yuh?" he demanded. "Why +don't yuh sing the words that's in your mind? Why don't you _try_ to sing +your own ideas of poetry? You know as much about writing poetry as I do +about tatting! 'Worry'! 'surrey'! Or did you mean that it should be read +'wawry,' 'sorry'?" + +A fine way to talk to the Flower of the Rancho! Mary V looked as though +she wanted to slap Johnny Jewel's smooth, boyish face. + +"Of course, you're qualified to teach me," she retorted. "Such doggerel! +You ought to send it to the comic papers. Really, Mr. Jewel, I have read +a good deal of amateurish, childish attempts at poetry--in the infant +class at school. But never in all my life--" + +"Oh, well, if you ever get out of the infant class, Miss Selmer, you may +learn a few rudimentary rules of metrical composition. I apologize for +criticising your efforts. It is not so bad--for infant class work." He +said that, standing there in the very coat which she had mended for him! + +Mary V turned white; also she wished that _she_ had thought of mentioning +the "rudimentary rules of metrical composition" instead of infant +classes. She smiled as disagreeably as was possible to such humanly +kissable lips as hers. + +"No, is it?" she agreed sweetly. "Witless wight was rather good, I +thought. Wight fits you so well." + +"Oh, that!" Johnny turned defensively to a tolerant condescension. "That +wasn't so bad, if it hadn't shown on the face of it that it was just +dragged in to make a rhyme. Do you know what wight means, Miss Selmer?" + +Mary V was inwardly shaken. She had always believed that wight was a +synonym for dunce, but now that he put the question to her in that tone, +she was not positive. Her angry eyes faltered a little. + +"I see you don't--of course. Used as a noun--you know what a noun is, +don't you? It means the name of anything. Wight means a person--any +creature. Originally it meant a fairy, a supernatural being. As an +adjective it means brave, valiant, strong or powerful. Or, it used to +mean clever." + +"Oh, _you_! I hate the sight of you, you great bully!" Mary V ducked past +him and ran. + +"I'll help you look it up in the dictionary if you don't know how," +Johnny called after her maliciously, not at all minding the epithet +she had hurled at him. He went on more cheerfully, telling himself +unchivalrously that he had got Mary V's goat, all right. He began to +whistle under his breath, until he discovered that he was whistling "Auld +Lang Syne," and was mentally fitting to the tune the words: "_Before I +die, I'll ride the sky. I'll part the clouds like foam!_" + +He stopped whistling then, but the words went on repeating themselves +over and over in his mind. "And by gosh, I will too," he stated +defiantly. "I'll show 'em, the darned mutts! They can yawp and chortle +and call me Skyrider as if it was a joke. That's as much as they know, +the ignorant boobs. Why, they couldn't tell an aileron from an elevator +if it was to save their lives!--and still they think I'm crazy and don't +know anything. Why, darn 'em, they'll _pay money_ some day to see me fly! +Boy, I'd like to circle over this ranch at about three or four thousand +feet, and then do a loop or two and volplane right down _at_ 'em! Gosh, +they'd be hunting holes to crawl into before I was through with 'em! I +will, too--" + +Johnny went off into a pet daydream and was almost happy for a little +while. Some day the Rolling R boys would be telling with pride how they +used to know Johnny Jewel, the wonderful birdman that had his picture in +all the papers and was getting thousands of dollars for exhibition +flights. Tex, Aleck, Bud, Bill--Mary V, too, gol darn her!--would go +around bragging just because they used to know him! And right then he'd +sure play even for some of the insults they were handing him now. + +"Mary V Selmer? Let's see--the name sounds familiar, somehow. O-oh! You +mean that little red-headed ranch girl from Arizona? Oh-h, yes! Well, +give her a free pass--but I mustn't be bothered personally with her. The +girl's all right, but no training, no manners. Hick stuff; no class, you +understand. But give her a good seat, where she can view the getaway." + +Tex, Aleck, Bud, and Bill--little Curley was all right; Curley could have +a job as watchman at the hangar. But the rest of the bunch could goggle +at him from a distance and be darned to them. Old Sudden too. He'd be +kind of nice to old Sudden--nice in an offhand, indifferent kind of way. +But Mary V could get down on her _knees_, and he wouldn't be nice to her. +He should say not! + +So dreamed Johnny Jewel, all the way to the mail box out by the main +road, and nearly all the way back again. But then his ears were assailed +with lugubrious singing: + + "An' dlead the Great Bear ho-o-ome, + An' dlead the Great Bear hoo-me, + I'll brand each star with the Rollin' R, + An-n dlead the Great Bear home!" + +That was Bud's contribution. + +"Aw, for gosh sake, _shut up_!" yelled Johnny, his temper rising again. + +From the bungalow, when he passed it on his way to the bunk house, came +the measured thump-thump of a piano playing the same old tune with a +stress meant to mock him and madden him. + + "Then if she'll smile I'll stop awhile, + And kiss her snow-white hand." + +That was Mary V, singing at the top of her voice, and Johnny walked +stiff-backed down the path. He wanted to turn and repeat to Mary V what +he had shouted to Bud, but he refrained, though not from any chivalry, +I am sorry to say. Johnny feared that it would be playing into her hand +too much if he took that much notice of her. He wouldn't give her the +satisfaction of knowing he heard her. + + "It would be grand to kiss 'er hand, + Her-rr snow-white hand if I had the sand," + +Bud finished unctuously, adjusting the tune to fit the words. + +Johnny swore, flung open the low door of the bunk house, went in, and +slammed it shut after him, and began to pack his personal belongings. +Presently Tex came in, warbling like a lovesick crow: + + "I'll cir-cle high 's if pass-in' by, + Then vol-lup bank-an' la-a-and--" + +"So will this la-and," Johnny said viciously and threw one of his new +riding boots straight at the warbler. "For gosh sake, lay off that +stuff!" + +Tex caught the boot dexterously without interrupting his song, except +that he forgot the words and sang ta-da-da-da to the end of the verse. + +"Po'try was wrote to be read," he replied sententiously when he had +finished. "And tunes was made to be sung. And yo' all oughta be proud to +death at the way yo' all made a hit with yore po'try. It beats what Mary +V wrote, Skyrider. If yo' all want to know my honest opinion, Mary V's +plumb sore because yo' all made up po'try about Venus instid of about +her." He sat down on a corner of the littered table and began to roll a +cigarette, jerking his head towards the bungalow and lowering one eyelid +slowly. "Girls, I'm plumb next to 'em, Skyrider. I growed up with four of +'em. Mary V loves that there Venus stuff, and kissin' her snow-white +hand, same as a cat loves snow. Jealous--that's what's bitin' Mary V." + +Johnny was sorting letters, mostly circulars and "follow up" letters +from various aviation schools. He looked up suspiciously at Tex, but Tex +manifested none of the symptoms of sly "kidding." Tex was smoking +meditatively and gazing absently at Johnny's suitcase. + +"Yo' all ain't quittin'?" Tex roused himself to ask. "Not over a little +josh? Say, you're layin' yoreself wide open to more of the same. Yo' all +wants to take it the way it's meant, Skyrider. Listen here, boy, if yo' +all wants to git away from the ranch right now, why don't yo' all speak +for to stay at Sinkhole camp? Yo' all could have mo' time to write po'try +an' study up on flyin' machines, down there. And Pete, he's aimin' to +quit the first. He don't like it down there." + +Johnny dropped the letters back into his suitcase and sat down on the +side of his bed to smoke. His was not the nature to hold a grudge, and +Tex seemed to be friendly. Still, his youthful dignity had been very much +hurt, and by Tex as much as the other boys. He gave him a supercilious +glance. + +"I don't know where you get the idea that I'm a quitter," he said +pettishly. "First I knew that a bunch of rough-necks could kid me out +of a job. Go down to Sinkhole yourself, if you're so anxious about that +camp. Furthermore," he added stiffly, "it's nobody's business but mine +what I write or study, or where I write and study. So don't set there +trying to look wise, Tex--telling me what to do and how to do it. You +can't put anything over on me; your work is too raw. Al-to-gether too +raw!" + +He glanced sidewise at a circular letter he had dropped, picked it up +and began reading it slowly, one eye squinted against the smoke of his +cigarette, his manner that of supreme indifference to Tex and all his +kind. Johnny could be very, very indifferent when he chose. + +He did not really believe that Tex was trying to put anything over on +him; he just said that to show Tex he didn't give a darn one way or the +other. But Tex seemed to take it seriously, and glowered at Johnny from +under his black eyebrows that had a hawklike arch. + +"What yo' all think I'm trying to put over? Hey? What yo' all mean by +that statement?" + +Johnny looked up, one eye still squinted against the smoke. The other +showed surprise back of the indifference. "You there yet?" he wanted to +know. "What's the big idea? Gone to roost for the night?" + +Tex leaned toward him, waggling one finger at Johnny. The outer end of +his eyebrows were twitching--a sign of anger in Tex, as Johnny knew well. + +"What yo' all got up yore sleeve--saying my work is raw! What yo' all +aimin' at? That's what I'm roostin' here to learn." + +Johnny fanned away the smoke and gave a little chuckle meant to +exasperate Tex, which it did. + +"I guess the roosting's going to be pretty good," he said. "You better +send cookee word to bring your meals to yuh, Tex. Because if you roost +there till I tell yuh, you'll be roosting a good long while!" He got up +and lounged out, his hands in his pockets, his well-shaped head carried +at a provocative tilt. He heard Tex swear under his breath and mutter +something about making the darned little runt come through yet, whereat +Johnny grinned maliciously. + +Halfway to the corral, however, Johnny's steps slowed as though he were +walking straight up to a wall. The wall was there, but it was mental, and +it was his mind that halted before it, astonished. + +What had touched Tex off so suddenly when Johnny had flung out that +meaningless taunt? Meaningless to Johnny--but how about Tex? + +"Gosh! He took it like a guilty conscience," said Johnny. "What the +horn-toad has Tex been doin'?" + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +JOHNNY GOES GAILY ENOUGH TO SINKHOLE + + +Johnny Jewel, moved by the fluctuating determination of the young, went +to bed that night fully resolved that he would not quit a good job just +because untoward circumstance compelled him to herd with a bunch of +brainless clowns. He, who had a definite aim in life, would not permit +that aim to be turned aside because various and sundry roughneck punchers +thought it was funny to go around yelping like a band of coyotes. Mary V, +too--he did not neglect to include Mary V. Indeed, much of his +determination to remain was born of his desire to crush that insolent +young woman with polite, pitying toleration. + +Even when the boys trooped in and began to compose what they believed to +be rhymes, Johnny did not weaken. He turned his face to the wall and +ignored them. Poor simps, what more could you expect? They went so far as +to attempt some poetizing on the subject of Johnny's downfall in the +corral, but no one seemed able to eliminate the word bronk at the end +of the first line, "_Johnny tried to ride a bronk._" No one seemed able, +either, to find any rhyme but honk. They tried ker-plunk, and although +that seemed to answer the purpose fairly well, they were far from +satisfied. + +So was Johnny, but he would not say a word to save their lives. In spite +of himself he heard a howl of glee when some genius among them declaimed +loudly: "_Johnny volluped into Job's Coffin, and Venus she most died +a-lawfin!_" + +Johnny gave a grunt of contempt, and the genius, who happened to be Bud, +lifted his head off the pillow and stared at the black shadow where +Johnny lay curled up like a cat. + +"What's the matter with that, Skyrider? Kain't I make up po'try if I want +to?" + +"Sure. Help yourself--you poor fish. Vollup! _Hunh!_" The contempt was +even more pronounced than before. + +"Well? What's the matter with that? You said it yourself. And look out +how you go peddlin' names around here. You think nobody knows anything +but you! You're the little boy that invented flyin'--got the idea from +yore own head, by thunder, when it swelled up like a balloon with +self-conceit! That there gas-head of yourn'll take yuh right up amongst +the clouds some day, and you won't need no flyin' machine, neither! +Skyrider--is--_right_!" Accidentally Johnny had touched Bud's self-esteem +in a tender spot. "And that's no kidding, either!" he clinched his +meaning. "Punch a hole in yore skelp, and I'll bet that big haid of yourn +would wizzle all up like them red balloons they sell at circuses! You--" + +"_Hm-m-m!_ Just so it ain't all solid bone like yours," Johnny came back +at him with youth's full quota of scorn. "Keep away from pool rooms, Bud. +Somebody is liable to take your head off and use it for a cue-ball. +_Vollup! Hunh!_" + +Bud said more; a great deal more. But Johnny flopped over on the +other side, buried his head under the blankets, and let them talk. +Cue-balls--that was all their heads were good for. So why concern +himself over their senseless patter? + +It occurred to him, just before he went to sleep, that the unmistakable, +southern drawl of Tex was missing from the jumble of voices. Tex, he +remembered, had been unusually silent at supper, also, and twice Johnny +had caught Tex watching him somberly. But he could think of no possible +reason why Tex should want him to go down to Sinkhole Camp, and he could +not see how either of them could effect the change even if Johnny had +cared to go. Sudden Selmer did not ask his men what was their desire. +Sudden gave orders; his men could obey or they could quit. And if Pete +left, as Tex had hinted, Sudden would send some one down there, and that +would be an end of it. There was just about one chance in six that Johnny +Jewel would be the man to go. + +Yet it so happened that Johnny did go--though Tex had nothing to do with +it, so far as Johnny could see. For all his determination to stay and +tolerate his companions, noon found him packed and out by the gate that +opened on the stage road, waiting to flag the stage and buy a ride to +town. He had accomplished, since breakfast, two fights and another +quarrel with Mary V over that infernal jingle he had written. And though +Johnny could not see it, Tex had had something to do with them all. + +Tex was not one of these diabolically cunning villains. He did not +consider himself any kind of a villain. He accepted himself more or less +contentedly as a poor, striving young man who wanted to get ahead in the +world and was eager to pick up what he called "side money," which might, +if he were on to his job, amount to more than his wages. Tex did not +consider that he owed the Rolling R anything whatever save a certain +number of days' work in each month that he drew a pay check. He sold +Sudden his time and his skill in the saddle--a month of it for fifty +dollars. But if he could double that fifty without harm to himself, Tex +was not going to split any hairs over the method. + +Tex was not displaying any great genius when he edged the boys on to +tease Johnny beyond the limit of that young man's endurance, or when he +tattled to Mary V a slighting remark about her ability as a poet. Tex was +merely carrying out an idea which had come to him when he saw Johnny with +his hands full of aircraft literature. If it worked, all right. If it +didn't work, Johnny would not be on the Rolling R pay roll any longer, +but Tex would not have lost anything. It would be convenient to have +Johnny down at Sinkhole Camp, shirking his job while he fiddled around +with his flying bug. Tex believed he knew how he could keep the bug very +active, and Johnny very much engrossed with it--down at Sinkhole Camp. It +was simple enough, and worth the slight effort Tex was making. + +So there was Johnny Jewel with his saddle and bridle and suitcase and +chaps, waiting out by the mail box for the stage. And there came Sudden, +driving back from the railroad--Tex knew he was expected back that +forenoon--and reaching the gate before the stage had come in sight +around the southwest spur of the ridge it could not cross. Sudden liked +Johnny--and Tex knew that too. (Tex made it his business to know a good +deal which had nothing to do with his legitimate work.) And good riders +who did not get drunk every chance that offered were not to be hired +every day in the week. + +Johnny opened the gate, but Sudden did not drive through. He stopped and +eyed the suitcase and the saddle and the chaps, and then he looked at +Johnny. + +"Too much song-bird stuff?" he asked, which showed how sensitive was the +finger Sudden kept on the pulse of his outfit. + +"I've got to work for a living, but I don't have to work with that bunch +of idiots," Johnny stated with much dignity. + +Sudden rubbed a gauntleted hand across the lower part of his face; and +that, I think, is why Johnny saw himself taken as seriously as his young +egotism demanded. + +"Rather be by yourself, would you? Well, throw your baggage in the back +of the car. I want you to catch up a couple of horses and go on down to +Sinkhole. You won't be annoyed down there with anybody's foolishness but +your own, young man. You'll work for your living, all right! Got a gun? A +rifle? Well, there's one at the house you can take. There may not be any +Rolling R horses going across the line--but it'll be your business to +_know_ there aren't. If you see a greaser prowling around, put him on the +run. They're paying good money for horses in Mexico, remember. You're +down there to see they don't get 'em too cheap on this side. Do you get +that?" + +"Yes, sir--you bet!" + +"Oh. You do? Well, get in." + +At the corral he turned again to Johnny. "Stop at the house when you're +ready. There's a pile of _Modern Mechanics_ you may as well take along. +You won't have any too much time for reading, though--not if you work the +way you rhyme." + +"Well, I hope I work better," said Johnny, his spirits risen to where +speech bubbled. "I get paid for my work--and I guess I'd starve writing +poetry for a living." + +"Yes, I guess you would. Good thing you know it." Sudden swung his +machine around and drove into the garage, and Johnny, untying his rope +from his saddle, went into the corral to catch two fairly gentle horses. + +When he was ready he rode over to the bungalow, leading the gentlest +horse packed with bedding roll, "war bag," and a few odds and ends that +Johnny wanted to take along. Sudden was waiting on the porch with a +rifle, cartridge belt and two extra boxes of ammunition, and a sack half +full of magazines. He stood with his hands in his pockets while Johnny +tied rifle and sack on the saddle. + +"Now I want you to understand, Johnny, that you're going down there on +special work," he said, coming down the steps and standing close to the +horse. "There's a telephone, and that's your protection if anything looks +off-color. Keep the stock pushed back pretty well away from the line +fences. There's some good feed in those draws over east of Sinkhole +creek. Let 'em graze in there--but keep an eye out for rustlers. Get +to know the bunches of horses and watch their moves. You'll soon know +whether they are being bothered. Pete leaves camp this afternoon. You'll +probably meet him. + +"And this gun--well, you keep it right with you. I don't want you to go +around hunting trouble, but I want you to be ready for it if it comes. A +horse looks awfully good to a greaser, remember. But no greaser likes the +looks of a white man with a gun. Now let's see how much brains you've got +for the job, young man. If you see to it that no Rolling R stuff comes up +missing, and do it without any trouble, I'll call that making good." + +"All right, I'll try and make good, then." Johnny's shoulders went back. +"When a man's got some object in life besides just earning a living, +he--" + +From within the house full-toned chords were struck from a piano. Johnny +scowled, gave his packed horse a yank, and rode off. Couldn't that girl +ever let up on a fellow? Playing that darn fool tune over and over! It +sure showed how much brains she had in her head! He hoped she'd get +enough of it. If he was her mother or her father, he knew what he'd do +with her and the whole outfit. He'd stand 'em all up in a row and make +'em sing that fool song till they were hoarse as calves on the fifth day +of weaning. There was a time, too, when he had liked that girl. If she +had shown any brains or feeling, he could have loved Mary V. Good thing +he found out in time. + +Johnny looked back from the gate and heaved a great sigh of relief at his +narrow escape. Or was it regret? Johnny himself did not know, but he +called it relief because that was the most comfortable emotion a young +man may take away with him into desert loneliness. + +Yes, sir, he was glad of the chance to stay at Sinkhole for awhile. He +wouldn't be pestered to death, and he would have plenty of time to study +and read. He'd send for that correspondence course on aviation, and he'd +get the theory of it all down pat, so that when he had enough money saved +up to go into the thing right, all he would need would be the actual +practice in the air. He should think he could go to some school and work +his way along; get a little practice every day, and do repair work or +something the rest of the time for nothing. A dollar a minute for +learning was pretty steep, Johnny thought, but after all it was worth it. +A dollar a minute--and four hundred minutes in the air for the average +course! + +Four hundred dollars, and only half that much saved. And then there would +be his fare back east, and his board--Johnny wished that he might cut out +eating, but he realized how healthy was his appetite. He counted three +meals for every day, at an average of fifty cents for each meal. Well, +even so, he could "ride the bumpers" to the school; take a side-door +pullman; beat his way; hobo it--or whatever the initiated wanted to +call it. He could send his suitcase on by express, and just wear old +clothes--send his money on, too, for that matter. He could save quite a +lot that way. Or maybe he could get Sudden to let him go back with cattle +from the Gila River Ranch--only he wouldn't ask any favors from any one +by the name of Selmer. No, he'd be darned if he would! He'd just draw his +wages, when he had enough saved, and drop out of sight. He wouldn't even +tell Curley where he was going. And then, some day-- + +There came the air castle again, floating alluringly before his eager +imagination, like a mirage lake in the desert. Johnny's eyes stared ahead +through the shimmering heat waves--stared and saw not the monotonous +neutral tints of sand and rock and gray sage and yellow weeds and the +rutted, dusty trail that wound away across the desert. But Mary V's face +turned expectantly toward him from the crowd as he walked nonchalantly +around his big tractor, testing every cable, inspecting the landing gear +and the elevators and the--what-ye-may-call-'ems--and then climbing in +and trying out his control--and pulling down his goggles and settling his +moleskin cap and all--and then nodding imperiously to his helper--not +little Curley; he was not big enough to crank his powerful motor--but +some big guy that had a reach like-- + +And then the buzz and the hum, and fellows braced against the wings to +hold 'er till he was ready to give the word! And the dust storm he kicked +up behind--he hoped Mary V got her eyes full, darn her!--and then, +getting the feel of 'er, and giving a nod to the fellows to let go the +wings! And then-- + +Johnny rode along in a trance. He, his conscious inward self, was not +riding a sweating bronk along a trail that wound more-or-less southward +across the desert. That was his body, chained by grim necessity to work +for a wage. He, Johnny Jewel's ego, was soaring up and up and up--up till +the eagles themselves gazed enviously after. He was darting in and out +among the convolutions of fluffy white clouds; was looping earthward in +great, invisible volutes; catching himself on the upward curve and +zigzagging away again, swimming ecstatically the high, clean air currents +which the poor, crawling, earthbound ones never know. + +Johnny jarred back to earth and to the sordid realities of life. He had +ridden half way to Sinkhole without knowing it, and now his horse had +stopped, facing another horse whose rider was staring curiously at +Johnny. This was Pete, on his way in from Sinkhole. + +"Say-y! Yuh snake-bit, or what?" Pete asked. "Ridin' glassy-eyed right +_at_ a feller! If my hawse had been a mite shorter, I expect you'd of +rode right on over me and never of saw me. What's bitin' yuh, Johnny?" + +"Me? Nothing!" No daydreamer likes being pulled out of his dream by so +ugly a reality as Pete, and Johnny was petulant. "Why didn't you get outa +the way, then? You saw me coming, didn't you?" + +"Me? Sure! I ain't _loco_. I seen yuh five mile back, about. I knowed it +was somebody from the ranch. Sudden 'phoned in and said I could drag it. +And you can bet yore sweet young life I hailed them words with joy! What +yuh done to 'im that he's sendin' yuh off down to Sinkhole? Me, I 'phoned +in and much as told 'em he'd have to double my pay if he wanted me to +stay down there any longer. That was a coupla days ago. Didn't git no +satisfaction atall till to-day. Me, I'd ruther go to jail, twicet over, +than stay here a week longer. Ain't saw a soul in two weeks down there. +Well, I'll be pushin' along. Adios--and here's hopin' you like it better +than what I done." + +Johnny told him good-bye and straightway forgot him. Once he had his two +horses "lined out" in their shuffling little trail-trot that was their +natural gait, he picked up his dream where he had been interrupted. Where +his body went mattered little to Johnny Jewel, so long as he was left +alone with his thoughts. So presently his eyes were once more staring +vacantly at the dim trail, while in spirit he was soaring high and +swooping downward with the ease of a desert lark, while thousands +thrilled to watch his flight. + +What did he care about Sinkhole Camp? Loneliness meant long, +uninterrupted hours in which to ride and read and dream of the great +things he meant some day to do. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +A THING THAT SETS LIKE A HAWK + + +Six days are not many when they are lived with companions and the +numberless details of one's everyday occupation. They may seem a month if +you pass them in jail, or in waiting for some great event,--or at +Sinkhole Camp, down near the Border. + +Three days of the six Johnny spent in familiarizing himself with the two +or three detached horse herds that watered along the meager little stream +that sunk finally under a ledge and was seen no more in Arizona. He +counted the horses as best he could while they loitered at their watering +places, and he noticed where they fed habitually--also that they ranged +far and usually came in to water in the late afternoon or closer to dusk, +when the yellow-jackets that swarmed along the muddy banks of the stream +did not worry them so much, nor the flies that were a torment. + +He reported by telephone to his employer, who seemed relieved to know +that everything was so quiet and untroubled down at that end of his +range. And once, quite inadvertently, he reported to Mary V; or was going +to, when he recognized a feminine note in the masculine gruffness that +spoke over the wire. And when she found he had discovered her: + +"Oh, Johnny! I've thought of another verse!" she began animatedly. + +Johnny hung up, and although the telephone rang twice after that he would +not answer. It seemed to him that Mary V had very little to do, harping +away still at that subject. He had been secretly a bit homesick for the +ranch, but now he thanked heaven, emphatically enough to make up for any +lack of sincerity, that he was where he was. + +He got out his aviation circulars again and went over them one by one, +though he could almost repeat them with his eyes' shut. He tried to dream +of future greatness, but instead he could only feel depressed and +hopeless. It would take a long, long time to save enough money to learn +the game. And the earning was dreary work at best. The little adobe cabin +became straightway a squalid prison, the monotonous waste around him a +void that spread like a great, impassable gulf between himself and the +dreams he dreamed. He wished, fervently and profanely, that the greasers +would try to steal some horses, so that he could be doing something. + +People thought the Border was a tumultuous belt of violence drawn from +Coast to Gulf, he meditated morosely. They ought to camp at Sinkhole for +awhile. Why, he could ride in an hour or two to Mexico--and see nothing +more than he could see from the door of his cabin. He wished he could see +something. A fight--anything that had action in it. But the revolution, +boiling intermittently over there, did not so much as float a wisp of +steam in his direction. + +He wished that he had not "hung up" on Mary V before he had told her a +few things. He couldn't see why she didn't leave him alone. The Lord +knew he was willing to leave _her_ alone. + +A few days more of that he had before he saw a living soul. Then a +Mexican youth came wandering in on a scrawny pony that seemed to have its +heart set on drinking the creek dry, before his rider could drink it all. +Johnny watched the boy lie down on the flat of his lean stomach with his +face to the sluggish stream, and drink as if he, too, were trying to +cheat the pony. Together they lifted their heads and looked at Johnny. +The Mexican boy smiled, white-toothed, while deep pools of eyes regarded +Johnny soberly. + +"She's damn hot to-day, senor," he said. "Thank you for the so good water +to drink." + +"That's all right. Help yourself," Johnny said languidly. "Had your +dinner?" + +"Not this day. I'm come from Tucker Bly, his rancho. I ride to see if +horses feed quiet." + +"Well, come in and eat. I cooked some peaches this morning." + +The youth went eagerly, his somewhat stilted English easing off into a +mixture of good American slang and the Mexican dialect spoken by peons +and some a grade higher up the ladder. He was not more than seventeen, +and while Johnny recalled his instructions to put any greaser on the run, +he took the liberty of interpreting those instructions to please himself. +This kid was harmless enough. He talked the range gossip that proved to +Johnny's satisfaction that he was what he professed to be--a young rider +for Tucker Bly, who owned the "Forty-Seven" brand that ranged just east +of the Rolling R. Johnny had never seen this Tomaso--plain Tom, he called +him presently--but he knew Tucker Bly; and a few leading questions served +to set at rest any incipient suspicions Johnny may have had. + +They were doing the same work, he and Tomaso. The only difference was +that Johnny camped alone, and Tomaso rode out from the Forty-Seven ranch +every day, taking whatever direction Tucker Bly might choose for him. But +the freemasonry of the range land held Johnny to the feeling that there +was a common bond between them, in spite of Tomaso's swarthy skin. +Besides, he was lonely. His tongue loosened while Tomaso ate and praised +Johnny's cookery with the innate flattery of his race. + +"Wha's that pic'shur? What you call that thing?" Tomaso pointed a +slender, brown finger at a circular heading, whereon a pink aeroplane did +a "nose dive" toward the date line through voluted blue clouds. + +"That? Say! Didn't you ever see a flying machine?" Johnny stared at him +pityingly. + +Tomaso shook his head vaguely. "Me, I'm never saw one of them things. My +brother, he's tell me. He knows the spot where there's one fell down. My +brother, he says she's awful bad luck, them thing. This-a one, she's fell +'cross the line. She's set there like a big hawk, my brother says. Nobody +wants. She's bad luck." + +"Bad luck nothing." Johnny's eyes had widened a bit. "What you mean, one +fell across the line? You don't mean--say what 'n thunder _do_ yuh mean? +Where's there a flying machine setting like a hawk?" + +Tomaso waved a brown hand comprehensively from east to west. +"Somewhere--me, I dunno. My brother, he's know. He's saw it set there. +It's what them soldiers got lost. It's bad luck. Them soldiers most dead +when somebody find. They don't know where that thing is no more. They +don't want it no more. My brother, she's tol' me them soldiers flew like +birds and then they fell down. It's bad luck. My brother took one hammer +from that thing, and one pliers. Them hammer, she's take a nail off my +brother's thumb. And them pliers, she's lost right away." + +Johnny's hand trembled when he tried to shake a little tobacco into a +cigarette paper. His lips, too, quivered slightly. But he laughed +unbelievingly. + +"Your brother was kidding you, Tom. Nobody would go off and leave an +airplane setting in the desert. Those soldiers that got lost were away +over east of here. Three or four hundred miles. He was kidding you." + +"No-o, my brother, she's saw that thing! She's hunt cattle what got +across, and she's saw that what them soldiers flew. Me, I _know_." He +looked at Johnny appraisingly, hesitated and leaned forward, impelled yet +not quite daring to give the proof. + +"Well, what do you know?" Johnny returned the look steadfastly. + +"You don't tell my brother--I--" He fumbled in his trousers pocket, +hesitated a little longer, and grew more trustful. "Them pliers--I'm +got." + +He laid them on the table, and Johnny let his stool tilt forward abruptly +on its four legs. He took up the pliers, examined them with one eye +squinted against the smoke of his cigarette, weighed them in his hand, +bent to read the trade-mark. Then he looked at Tomaso. Those pliers may +or may not have come from the emergency kit of an airplane, but they +certainly were not of the kind or quality that ranchmen were in the habit +of owning. To Johnny they looked convincing. When he had an airplane of +his own, he would find a hundred uses for a pair of pliers exactly like +those. + +"I thought you said your brother lost 'em," he observed drily. + +Tomaso shrugged, flung out his hands, smiled with his lips, and frowned +with his eyes. "S'pose he did lost. Somebody could find." + +Johnny laughed. "All right; we'll let it ride that way. I ain't going to +tell your brother. Want to sell 'em?" + +Tomaso took up the pliers, caressed their bright steel with his long +fingers, nipped them open and shut. + +"What you pay me?" he countered. + +"Two bits." + +Tomaso turned them over, gazed upon them fondly. He shook his head +regretfully. "_No quero._ Them pliers, she's _bueno_," he said. "You +could find more things. My brother, she's tell lots of things is where +that sets like a hawk. Lots of things. You don't tell my brother?" + +"Sure not. I don't want the things anyway. And I don't know your +brother." + +Tomaso thoughtfully nipped the pliers upon the oilcloth table cover. He +looked at the airplane picture, he looked at Johnny. He sighed. + +"Me, I'm like see those thing fly like birds. I'm like see that what sets +over there. My brother, she's tell me it's so big like here to that water +hole. She's tell me some day it maybe flies. I go see it some day." + +Johnny laughed. "You'll have some trip if you do. You take it from me, +Tom, I don't know your brother, but I know he was kiddin' you. It was +away over east of here that those fellows got lost." + +After Tomaso had mounted reluctantly and ridden away, however, Johnny +discovered himself faced southward, staring off toward Mexico. It was +just a yarn, about that airplane over there. Of course there was nothing +in it--nothing whatever. He didn't believe for a minute that an airplane +was sitting like a hawk on the sands a few miles to the south of him. He +didn't believe it--but he pictured to himself just how it would look, and +he played a little with the idea. It was something new to think about, +and Johnny straightway built himself a dream around it. + +Riding the ridges in the lesser heat of the early mornings, his physical +eyes looked out over the meager range, spying out the scattered horse +herds grazing afar, their backs just showing above the brush. Behind his +eyes his mind roved farther, visioning a military plane sitting, inert +but with potentialities that sent his mind dizzy, on the hot sand of +Mexico--so close that he could almost see the place where it sat. + +This was splendid food for Johnny's imagination, for his ambitions even, +though it was not particularly good for the Rolling R. He was not +bothered much. Evenings, the foreman or Sudden would usually call him up +and ask him how things were. Johnny would say that everything was all +right, and had the stage driver made a mistake and left any of his mail +at the ranch? Because he had been to the mail box on the trail and there +was nothing there. The speaker at the ranch would assure him that nothing +had been left there for him, and the ceremony would be over. + +Johnny was fussy about his mail. He had spent twenty-five dollars for a +correspondence course in aviation, and he wanted to begin studying. He +did not know how he could learn to fly by mail, but he was a trustful +youth in some ways--he left that for the school to solve for him. + +Tomaso rode over again in a few days. This time he had a mysterious +looking kind of wrench in his pocket, and he showed it to Johnny with a +glimmer of triumph. + +"Me, I'm saw that thing what flies. Only now it sets. It's got wheels in +front--little small wheels. Dos--two. My brother, he's show me. I'm find +thees wranch. It's got wings out, so." Tomaso spread his two arms. "Some +day, I'm think she's fly. When wind blows." + +Johnny felt a little tremor go over him, but he managed to laugh. "All +right; you've been looking at the pictures. If you saw it, tell me about +it. What makes it go?" + +Tomaso shook his head. "She don't go," he said. "She sets." + +"All right. She sets, then. What on,--back of the wheels? You said two +wheels in front. What holds up the back?" + +"One small, little leg like my arm," Tomaso answered unhesitatingly. +"Like my arm and my hand--so. Iron." + +Johnny's eyes widened a trifle, but he would not yield. "Well, where do +men ride on it? On which wing?" + +"Men don't," Tomaso contradicted solemnly. "Men sets down like in little, +small boat. Me, I'm set there. With wheel for drive like automobile. +With engine like automobile. My brother, she's try starting that engine. +She's don't go. Got no crank nowhere. She's got no gas. Me, I'm scare my +brother starts that engine. I'm jomp down like hell. I'm scare I maybe +would fly somewhere and fall down and keel. _No importa._ She's jus' +sets." + +Johnny turned white around the mouth, but he shook his head. "Pretty +good, Tommy. But you better look out. If there's a flying machine over +there, it belongs to the government. You better leave it alone. There's +other folks know about it, and maybe watching it." + +Tomaso shook his head violently. "_Por dios_, my brother she's fin' out +about that," he said. "She's don't tell nobody, only me. She's fin' out +them _hombres_ what ride that theeng, they go _loco_ for walking too much +in sand and don't get no water. Them _hombres_, they awful sick, they +don't know where is that thing what flies. My brother, she's fin' out +that thing sets in Mexico, belongs Mexico. Thees countree los'. Jus' like +ship what's los' on ocean, my brother she's tell from writing. My +brother, she's smart _hombre_. She's keep awful quiet, tell nobody. She's +theenk sell that thing for flying." + +"Huh!" Johnny grunted. "What you telling me about it for? Your brother'd +skin yuh alive if he caught you blabbing it all out to me." + +Tomaso looked a little scared and uneasy. He dropped his eyes and began +poking a hole in the sand with his toe. Then he looked up very candidly +into Johnny's face. + +"Me, I'm awful lonesome," he explained. "I'm riding here and I'm see +you jus' like friend. You boy like me. You got picshurs them thing what +flies. You tell me you don't say nothing for my brother when I'm tell +you that things sets over there." He waved a dirty, brown hand to the +southward. "Me, I'm _trus'_ you. Tha's secret what I'm tell. You don't +tell no-_body_. You promise?" + +"All right. I promise." Very gravely Johnny made the sign of the cross +over his heart. + +Tomaso's eyes lightened at that. More gravely than Johnny he crossed +himself--forehead, lips, breast. He murmured a solemn oath in Spanish, +and afterwards put out his hand to shake, American fashion. All this +impressed Johnny more than had the detailed description of the thing +which sat. + +If he still laughed at the story, his laugh was not particularly +convincing. Nor was his jibing tone when he called after Tomaso when that +youth was riding away: + +"Tell your brother I might buy his flying machine--if he'll sell it +cheap!" + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +DESERT GLIMPSES + + +Mary V was indefatigably pursuing a new and apparently fascinating +avocation, for which her mother expressed little sympathy, no enthusiasm +whatever, and a grudgingly given consent. Mary V was making a collection +of Desert Glimpses for educational purposes at her boarding school. She +had long been urged to do so by her schoolmates and teachers, she told +her mother, and now she was going to do it. It should be the very best, +most complete collection any one could possibly make within riding +distance of the Rolling R. Incidentally she meant to collect jackrabbit +ears and rattlesnake rattles, for the purpose of thrilling the girls, but +she did not tell her mother that. Neither did she tell her mother just +why her quest always lay to the southward when there was plenty of desert +to be glimpsed toward the north and to the east and the west. She did not +even tell herself why she did that. + +So Mary V, knowing well the terrific heat she would have to face in the +middle of the day, ordered her horse saddled when the boys saddled their +own--which was about sunrise. She did not keep it standing more than half +an hour or so before she came out and mounted him. She was well equipped +for her enterprise. She carried a camera, three extra rolls of film, a +telescoped tripod which she tied under her right stirrup leather, a pair +of high-power Busch glasses (to glimpse with, probably), two duck-covered +canteens filled and dripping, a generous lunch of sandwiches and cake and +sour pickles, a box-magazine .22 rifle, a knife, a tube of cold cream +wrapped in a bit of cheesecloth, and a very compact yet very complete +vanity case. Jostling the vanity case in her saddle pocket were two boxes +of soft-nose, .22-long cartridges for the rifle. Furthermore, for special +personal protection she had an extremely businesslike six-shooter which +she carried in a shoulder holster under her riding shirt; a concession to +her father, who had made her promise never to ride away from the ranch +without it. + +For apparel Mary V wore a checked riding coat and breeches, together with +black puttees. The suit had grown a bit shabby for Los Angeles, and Mary +V's mother believed that town cast-offs should be worn out on the ranch. +Mary V did not mind. She hated the cumbersome riding skirts of the range +girl proper, and much preferred the breeches. When she had put a little +distance between herself and the ranch, she usually removed the coat and +tied it in a roll behind the cantle. She looked then like a slim boy--or +she would have, except for the hat. Mary V cherished her complexion, +which Arizona sun and winds would have burned a brick red. In cool +weather she wore a Stetson like the boys; but now she favored a great, +straw sombrero such as you see section hands wear along the railroad +track in Arizona. To keep it on her head in the winds she had resorted to +tying a ribbon down over the brim from the front of the crown to the nape +of her neck; and tying another ribbon from the back of the crown down +under her chin. Thus doubly anchored, and skewered with two hatpins +besides, the hat might be counted upon to give Mary V no trouble, but a +great deal of protection. Worn with the checked riding breeches and the +heavy, black puttees, it was not particularly becoming, but Mary V did +not expect to meet many pairs of critical eyes. Rolling R boys were too +much like home folks to bother about, having been accustomed to seeing +Mary V in strange and various guises since she was a tiny tot. + +Southward she rode, and as swiftly as was wise if she valued the +well-being of her horse. Movies will have it that nothing short of a +gallop is tolerated by riders in the West; whereas Mary V had been taught +from her childhood up that she must never "run" her horse unless there +was need of it. She therefore contented herself with ambling along the +trail at a distance-devouring trail-trot, slowing her horse to a walk on +the rising slopes and urging him a little with her spurred heels on the +levels. She did not let him lag--she could not, if she covered the +distance she had in her mind to cover. + +Away over to the south--almost to Sinkhole Camp, in fact--was a ridge +that was climbable on horseback. Not every ridge in that country was, +and Mary V was not fond of walking in the sand on a hot day. The ridge +commanded a far view, and was said to be a metropolis among the snakes +that populated the region. Mary V had, very casually, mentioned to the +boys that some day she meant to get a good picture of a snake den. She +said "the girls" did not believe that snakes went in bunches and writhed +amicably together in their dens. She was going to prove it to them. + +A perfectly logical quest it was therefore that led her toward that +ridge. You could not blame Mary V if the view from the top of it extended +to Sinkhole Camp and beyond. She had not made the view, remember, nor had +she advised the snakes to choose that ridge for their dens. She was not +even perfectly sure that they did choose it. The boys had told her that +Black Ridge was "full up" with snake dens, and she meant to see if they +told the truth. + +Wherefore her horse Tango laboriously carried Mary V up the ridge and +kept his ears perked for the warning buzz of rattlers, and his eyes open +for a feasible line retreat in case he heard one. Tango knew just as well +as Mary V when they were in snake country. He had gone so far as to argue +the point of climbing that ridge, but as usual Mary V's argument was +stronger than Tango's, and he had yielded with an injured air that was +quite lost upon his rider. Mary V was thinking of something else. + +They reached the top without having seen a single snake. Tango seemed +somewhat surprised at this, but Mary V was not. Mary V thought it was too +hot even for rattlesnakes, and as for the dearth of lizards--well she +supposed the snakes had eaten them all. She had let Tango stop often to +breathe, and whenever he did so she had looked south, scanning as much of +the lower level as she could see, which was not the proper way to go +about hunting snake dens, I assure you. But at the top she permitted +Tango to walk into the shade of a boulder that radiated heat like a stove +but was still preferable to the blistering sunlight, and there she left +him while she walked a little nearer the edge of the rimrock that topped +the ridge on its southern side. + +Once more she scanned the sweltering expanse of sagebrush, scant grass, +many rock patches and much sand. She saw a rider moving along a shallow +watercourse, and immediately she focused her glasses upon him. She gave +an ejaculation of surprise when the powerful lenses annihilated nine +tenths of the distance between them. One would judge from her manner and +her tone that, while she had not been surprised to see a rider, that +rider's identity was wholly unexpected. + +She watched him until, having reached a certain place where a group of +cottonwoods shaded the gully, he stopped and dismounted to fuss with his +cinches. Mary V could not be sure whether he was merely killing time, or +whether he really needed to tighten the saddle; but when another rider +appeared suddenly from the eastward, she did know that the first rider +showed no symptoms of surprise. + +She did not know the second arrival at the cottonwoods. She could see +that he was Mexican, and that was all. The two talked together with much +gesturing on the part of the Mexican, and sundry affirmative nods on the +part of the first rider. The Mexican frequently waved a hand toward the +south--toward Sinkhole Camp, perhaps. They seemed to be in a hurry, Mary +V thought. They did not tarry more than five minutes before they parted, +the Mexican riding back toward the east, the first rider returning +westward. He had come cautiously, at an easy pace. He went back riding +at a long lope, as though time was precious to him. + +Mary V watched until she saw him emerge out of that hollow and duck into +another which led toward the northwest and, if he followed it, would +bring him out near the head of Dry Gulch, which was several miles nearer +the Rolling R home ranch than was the ridge where she stood. When he had +gone, she turned again to see where the Mexican was going. The Mexican, +she discovered, was going east as fast as his horse could carry him +without dropping dead in that heat; and he, also, was keeping to the +hollows. + +"Here's a pretty howdy-do!" said Mary V to the palpitating atmosphere. +"I'm just going to tell dad about Tex sneaking away down here to meet +Mexicans and things on the sly! I never did like that Tex. I don't like +his eyes. You can't see into them at all. I'll bet they're framing up +something on Johnny Jewel--they were pointing right toward his camp. +There's no telling _what_ they're up to! I'm going right and tell dad--" + +But she couldn't. Mary V knew she couldn't. In the first place, her dad +would ask her what she was doing on Black Ridge, which was far beyond her +permitted range of activities. Her dad would foolishly maintain that she +could glimpse all the desert necessary without going that far from the +ranch. In the second place, he would probably tell her that he was paying +Tex to ride the range and, if he met a Mexican, it was his business to +send that same Mexican back where he came from. In the third place, he +would think she was riding over there for a reason which was untrue and +very, very unjust. And he wouldn't fire Tex, because Tex was a good +"hand" and hands were hard to find. He would simply make her promise +to stay at home. + +"He'd say it was perfectly all right for Tex--and perfectly all wrong for +me. Dad's _tremendously_ pin-headed where I am concerned. So I suppose +I'll just have to say nothing, and ride all that long way in the hot sun +to make sure that horrid Johnny Jewel is not being murdered or something. +It doesn't, of course, concern me personally at all--but dad is _so_ +short-handed this summer. And he actually _threatened_ that he couldn't +afford me a new car this winter if wages go up or horses go down, or +anything happens that doesn't just please him. And I suppose Johnny Jewel +has his uses, in the general scheme of dad's business, so even if he is a +mean, conceited little shrimp personally, I'll have to go and make sure +he isn't killed, because it would be just like dad to call that bad luck, +and grouch around and not get me the car." + +Mary V had barely reached this goal of personal unconcern for anything +but her own private interests, when Tango began to manifest certain +violent symptoms of having seen or heard something very disagreeable. +Mary V had to take some long, boyish steps in order to snatch his reins +before he bolted and left her afoot, which would have been a real +calamity. But she caught him, scolded him shrewishly and slapped his +cheek until he backed from her wall-eyed, and then she mounted him and +went clattering down off the ridge without having seen any snake dens at +all. Doubtless the boys had lied to her, as usual. + +To Sinkhole Camp was a long way, much longer than it had looked from the +top of Black Ridge. Mary V, her face red with heat, hurried on and on, +wishing over and over that she had never started at all, but lacking the +resolution to turn back. Yet she was considered a very resolute young +woman by those who knew her most intimately. + +Perversely she blamed Johnny Jewel for putting her to all this trouble +and discomfort, and for interrupting her in her work of getting Desert +Glimpses. She repeatedly told herself that he would not even have the +common human instinct to feel grateful toward her for riding away down +there to see if he were murdered. + +She was right in that conjecture, at least. When she rode up to the +squat adobe cabin, somewhere near noon, she found Johnny Jewel stretched +morosely on his back, staring up at the low roof and thinking the +gloomiest thoughts which a lonesome young man of twenty-one or two may +conjure from a fit of the blues. That he was not murdered or even menaced +with any danger seemed to Mary V a personal grievance against herself +after that terrifically hot ride. + +Johnny turned a gloomy glance upon her when she walked in and sat down +limply on the one chair in the cabin; but he did not show any keen +pleasure in her presence, nor any gratitude. + +"Well! You're still alive, then!" she said rather crossly. + +"I guess I am. Why?" Johnny, his meditations disturbed by her coming, +rose languidly and sat upon the side of his bunk, slouched forward with +his arms resting across his strong young legs and his glance inclined to +the floor. + +"Oh, nothing." Mary V took off her hat, but she was too fagged to fan +herself with it. Her one emotion, at that moment, was an overwhelming +regret that she had come. If Johnny Jewel had the nerve to think that she +wanted to see _him_-- + +"You must love the sun," Johnny observed apathetically. "Lizards, even, +have got sense enough to stay in the shade such weather as this." He +rumpled his hair to let the faint breeze in to his scalp, and looked at +her. "You're red as a pickled beet at a picnic," he told her +ungraciously. + +Mary V pulled together her lagging wits, marshaled her fighting forces, +and flaunted a war banner in the shape of a smile that was demure. + +"Well, one must expect to make some sacrifices when one is working in a +good cause," she replied amiably, and paused. + +"Yeh?" Johnny's eyes lost a little of their dullness. It is possible that +he recognized that war banner of hers. "One didn't expect to see one down +here--on a good cause." + +"No? Well, you do see one, nevertheless. One is at work on an exhibit for +one's school, you see. Each of us girls was assigned a subject for +vacation work. Mine is 'Desert Glimpses'--a collection of pictures, +curios and so on, representing points of interest in the desert country. +I've a horned toad at home, and a blue-tailed lizard, and some pictures +of jack rabbits, with their ears attached to the frame, and quite a few +rattlesnake rattles. So to-day," she smiled again at him, "I rode down +here to take a picture of you!" + +"Thanks," said Johnny, apparently unmoved. "I didn't know I was a point +of interest in your eyes; but seeing I am, I'm willing the girls should +have a picture of me framed. If you'll go out and sit in the shade of the +shack while I shave and doll up a little, you may take a picture. And +I'll autograph it for you. Five years from now," he went on complacently, +"you're going to brag about having it in your possession. One of those +I-knew-him-when kind of brags. And if you'll bring the girls around some +time when I'm pulling off an exhibition flight, I'll let 'em shake hands +with me." + +"Well, of all the conceit!" By that one futile phrase Mary V owned +herself defeated in the first charge. "Of all--" + +"Conceit? Nothing like that! When you thought it was a good cause to +ride all these miles on the hottest day of the year, just to get my +picture--" Johnny smirked at her in a perfectly maddening way. He knew it +was maddening to Mary V, for he had meant it to be so. + +"I did not!" Mary V's face could not be any redder than the heat had made +it, but even so one could see the rise in her mental temperature. + +"You said you did." + +"Well--I merely want your picture to put with my collection of donkeys! +You--" + +"You said points of interest," Johnny reminded her. He had lost all his +moroseness in the interest of the conversation. He had forgotten what a +tonic his word-battles with Mary V could furnish. "You better stick to +it, because it will sure pan out that way. You'll hate to admit, five +years from now, that you once took me for a donkey. Besides, you can't +have my ears to pin to the frame; I'll need 'em to listen to all the nice +things some _real_ girls will be saying to me when I've just made an +exhibition flight." + +"Exhibition flight--of your imagination!" fleered Mary V, curling her lip +at him. "And I won't need your ears to prove you're a donkey, so don't +worry about that." + +Johnny Jewel stood up, lifted his arms high above his head to stretch +his healthy young muscles, pulled his face all askew in a yawn, rumpled +his hair again and reached for his papers and tobacco. He knew that Mary +V never noticed or cared if a fellow smoked; she was too thoroughly +range-bred for that affectation. + +"Good golly! Things must sure be dull at the ranch, if you had to ride +twenty miles on a day like this to pick a fight with me," he observed, +leisurely singling one leaf out of his book of papers. "Left your horse +to bake in the sun, too, I suppose, while you practice the art of +persiflage on me." + +He finished rolling his cigarette, languidly helped himself to a match +from a box on the wide window ledge near him, and sauntered to the +door--with a slanting, downward glance at Mary V as he passed her. A +little smile lurked at the corners of his lips now that his face was not +visible to her. Mary V was studying her wrist watch as though it was +vital that she knew the time down to the last second. He judged that she +had no retort ready for him, so he picked up his hat and went out into +the glaring sunlight. + +Tango was sweating patiently under the scant shelter of the eaves, +switching at flies and trying to doze. Johnny led him down to the creek +and gave him about half as much water as he wanted, then took him to the +corral and unsaddled him under the brush shed that sheltered his own +horse from the worst of the heat. Whatever her mood and whatever her +errand, he guessed shrewdly that Mary V would not be anxious to leave for +home until the midday fierceness of the heat was past; and even if she +were anxious, common sense and some mercy for her horse would restrain +her. + +Johnny did not confess to himself that he was glad to see Mary V, but it +is a fact that his deep gloom had for some reason disappeared, and that +he even whistled under his breath while he untied her lunch and camera +and took them back with him to the cabin. + +Mary V had been calmly inspecting his new Correspondence Course in the +Art of Flying, the first lessons of which had arrived at Johnny's mail +box a few days before. She seemed much amused, and she registered her +amusement in certain marginal notes as she read. At the top of the first +lesson she drew a fairly clever cartoon of Johnny in an airplane, +ascending to the star Venus. She made it appear that Johnny's hair stood +straight on end and his eyes goggled with fear, and she made Venus a +long-nosed, skinny, old-maid face with a wide, welcoming simper. Up in +a corner she placed the moon, with one eye closed and a twisted grin. + +On the blank space at the end of the first lesson she wrote the +following--and could scarcely refrain from calling Johnny's attention to +it, she was so proud of it: + + "Skyrider, Skyrider, where have you been? + I've been to see Venus, which made the moon grin. + Skyrider, Skyrider, what saw you there? + I saw old maid Venus a-dyeing her hair!" + +Having through much industry accomplished all this while Johnny was +putting up her horse, Mary V slid the revised lesson out of sight under +other papers and was almost decently civil to Johnny when he returned. +She did not help him with dinner--which was served cold for obvious +reasons--but she divided her sandwiches and sour pickles with him in +return for a fried rabbit leg and a dish of stewed fruit. In the +intervals of their quarreling, which continued intermittently all the +while she was there, Mary V quizzed him about his ambition to fly. Did +he really intend to learn "the game"? Had he ever been up in a flying +machine? It seemed that Johnny had made two ecstatic trips into the +air--for a price--at the San Francisco Fair the fall before, and that his +imagination had never quite felt solid ground under it since! Where--or +how--could he learn? + +If she were secretly trying to inveigle Johnny into showing her his new +Correspondence Course, so that she might be a gleeful witness when he +discovered her additions and revisions, she must have been a greatly +disappointed young woman. For Johnny that day demonstrated how well he +could keep a secret. He warmed to her apparent interest in his chosen +profession, but he did not once hint at the lessons, and kept rigidly to +generalities. + +Mary V mentally called him sly and deceitful, and started another quarrel +over nothing. While this particular battle was raging, there came an +interruption which Mary V first considered sinister, then peculiar, and +at last, after much cogitation, extremely suspicious and a further +evidence of Johnny's slyness. + +A Mexican rode up to the doorway, coming from the east. Not Tomaso, +who would have convinced even Mary V of his harmlessness, but a +broad-shouldered, square-faced man with squinty eyes, a constant smile, +and only a slight accent. + +Johnny went to the door, plainly hesitating over the common little +courtesy of inviting him in. The man dismounted, announced that he was +Tomaso's brother, and then caught sight of Mary V inside and staring out +at him curiously. + +His manner changed a little. Even Mary V could see that. He stopped where +he was, squinting into the cabin, smiling still. + +"I come to borrow one, two matches, senor, if you have to spare," he said +glibly. "Me, I'm riding past this way, and stop for my horse to drink. +She's awful hot to-day--yes?" + +Johnny gave him the matches, made what replies were needful, and stood in +the doorway watching the fellow ride to the creek and afterwards proceed +to eliminate himself from the landscape. Mary V leaned sidewise so that +she too could watch him from where she sat at the table. She was sure, +when she saw him ride off, that he was the same man who had met Tex away +back there in the arroyo. + +She watched Johnny, wondering if he knew the man, or knew what was his +real reason for coming. Whatever his real reason was, he had gone off +without stating it, and Mary V believed that he had gone because she was +there. She wished she knew why he had come, but she would not ask Johnny. +She merely watched him covertly. + +Johnny had turned thoughtful. He did not even see that Mary V was +watching him, he was so busy wishing that she had not come at all, or +that she had gone before this man rode up. Inwardly Johnny was all +a-quiver with excitement. He believed that he knew why Tomaso's brother +had come. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +SALVAGE + + +The brother of Tomaso came back. Mary V, cannily watching the wide waste +behind her as she rode homeward, saw him and made sure of him through her +glasses. The brother of Tomaso seemed to be in a hurry, and he seemed to +have been waiting in some convenient covert until she had left. His horse +was trotting too nimbly through the sage to have come far at that pace. +Mary V could tell a tired horse as far as she could tell that it was a +horse. + +She did not turn back, for the simple reason that she knew very well her +mother would have all the boys out hunting her if she failed to reach +home by sundown. That would have meant deep humiliation for Mary V and +a curtailment of future freedom. So she put up her glasses and went her +way, talking to herself by way of comforting her thwarted curiosity, and +accusing Johnny Jewel of all sorts of intrigues; and never dreaming the +truth, of course. + +"Me, I'm willing to sell, all right. What you pay me?" Tomaso's brother +was sitting in Johnny's doorway where he could watch the trail, and he +was smoking a cigarette made with Johnny's tobacco. + +"She's no good to nobody, setting there in the sand, but she's all right, +you bet, for fly. Them fellers, they get lost, I think. They get away off +there, and no gas to fly back. No place to buy none, you bet." He grinned +sardonically up at Johnny who was leaning against the adobe wall. "They +get the big scare, you bet. They take all the water, and they walk and +walk, drink the water and walk and walk and walk--loco, that's what. +Don't know where they go, don't know where they come from, don't know +nothin' no more atall. So that flyin' machine, that's lost. Me, I find +out. It don't belong to nobody no more only just the feller that finds. +Me, I take you there, I show you. You see I'm telling the truth, all +right. You pay me half. I help you drag it over here to your camp, all +right. You pay me other half. That's right way to fix him--yes?" + +"Sounds fair enough, far as that goes." Johnny's voice had the huskiness +of suppressed excitement. The cigarette he was studying so critically +quivered in his fingers like a twig in the wind. "But the thing must +belong to _somebody_." + +"No, I'm find out from lawyer. Only I'm say maybe it's automobile. Cos' +me fi' dollar, which is hold-up, you bet. Some day I get even that fi' +dollar. That flyin' machine goes into Mexico, that's los' by law. +Sal--what you call--oh!" He snapped his fingers as men do when trying +to recall a word. "She cos' me fi' dollar, that word! Jus' minute--it's +like wreck on ocean, that is left and somebody brings it--" + +"Salvage?" Johnny jerked the word out abruptly. + +"That's him! Salvage. Belongs anybody that finds. Mexico, she's foreign +countree. She could take; it's hers if she want. But what she wants? +Nobody can make it go. No Mexicans can fly, you bet. Me, I don't know +damn t'ing about flyin' nothin' but monee. Monee, I make it fly, yes." He +chuckled at his little joke, but Johnny did not even hear it. + +Johnny was seeing a real, military airplane in his possession, cached +away in some niche in the lava wall to the west of Sinkhole--a wall that +featured queer niches and caverns and clefts. He was seeing--what +wonderful things was Johnny not seeing? + +"Like them buried treasure," Tomaso's brother went on purring comfortably +to Johnny's doubts. "The _hombre_ what finds, it belongs to him, you +bet. What you say? You pay me--" The eyes of Tomaso's brother dwelt +calculatingly upon Johnny's half-averted face. "You pay me fifty dollar +when I show you I don't lie. I help you drag him back home, you--" + +"Nothing doing." Johnny pulled himself from his dreams to bargain for his +heart's desire--because he knew Mexicans. "I ain't sure I want the thing, +anyway. It's probably broke, and it takes _money_ to fix a busted plane, +let me tell you. And there might be complications; and besides, I've got +to ride this range. I can't go rambling around all over Mexico hunting an +airplane that probably wouldn't be any good when I found it." + +Tomaso's brother rose from the doorsill to gesticulate while he argued +those points and others which Johnny thought of later. It was a beautiful +flying machine. By every object impressive enough to make oath upon, +Tomaso's brother swore that it was as he said. Look! Not one peso would +he accept until Johnny had seen. And the range? Would it run off in two +days, perhaps? Look, then! Tomaso's brother would make the bet. He would +agree. They would go for the airship, and they would return with it, and +of the fifty pesos that was the full price he asked, not one centavo +would he accept until the senor had seen that all was as he had left it. +Look! That very night they would go, and by noon to-morrow they would be +there. And under the great wings would they rest. And they would return +in two more days--such a little while it would take-- + +Johnny's jaw lengthened. Making due allowance for the lying tongue of +Tomaso's brother, it would take a week to get the thing home. And that +would mean that Johnny would have no job when he returned; which would +mean that he would have no fifty dollars a month coming in; which would +mean that he would be broke and would have to hunt another job. And you +couldn't pack a government airplane around under your arm. Not once did +it occur to Johnny that he might sell it for more money than he had ever +possessed in his life, for more than what a full course in aviation would +cost him. As his own precious plane he saw it. His to keep. His to fly, +his to worship--but never to sell. + +He looked away to the southward where the land stretched gray and dreary +to the low skyline broken here and there with the pale outline of distant +hills. A night and half a day of riding to take them there, and an +airplane to haul back through brush and rocks, maybe, and across draws +and gulches--Good Lord! The thing might almost as well be in Honolulu! + +"But the desert places--me, I'm making the plan how it can be brought +across the sand, with little brush to cut away." Tomaso's brother began +arguing away his unspoken fears. "We fix that, you bet! Two days, that's +all. You got strong, good fence; horses, they don't go away in such +little time, you bet!" + +Johnny stood irresolute, tempted, weakly trying to beat back the +temptation while he hugged it to his soul. + +"Why don't you--" Johnny was on the point of asking Tomaso's brother why +he didn't sell it to the government, but he shut his teeth on the words. +Tomaso's brother evidently had not thought of that; and why put the idea +into his head? "Why don't you and Tomaso go after it and bring it here? +Then if it's all right, I might buy it--for fifty dollars. I can give you +a check on the Arizona State Bank in Tucson." + +Tomaso's brother shrugged his shoulders in true Mexican eloquence. "That +puts me all the troubles for notheeng, maybe. Maybe you say she's no +good--what I'm going to do? Not drag it back for notheeng? Not leave her +set here for notheeng." He shrugged again with an air of finality that +sent a shiver over Johnny's nerves. "Twenty-fi' dollar when you look at +her and say she's all right. Twenty-fi' dollar when she's here. That +suits me. It don't suit you, _no importa_." + +It did matter, though. It mattered a great deal to Johnny, hard as he +tried to hide the fact. + +"Well, I'll think about it. I'd have to ride fence first, anyway, and +make sure everything's all right. And you'd have to tell Tomaso to drift +over this way and kinda keep an eye out. I--you come back to-morrow. If +I take the offer at all, which I ain't sure of, we can start to-morrow +night. But I'm not making any promises. It's a gamble; I've got to +think it over first." + +In that way did Johnny invite temptation to tarry with him and wax +stronger while it fed on his resistance, while thinking that he was being +very firm and businesslike and cautious, and that he was in no danger +whatever of yielding unless his reason thoroughly approved. + +His manner of thinking it over calmly was rather pathetic. It consisted +of building anew his air castle, and in riding out to the forbidden lava +ridge that rose like a wall out of the sandy plain west of Sinkhole to +choose the niche which might best be converted into a secret hangar. +Since first he heard of the derelict airplane, his mind had several times +strayed toward those deep clefts, but his feet had heretofore refrained +from following his thoughts. + +Niches there were many, but they were too prone to yawn wide-mouthed at +the world so that whatever treasure they might have contained would be +revealed to any chance passer-by. These Johnny disdained without a second +glance. Others he investigated by riding in a little way, sending a +glance around and riding out again. + +Just before dusk, as he was returning disappointedly after looking as far +as was practicable, his horse Sandy swung into one of the open-mouthed +depressions of his own accord. Probably he had become convinced that they +were hunting stock, and that every niche must be entered. (Range horses +are quick to form opinions of that sort and to act upon them.) Johnny was +dreaming along, and let Sandy go back toward the wall, but Sandy, poking +along with his head bobbing contentedly at the end of his long neck, +swerved to the right, into a nature-built ell that had a fine-sifted sand +floor, walls that converged toward the top, and an entrance which no one +would suspect, surely, since Johnny himself had passed it by not half an +hour before. + +Johnny did not say a word. He sat there and gazed, a little awed by the +discovery, thrilled with the feeling that this place had been planned +especially for him; that Nature had built it and kept it until he needed +it--in other words, that luck was with him and that it would be madness +to go against his luck. + +He got down, went to the left wall and, taking long strides, stepped off +the width of the place. Wide enough, plenty; he couldn't have ordered it +any better himself. From the mouth he started to step the depth, but +stopped when he had gone a third farther than the length of a military +type fuselage. He turned and looked back toward the entrance, his hands +on his hips, his eyes wide and glowing, his lips trembling and eager. He +looked up at the top; with cottonwood poles and brush he could roof it +against the sun and the winds. He looked at the fine, hard-packed sand +floor that the winds never stirred. He looked at the walls. + +But he would put his luck to another test. He would abide by it--so he +told himself bravely. He felt in his pocket for a coin, pulled out a half +dollar, balanced it on his bent thumb and forefinger. He turned white +around the mouth, as he always did when deep emotion gripped him. He +hesitated. What if--? But if his luck was any good, it would hold. It had +to hold! + +"Heads, I go. Tails, I stay." He muttered the fateful six words and +snapped his thumb up straight. The half dollar went spinning, clinked +against a high projection of rock, fell back to the sand floor. + +Johnny stood where he was and stared at it. From where he was he could +not see which side was uppermost, and he was afraid to go and look. But +he had to look. He had to know, for he was still boy enough to feel +solemnly bound by the toss. He walked slowly toward it, stared hard--and +pounced like a kid after a hard-won marble. + +"Heads, I go! That's the way I flipped 'er; it's a fair throw." + +At the sound of his voice ringing in the confined space, Sandy lifted his +head and looked at Johnny tolerantly. Johnny came toward him grinning, +tossing the half-dollar and catching it, his steps springy. The last few +yards he took in a run, and vaulted into the saddle without touching the +stirrups at all. Even that did not seem to ease him quite. So he gave a +whoop that echoed and re-echoed from the rock walls and made Sandy squat, +lay back his ears, and shake his head violently. + +At the mouth of the hidden nook Johnny turned to take a last, gloating +survey of the place in the deepening dusk. "She sure will make one bird +of a hangar!" he told Sandy glowingly. "Golly! Oh, good _golly_!" + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +FINDER, KEEPER + + +From the crest of a low, sandy ridge that had on it a giant cactus +standing with four spiney, knobbed fingers uplifted like a warning hand, +Johnny surveyed with wide, red-rimmed eyes the hidden basin that held his +heart's desire. Tomaso's brother sat his sweaty horse beside Johnny and +eyed both the gazer and the object of his gaze. A smile split whitely the +swarthiness of Tomaso's brother's face. + +"She's settin' there jus' like I told," he pointed out with a wilted kind +of triumph, for the day was hot. + +"Unh-hunh," Johnny conceded absent-mindedly. He was trying to make the +thing look real to him after all the visions he had had of it. + +He had had his spells of doubting the probity of Tomaso's brother; of +secretly wondering whether the story of the plane might not be a ruse to +lure him away from Sinkhole. But then, how would Tomaso or his brother +know that Johnny would care anything about whether an airplane "sat" over +in Mexico within riding distance of the Border? Johnny did not think of +Tex as a possible factor in the proposition. + +Well, there it was, anyway, not a quarter of a mile away. Between him and +the object of his quest the sand lay wrinkled in tiny drifts, with here +and there a ragged gray bush leaning forlornly from the wind. One wing of +the machine was tilted, as though it had careened a little in the winds, +but from that distance Johnny could not tell what damage had been done. +He kicked Sandy in the ribs and led the way down the hill. Tomaso's +brother, still grinning, followed close behind. + +"It's going to be some sweet job getting the thing home," Johnny growled, +trying to disguise his excitement. "I expect I've had my trip for +nothing. She don't look to be in very good condition." + +The grin of Tomaso's brother changed its expression a bit, but he did not +trouble to answer. Tomaso's brother knew far better than did Johnny all +the rules of commerce. Johnny's clumsy attempt to depreciate what he +wanted very much to buy merely convinced Tomaso's brother of the extreme +youthfulness of Johnny. + +"Well, I might as well give her the once-over, now I'm here," Johnny +added with a fine air of indifference, and urged Sandy into a trot. + +Now Sandy had discovered the secret hangar for Johnny without having the +slightest imagining of the use which Johnny hoped to make of it. That he +should ever have to face a thing like this was beyond his most fevered +imagination. He had been a tired, sweaty, head-hanging horse when he +started down the slope. He had trotted along with his half-closed eyes +on the ground before him, picking the smoothest path for his desert-weary +feet. He did not look up until Johnny pulled sharply on the reins and +gave a startling whoop built around the word "Whoa." + +Sandy's bulging eyes got a full-front, close-up view of the "thing what +set." He saw a wicked nose with a feeler about twice as high as he was. +He saw great, terrible, outspread wings and a long slim body. It looked +poised, ready to come at him and snatch him with one frightful swoop, as +he had seen prairie hawks snatch little birds from the grass. + +Sandy forgot that he was a tired, sweaty, head-hanging horse. He forgot +everything except the four unbroken legs under him. He wheeled half away +and went lunging up the far side of the little basin as if he felt the +horrible creature close behind him. + +Johnny's mind had been so absorbed by the airplane that it took him a few +seconds to comprehend that Sandy was actually running away with him. It +took him a few seconds longer to realize that Sandy's jaw was set like +iron, with the bit gripped tight in his teeth. By the time he was +thoroughly convinced that Sandy was going to be hard to stop, Sandy had +topped the rise and was streaking it across an expanse of barrenness that +rose gently in spite of the fact that it looked perfectly level. A +sliding streak of gray dust rising into the heat waves marked his +passing. + +Nearly a mile he ran before the slight grade and a rocky strip slowed him +down to a heavy gallop. Johnny had been in the mind to let the fool run +himself down just for punishment, but the rocks and an eagerness to +return to the stranded plane urged him to forego the discipline. + +He stopped just where the scattered rocks ended abruptly in a wall that +rimmed a sunken, green valley, narrowing near where Johnny stood looking +down, but broadening farther along, and seeming to extend southward with +many twistings and windings. Johnny viewed the place with a passing +surprise, familiar though he was with the freakish topography of Arizona. +It was the greenness, and the little winding creek, and the huddle of +adobe buildings among the cottonwoods that struck him oddly. The creek +might be a continuation of Sinkhole Creek, that disappeared into the +sands away back there near his camp. There was nothing particularly +strange about that, or the green growth that water made possible wherever +the soil held latent fertility. It was the fact that those poor devils +who lost the airplane--and themselves--should have wandered on and on, +crazed with hunger and thirst when food and water and perhaps a guide +were to be found within a mile or so of where they landed. + +It was a pity, thought Johnny. But, being very human, he also thought +that if the airmen had found this place, that plane would not be sitting +back there waiting his grave if inexpert inspection. So with his pity +cooled a little with self-interest, Johnny turned the puffing Sandy upon +the backward trail and followed his tracks across the apparently level +stretch of barrenness to the basin where waited the plane and Tomaso's +brother. Only for Sandy's tracks, Johnny knew he might have had a little +trouble in finding the place again, the country looked so unbroken and +monotonous. + +However, he found it too soon for Sandy's comfort. There it sat--the +giant bird that had seemed ready to swoop and rise. But now its back was +turned toward him, and it did not look quite so fearsome. He circled and +plunged awhile, and even made shift to pitch a little, tired as he was. +But man's mastery prevailed, just as it had always done, and Sandy found +himself edging closer and closer to the thing. The horse of Tomaso's +brother, standing quiet in the very shade of a great wing, reassured him +further, so that presently he stood subdued but wall-eyed still, where +Johnny could dismount and hand the reins to the brother of Tomaso while +he examined the prize. + +His manner was impressive, and the brother of Tomaso stopped grinning to +himself and began to look somewhat worried. He watched Johnny's face--and +I assure you that Johnny's face would have been worth any one's watching. +A cigarette slanted from the corner of his boyish lips, and the eye on +that side was squinted to keep out the smoke; which was merely an +impressive bit of byplay, because there was no smoke. The cigarette was +not burning, though Johnny had made a hasty dab at it with a lighted +match. The other eye was as coldly critical as was humanly possible when +the whole heart of Johnny was swelling with ecstasy. His head was tilted +a little, his hands were on his hips except when he used them to push and +test and try some reachable part. + +Johnny thrust out a foot and gently kicked the flattened tire on one +wheel. "Umh-humh," he muttered to himself. "Flat tire." Never in his life +had Johnny enjoyed the privilege of kicking a wheel on the landing gear +of an airplane, but you would have thought that this was his business, +and that it bored him intensely to do so. He took one hand off his hip +long enough to lift the drooping wing that canted toward the south. +"Mhm-hmh--busted skid," he observed, in a tone which, to the brother of +Tomaso, shaved several dollars off the coveted fifty. Close behind Johnny +he stayed, following him around the plane in a secret agony of +apprehension. + +Johnny, primed by the two rides he had taken--for a price--the fall +before, stepped nimbly up and straddled into the pilot's seat. He found +out, by actual experimentation, what wires tilted the ailerons, which +ones operated the elevators. "Mhm-hmh--dep control here," he commented; +whereupon the brother of Tomaso squirmed, thinking Johnny had discovered +a fatal flaw somewhere. + +With one eye still squinted against cigarette smoke that did not rise, +Johnny climbed out and walked back along the fuselage to the tail. +"Mhm-hmh--I thought so!" he ejaculated, staring severely at the +elevators. "This is bad--pret-ty darn bad! They musta done a tail-slide +and pancaked. That's ba-ad." He removed the smokeless cigarette from his +lips, looked at it, felt for a match, and shook his head slowly while he +drew the match across a hot rock at his feet. + +"Jus' broke little small," Tomaso's brother's voice came pleadingly from +behind Johnny. "You can feex him easy. She's fine airship, you bet!" + +Johnny turned and looked at him pityingly. "Say, where do you get that +stuff?" he inquired. "A hell of a lot _you_ know about airships--bringing +me off down here to see _this_! Say! where's the fuselage at?" he +abruptly demanded. + +Tomaso's brother gazed at the machine with tragic eyes. "Me, I'm seen it +here ontil this time I come," he declared virtuously. "I'm not touch +notheeng. That fuz'lawge, she's right here las' time I'm here. I'm not +touch notheeng but one little small hammer, one pliers. You find him up +there, I bet." Tomaso's brother pointed to the pilot's seat. + +"Hunh! a lot you know about it!" snorted Johnny, and turned and walked +away to the other side of the machine where Tomaso's brother could not +see him grin. + +"No matter what kind of a cheese you are, you must know an airplane can't +fly without a fuselage," he grumbled to the unhappy brother of Tomaso. +"Without that the plane's no good to me or anybody else. You better get +busy and hunt it up." + +Tomaso's brother tied the horses to the nearest bush and got busy, +volubly protesting all the while that he had not touched a thing, and +that if Tomaso really had carried off the fuz'lawge, he would presently +make that young devil wish he had never been born. + +"Maybe the aviators dropped it back there on the edge of the basin when +they were coming down," Johnny suggested, and laid himself down in the +shade of the plane to smoke and dream and gloat. He felt that he would +burst into insane and costly whoops if he attempted another minute's +repression. And he knew that Tomaso's brother would bleed him of his last +dollar if he guessed one half of Johnny's exultation; wherefore the ruse +to send Tomaso's brother off on a senseless quest. + +"Oh, golly! Oh-h, good golly!" he murmured ecstatically, his eyes taking +in the full sweep of the great wings. "It's too good to be true. No, it +ain't; it's too good _not_ to be true! You wait. I'll show the Rolling R +bunch--you wait!" + +He rolled to an elbow and looked back along the fuselage to the tail, his +eyes dwelling fondly on the clean lines of her, the perfect symmetry, the +glossy, unharmed covering. His glance went farther, to where the brother +of Tomaso plodded toward the basin's rim, peering here and there, pausing +to look under a bush, swerving to make sure the lost fuselage was not +behind a rock. + +Johnny's grin widened. Presently it exploded into a laugh, which he +smothered 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 potential power--"we'll +start back. But I don't think much of your idea that we can drag this +machine home with our saddle horses. We can't--not and have anything but +a bundle of junk when we get there. There's a ranch over south here, a +mile or so. Better see if you can't get a wagon and team. We'll have to +haul it home somehow." + +The brother of Tomaso started perceptibly. "A rancho? But that is not +possible, senor!" + +"Oh, ain't it? I'll show yuh, then." + +"Oh, no! _No importa._ If it is a rancho in this countree, me, I'm find +it without trobles for you." + +Even Johnny's absorption in his treasure-trove could not altogether +blind him to the fact that Tomaso's brother was perturbed. He wondered +a little. But after all, there was only one thing now that really +interested him, and he straightway returned to it, leaving the Mexican +to find the ranch and hire a team. He was not afraid that the brother of +Tomaso would fail him in that detail. Thirty American dollars look big to +a Mexican. + +He knew when Tomaso's brother mounted and rode away in the direction of +the ranch, and he knew when he returned. But he failed to observe that +the brother of Tomaso was gone long enough to have crawled there and back +on his hands and knees, and that he returned in a much better humor than +when he had left. + +"The wagon and mules, it will come at daytime," was his brief report. He +crawled into his blankets and left Johnny perched up in the pilot's seat, +planning and dreaming in the moonlight. The brother of Tomaso lifted his +head once and looked at Johnny's head and shoulders, which was all of him +that showed. Through half-closed lids he studied Johnny's profile and the +look of exaltation in his wide-open eyes. + +"Tex, he's one smart _hombre_," Tomaso's brother paid tribute. "The plan +it works aw-right, I bet." + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +OVER THE TELEPHONE + + +That night Johnny spread his blankets in a spot where he could lie and +look at his airplane with the moon shining full upon it and throwing a +shadow like a great, black bird with outstretched wings on the sand. He +had to lie where he could look at it, else he could not have lain there +at all. He was like a child that falls asleep with a new, long-coveted +toy clasped tight in its two hands. He worried himself into a headache +over the difficulties of transporting it unharmed over the miles of +untracked desert country to Sinkhole. He was afraid the mules would run +away with it, or upset it somehow. It looked so fragile, so easily +broken. Already the tail was broken, where the flyers in landing had +swerved against a rock. He pictured mishaps and disasters enough to fill +a journey of five times that length over country twice as rough. He +wished that he could fly it home. Picturing that, his lips softened into +a smile, and the pucker eased out of his forehead. + +But he couldn't fly it. He didn't know how, though I honestly believe he +would have tried it anyway, had there been even a gallon of gasoline in +the tank. But the tank was bone dry, and the tail was knocked askew, so +Johnny had to give up thinking about it. + +When he slept, the airplane filled his dreams so that he talked in his +sleep and wakened the brother of Tomaso, who sat up in his blankets to +listen. + +"That plan, she's work fine, I bet!" grinned the brother of Tomaso when +Johnny had droned off into mumbling and then silence. "That Tex, she's +smart _hombre_." He laid himself down to sleep again. + +Speaking of Tex; that same night he lay awake for a long while, staring +at the moon-lighted window and wishing that his eyesight could follow +his thoughts and show him what he wanted to see. His thoughts took the +trail to Sinkhole, dwelt there for a space in anxious speculation, +drifted on to the Border and beyond and sought out Johnny Jewel, dwelling +upon his quest with even more anxious speculation. Then, when sleep +had dulled somewhat his reasoning faculties, Tex began to vision himself +in Tucson--well, perhaps in Los Angeles, that Mecca of pleasure +lovers--spending money freely, living for a little while the life of ease +and idleness gemmed with the smiles of those beautiful women who hover +gaily around the money pots in any country, in any clime. + +For a hard-working cowpuncher with no visible assets save his riding gear +and his skill with horses, the half-waking dreams of Tex were florid and +as impossible, in the cold light of reason, as had been the dreams of +Johnny Jewel in that bunk house. + +That night others were awake in the moonlight. Down at Sinkhole camp five +or six riders were driving a bunch of Rolling R horses into the corral +where Johnny kept his riding horse overnight. They were not dreaming +vaguely of the future, these riders. Instead they were very much awake to +the present and the risks thereof. On the nearest ridge that gave an +outlook to the north, a sentinel was stationed in the shade of a rocky +out-cropping, ready to wheel and gallop back with a warning if any rode +that way. + +When the horses were corralled and the gate closed, one man climbed upon +the fence and gave orders. This horse was to be turned outside--and the +gate-tender swung open the barrier to let it through. That horse could +go, and that and that. + +"A dozen or so is about as many as we better take," he said to one who +worked near him. "No--turn that one back. I know--he's a good one, but +his mane and tail, and them white stockings behind, they're too easy +reco'nized. That long-legged bay, over there--he's got wind; look at the +chest on 'im! Forequarters like a lion. Haze him out, boys." He turned +himself on the fence and squinted over the bewildered little group of +freed horses. He swung back and squinted over the bunch in the corral, +weighing a delicate problem in his mind, to judge by the look of him. + +"All right, boys. We kain't afford to be hawgs, this trip. Straddle your +hosses and take 'em over to that far corner where we laid the fence down. +Remember what I said about keepin' to the rocky draws. I'll wait here and +turn these loose, and foller along and set up the fence after yuh. And +keep agoin'--only don't swing over toward Baptista's place, mind. Keep to +the left all you can. And keep a lookout ahead. Yuh don't want that kid +to get a squint at yuh." + +One answered him in Mexican while they slipped out and mounted. They rode +away, driving the horses they had chosen. Unobtrusive horses as to color; +bays and browns, mostly, of the commonplace type that would not easily be +missed from the herd. The man on the fence smoked a cigarette and studied +the horses milling restlessly below him in the corral. + +From the adobe cabin squatting in the moonlight came the shrill, +insistent jingling of a bell. The man looked that way thoughtfully, +climbed down and went to the cabin, keeping carefully in the beaten +trail. + +The door was not locked. A rawhide thong tied it fast to a staple in the +door jamb. With the bell shrilling its summons inside, the man paused +long enough to study the knotting of the thong before he untied it and +stepped inside. He went to the telephone slowly, thoughtfully, his +cigarette held between two fingers, his forehead drawn down so that +his eyebrows were pinched together. He hesitated perceptibly before he +took down the receiver. Then he grinned. + +"Hello!" His voice was hoarse, slightly muffled. He grinned again when he +caught the mildly querulous tones of Sudden Selmer, sharpened a little by +the transmitter. + +"Where the dickens have you been? I've been trying all evening to get +you," Sudden complained. + +"Huh? Oh, I just got in. I been fixing fence over west of here. Took +me till dark--No, the stock's all in--wind had blowed down a couple of +them rotten posts--well, they was rotten enough to sag over, so I had to +reset them--Had to reset them, I said! Dig new holes!" He turned his face +a little away from the transmitter and coughed, then grinned while he +listened. + +"Oh, nothing--just a cold I caught--Don't amount to anything. I'm +doctoring it. I always get hoarse when I catch a little cold--Sure, +everything's all right. I'm going to ride fence to-morrow--That so? It +blowed to beat the cars, down here all night--Why, they're lookin' +fine--No, ain't saw a soul. I guess they know better than to bother +our stock--All right, Mr. Selmer, I will--and say! I might be late in +getting in to-morrow, but everything's fine as silk--All right--G' bye!" + +He hung up the receiver before he started to laugh, but once he did +start, he laughed all the time he was re-tying the door in the same kind +of knot Johnny had used, and all the while he was returning to the +corral. + +"Fell for it, all right. Nothing can beat having a cold right handy," he +chuckled when he had turned out the stock, whistled for the sentinel, and +mounted his horse. "Guess I better happen around to-morrow evening. They +won't be back--not if they bring it with 'em." + +While he waited for the guard to come in, he eyed the corral and its +immediate neighborhood, and afterward inspected the cloud-flecked sky. +"Corral shows a bunch of stock has been penned here," he muttered. "But +the wind'll raise before sun-up. I guess it'll be all right." + +The sentinel came trotting around the corner. "How many?" he asked, +riding alongside the other. + +"Fifteen, all told. To-morrow night we'll cull that bunch that ranges +west of here. Won't do to trim out too many at a time, and they may be +back here to-morrow night. They will if they can't get it over. I don't +much expect they will, at that--unless they bring it in pieces. Still, +yuh can't tell what a crazy kid'll take a notion to do; not when he's got +a bug like Tex says this one has got." + +"Tex is pretty cute, aw-right. Me, I'd never a thought of that." + +The boss grunted. "Tex is paid for being cute. He's on the inside, where +he's got a chance to know these things. He wouldn't be worth a nickel to +us if he wasn't cute." + +"And it's us that takes the chances," readily agreed the guard. + +"Yeah--look at the chance I took jus' now! Talked to old Sudden over the +'phone, stalling along like I was the kid. Got away with it, at that. I'd +like to see Tex--" + +"Aw, Tex ain't in it with _you_. When it comes right down to fine +work--" So, feeding the vanity of the boss with tidbits of crude +flattery, which the boss swallowed greedily as nine tenths of us would +do, they jogged along down the pebbly bottom of Sinkhole Creek where +it had gone dry, turned into the first rocky draw that pointed +southeastward, and so passed on and away from the camp where Tex's +thoughts were clinging anxiously. + +When they had carefully mended the fence that had been opened, and had +obliterated all traces of horses passing through, they rode home to their +beds perfectly satisfied with the night's work, and looking forward to +the next night. + +A hot, windy day went over the arid range; a day filled with contented +labor for some, strenuous activity for some others--Johnny Jewel among +these--and more or less anxious waiting for a very few. + +That day the fifteen stolen horses, urged forward by grimy, swearing +Mexicans and a white man or two, trotted heavily southward, keeping +always to the sheltered draws and never showing upon a ridge until after +a lookout had waved that all was well. + +That day Mary V rode aimlessly to the western hills, because she saw +three of the boys hiking off toward the south and she did not know where +they were going. + +That day Johnny Jewel suffered chronic heart jumpings, lest the four +wide-blinkered mules look around again and, seeing themselves still +pursued by the great, ungainly contraption on the lengthened wagon they +drew, run away and upset their precariously balanced load. + +That day the man who had so obligingly answered the telephone for Johnny +busied himself with various plans and preparations for the night, and +retraced the trail down the rocky draws to the fence where horses and +riders had crossed, to make sure, by daylight, that no trace had been +left of their passing, and met Tex over by Snake Ridge for a brief and +very satisfactory conference. + +So the day blew itself red in the face, and then purple, with a tender, +rose-violet haze under its one crimson, lazily drooping eye. And at last +it wrapped itself in its royal, gemmed robe, and settled quietly down to +sleep. Night came stepping softly across the hills and the sandy plains, +carrying her full-lighted lantern that painted black shadows beside every +rock and bush and cut-bank. + +With the deepening of the shadows and the rising drone of night sounds +and the whispering of the breeze which was all that was left of the wind, +the man came riding cautiously up through a draw to the willow growth +just below Sinkhole watering place. He tied his horse there and went on +afoot, stepping on rocks and grass tufts and gravelly spots as easily +as though he had practiced that mode of travel. + +Sinkhole cabin was dark and quiet and lonesome, but still he waited for +awhile in the shadow and watched the place before he ventured forth. He +did not go at once to the cabin, but always treading carefully where +imprints would be lightest, he made a further inspection of the corral. +The wind had done its work there, and hoofprints were practically +obliterated. Satisfied, he returned to the cabin and sat down on the +bench beside the door, where he could watch the trail while he waited. + +The telephone rang. The man untied the door, went in, and answered it +hoarsely. Everything was all right, he reported. He had ridden the fence +and tightened one or two loose wires. Yes, the water was holding out all +right, and the horses came to water every night about sundown, or else +early in the morning before the flies got too bad. His cold was better, +and he didn't need a thing that he knew of. And good-bye, Mr. Selmer. + +He went out, very well satisfied with himself; re-tied the door carefully +with Johnny's own peculiar kind of hitch, stooped and felt the +hard-packed earth to make sure he had not inadvertently dropped a +cigarette butt that might possibly betray him, and rolled a fresh smoke +before leaving for home. He had just lighted it and was moving away +toward the creek when the telephone jingled a second summons. He would +have to answer it, of course. Old Sudden knew he couldn't be far away, +and would ring until he did answer. He unfastened the door again, cursing +to himself and wondering if the Rolling R people were in the habit of +calling Johnny Jewel every ten minutes or so. He stumbled over a box that +he had missed before, swore, and called a gruff hello. + +"Oh, hello, cowboy!" Unmistakably feminine, that voice; unmistakably +provocative, too--subdued, demure, on guard, as though it were ready to +adopt any one of several tones when it spoke again. + +"Oh--er--hello! That you, Mr. Selmer?" The man did not forget his +hoarseness. He even coughed discreetly. + +"Why, _no_! This is Venus speaking. May I ask if you expected Miss Selmer +to call you up?" Raised eyebrows would harmonize perfectly with that +tone, which was sugary, icily gracious. + +"Oh--er--hello! That you, Miss Selmer? Beg your pardon--my mistake. +Er--ah--how are yuh this evenin'?" + +"Oh--lonesome." A sigh seemed to waft over the wire. "You see, I have +quarreled with Mars again. He _would_ drink out of your big dipper in +spite of me! I knew you wouldn't like that--" + +"Oh--why no, of course not!" The hoarseness broke slightly, here and +there. A worried tone was faintly manifesting itself. + +"And I was wondering when you are coming to take me for another ride!" + +"Why--ah--just as soon as I can, Miss Venus. You know my time ain't my +own--but maybe Sunday I could git off." + +"How nice! What a bad cold you have! How did you catch, it?" Sweetly +solicitous now, that voice. + +"Why, I dunno--" + +"Was it from going without your coat when we were riding last time?" + +"I--yes, I guess it was; but that don't matter. I'd be willing to ketch a +dozen colds riding with you. It don't matter at all." + +"Oh, but it does! It matters a great deal--Dearie! Did you really think I +was that nasty Mary V Selmer calling you up?" + +"Why, no, I--I was just talking to her father--but as soon as I--I was +thinking maybe the old man had forgot something, and had her--uh course +I knowed your voice right away--sweetheart." That was very daring. The +man's forehead was all beaded with perspiration by this time, and it was +not the heat that caused it. "You know I wouldn't talk to her if I didn't +have to." It is very difficult to speak in honeyed accents that would +still carry a bullfrog hoarseness, but the man tried it, nevertheless. + +"Dearie! Honest?" + +"You know it!" He was bolder now that he knew endearing terms were +accepted as a matter of course. + +"OO-oo! I believe you're fibbing. You kept calling me _Miss_ Venus just +as if--you--liked somebody else better. Just for that, I'm not going +to talk another minute. And you needn't call up, either--for I shall not +answer!" + +She hung up the receiver, and the man, once he was sure of it, did +likewise. He wiped his forehead, damned all women impartially as a +thus-and-so nuisance that would queer a man's game every time if he +wasn't sharp enough to meet their plays, and went outside. He still felt +very well satisfied with himself, but his satisfaction was tempered with +thankfulness that he was clever enough to fool that confounded girl. All +the way back to his horse he was trying to "place" the voice and the +name. + +Some one within riding distance, it must be--some one visiting in the +country. He sure didn't know of any ranch girl named Venus. After awhile +he felt he could afford to grin over the incident. "Never knowed the +difference," he boasted as he rode away. "Nine men outa ten woulda +overplayed their hand, right there." + +Just how far he had overplayed his hand, that man never knew. Far enough +to send Mary V to her room rather white and scared; shaking, too, with +excitement. She stood by the window, looking out at the moon-lighted yard +with its wind-beaten flowers. To save her life she could not help +recalling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, nor could she rid herself +of the odd sensation of having talked with the Wolf. Though she did not, +of course, carry the simile so far as to liken Johnny Jewel to the +Grandmother. + +She did not know what to do--a strange sensation for Mary V, I assure +you. Once she got as far as the door, meaning to go out on the porch and +tell her dad that somebody was down at Sinkhole Camp pretending that he +was Johnny Jewel when he was nothing of the sort, and that the boys had +better go right straight down there and see what was the matter. + +She did not get farther than the door, however, and for what would seem a +very trifling reason; she did not want her dad to know that she had been +trying to talk to Johnny over the 'phone. + +She went back to the window. _Who_ was down there pretending to be Johnny +Jewel? And what, in heaven's name, was he doing it for? She remembered +the Mexican who had ridden up that day and pretended that he wanted +matches, and how he had returned to the camp almost as soon as she had +left. But the man who had talked with her was not a Mexican. No one but a +white man--and a range man, she added to herself--would say, "Uh course +I knowed yore voice." And he had not really had a cold. Mary V's ears +were sharper than her dad's, for she had caught the make-believe in the +hoarseness. She knew perfectly well that Johnny Jewel might be hoarse as +a crow and never talk that way. Johnny never said "Uh course I knowed," +and Johnny would choke before he'd ever call her sweetheart. He wouldn't +have let that man do it, either, had Johnny been present in the cabin, +she suspected shrewdly. + +Being an impulsive young person who acted first and did her thinking +afterwards, Mary V did exactly what she should not have done. She decided +forthwith that she would take a long moonlight ride. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +A MIDNIGHT RIDE + + +"Mary V, what are you doing in the kitchen? Remember, I told you you +shouldn't make any more fudge for a week. I don't want any more sessions +with Bedelia like I had last time you left the kitchen all messed up with +your candy. What are you _doing_?" + +Mary V licked a dab of loganberry jelly from her left thumb and answered +with her face turned toward the open window nearest the porch where her +mother sat rocking peacefully. + +"Oh, for gracious _sake_, mom! I'm only putting up a little lunch before +I go to bed. I'm going to take my rides earlier, after this, and it +wouldn't be kind for me to wake the whole house up at daybreak, getting +my lunch ready--" + +"If you're going at daybreak, why do you need a lunch? If you think I'll +permit you to stay out in the heat all day without any breakfast--" + +"Well, mom! I can't take pictures at daybreak, can I? I've _got_ to stay +out till the light is strong enough. And there's a special place I want, +and if I go early, I can get back early; before lunch, at the very +latest. Do you _want_ me to go without anything to eat?" + +"Seems to me you're running them 'Desert Glimpses' into the ground," her +mother grumbled comfortably. "You've got a stack higher than your head, +now. And some of these days you'll get bit with a snake or a centipede +or--" + +"Centipedes don't bite. They grab with their toes. My goodness, mom! +A person's got to do _something_! I don't see what harm there is in +my riding horseback in the early morning. It's a healthful form of +exercise--" + +"It's a darn fad, and you'll go back to school looking like a squaw--and +serve you right. It's getting along towards the time when snakes go +blind. You want to be careful, Mary V--" + +"Oh, piffle! I've lived here all my life, just about, and I never _saw_ a +person bitten with a snake. And neither did you, mom, and you know it. +But, of course, if you insist on making me sit in the house day in and +day out--" Mary V cut two more slices of bread and began spreading them +liberally with butter. She looked very grieved, and very determined. + +"Oh, nobody ever made you sit in the house yet. They'd have to tie you +hand and foot to do it," came the placid retort. "Don't you go helping +yourself to that new jelly, Mary V. The old has got to be used up first. +And you wipe off the sink when you're through messing around. Bedelia's +hinting that she's going to quit when her month is up. It don't help me a +mite to keep her calmed down when you leave a mess for her every time you +go near the kitchen. She says she's sick and tired of cleaning up after +you. You know what'll happen if she does quit, Mary V. You'll be getting +your 'Desert Glimpses' out the kitchen window for a month or so, washing +dishes while we scurrup around after another cook. Bedelia--" + +"Oh, plague _take_ Bedelia!" snapped Mary V. But she nevertheless spent +precious minutes wiping the butcher knife on Bedelia's clean dish towel, +and putting away the butter and the bread, and mopping up the splatters +of loganberry jam. Getting her "Desert Glimpses" through the kitchen +window formed no part of Mary V's plans or desires. + +They seemed to Mary V to be precious minutes, although they would +otherwise have been spent in the wearisome task of waiting until the +ranch was asleep. She took her jam sandwiches and pickles and cake to her +room, chirping a blithe good-night to her unsuspecting parents. Then, +instead of going to bed as she very plainly indicated to those guileless +parents that she meant to do, she clothed herself in her riding breeches, +shirt, and coat, and was getting her riding shoes and puttees out of the +closet when she heard her mother coming. + +A girl can do a good deal in a minute, if she really bestirs herself. +Her mother found Mary V sitting before her dressing table with her hair +hanging down her back. She was enfolded in a very pretty pink silk +kimono, and she was leisurely dabbing cold cream on her chin and cheeks +with her finger tips. + +"Be sure you take your goggles with you, Mary V. I notice your eyelids +are all red and inflamed lately when you come in from your rides. And do +put them on and wear them if the wind comes up. It's easier to take a +little trouble preventing sore eyes and sunburn than it is to cure them. +And don't stay out late in the heat." + +"All right, mommie." Drawing her kimono closer about her, Mary V put her +face up to be kissed. Her mother hesitated, looking dubiously at the +cream dabs, compromised with a peck on Mary V's forehead, and went away. +Mary V braided her hair, put on a pair of beaded moccasins, buckled on +her six-shooter and gathered together her other paraphernalia. She waited +an hour by her wrist watch, but even that sixty minutes of inaction did +not bring her better judgment to the rescue. + +Sober judgment had no place in her thoughts. Instead, she spent the time +in wondering if Tango would let her catch him in the corral; in fretting +because she must wait at all, when there was no telling what might have +happened at Sinkhole; and in giving audience to a temptation that came +with the lagging minutes and began persuading her that Tango was too slow +for the trip she had before her; and in climbing into bed, turning over +three times and climbing out again, leaving the light covering in its +usual heap in the middle. + +It was half-past nine when she climbed out of her window with her riding +shoes and puttees, her lunch and her camera and her field glasses, in a +bundle under one arm. She went in her moccasins until she had passed the +bunk house and reached the shed where she kept her saddle. + +A dozen horses were dozing over by the feed rack in the corral, and Mary +V's eyes strayed often that way while she was clothing her feet for the +ride. Tango was a good little horse, but he was not the horse for a +heroine to ride when she went out across the desert at midnight to +rescue--er--a good-for-nothing, conceited, quarrelsome, altogether +unbearable young man whom she thoroughly hated, but who was, after all, +a human being and therefore to be rescued when necessary. + +Would she dare--? Mary V hurried the last puttee buckle, picked up her +bridle and a battered feed pan, and went quietly across the corral. +Wondering if she would dare made her daring. + +Most of the horses sidled off from her approach and began to circle +slowly to the far side of the corral. Tango lifted his head and looked +at her reproachfully, moved his feet as though tempted to retreat, and +thought better of it. What was the use? Mary V always did what she wanted +to do; if not in one way, then in another. Knowing her so well, Tango +stood still. + +Mary V smiled. Just beyond him another horse also stood still. A tall, +big-chested, brilliant-eyed brown, with a crinkly mane, forelock, and +tail, and with a reputation that made his name familiar to men in other +counties. His official name was Messenger, but the boys called him Jake +for short. They also asserted pridefully that he had "good blood in him." +He belonged to Bill Hayden, really, but the whole Rolling R outfit felt a +proprietary interest in him because he had "cleaned up" every horse in +southern Arizona outside the professional class. + +Ordinarily Mary V would never have thought of such a thing as riding +Jake. She would have considered it as much as her life was worth to put +her saddle on him without first asking Bill. Once she had asked Bill, and +Bill had looked as if she had asked for his toothbrush; shocked, +incredulous, as though he could not believe his ears. "Well, I should +sa-ay not!" Bill had replied when she had made it plain that she expected +an answer. + +Ordinarily that would be accepted as final, even by Mary V. But +ordinarily Mary V did not climb out of her bedroom window to ride all +night, even though there was a perfectly intoxicating moon. Certainly not +to a far line-camp where a young man lived alone, just to ask him why +some one else answered his telephone for him. + +To-night was her night for extraordinary behavior, evidently. She +certainly showed that she had designs on Jake. She held out the feed pan, +and gritted her teeth when Tango gratefully ducked his nose into it. She +let him have one quivery-lipped nibble, and pushed the pan ingratiatingly +toward the black muzzle beyond. + +Jake was not a bronk. Having "good blood" he was tame to a degree. He +knew Mary V very well by sight, and, if horses can talk, he had no doubt +learned a good deal about her from his friend Tango, who usually came +home with a grievance. Jake accepted the feed pan graciously, and he did +not shy off when Mary V pushed Tango out of her way and began to smooth +Jake's crinkly mane and coax him with endearing words. After a little he +permitted her to slip the bridle reins over his head, and to press the +bit gently into his mouth. She set the pan on the ground and so managed +to tuck his stiff, brown ears under the headstall, and to pull out his +forelock comfortably while he nosed the pan. The bridge was too small for +Jake, but Mary V thought it would do, since she was in a great hurry and +the buckles would be stiff and hard to open. The throat latch would not +fasten where Tango always wore it, but went down three holes farther. +Jake was bigger than she had thought. + +But she led him over to the shed door and adjusted the saddle blanket +and, standing on her tip-toes, managed to heave her saddle into place. +The cinch had to be let out too. Mary V was trembling with impatience to +be gone, now that she had two heinous sins loaded upon her conscience +instead of one, but she knew better than to start off before her saddle +was right. And, impressed now with the size of Jake, she stood on a box +and let out the headstall two holes. + +Jake did not seem to approve of her camera and canteen and field glasses +and rifle, and stepped restlessly away from her when she went to tie them +on. So she compromised on the canteen and field glasses, and hid camera +and rifle under some sacks in the shed. It seemed to her that she would +never get started; as though daylight--and Bill Hayden--would come and +find her still in a nightmare struggle with the details of departure. +Back of all that the thought of that strange, disguised voice talking +for Johnny Jewel nagged at her nerves as something sinister and +mysterious. + +She led Jake by a somewhat roundabout way to the gate, opened it and +closed it behind them before she attempted to mount. Jake was very +tall--much taller than he had ever before seemed to be. She had to hunt +a high spot and coax him to stand on the lower ground beside it before +she could feel confidence enough to lift her toe to the stirrup. Bill +Hayden always danced around a good deal on one foot, she remembered, +before he essayed to swing up. Standing on an ant hill did not permit +much of the preliminary dancing around to which Jake was accustomed, so +Mary V caught reins and saddle horn and made a desperate, flying leap. + +She landed in the saddle, found the stirrups and cried, "You, Jake!" in a +not altogether convincing tone. Jake was walking on his hind feet by way +of intimating that he objected to so tight a rein. After that he danced +sidewise, fought for his head, munched the strange bit angrily, snorted +and made what the boys called Jake's chain-lightnin' gitaway. + +Mary V knew that Jake was running away with her, but since he was running +along the trail to Sinkhole camp she did not mind so much as you might +think. At the worst he would fall down and she would get a "spill." She +knew the sensation, having been spilled several times. So she gripped him +tightly with her strong young knees and let him run. And after the first +shock of dismay, she thrilled to the swift flight, with a guilty +exultation in what she had done. + +Jake ran a couple of miles before he showed any symptom of slowing. After +that he straightened out in a long, easy lope that was a sheer delight to +Mary V, though she knew it must not be permitted for very long, because +Jake had a good many miles to cover before daylight. She brought him down +gradually to a swinging, "running walk" that would have kept any ordinary +saddle horse trotting to match for speed, and although he still mouthed +the strange bit pettishly, he carried Mary V over the trail with a kingly +graciousness that instilled a deep respect into that arrogant young lady. + +Tango, I think, would have been amazed to see how Mary V refrained +from bullying her mount that night. There was no mane-pulling, no +little, nipping pinches of the neck to imitate the bite of a fly, no +scolding--nothing that Tango had come to take for granted when Mary V +bestrode him. + +It was only a little after one o'clock when Mary V, holding Jake down to +a walk, nervously passed the empty corral at Sinkhole Camp. She paused +awhile in the shadows, wondering what she had better do next. After all, +it would be awkward to investigate the interior of the little cabin that +squatted there so silently under the moon. She hesitated to dismount. +Frankly, Mary V felt much safer with a fleet horse under her, and she was +afraid that she might not be so lucky next time in mounting. So she began +to reconnoiter warily on horseback. + +She rode up to the window of the little shed, and saw that it was empty. +She rode inside the corral and made a complete circuit of the fence, and +saw nothing whatever of Johnny's saddle and bridle. They would be +somewhere around, surely, if he were here. She avoided the cabin, but +rode down to the pasture in the creek bottom where Johnny's extra horse +would be feeding. The horse was there, and came trotting lonesomely +up to the fence when he saw Jake. But there was only the one horse, +which seemed to prove that the other horse was with the saddle and +bridle--wherever they were. + +Mary V returned to the corral, still keeping far enough away from the +cabin to hide the sound of Jake's hoof beats from any one within. She +tied the horse to a corral post and went on foot to the cabin. She +carried her six-shooter in her hand, and she carried in her throat a +nervous fluttering. + +First she sidled up to a window and listened, then peered in. She could +see nothing, for the moon had slid over toward the west, and the room was +a blur of shade. But it was also silent, depressingly silent. She crept +around to the door, and found that it was fastened on the outside. + +That heartened her a little. She undid the rawhide string and pushed the +door open a little way. Nothing happened. She pushed it a little farther, +listened, grew bolder--yet frightened with a new fear--and stepped +inside. + +It was very quiet. It was so quiet that Mary V held her breath and was +tempted to turn and run away. She waited for a minute, her nostrils +widened to the pent odor of stale cigarette smoke that clings to a +bachelor's cabin in warm weather. She tiptoed across the room to where +Johnny's cot stood and timidly passed her hands above the covers. +Emboldened by its flat emptiness, Mary V turned and felt along the window +ledge where she had seen that Johnny kept his matches, found the box, and +lighted a match. + +The flare showed her the empty room. Oddly, she stared at the telephone +as though she expected it to reveal something. Some one had stood there +and had talked with her. And Johnny was not at camp at all; had not been, +since-- + +With a truly feminine instinct she turned to the crude cupboard and +looked in. She inspected a dish of brown beans, sniffed and wrinkled her +nose. They were sour, and the ones on top were dried with long standing. +Johnny's biscuits, on a tin plate, were hard and dry. Not a thing in that +cupboard looked as though it had been cooked later than two or three days +before. + +A reaction of rage seized Mary V. She went out, tied the door shut with +two spitefully hard-drawn knots, mounted Jake without a thought of his +height or his dancing accomplishments, and headed for home at a gallop. + +She hated Johnny Jewel every step of the way. I suppose it is +exasperating to ride a forbidden, treasured horse on a forbidden, +possibly dangerous night journey to rescue a man from some unknown peril, +and discover that the young man is not at hand to be rescued. Mary V +seemed to find it so. She decided that Johnny Jewel was up to some +devilment, and had probably hired that man to answer the 'phone for him +so her dad would not know he was gone. He thought he was very clever, of +course--putting the man up to pretending he had a cold, just to fool her +dad. Well, he had fooled her dad, all right, but there happened to be a +person on the ranch he could not fool. That person _hoped_ she was +smarter than Johnny Jewel, and to prove it she would find out what it was +he was trying to be so secret about. And then she would confront him with +the proof, and then where would he be? + +She certainly owed it to the outfit--to her dad--to find out what was +going on. There was no use, she told herself virtuously, in worrying her +dad about it until she knew just exactly what that miserable Johnny Jewel +was up to. Poor dad had enough to worry about without filling his mind +with suspicious and mysterious men with fake colds, and things like that. + +Mary V unsaddled a very sweaty Jake before the sky was reddening with the +dawn; before even the earliest of little brown birds were a-chirp or a +rooster had lifted his head to crow. + +She wakened Tango with the bridle, slapped her saddle on him and +tightened it with petulant jerks, got her rifle and her camera out from +under the sacks, mounted and rode away again before even the cook had +crawled out of his blankets. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +SIGNS, AND NO ONE TO READ THEM + + +Bill Hayden's mouth was pinched into a straight line across his +desert-scarred face. He shortened his hold on the rope that held Jake and +passed the flat of his hand down Jake's neck under the heavy mane. He +held up a moistened palm and looked at it needlessly. He stepped back and +surveyed the drawn-in flanks, and with his eye he measured the length and +depth of the saddle marks, as though he half hoped thereby to identify +the saddle that had made them. His eyes were hard with the cold fury that +lumped the muscles on his jaw. + +He turned his head and surveyed the scattered group of boys busy with +ropes, bridles and saddles--making ready for the day's work, which +happened to be the gathering of more horses to break, for the war across +the water used up horses at an amazing rate, and Sudden was not the man +to let good prices go to waste. The horse herd would be culled of its +likeliest saddle horses while the market was best. + +To-day, and for several days, the boys would ride north and west, combing +the rough country that held two broad-bottomed streams and therefore fair +grazing for horses. Bill had meant to ride Jake, but he was changing his +mind. Jake, from the look of him, had lately received exercise enough to +last him for one day, at least. Suspicion dwelt in Bill's eyes as they +rested on each man in turn. They halted at Tex, who was standing with his +head up, staring at Jake with more interest than Bill believed an +innocent man had any right to feel. Tex caught his glance and came over, +trailing his loop behind him. + +"What yo' all been doing to Jake, gantin' him up like that, Bill?" Tex +inquired, his black eyes taking in the various marks of hard riding that +had infuriated Bill. + +Bill hesitated, spat into the dust, and turned half away, stroking Jake's +roughened shoulder. + +"Me, I been workin' him out, mebby. What's it _to_ yuh?" + +"Me? It ain't nothin' a-tall to me, Bill. Only--yo' all shore done it +thorough," grinned Tex, and passed on to where a horse he wanted was +standing with his head against the fence, hoping to dodge the loop he +felt sure would presently come hissing his way. + +Bill watched him from under his eyebrows, and he observed that Tex sent +more than one glance toward Jake. Bill interpreted those glances to suit +himself, and while he unobtrusively led Jake into a shed to give him a +hurried grooming before saddling another horse, Bill did some hard +thinking. + +"Shore is a night-rider in this outfit," he summed up. "He shore did pick +himself a top hoss, and he shore rode the tail off'n 'im just about. Me, +I'm crazy to know who done it." + +Bill had to hurry, so he left the matter to simmer for the present. But +that did not mean that Bill would wear "blinders," or that he would sleep +with his head under his tarp for fear of finding out what black-hearted +renegade had sacrilegiously borrowed Jake. Black-hearted renegade, by the +way, was but the dwindling to mild epithets after Bill's more colorful +vocabulary had been worn to rags by repetition. + +All unconsciously Mary V had set another man in the outfit to sweating +his brain and swearing to himself. Tex would not sleep sound again until +he knew who had taken to night-riding--on a horse of Jake's quality. Tex +would have believed that Bill himself was the man, had he not read the +look on Bill's face while he studied the marks of hard riding. Tex was +no fool, else his income would have been restricted to what he could earn +by the sweat of his skin. Bill had been unconscious of scrutiny when Tex +had caught that look, and Bill had furthermore betrayed suspicion when +Tex spoke to him about the horse. Bill was mad, which Tex took as proof +that Bill had lain in his bed all night. Besides, Bill would hardly have +left Jake in the corral where he could have free access to the water +trough after such a ride as that must have been. Some one had brought +Jake home in such a hurry that he had merely pulled his saddle and bridle +off and--hustled back to bed, perhaps. + +Tex was worried, and for a very good reason. He had been abroad the night +before, dodging off down the draw to the west until he could circle the +ridge and ride south. He had been too shrewd to ride a fagged horse home +and leave him in the corral to tell the tale of night prowling, however. +He had taken the time to catch a fresh horse from the pasture, tie his +own horse in a secluded place until his return, and re-saddle it to ride +back to the ranch, careful not to moisten a hair. He felt a certain +contempt for the stupidity that would leave such evidence as Jake, but +for all that he was worried. Being the scoundrel he was, he jumped to the +conclusion that some one had been spying on him. It was a mystery that +bred watchfulness and much cogitation. + +"What's that about some geeser riding Jake las' night?" Bud, riding +slowly until Bill overtook him, asked curiously, with the freedom of +close friendship. "Tex was saying something about it to Curley when +they rode past me, but I didn't ketch it all. Anything in it?" + +Bill cleared his mind again with blistering epithets before he answered +Bud directly. "Jake was rode, and he was rode hard. It was a cool +night--and I know what it takes to put that hawse in a lather. I wisht +I'd a got to feel a few saddle blankets this morning! The--" Bill cussed +himself out of breath. + +When he stopped, Bud took up the refrain. It was not his horse, of +course, but an unwritten law of the range had been broken, and that was +any honest rider's affair. Besides, Bill was a pal of Bud's. "Hangin''s +too good for 'im, whoever done it," he finished vindictively. "I'd lay +low, if I was you, Bill. Mebby he'll git into the habit, and you kin +ketch 'im at it." + +"I aim to lay low, all right. And I aim to come up a-shootin' if the--" + +"Yore dead right, Bill. Night-ridin' 's bad enough when a feller rides +his own hawse. It'd need some darn smooth explainin' then. But when a man +takes an' saddles up another feller's hawse--" + +"I kin see his objeck in that," Bill said. "He had a long trail to +foller, an' he tuk the hawse that'd git 'im there and back the quickest. +Now what I'd admire to know is, who was the rider, an' where was he goin' +to? D' you happen to miss anybody las' night, Bud?" + +"Me? Thunder! Bill, you know damn well I wouldn't miss my own beddin' +roll if it was drug out from under me!" + +"Same here," mourned Bill. "Ridin' bronks shore does make a feller ready +for the hay. Me, I died soon as my head hit my piller." + +"Mary V, she musta hit out plumb early this morning," Bud observed +gropingly. "She was saddled and gone when I come to the c'rel at sun-up. +Yuh might ast her if she seen anybody, Bill. Chances is she wouldn't, but +they's no harm askin'." + +"I will," Bill said sourly. "Any devilment that's goin' on around this +outfit, Mary V's either doin' it er gettin' next to it so's she kin hold +a club over whoever done it. She mebby mighta saw him--if she was a mind +to tell." + +"Yeah--that shore is Mary V," Bud agreed heartily. "Bawl yuh out quick +enough if they's anything yuh want kep' under cover, and then turnin' +right around and makin' a clam ashamed of itself for a mouthy cuss if yuh +want to know anything right bad. Bound she'd go with us getherin' hosses +when she wasn't needed nor wanted, and now when we're short-handed, she +ain't able to see us no more a-tall when we start off. You'll have to git +upon 'er blind side some way, Bill, er she won't tell, if she does know +who rode Jake." + +"Blind side?" Bill snorted. "Mary V ain't got no blind side 't I ever +seen." + +"And that's right too. Ain't it the truth! I don't guess, Bill, yuh +better let on to Mary V nothin' about it. Then they's a chance she may +tell yuh jest to spite the other feller, if she does happen to know. A +slim chance--but still she might." + +"Slim chance is right!" Bill stated with feeling. + +During this colloquy Mary V's ears might have burned, had Mary V not been +too thoroughly engrossed with her own emotions to be sensitive to the +emotions of others. + +Mary V was pounding along toward Black Ridge--or Snake Ridge, as some +preferred to call it. She was tired, of course. Her head ached, and more +than once she slowed Tango to a walk while she debated with herself +whether it was really worth while to wear herself completely out in the +cause of righteousness. + +Mary V did not in the least suspect just how righteous was the cause. How +could she know, for instance, that Rolling R horses were being selected +just as carefully on the southern range as they were to the north, since +even that shrewd range man, her father, certainly had no suspicion that +the revolutionists farther to the east in Mexico would presently begin +to ride fresh mounts with freshly blotched brands? He had vaguely feared +a raid, perhaps, but even that fear was not strong enough to impel him to +keep more than one man at Sinkhole. + +Sudden was not the man to overlook a sure profit while he guarded against +a possible danger. He needed all the riders he had, or could get, to +break horses for the buyers that were beginning to make regular trips +through the country. He knew, too, that it would take more than two or +three men at Sinkhole to stand off a raid, and that one man with a +telephone and a rifle and six-shooter could do as much to protect his +herds as three or four men, and with less personal risk. Sudden banked +rather heavily on that telephone. He was prepared, at any alarming +silence, to send the boys down there posthaste to investigate. But +so long as Johnny reported every evening that all was well, the +horse-breaking would go on. + +It is a pity that he had not impressed these facts more deeply upon +Johnny. A pity, too, that he had not confided in Mary V. Because Mary V +might have had a little information for her dad, if she had understood +the situation more thoroughly. As thoroughly as Tex understood it, for +instance. + +Tex knew that any suspicion on the part of the line rider at Sinkhole, or +any failure on his part to report every evening, would be the signal for +Sudden to sweep the Sinkhole range clean of Rolling R horses. He had +worried a good deal because he had forgotten to tell his confederates +that they must remember to take care of the telephone somehow, in case +Johnny was lured away after the airplane. It had been that worry which +had sent him out in the night to find them and tell them--and to learn +just what was taking place, and how many horses they had got. When a man +is supposed to receive a commission on each horse that is stolen +successfully, he may be expected to exhibit some anxiety over the truth +of the tally. You will see why it was necessary to the peace and +prosperity of Tex that the surface should be kept very smooth and +unruffled. + +Tex, of course, overlooked one detail. He should have worried over Mary V +and her industrious gathering of "Desert Glimpses," lest she glimpse +something she was not wanted to see. I suppose it never occurred to Tex +that Mary V's peregrinations would take her within sight of Sinkhole, or +that she would recognize a suspicious circumstance if she met it face to +face. Mary V was still looked upon as a spoiled kid by the Rolling R +boys, and she had not attained the distinction of being taken seriously +by anyone save Johnny Jewel. Which may explain, in a roundabout way, +why her interest had settled upon him, though Johnny's good looks and his +peppery disposition may have had something to do with it too. + +Mary V, having climbed to the top of Black Ridge, adjusted her field +glasses and swept every bit of Sinkhole country that lay in sight. Almost +immediately she saw a suspicious circumstance, and she straightway +recognized it as such. Away over to the east of Sinkhole camp she saw two +horsemen jogging along, just as the Rolling R boys jogged homeward after +a hard day's work at the round-up. She could not recognize them, the +distance was so great. She therefore believed that one of them might be +Johnny Jewel, and the suspicion made her head ache worse than before. +He had no business to be away at night, and then to go riding off +somewhere with someone else so early in the morning, and she stamped her +foot at him and declared that she would like to _shake_ him. + +She watched those two until they were hidden in one of the million or so +of little "draws" or arroyos that wrinkle the face of the range west. +When she finally gave up hope of seeing them again, she moved the glasses +slowly to the west. Midway of the arc, she saw something that was more +than suspicious; it was out-and-out mysterious. + +She saw something--what it was she could not guess--moving slowly in the +direction of Sinkhole Camp,--something wide and queer looking, with a +horseman on either side and with a team pulling. Here again the distance +was too great to reveal details. She strained her eyes, changed the focus +hopefully, blurred the image, and slowly turned the little focusing wheel +back again. She had just one more clear glimpse of the thing before it, +too, disappeared. + +Mary V waited and waited, and watched the place. If it was crossing a +gully, it would climb out again, of course. When it did not do so she +lost all patience and was putting the glasses in their case when she saw +a speck crawling along a level bit, half a mile or so to the left of +where she had been watching. + +"Darn!" said Mary V, and hastened to readjust the glasses. But she had no +more than seen that it was the very same mysterious object, only now it +was not wide at all, but very long--when it crawled behind a ridge like a +caterpillar disappearing behind a rock. Mary V waited awhile, but it did +not show itself. So she cried with vexation and nervous exhaustion, +stamped her foot, and made the emphatic assertion that she felt like +_shooting_ Johnny Jewel for making her come all this long way to be +driven raving distracted. + +After a little, when the mysterious thing still failed to reappear +anywhere on the face of the gray-mottled plain, she ate what was left of +her lunch and rode home, too tired to sit up straight in the saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +THIEVES RIDE BOLDLY + + +Johnny Jewel heaved his weary bones off his bed and went stiffly to +answer the 'phone. Reluctantly as well, for he had not yet succeeded in +formulating an excuse for his absence that he dared try on old Sudden +Selmer. Excuses had seemed so much less important when temptation was +plucking at his sleeve that almost any reason had seemed good enough. But +now when the bell was jingling at him, no excuse seemed worth the breath +to utter it. So Johnny's face was doleful, and Johnny's red-rimmed eyes +were big and solemn. + +And then, when he had braced himself for the news that he was jobless, +all he heard was this: + +"Hello! How's everything?" + +"All right," he answered dully to that. So far as he knew, everything was +all right--save himself. + +"Feed holding out all right in the pasture?" came next. And when Johnny +said that it was: "Well, say! If you get time, you might ride up and +get one or two of these half-broke bronks and ride 'em a little. The boys +have got a few here now that's pretty well gentled, and they're workin' +on a fresh bunch. The quieter they are, the better price they'll bring, +and they won't have time to ride 'em all. You can handle one or two all +right, can't yuh?" + +"Yes, I guess I can," said Johnny, still waiting for the blow to fall. + +"Well, how many will the pasture feed, do yuh think? You can turn out one +of the couple you've got." + +"Oh, there's food enough for three, all right, I guess--" + +"Well, all right--there's a couple of good ones I'd like to have gentled +down. Cold's better, ay?" + +"I--why, I guess so." Johnny just said that from force of habit. His mind +refused to react to a question which to him was meaningless. Johnny could +not remember when he had last had a cold. + +"Well, all right--to-morrow or next day, maybe. I'll have the boys keep +up the two I want rode regular. If everything's running along smooth, you +better come up and get 'em. And when they're bridlewise and all, you can +bring 'em in and get more. These boys won't have time to get more 'n the +rough edge off...." + +When he had hung up the receiver, Johnny sat down on a box, took his jaws +between his two capable palms and thought, staring fixedly at the floor +while he did so. + +It took him a full twenty minutes to settle two obvious facts comfortably +in his brain, but he did it at last and crawled into his bed with a long +sigh of thankfulness, though his conscience hovered dubiously over those +facts like a hen that has hatched out goslings and doesn't know what to +do about them. One fact--the big, important one--was that Johnny still +had his job, and that it looked as secure and permanent as any job can +look in this uncertain world. The other fact--the little, teasingly +mysterious one--was that Sudden evidently did not know of Johnny's +two-day absence from camp, and foolishly believed Johnny the victim of a +cold. + +But Johnny's conscience was too much a boy's resilient fear of +consequences to cluck very long over what was, on the face of it, a +piece of good luck. It permitted Johnny to sleep and to dream happily +all night, and it did not pester him when he awoke at daylight. + +Just because it became a habit with him, I shall tell you what was the +first thing Johnny did after he crawled into his clothes. He went out +hastily and saddled his horse and rode to the rock-faced bluff, turned +into a niche and rode back to the farther end, then swung sharply to the +left. + +It was there. Dusty, desert-whipped, one wing drooping sharply at the +end, the flat tire accentuating the tilt; with its tail perked sidewise +like a fish frozen in the act of flipping; reared up on its landing gear +with its little, radiatored nose crossed rakishly by the gravel-scarred +propeller, that looked as though mice had nibbled the edges of its +blades, it thrilled him as it had never thrilled him before. + +It was his own, bought and paid for in money, and the sweat of long, +toil-filled miles. It looked bigger in that niche than it had looked +out on the desert with nothing but the immensity of earth and sky to +measure it by. It looked bigger, more powerful--a mechanical miracle +which still seemed more dream than reality. And it was his, absolutely +the sole property of Johnny Jewel, who had retrieved it from a foreign +country--his prize. + +"Boy! I sure do wish she was ready to take the air," Johnny said under +his breath to Sandy, who merely threw up his head and stared at the thing +with sophisticated disapproval. + +Johnny got down and went up to it, laid a hand on the propeller, where +its varnish was still smooth. Through a rift in the rock wall a bright +yellow beam of sunlight slid kindly along the padded rim of the pilot's +pit; touched Johnny's face, too, in passing. + +Johnny sighed, stood back and looked long at the whole great sweep of the +planes, pulled the smile out of his lips and went back to the cabin. He +wouldn't have time to work on her to-day, he told himself very firmly. He +would have to ride the fences like a son-of-a-gun to make up for lost +time. And look over the horses, too, and ride past that boggy place in +the willows. It would keep him on the jump until sundown. He wouldn't +even have a chance to go over his lessons and blue prints, to see just +what he'd have to send for to repair the plane. He didn't even know the +name of some of the parts, he confessed to himself. + +He hated to leave the place unguarded while he made his long tour of the +fence and the range within. He did not trust the brother of Tomaso, who +had been too easily jewed down in his price, Johnny thought. He believed +old Sudden was right in having nothing to do with Mexicans, in forbidding +them free access to his domain. Johnny thought it would be a good idea to +do likewise. Tomaso was to bring back the pliers, hammer, and whatever +other tools they had taken, but after that they would have to keep off. +He would tell Tomaso so very plainly. The prejudices of the Rolling R +were well enough known to need no explanation, surely. + +So Johnny ate a hurried breakfast, caught his fresh horse out of the +pasture, and rode off to do in one day enough work to atone for the two +he had filched from the Rolling R. He covered a good deal of ground, so +far as that went. He rode to the very spot where fifteen Rolling R horses +had been driven through the fence and across the border, but since his +thoughts were given to the fine art of repairing a somewhat battered +airplane, he did not observe where the staples had been pulled from three +posts, the wires laid flat and weighted down with rocks, so that the +horses and several horsemen could pass, and the wires afterward fastened +in place with new staples. It is true that the signs were not glaring, +yet he might have noticed that the wires there were nailed too high on +the posts. And if he had noticed that, he could not have failed to see +where the old staples had been drawn and new ones substituted. The +significance of that would have pried Johnny's mind loose from even so +fascinating a subject as the amount of fabric and "dope" he would need to +buy, and what would be their probable cost, "laid down" in Agua Dulce, +which was the nearest railroad point. + +As it was, he rode over tracks and traces and bits of sinister evidence +here and there, and because the fence did not lie flat on the ground, and +because many horses were scattered in the creek bottom and the draws and +dry arroyos, he returned to camp satisfied that all was well on the +Sinkhole range. He passed the cabin by and headed straight for his secret +hangar, gloated and touched and patted and planned until the shadows +crept in so thick he could not see, and then remembered how hungry he +was. He returned to the cabin, turned his tired horse loose in the +pasture, with Sandy standing disconsolately beside the wire gate, his +haltered head drooping in the dusk and his mind visioning heat and sand +and sweaty saddle blankets for the morrow. + +Dark had painted out the opal tints of the afterglow. The desert lay +quiet, empty, lonesome under the first stars. Johnny's eyes strained to +see the ridge that held close his treasure. He had a nervous fear that +something might happen to it in the night, and he fought a desire to take +his blankets and sleep over there in that niche. Tomaso's brother knew +where it was, and the Mexican who had driven the mules that hauled it +there. What if they tried to steal it, or something? + +That night, before he went to bed, he saddled Sandy and rode over to make +sure that the airplane was still there. He carried a lantern because he +feared the moon would not shine in where it was. It was there, just as he +had placed it, but Johnny could not convince himself that it was safe. He +had an uneasy feeling that thieves were abroad that night, and he stayed +on guard for an hour or more before he finally consoled himself with the +remembrance of the difficulties to be surmounted before even the most +persistent of thieves could despoil him. + +After that he rode back to the cabin and studied his blue prints and his +typed lessons, and made a tentative list of the materials for repairs, +and hunted diligently through certain magazine advertisements, hoping to +find some firm to which he might logically address the order. + +Obstacles loomed large in the path of research. The Instructions for +Repairing an Airplane (Lesson XVII) were vague as to costs and quantities +and such details, and Johnny's judgment and experience were even more +vague than the instructions. He gnawed all the rubber off his pencil +before he hit upon the happy expedient of sending a check for all he +could afford to spend for repairs, explaining just what damage had been +wrought to his plane, and casting himself upon the experience, honesty +and mercy of the supply house. Remained only the problem of discovering +the name and address of the firm to be so trusted, but that took him far +past midnight. + +He was just finishing his somewhat lengthy letter of explanations and +directions and a passable diagram of the impertinent twist to the tail +of his machine. The moon was up, wallowing through a bank of clouds that +made weird shadows on the plain, sweeping across greasewood and sage and +barren sand like great, ungainly troops of horsemen; filling the arroyos +and the little, deep washes with inky blackness. + +Up from one deep washout a close-gathered troop of shadows came thrusting +forward toward the lighter slope beyond. These did not travel in one +easterly direction as did those other scudding, wind-driven night +wraiths. They climbed straight across the wind to a bare level which they +crossed, then swerved to the north, dipped into a black hollow and +emerged, swinging back toward the south. A mile away a light twinkled +steadily--the light before which Johnny Jewel was bending his brown, +deeply cogitating head while he drew carefully the sketch of his new +airplane's tail, using the back of a steel table knife for a rule and +guessing at the general proportions. + +"Midnight an' after--and he's still up and at it," chuckled one of the +dim shapes, waving an arm toward the light. "Must a took it into the +shack with 'm!" + +Another one laughed rather loudly. Too loudly for a thief who did not +feel perfectly secure in his thieving. + +"Betcher we c'ud taken his saddle hoss out the pen an' ride 'im off, and +he wouldn't miss 'im till he jest happened to look down and see where his +boots was wore through the bottom hoofin' it!" continued the speaker +contentedly. "Me, I wisht we c'd git hold of some of them bronks they're +bustin' now at the ranch. Tex was tellin' me they's shore some good +ones." + +"What's the good of wishin'?" a man behind him growled. "We ain't doing +so worse." + +"No--but broke hosses beats broomtails. Ain't no harm in wishin' they'd +turn loose and bust some for us; save us that much work." + +The one who had laughed broke again into a high cackle. "What we'd oughta +do," he chortled, "is send 'em word to hereafter turn in lead ropes +with every hoss we take off 'n their hands. And by rights we'd oughta +_stip_-ilate that all hosses must be broke to lead. It ain't right--them +a gentlin' down everything that goes to army buyers, and us, here, +havin' to take what we can git. It ain't right!" + +"The kid, he'll maybe help us out on that there. I wisht Sudden'd take a +notion to turn 'em all over to this-here sky-ridin' fool--" + +And the "sky-ridin' fool," at that moment carefully reading his order +over the third time, honestly believed that he was watching over the +interests of the Rolling R, and was respected and would presently be +envied by all who heard his name. I wish he could have heard those +night-riders talking about him, jeering even at the Rolling R for +trusting him to guard their property. This chapter would have ended with +a glorious fight out there under the moon, because Johnny would not have +stopped to count noses before he started in on them. + +But even though horse thieves are riding boldly and laughing as they +ride, you cannot expect the bullets to fly when honest men have not yet +discovered that they are being robbed. Johnny never dreamed that duty +called him out on the range that night. He went to bed with his brain a +whirligig in which airplanes revolved dizzily, and the marauders rode +unhindered to wherever they were going. Thus do dramatic possibilities go +to waste in real life. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +JOHNNY'S AMAZING RUN OF LUCK STILL HOLDS ITS PACE + + +On the shady side of the depot at Agua Dulce, Johnny sat himself down on +a truck whose iron parts were still hot from the sun that had lately +shone full upon it. With lips puckered into a soundless whistle, and +fingers that trembled a little with eagerness, he proceeded to unwrap one +of the parcels he had just taken from the express office. On another +truck that had stood longer in the shade, a young tramp in greasy +overalls and cap inhaled the last precious wisps of smoke from a +cigarette burned down to an inch of stub, and watched Johnny with a glum +kind of speculation. Johnny sensed his presence and the speculative +interest, and read the latter as the preparation for a "touch." And +Johnny was not feeling particularly charitable after having to pay a +seven-dollar C.O.D. besides the express charges. He showed all the +interest he felt in his packages and refused to encourage the hobo by so +much as a glance. + +He examined the slender ribs, bending them and slipping them through his +fingers with the pleasurable feeling that he was inspecting and testing +as an expert would have done. He read the label on a tin of "dope," +unwrapped a coil of wire cable and felt it, went at a parcel of +unbleached linen, found the end and held a corner up to the light and +squinted at it with his head perked sidewise. + +Whereupon the hobo gave a limber twist of his lank body that inclined him +closer to Johnny. "Say, if it's any of my business, how much did Abe +Smith tax yuh for that linen?" His tone was languid, tinged with a +chronic resentment against circumstance. + +Johnny turned a startled stare upon him, seemed on the point of telling +him that it was not any of his business, and with the next breath yielded +to his hunger for speech with a human being, however lowly, whose +intelligence was able to grasp so exalted a subject as aircraft. + +"Dunno yet--I'll have to look it up on the bill," he said with a cheerful +indifference that implied long familiarity with such matters. + +"Looks to me like some of the same lot he stung me with last fall, is why +I asked. Abe will sting you every time the clock ticks. Why don't yuh +send to the Pacific Supply Company? They're real people. Got better +stuff, and they'll treat you right whether you send or go yourself. Take +it from me, bo, when you trade with Abe Smith you want a cop along." + +Johnny fingered the linen, his face gone sober. "I told him to send the +best he had in stock," he said. + +"Well, maybe he done it, at that," the hobo conceded. "His stock's +rotten, that's all." + +"I was looking the bunch over so I could shoot it back to him if it +wasn't all right," Johnny explained with dignity. "They sure can't work +off any punk stuff on me, not if I know it." + +The hobo flipped his cigarette stub into the sand and stared out across +the depressing huddle of adobe huts and raw, double-roofed shacks that +comprised Agua Dulce. His pale eyes blinked at the glare, his mouth +drooped sourly at the corners. + +"Believe me, bo, if you're stranded in _this_ hole with a busted plane, +yuh better not take on any contract of arguing with Abe Smith. He'll +stall yuh off till you forget how to fly." He turned his pale stare to +Johnny with a new interest. "You aren't making a transcontinental, are +you?" + +"Well--n-no. Not yet, anyway. I--live here." You may not believe it, but +Johnny was beginning to feel apologetic--and before a hobo, of all men. + +"The deuce you do!" The tramp hitched himself up on another vertebra +of his limp spine. "Why, I thought you were probably just making a +cross-country flight, and had a wreck. I was going to bone yuh for a +lift, in case you were alone. You _live_ here! Why, for cat's sake?" + +"Gawd knows," said Johnny. Then added impulsively, "I don't expect to go +on living here always. I'm going to beat it, soon as I get my airplane +repaired, and--" He was on the point of saying, "when I learn to fly it." +But pride and his experience with the Rolling R boys checked him in time. + +The hobo looked hungrily at the "makin's" Johnny was pulling from the +pocket of his shirt. "At that you're lucky," he said. "Having a plane +_to_ repair. Mine's junk, and I'm just outa the hospital myself. I was +a fool to ever go east, anyway. They are sure a cold proposition, believe +me. Long as you're lousy with money, and making pretty flights, you're +all right. But let bad luck hit yuh once--say, they don't know you any +more a-tall. I was doing fine on the Coast, too, but a fellow's never +satisfied with what he's got. The game looked bigger back East, and I +went. Now look at me! Bumming my way back when I planned to make a +record flight! Kicked off the train in this flyspeck on the desert; +nothing to eat since yesterday, not even a smoke left on me, nor the +price of one!" He accepted with a nod the tobacco and papers Johnny held +out to him, and proceeded languidly to roll a cigarette. + +"Down to straight bumming--when I ought to be making my little old +thousand dollars a flight. Maybe you've kept in touch with things on the +Coast. I'm known there, well enough. Bland Halliday's my name. Here's my +pilot's license--about all them sharks didn't pry off me in the hospital! +I sure do wish I had of let well enough alone! But no, I had to go get +gay with myself and try and beat a sure thing." + +Johnny was gazing reverently upon the pilot's license which he held in +his hand, and he did not hear the last two or three sentences of the +hobo's lament. He was busy breaking one of the ten commandments; the one +which says, "Thou shalt not covet." That he had never heard of Bland +Halliday did not disturb him, for in Arizona's wide spaces one does not +hear of all that goes on in the world. He was sufficiently impressed by +the license and what it implied, and he was thinking very fast. Here was +a man, down on his luck it is true, but a man who actually knew how to +fly; a fellow who spoke of Smith Brothers Supply Factory with the +contempt of familiarity; a fellow who had used some of the very same +linen. + +Johnny Jewel forgot his pose of expert aviator. He forgot that Bland +Halliday was absolutely unknown to him and that his personality was not +altogether prepossessing. As a rule Johnny did not like pale eyes that +seemed always to wear a veiled, opaque look. Heretofore he had not liked +those new-fangled little mustaches which the Rolling R boys had dubbed +slipped eyebrows. And ordinarily he would have objected to a mouth drawn +at the corners in a permanent whine. To offset these objectionable +features there were the greasy, brown overalls and the cap which +certainly looked bird-mannish enough for any one, and there was the +pilot's license--no fake about that--and the fact that the fellow had +known all about Abe Smith and the linen. + +Johnny threw away his cigarette and his caution together. "Say, I might +be able to take you to Los Angeles, all right--provided you will take a +hand on the little old boat and help me put her in shape again. It +oughtn't to take long, if we go right after it. I--er--to tell the truth, +it's hard to get hold of any one around here that knows anything about +it. Why, I had one fellow working for me, Mr. Halliday, and just for a +josh I asked him where the fuselage was. And he went hunting all over the +place and finally brought me a monkey wrench! He--" + +"No brains--that's the main trouble with the game," commented Bland +Halliday, after he had exhaled a long, thin wreath of smoke which he +watched dreamily. "What you got?" + +"Hunh? What kind of a plane? Why, it's a tractor. A military--" + +"Unh-huh. Dual dep control, or have you monkeyed with it and--?" + +"It's a regular military type tractor. It--well, it has been in +government service before--" + +"You an army flier? Then what 'n hell you doing here? Say, put over +something I can take, bo. You don't look the part. Only for that stuff +you unwrapped, I'd tag you for a wild and woolly cowboy." + +His tone was not flattering, and his very frank skepticism ill became a +tramp. But Johnny had plunged, and he swallowed his indignation and +explained with sufficient truth to be convincing. He even confessed that +he could not fly--yet. There was something pathetic in his eagerness and +his trustfulness, though Bland Halliday seemed to miss altogether the +pathos, in his greed for technical details of the damage to the plane, +and a crafty inquisitiveness as to distance and location. + +He smoked another of Johnny's cigarettes, stared opaquely at the +sweltering little village and meditated, while Johnny wrapped his parcels +and tied them securely, and waited nervously for the decision. + +"I wish I'd happened along before you sent for that stuff," Halliday +remarked at last, flicking Johnny's face with a glance. "I've got a dope +of my own that beats that, any way you take it--and don't cost a quarter +as much. And that linen--I sure would love to cram it down old Abe +Smith's gullet. Say! You got tacks and hammer, and varnish and brushes? +If you're away off from the railroad, as you say you are, all these +things must be laid in before we start work. And what about your oil and +gas? And how's the propeller? Does she show any crack anywhere? How far +is it, anyway? I'd like to look 'er over before I do anything about it. +From all I can see, you don't know what condition the motor's in. How far +is it, anyway? I might go and take a look." + +"When you take a look," said Johnny, with a flash of his old spirit, +"it will be with your sleeves rolled up. If you think I'm running a +sight-seeing bus, you'd better tie a can to the thought. My time ain't my +own--yet. I can get by, this trip, because the bronk I'm riding needed +the exercise; or I can say he did, and it will get over. But I don't +expect to be riding in to the railroad every day or so. If I get another +chance in a month, I'll say I'm lucky." + +"Well, I'd like to help you out all right. I can see where you're going +to need it, and need it bad. Tell you what I will do, providing it suits +you. I'll go over with you, and take a look at the plane. If it can be +repaired without shipping it into a shop, all right! I'll help you repair +it. You'll learn to fly, all right, on the way to the Coast. That is, if +you've got it in you. + +"And the other side of it is, if the plane can't be repaired at your +camp, and you don't want to trust me to get it to a shop where I can +repair it, all right. You stake me to a ticket to Los Angeles and money +to eat on. It's going to be worth that to you, to know just what shape +your plane's in, and what it will cost to fix it. And without handing +myself any flowers, I'll say I'm as well qualified as anybody. I've built +fifteen of 'em, myself. I can tell you down to the last two-bit piece +what it's going to stand you to put her in shipshape condition, ready to +take the air. And believe me, old top, you can throw good money away +faster on an airplane than you can on a jamboree. I've tried both ways; I +know." He leaned back on the truck and clasped his hands around one bent +knee, as though, having stated his terms and his opinion, there remained +nothing further for him to say or to do about it. + +Johnny looked at him dubiously, did some further rapid thinking, and went +to inquire of the station agent the price of a ticket to Los Angeles. + +"All right, that goes," he said when he returned. "Come on and eat. We've +got to do some hustling to get back before sundown. You make out a list +of what we've got to have besides this--you said hammer and tacks--and +I'll see if the hardware store has got it. Lucky I brought an extra horse +along to pack this stuff on. You can ride him out." + +"Ride a _horse? Me?_" the spine of the expert stiffened with horror, so +that he sat up straight. + +"Sure, ride a horse. You. Think you were going out on the street car?" +Johnny's lips puckered. "Say, it won't prove fatal. He's a nice, gentle +horse. And," he added meaningly, "you'll learn to ride, all right, on the +way to camp. That is, if you've got it in you." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +MARY V CONFRONTS JOHNNY + + +Johnny was in one of his hurry-up moods now. He had the material to +repair his plane, he had the aviator who could help him far, far better +than could his cold-blooded, printed instructions. Remained only the +small matter of annihilating time and distance so that the work could +start. + +In his zeal Johnny nearly annihilated the aviator as well. He rode fast +for two reasons: He was in a great hurry to get back to camp, and he had +a long way to go: and the long-legged, half-broken bronk he was riding +was in a greater hurry than Johnny, and did not care how far he had to +go. So far as they two were concerned, the pace suited. But Sandy refused +to be left behind, and he also objected to a rider that rode soggily, +ka-lump, ka-lump, like a bag of meal tied to the horn with one saddle +string. Sandy pounded along with his ears laid flat against his skull, +for spite keeping to the roughest gait he knew, short of pitching. Bland +Halliday pounded along in the saddle, tears of pain in his opaque eyes, +caused by having bitten his tongue twice. + +"For cat's sake, is this the only way of getting to your camp?" he +gasped, when Johnny and the bronk mercifully slowed to climb a steep +arroyo bank. + +"Unless yuh fly," Johnny assured him happily, hugging the thought that, +however awkward he might be when he first essayed to fly, it would be +humanly impossible to surpass the awkwardness of Bland Halliday in the +saddle. + +"Believe me, bo, we'll fly, then, if I have to _build_ a plane!" Halliday +let go the saddle horn just long enough to draw the back of his grimy +wrist across his perspiring face. "And I've heard folks claim they +_liked_ to ride on a horse!" he added perplexedly. + +Johnny grinned and turned off the road to ride straight across the +country. It would be rough going for the aviator, but it would shorten +the journey ten or twelve miles, which meant a good deal to Johnny's +peace of mind. + +He did not feel it necessary to inform his expert assistant that Sinkhole +Camp was accessible to wagons, carts, buckboards--automobiles, even, if +one was lucky in dodging rocks, and the tires held out. It had occurred +to him that it might be very good policy to make this a trip of +unpleasant memories for Bland Halliday. He would work on that plane with +more interest in the job. The alternative of a ticket and "eating money" +to Los Angeles had been altogether too easy, Johnny thought. There should +be certain obstacles placed between Sinkhole and the ticket. + +So he placed them there with a thoroughness that lathered the horses, +tough as they were. Johnny Jewel knew his Arizona--let it go at that. + +"Say, bo, do we have to ride down in there?" came a wail from behind +when Johnny's horse paused to choose the likeliest place to jump off a +three-foot rim of rock that fenced a deep gash. + +"Yep--ride or fly. Why? This ain't bad," Johnny chirped, never looking +around. + +"Honest to Pete, I'm ready to croak right now! I can loop and I can write +my initials in fire on a still night--but damned if I do a nose-dive with +nothing but a horse under me. He--his control's on the blink! He don't +balance to suit me. Aw, say! Lemme walk! Honest--" + +"And get snake-bit?" Johnny glanced back and waved his hand airily just +as his horse went over like a cat jumping off a fence. "Come on! Let your +horse have his head. He'll make it." + +"Me? I ain't got his head! Sa-ay, where's--" He trailed off into a +mumble, speaking always from the viewpoint of a flyer. Johnny, listening +while he led the way down a blind trail to the bottom, caught a word now +and then and decided that Bland Halliday must surely be what he claimed +to be, or he would choose different terms for his troubles. He would not, +for instance, be wondering all the while what would happen if Sandy did a +side-slip; nor would he have openly feared a "pancake" at the landing. + +Johnny let the horses drink at a water hole, permitted the fellow five +minutes or so in which to make sure that he was alive and that aches did +not necessarily mean broken bones, and led the way on down that small +canon and out across the level toward another gulch, heading straight for +Sinkhole much as a burdened ant goes through, over, or under whatever +lies in its path. + +It was a very good way to reach home quickly, but it had one drawback +which Johnny could not possibly have foreseen. It brought him face to +face with Mary V without any chance at all of retreating unseen or making +a detour. + +The three horses stopped, as range horses have a habit of doing when they +meet like that. The riders stared for a space. Then Bland Halliday turned +his attention to certain raw places on his person, trying to ease them by +putting all his weight on what he termed the foot-controls. Even a pretty +girl could not interest him very much just then, and Mary V, I must +confess, was not looking as pretty as she sometimes looked. + +"Well, Johnny Jewel!" said Mary V disapprovingly. "_What_ have you +there?" + +"Well, Mary V! _What_ are you doing here?" Johnny echoed promptly, +choosing to ignore her question. + +"What is that to you, may I ask?" Mary V challenged him. + +"What is the other to you, may I ask?" Johnny retorted. + +Deadlocked, they looked at each other and tried not to let their eyes +smile. + +"You're all over your cold, I see," said Mary V meaningly. "You didn't +come after all to ride with me last Sunday, although you promised to +come." + +"Promised? I did? Well, what did you expect? Not me--I'll bet on it." +Johnny had been nearly caught, but he recovered himself in time, he +believed. + +"I expected you wouldn't know the first thing about it--which you didn't. +Oh, there's something here I want to show you." She tilted her head +backward, and gave him a warning scowl, and rode slowly away. + +Johnny followed, uncomfortably mystified. She did not go more than fifty +yards--just out of the hearing of the stranger. She stopped and pointed +her finger at a rock which was like any other rock in that locality. + +"What is that fellow doing here? He can't ride. I saw you, when you came +out of the canon, so he isn't a new hand. And why did somebody answer +your telephone for you, and pretend he had a cold so dad wouldn't know he +was a stranger? Dad didn't, for that matter, but _I_ knew, the very first +words he spoke. And what are you up to, Johnny Jewel? You better tell me, +because I shall find out anyway." + +"Go to it!" Johnny defied her. "If you're going to find out anyway, +what's the use of me telling yuh?" + +"Who was it answered your 'phone? You better tell me that, because if I +were to just _hint_ to dad--" + +"What would you hint? I've been answering the 'phone pretty regularly, +seems to me. And can't I have a cold and get over it if I want to? And +can't I fool you with my voice? You'd pine away if you didn't have some +mystery to mill over. You ought to be glad--" + +"You weren't at Sinkhole camp that night I 'phoned." Mary V looked at him +accusingly. + +"Oh, _weren't_ I?" Johnny took refuge in mockery. "How do you know?" + +Naturally, Mary V disliked to tell him how she knew. She shied from the +subject. "You're the most _secretive_ thing; you are doing something dad +doesn't know about, but you ought to know better than to think you can +fool _me_. Really, I should not like to see you get into trouble with my +father, even though--" + +"Even though I am merely your father's hired man. I get you, perfectly. +Why not let papa's hired man take care of himself?" + +Mary V flushed angrily. Johnny was reminding her of the very beginning of +their serial quarrel, when he had overheard her telling a girl guest at +the ranch that Johnny Jewel was "only one of my father's hired men." Mary +V had not been able to explain to Johnny that the girl guest had +exhibited altogether too great an interest in his youth and his good +looks, and had frankly threatened a flirtation. The girl guest was +something of the snob, and Mary V had taken the simplest, surest way of +squelching her romantic interest. She had done that effectually, but she +had also given Johnny Jewel a mortal wound in the very vitals of his +young egotism. + +"We are so short-handed this season!" Mary V explained sweetly. "And dad +is so stubborn, he'd fire the last man on the ranch if he caught him +doing things he didn't like. And if he doesn't get all the horses broken +and sold that he has set his heart on selling, he says he won't be able +to buy me a new car this fall. There's the _dearest_ little sport Norman +that I want--" + +"Hope you get it, I'm sure. I'll take an airplane for mine. In the +meantime, you're holding up a hired hand when he's in a hurry to get on +the job again. That won't get you any sport Normans, nor buy gas for the +one you've got." + +"That man--" Mary V lowered her voice worriedly. "I know something nasty +and unpleasant about him. I can't remember what it is, but I shall. I've +seen him somewhere. What is he doing here? You might tell me that much." + +"Why, he's going to stay over night with me. Maybe a little longer. I'm +willing to pay for all he eats, if that--" + +"Shame on you! Why _must_ you be so perfectly intolerable? I hope he +stays long enough to steal the coat off your back. He's a crook. He +couldn't be anything else, with those eyes." + +"Poor devil can't change the color of his eyes; but that's a girl's +reason, every time. You better be fanning for home, Mary V. You've no +business out this far alone. I think I'll have to put your dad wise to +the way you drift around promiscuous. You can't tell when a stray greaser +might happen along. No, I mean it! You're always kicking about my doing +things I shouldn't; well, you've got to quit riding around alone the way +you do. What if I had been somebody else--a greaser, maybe?" + +Mary V had seen Johnny angry, often enough, but she had never seen just +that look in his eyes; a stern anxiety that rather pleased her. + +"Why, I should have said '_Como esta Vd_,' and ridden right along. If he +had been half as disagreeable as you have been, I expect maybe I'd have +shot him. Go on home to Sinkhole, why don't you? I'm sure _I_ don't enjoy +this continual bickering." She rode five steps away from him, and pulled +up again. "Of course you want me to tell dad you have a--a guest at +Sinkhole camp?" + +Johnny gave a little start, opened his lips and closed them. Opened them +again and said, "You'll suit yourself about that--as usual." If she +thought he would beg her to keep this secret or any other, she was +mistaken. + +"Oh, thank you so much. I shall tell him, then--of course." + +She gave her head a little tilt that Johnny knew of old, and rode away at +as brisk a trot as Tango could manage on that rough ground. + +"Some chicken!" Bland Halliday grinned wryly when Johnny waved him to +come on. "Great place to keep a date, I must say." + +Johnny turned upon him furiously. "You cut that out--quick! Or hoof it +back to the railroad after I've licked the stuffin' outa you. That girl +is a real girl. You don't need to speak to her or about her. She ain't +your kind." + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +JOHNNY WOULD SERVE TWO MASTERS + + +Bland Halliday objected to rising with the sun. In fact, he objected to +rising at all. He groaned a great deal, and he swore with great fluency +and complained of excruciating pains here and there. The only thing to +which he did not object was eating the breakfast that Johnny had cooked. +And since Johnny could not remember the time when riding had been really +painful, and therefore discounted the misery of his guest, he refused to +concede the point of Bland Halliday's inability to get up and go about +the business for which he had come so far. + +"Aw, you'll be all right when you stir around a little," was the scant +comfort he gave. "It's a good big half mile over to where I've got it +cached. A ride'll limber you up--" + +"Ride? On a horse? Not on your life! Honest, old top, I'm all in; I +couldn't walk if you was to pay me a million a step. On the square, bo--" + +"Say, I wish you'd cut out that 'bo' and 'old top' and call me Johnny. +That's my name. And I wish you'd cut out the misery talk too. Why, good +golly! What do you think I brought yuh down here for? Just to give you a +ride? I've got an airplane to repair, and you claimed you could repair +it. If you do, I promised to take you to the Coast with it. That's the +understanding, and she still rides that way. Get up and come eat. We've +got to get busy. I ain't taking summer boarders." + +"Aw, have a heart, bo--" + +Johnny's code was simple and direct, and therefore effective. He had +brought this fellow to Sinkhole for a purpose, and he did not intend to +be thwarted in that purpose just because the man happened to be a whiner. +Johnny went over to the bunk, grabbed Bland Halliday by a shoulder and a +leg, and hauled him into the middle of the cabin. + +"Maybe you can fly; you sure don't hit me as being good for anything +else," he said in deep disgust. "And I wouldn't be surprised right now to +hear you swiped that pilot's license. If you did, and if you don't know +airplanes, the Lord help yuh--that's all I got to say. Get into your +pants. I'm in a hurry this morning." + +Bland Halliday nearly cried, but he managed to insert his aching limbs +into his trousers, and somehow he managed to move to the washbasin, and +afterwards to hobble to the table. He let himself down by slow and +painful degrees into a chair, swore that he'd lie on the track and let a +train run over him before he would sit again on the back of a horse, and +began to eat voraciously. + +Johnny listened, watched the food disappear, gave a snort, and fried more +bacon for himself. His mood was not optimistic that morning. He was not +even hopeful. He had held an exalted respect for aviators, believing them +all supermen, gifted beyond the common herd and certainly owning a fine +valor, a gameness that surpassed the best courage of men content to +remain close to earth. He had brought Bland Halliday away down here only +to find that he lacked all the fine qualities which Johnny had taken for +granted he possessed. + +"Say! On the square, did you ever get any farther away from the ground +than an elevator could take you?" he asked bluntly, when he was finishing +his coffee after a heavy silence. + +"Ten thousand feet--well, once I went twelve, but I didn't stay up. There +was a heavy cross-current up there, and I didn't stay. Why?" + +Johnny looked him over with round, unfriendly eyes. "I was just +wondering," he said. "You seem so scared about getting on the back of a +horse--" + +"You ain't doing me justice," the aviator protested. "Every fellow to his +own game. I never was on a horse's back before, and I'll say I hope I +never get on one again. But that ain't saying I can't fly, because I can, +and I'll prove it if you lead me to something I can fly with." + +"I'll lead you--right now. You can ride that far, can't you?" + +Bland Halliday thought he would prefer to walk, which he did, slowly and +with much groaning complaint. Earth and sky were wonderful with the blush +of sunrise, but he never gave the miracle a thought. + +Nor did Johnny, for that matter. Johnny was leading Sandy, packed with +the repair stuff and a makeshift camp outfit for the aviator. He had +decided, during breakfast, to put Bland Halliday in the niche with the +airplane, and leave him there. He had three very good reasons for doing +that, and ridding himself of Bland's incessant whining was not the +smallest, though the necessity of keeping Bland's presence a secret from +the Rolling R loomed rather large, as did Johnny's desire to have some +one always with the plane. He had no fear that Halliday would do anything +but his level best at the repairing. He also reasoned that he would prove +a faithful, if none too courageous watchdog. That airplane was Bland's +one hope of escape from the country, since riding horseback was so +unpopular a mode of travel with him. + +Thinking these things, Johnny looked back at the unhappily plodding +birdman and grinned. + +He was not grinning when he rode away from the niche more than an hour +later, though he had reason for feeling encouraged. Bland Halliday did +know airplanes. He had proved that almost with his first comment when he +limped around the plane, looking her over. His whole manner had changed; +his personality, even. He was no longer the spineless, whining hobo; he +was a man, alert, critical, sure of himself and his ability to handle the +job before him. Johnny's manner toward him changed perceptibly. He even +caught himself addressing him as Mr. Halliday, and wanting to apologize +for his treatment of the aviator that morning. + +"We'll have to have a new strut here. You didn't get one in that outfit. +And by rights we need a new propeller. There ain't the same thrust when +it's gravel-chewed like that. But maybe you can't stand the expense, so +we'll try and make this do for awhile. Say," he added abruptly, turning +his pale stare upon Johnny, "for cat's sake, how d'yuh figure I'm going +to replace them broken cables without a brazing outfit?" + +Johnny didn't know, of course. "I guess we can manage somehow," he +hazarded loftily. + +"A hell of a lot you know about flying!" Bland Halliday snorted. "A lot +of cable to fit, and no blowtorch, and you tell me we can manage!" + +"Every fellow to his own game," Johnny retorted, feeling himself slipping +from his sure footing of superiority. "I can ride, anyway." + +"Well, I'll say I can fly. Don't you forget that. And here's where you +take orders from me, bo. I took 'em from you yesterday. Got pencil and +paper? I'll just make you out a list of what's needed here. And you get +it here quick as possible." + +"Well, I can't ride in to town for a week, anyway. I've got to--" + +"That's your funeral, what you got to do. I've got to have the stuff to +work with, and I've got to have it right off. At that, there's two weeks' +work here, even if the motor's all right. I haven't looked 'er over +yet--but seeing the gas tank is empty, I'm guessing she run as long as +she had anything to run on, and that they landed for lack of gas. If +that's the case, the motor's probably all right. I'll turn 'er over and +see, soon as you get gas and oil down here. And that better be right off. +I can be working on the tail in the meantime. But believe me, it's going +to be fierce, working without half tools enough." Then he added, fixing +Johnny with his unpleasant stare, "You'll have to hustle that stuff +along. I'll be ready for it before it gets here, best you can do. Send to +the Pacific Supply Company. Here, I'll write down the address. Better +send 'em--lessee, a minute. Gimme the list again. You send 'em thirty +bucks; what's left, if there is any, they'll return. Some of that stuff +may have gone up since I bought last. War's boosting everything. All +right--get a move on yuh, bo. This is going to be some job, believe me!" + +"All right. There's grub and blankets for you. You'll have to camp right +here, I guess. I don't aim to let the whole country know I've got an +airplane--and besides, it will save the walk back and forth from your +work. I'll see you again this evening." + +Bland Halliday looked around him at the blank rock walls and opened his +mouth for protest. But Johnny was in the saddle and gone, and even when +Halliday cried, "Aw, say!" after him he did not look back. He followed +Johnny to the mouth of the cleft and stood there looking after him with a +long face until Johnny disappeared into a slight depression, loped out +again and presently became, to the aviator's eyes, an indistinguishable, +wavering object against the sky line. Whereupon Bland gazed no more, but +went thoughtfully back to his task. + +It was some time after that when Mary V, riding up on a ridge a mile or +so north of the stage road that linked a tiny village in the foothills +with the railroad, stopped to reconnoiter before going farther. +Reconnoitering had come to be so much of a habit with Mary V that every +little height meant merely a vantage point from which she might gaze out +over the country to see what she could see. + +She gazed now, and she saw Johnny Jewel--or so she named the rider to +herself--hover briefly beside the Sinkhole mail box nailed to a post +beside the stage road, and then go loping back toward the south as though +he were in a great hurry. Mary V watched him for a minute, turned to +survey the country to the southwest, and discerned far off on the horizon +a wavering speck which she rightly guessed was the stage. + +She rode straight down the ridge to the mail box, grimly determined to +let no little clue to Johnny Jewel's insufferable behavior escape her. +Johnny was up to something, and it might be that the mail box was worth +inspecting that morning. So Mary V rode up and inspected it. + +There was not much, to be sure; merely a letter addressed to the Pacific +Supply Company at Los Angeles. Mary V held it to the sun and learned +nothing further, so she flipped the letter back into the box and rode on, +following the tracks Johnny's horse had made in the loose soil. She was +so busy wondering what Johnny was ordering, and why he was ordering it, +that she had almost reached Sinkhole Camp before it occurred to her that +Johnny had that unpleasant stranger with him, and that it might be +awkward meeting the two of them without any real excuse. Johnny himself +knew enough not to expect any excuse for her behavior. Strangers were +different. + +But she need not have worried, for the cabin was empty. Since Johnny had +not washed the dishes, Mary V observed that two persons had breakfasted. +She observed also that Johnny had been in so great a hurry to get that +letter to the mail box ahead of the stage that he had unceremoniously +pushed all the dishes to one side of the table to make space for writing. +She picked up a paper on which an address that matched the letter in the +mail box and various items were scribbled, in a handwriting unlike +Johnny's, and she studied those items curiously. It was like a riddle. +She could not see what possible use Johnny could have for a quart of +cabinet glue, for instance, or for a blowtorch, or soldering iron, or +brass wire, or for any of the other things named in the list. She saw +that the amount totaled a little over twenty-five dollars, and she +considered that a very extravagant sum for a boy in Johnny's humble +circumstances to spend for a lot of junk which she could see no sense +in at all. + +Having set herself to the solving of a mystery, she examined carefully +the blue print laid uppermost on a thin pile of his lessons and +circulars. There were pencil markings here and there which seemed to +indicate a special interest in certain parts of an airplane. There was a +letter, too, from Smith Brothers Supply Factory. She hesitated before she +withdrew the letter from the envelope, for reading another's mail was +going rather far, even for Mary V in her ruthless quest of clues. But it +was not a personal letter, which of course made a difference. She finally +read it; twice, to be exact. + +Its meaning was not clear to Mary V, but she saw that it had to do with +airplanes, or at least with certain parts of an airplane. She wondered if +Johnny Jewel was crazy enough to try and make himself a flying machine, +away down here miles and miles from any place, and when he did not know +the first thing about it. Perhaps that horrid man he had brought was +going to help. + +"Bland Halliday!" she said abruptly, memory flashing the name that fitted +the personality she so disliked. "I _knew_ I had seen him. That--whatever +made Johnny Jewel take up with _him_, for gracious sake? I suppose he's +persuaded Johnny to build a flying machine--the silly idiot! Well!" + +She waited as long as she dared, meaning to give Johnny some much-needed +advice and a warning or two. She planned exactly what she would say, and +how she would for once avoid quarreling with him. It would be a good +plan, she thought, to appeal to his conscience--if he had one, which she +rather doubted. She would point out to him, in a kind, firm tone, that +his first duty, indeed, his only duty, lay in serving the Rolling R +faithfully. Trying to build flying machines on the sly was not serving +the Rolling R, and Johnny could not fail to see it once she pointed it +out to him. + +But Johnny was far afield, appeasing his conscience by riding the range +and locating the horse herds. He did not return to camp at noon, for he +found it physically impossible to ride past the rock wall without +turning into the niche to see what Bland Halliday was doing, and to make +sure that the airplane was a reality and not one of his dreams. + +Bland was down under the corner of the damaged wing, swearing to himself +and tacking linen to mend the jagged hole broken through the covering by +the skid. He ducked his head and peered out at Johnny morosely. + +"Get down here and I'll show yuh how to do this, so I can go at that +tail. I just wanted to get it started, so I could turn it over to you--in +case you ever showed up again!" + +"I haven't time now to help," Johnny demurred. "I've got a big strip of +country to ride, this afternoon. The horses are scattered--" + +"Say, listen here, bo. You've got a big strip of linen to tack this +afternoon, and don't overlook that fact. Fast as we can, I want to get it +on so the dope can be hardening. I've figured out how we can save time, +so if the motor's all right, we can maybe get outa this damn country in +ten days. If you don't lay down on the job, that is, and make me do it +all." He crawled out and got stiffly to his feet, rubbing a cramped elbow +and eying Johnny sourly. + +"Can't help it, Bland; I've got other work to-day. Boss'll fire me if I +don't make--" + +"For cat's sake, what do I care about the boss? You're going to quit +anyway, ain't you, soon as we're ready to fly?" + +"We-ell, yes, of course. But I'd have to give him time to get some one in +my place. They're working short-handed as it is. I couldn't just--" + +"You're laying down on me; that's what you're doing. Look how I've sweat +all forenoon on that darned wing! Got the frame fixed, all ready for the +linen to go back on; I've _worked_ to-day, if anybody should ask you! +Oughta have that glue, but I'm making out with what little old Abe sent. +And you ain't lifted a hand. It ain't right. I can't do it _all_, and you +ride around once in awhile to stall me off with how busy you are. You +better can that stuff, and take a hand here." + +"Well, don't cry about it. I'll tack that linen on, if that's all that's +worrying you. But I can't stay long; I've spent too much time already +away from my work. I oughta been riding yesterday, by rights." + +Bland Halliday looked at him queerly. "Me, I'd call that riding, what we +done," he retorted grimly. "I'm so sore I can hear my muscles squeak. +Well, get down here and I'll show yuh how to stretch as yuh tack. And be +sure you don't leave a hair's breadth of slack anywheres, or it'll all +have to come off and be done over again." + +So that is where Johnny was, while Mary V waited for him at the cabin +and puzzled her brain over his mysterious actions, and composed her +speech--and afterwards lost her temper. + +It was three o'clock before Johnny finally finished to the aviator's +grudging satisfaction what had looked to be a scant half hour's work. +Mary V had gone home, and it was too late for Johnny to catch a fresh +mount and make the ride he had intended to make. He made coffee and fried +bacon and ate a belated lunch with Halliday, and then, since the +afternoon was half gone, he let himself be persuaded--badgered would +be a better word--into spending the rest of the daylight helping Bland. + +If his conscience buzzed nagging little reminders of his real duty, +Johnny's imagination and his ambition were fed a full meal of +anticipation, and he had the joy of being actually at work on an airplane +that he could proudly speak of as "my plane." + +But conscience nagged all the evening. He really must get out on the +range to-morrow, no matter how urgent Bland Halliday made the work +appear. He really must look over that other bunch of horses, and ride +the west fence. Ab-so-lutely without fail, that must be done. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +THE FIRE THAT MADE THE SMOKE + + +Mary V, watching from that convenient ridge which commanded the Sinkhole +mail box and the faint trail leading from it to the camp, saw the +home-coming stage stop there. Through her glasses she saw the horses +stretching their sweaty necks away from their burdensome collars, and +then stand hipshot, thankful for the brief rest. She saw the driver +descend stiffly from the seat, walk around to the back of the vehicle +and, with some straining, draw out what appeared to be a box the size and +shape of a case of tinned kerosene. He carried it with some labor to the +mail box, tilted it on end behind the post, and returned to the rig for +two other boxes exactly like the first one. He fumbled for Johnny's +canvas mail sack--a new luxury of Johnny's--and stuffed it into the mail +box. Then, climbing wearily back to the driver's seat, he picked up the +lines, released the brake, and started on. + +Mary V gave the stage no further attention. She was wondering what in the +world Johnny Jewel wanted with three whole cases of coal oil--if that was +what the boxes contained. Mary V was not, of course, disposed to stand +long on a hill and wonder. The stage was not out of sight before she was +riding down the ridge. + +"Gasoline!" she ejaculated, kicking a box tentatively with a booted foot. +"For gracious sake, what does that boy want with five--ten--with _thirty_ +gallons of gas? Why that's enough to drive a car from here to Yuma, just +about. Surely to goodness Johnny hasn't--" + +Tango lifted his head, pointed both ears forward and nickered a languid +howdy to another horse. Mary V turned quickly, a bit guiltily, and +confronted Johnny himself, riding up with something dragging rigidly from +the saddle to the ground behind Sandy's heels. The confusion in Johnny's +face served to restore somewhat the poise which Mary V had felt slipping. + +"Hello, Skyrider," she greeted him chirpily. "Unless Venus has a filling +station, you'll need more gas than this, won't you, for the round trip? +Or--isn't it to be a round trip?" + +Johnny's eyes flew wide open. Then he laughed to cover his embarrassment. +"You're not up on sky-riding, are you, Mary V? I'll have to train you a +little. I expect to 'vollup, bank and la-and,' coming back." + +"Poor Bud isn't singing to-day. A bronk slammed him against the fence and +hurt his leg so he's going around with a limp. What is that contraption, +for gracious sake?" + +"That? Why, that's a travois. You ask Sandy what it is, though, and he'll +give you a different name, I reckon. Sandy's beginning to think life is +just one thing after another. But he's getting educated." + +Surreptitiously they eyed each other. + +"Why do you buy your gas that way?" Mary V inquired with extreme +casualness. "It's a lot cheaper if you get a drum, the way we do." + +"I know; but it's a lot harder to handle a drum too. Besides--" Johnny +broke his speech abruptly, hiding his confusion by straining to carry a +case over to the travois. + +Mary V studied his reply carefully, keeping silence until Johnny had +loaded the other cases and was roping them to the travois frame. + +"Is that Bland Halliday with you yet?" she asked him suddenly. + +"Yeh--er--how do _you_ know anything about Bl--" Johnny was plainly swept +off his guard. + +"Why, why shouldn't I know about BL?" Mary V's smile was exasperating. +"I've seen Bland Halliday fly--and fall, too, once. Because he was drunk, +they said. I've seen him drunk, and trying to do figure eights with a car +on Wilshire Boulevard. He almost put me in the ditch, trying to dodge +him. He was arrested for that, and his car was taken away from him. And +I've heard--oh, all kinds of scandal about him. I was awfully surprised +at your taking up with him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Johnny +Jewel." + +"He sure knows airplanes," Johnny blurted unwisely. + +"Yours must be ready to fly--the amount of gas you're taking to camp." + +"She goes in the air--say, good golly, Mary V! How do _you_ know anything +about my--er--" + +"I hope," said Mary V very mildly, "that I have _some_ brains. At any +rate, I have brains enough to wonder how in the world you can afford to +build yourself an aeroplane; I haven't heard a word about any rich uncle +dying and leaving you a fortune. And I know it takes a tremendous lot of +money to build and fly aeroplanes." + +"Didn't set me back so much," Johnny bragged. "I didn't have to build +one, you see." + +Mary V needed time enough to study that statement also. She mounted Tango +and waited until Johnny was ready to start with his queer load. "How did +you get it--if I may ask?" she began then. "Did Bland Halliday happen +along and have a wreck, and sell you the pieces? You want to be careful, +because I know he's an awful grafter, and he'll cheat you, just as sure +as you live, Skyrider." + +"He can't," Johnny declared with confidence. "He's working for his +passage--er--" + +"Er--yes?" Mary V smiled demurely. "You may just as well tell me the +whole thing, now. _Have_ you got an aeroplane? Really truly? I mean, +where did you get it? I know, of course, you must have one, or you +wouldn't buy all that gas." + +"Some deductionist," grinned Johnny, tickled with the very human interest +he had roused in himself and his doings. "Where I got it is a secret--but +I've got it, all right!" + +"Johnny Jewel! You didn't let that Bland Halliday sell you--" + +"I picked Bland Halliday up at the station in Agua Dulce," Johnny +explained tolerantly. "He'd wrecked his plane back East somewhere. He +was beating his way to the Coast, and was waiting to hit a freight. +They'd dumped him off there. It was just pure luck. I had some stuff for +repairing mine, and he saw me undo it and started talking. I saw he knew +the game" (Johnny's tone would have amused the birdman!) "and when he +showed me his pilot's license, I got him to help me. That's where Bland +Halliday comes in--just helping me get 'er ready to fly. And he's going +to teach me. You say you've seen him fly, so--" + +"Oh, he can fly," Mary V admitted slightingly. "But he's so tricky, +so--so absolutely impossible! A girl friend of mine has a brother that +goes in for that sort of thing. I think he invented something that goes +on a motor, or something. And I know he was terribly cheated by Bland +Halliday. I think Bland borrowed a lot of money, or used a lot that was +intended for something else--anyway, Jerry just hates the _name_ of Bland +Halliday. I didn't know him that day I met him with you, because they +look so different all togged up to fly. But I remembered him afterwards, +and I was going to warn you, only," she looked at Johnny sidelong, +"you're a very difficult person to warn, or to do anything with. You are +always so--so pugnacious!" + +"I like that," said Johnny, in a tone that meant he did not like it at +all. + +"Well, you always argue and disagree with a person. Besides," she added +vaguely, "you weren't there. And I can't be riding every day to +Sinkhole." + +"You could have seen me when I took those last horses back the other +day," Johnny reminded her. "You did see me, only you pretended to be +blind. Deaf, too, for I hollered hello when I passed, and you never +looked around!" + +"Did you?" Mary V smiled innocently. "Well, I'm here now; and I came just +on purpose to warn you about that fellow. And you haven't told me the +stingiest little bit about your aeroplane yet, or where you got it, or +what you're going to do with it, or anything." + +Johnny's lips twitched humorously. "I got it where it was setting like a +hawk--a broken-winged hawk--on the burning sands of Mexico. I hauled it +over here with four of the orneriest mules that ever flapped an ear at +white men. It cost me just sixty dollars, all told--not counting repairs. +And I'm going to ride the sky, and part the clouds like foam--" + + "'And brand each star with the Rolling R, + An-d lead the Great Bear ho-ome,'" + +Mary V chanted promptly. "Oh, Skyrider, won't you take me along too? I've +always been just _dying_ to fly!" + +"You'll have to stave off death till I learn how--and then maybe you'll +wish you hadn't." + +"Oh, won't the boys be just _wild_! Where have you got it, Johnny? +I've looked every place I could think of, the last two weeks, and I +couldn't--" + +"Oh--_hoh!_" cried Johnny. "So it was you I've been trailing, was it? I +wondered who was doing so much riding down this way. You had me guessing, +and that's a fact." + +"Well, you've had me; now 'fess up the whole mystery of it, Johnny. You +_know_ that wasn't you, telephoning with a cold, that night. You know +very well you weren't at camp at all; not for a couple of days, anyway. +Probably that was while you went to the burning sands of Mexico. I don't +understand that part, either; how you found out, and all. But who was it +'phoned for you? There were things he said--" + +"Huh? What things? On the square, I don't know, Mary V. I never told +anybody to 'phone--nobody knew I was going, except a greaser that told +me about the plane, and went with me to see it." + +"Well, I don't understand it at all. He certainly pretended he was you, +and he must have 'phoned from Sinkhole, because there's no other 'phone +on that wire. And the way he talked--" + +"Oh, I think I know who it could have been," Johnny interposed hastily, +thinking of Tomaso. "He--" + +Just then the travois hung itself on a lava out-cropping which Sandy +himself had dodged with his feet, and Johnny had a few busy minutes. By +the time they were again moving forward, Mary V's curiosity had seized +upon something else. She wanted to know if Johnny wasn't afraid Bland +Halliday might steal his aeroplane and fly off with it in the night. + +"Well, he might, at that--if he got a chance," Johnny admitted. "Which he +won't--take it from me." + +"Which he will--take it from you, if you don't keep an eye on him. From +all Jerry said about him, he couldn't be honest to save his life. And I'm +sure Jerry--" + +"Good golly! You sure do seem to bank a lot on this Jerry person. At +that, he may be wrong. Bland Halliday is all right if you treat him +right. I ought to know; I've worked right alongside him for over two +weeks now. And I'll say, he has _worked_! I'd have been all summer doing +what he's done in a couple of weeks; and then it wouldn't have been done +right. This said Jerry is welcome to his opinions, and you're welcome to +swallow them whole, but me, I've got to hand it to Bland Halliday for +sticking right on the job and doing his level best. Why, he couldn't have +gone after the job any harder if it was his own plane." + +"Which he probably intends that it shall be," Mary V retorted. "Before he +does fly off with it, I might like to take a look at it--and a picture. +May I, if you please, Mr. Jewel?" + +"On one condition only, Miss Selmer. You must promise that you won't show +the picture to a living soul till I give the word." + +"Well, for gracious sake! How is the photographer going to develop and +print it without seeing it?" + +"I mean--you know what I mean. Come on, we'll swing over this way. I've +got it cached in a secret hangar, over in that ledge. I've got to haul +the gas over there, anyway, and you may go along if you like." + +With a surprising docility Mary V accepted the somewhat patronizing +invitation. Perhaps she really appreciated the fact that Johnny was +proving how much confidence he had in her. Presently she urged that +confidence to further disclosures. What did he really and truly intend to +do with his aeroplane, after he had learned to fly? + +"Well, I promised Bland I'd take him to the Coast. I intend to make +aviation my real profession, of course. You surely didn't think, Mary V, +that I'd be satisfied to bog down in a job that just barely pays living +wages? It's all right for fellows like Bud and Curley and Bill, maybe; +but I couldn't go on all my life riding bronks and mending fence and such +as that. I've just got to ride the sky, and that's all there is to it. +Luck happened to come my way, so I can do it a little sooner than I +expected; but I'd have done it anyway, soon as the way was clear. + +"Aviation is the coming game, Mary V, and it's my game. Why, look what +they're doing over in France! And if this country should get let in for +a fight, wouldn't they need flyers? I'm not like Bland: I don't just look +at it as furnishing thrills to a crowd that is watching to see you break +your neck. Exhibition flying is all right, for a side line. But me, I'm +going to go after something bigger than the amusement end. I--" his eyes +grew round and dreamy, his lips quivering with all the wonderful future +he saw before him, "I've thought maybe France or England might want me +and my plane--to help lick those Germans. Honest, Mary V, their work +is awful raw--blowing up passenger ships and killing children and +women--and, of course, we aren't doing anything much about it; but if my +little old boat could maybe bring down just one of those raiders that fly +over England and drop bombs on houses where there's kids and women, I'd +be willing to call it a day!" + +"B-but that's dangerous, Johnny! You--you'd be killed, and--and it's so +much finer to go on living and doing a little good right along every day. +It would count up more--in the long run. And we're neutral. I--I don't +think you ought to!" + +"Why not? That's the biggest thing the world has ever seen or will see. +The men that are in it--look what they're doing! It's tremendous, Mary V! +It would be hitting a wallop for civilization." + +"It would be getting yourself killed! And then what? What good is +civilization to you after you're all smashed to pieces? You--you wouldn't +be a drop in the bucket, Johnny Jewel! If it was our war--but to go and +butt in on something away over there is absolutely foolish. What if you +got one? You couldn't get them all, and there'd be a dozen to take its +place. + +"But that's the way it goes. You get a streak of perfectly unbelievable +good luck, and have an aeroplane just practically drop into your hands, +and then you spoil it all by wanting to do some crazy thing that is +absolutely idiotic. I should think you'd be contented with what you've +got; but no, you must take your aeroplane right straight over to Europe +and let the Germans smash it all to pieces and kill you and everything. +Why, I never _heard_ of anything so absolutely imbecile as that!" + +"Well, I haven't gone yet," Johnny reminded her. "Maybe the thing won't +fly at all, and maybe I'll break my neck learning to run it. So it's +kinda early in the day to get excited about my going to France." + +"The idea! I'm not a bit excited. It really doesn't concern me at all, +personally, whether you go or not. But it does look to me like a terribly +silly idea. Any person with fair reasoning faculties would argue against +such idiocy, just as a matter of--of--" + +"Of course. Let it ride that way. Would you think, just to look along +this ledge, Mary V, that a real military tractor was cached away in it? +Talk about luck! You wait till you see the place I've got for it." + +Mary V seemed unimpressed. "If I might venture to advise you on a subject +that has no personal interest for me," she countered primly, "I would +suggest that you hide most of that gas in one of these niches, and take +only one can at a time to wherever your aeroplane is. I tell you, Bland +Halliday is _not_ to be trusted. You say he was broke and had lost his +machine in a wreck or something, and was beating his way to the Coast. +The truth probably is that he lost it some other way--maybe borrowed +money on it and couldn't pay it back. That's what he always does, and +then gets drunk and spends it all. But just as sure as you live, he'll +steal your machine if he gets a chance. And once he's in the air--you +can't chase him up there, you know. And you couldn't _prove_ it was your +aeroplane afterwards, could you? You haven't any papers or anything; +you said it was 'finders, keepers.' And he could claim that he found it +himself, couldn't he?" + +She looked at Johnny's sobering face, with the pursed lips and the crease +between his eyes that told of worry. Bland Halliday, once he was in the +air, would be master of the situation. Johnny saw that. + +"But you see, Skyrider, he can't fly without gas, and if you just have a +little bit--just enough to practice with--" + +"Mary V, when you aren't on the fight you're the best little pal in the +world!" cried Johnny impulsively, and leaned and caught her hand and held +it tight for a minute. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +LET'S GO + + +From a crooked willow branch thrust upright into the hard-packed sand to +mark the entrance to the secret niche, a ripped flour sack hung limp in +the cool, still air of a red dawn. From the niche itself came the vibrant +buzzing of a high-powered motor to which Sandy listened with head up and +ears perked anxiously, his staring eyes rolling toward a feasible line of +retreat should panic overwhelm his present astonished disapproval. + +The buzzing drew steadily nearer the yawning mouth of the cleft. The air +swirled with a fine, rushing cloud of sand, against which Johnny blinked +and pressed tight his lips while he dug his toes deep to guide and help +propel the airplane through the opening. Followed Mary V, walking on her +toes with excitement, swallowing dust without a murmur, her camera ready +for action when they emerged into a better light. In the pilot's seat +Bland Halliday, goggled and capped for flying, tested the controls before +he eased the motor into its work. + +Johnny, with his head bent low against the backwash of dust, looked at +Mary V. Words were useless, worse than inadequate. + +Well out from the mouth of the cleft, on the barren strip before the sage +growth began, Bland swung the plane so that it pointed to the west. He +lifted a hand in signal, and Johnny leaned backward, digging in his heels +instead of his toes. The huge man-made dragon fly stopped, buzzing +vibrantly. Bland Halliday beckoned imperiously, and Johnny went up to +where he could hear. + +"I'm going to try her out on a straightaway first, before I take you in," +Bland leaned to shout. "Tell the girl she can be ready to snap me when I +come back. I've got to test out the controls, and I want you ready to +grab 'er if she don't stop right along here somewhere. All right--outa +the way!" + +Johnny ran back, away from the wing, and stood beside Mary V. He saw +Bland turn his head and glance out along the right wing, then to the +left. He caught a sense of Bland's tightening nerves, a mental and +muscular poising for the flight. The thrumming jumped to a throbbing +roar. The plane ran forward like a plover, gathering speed as it went. +Fifty yards--a hundred--the little wheels left the sand, the tail sagged, +the nose pointed slightly upward. The throb accelerated as distance +dimmed the roar, until once more the droning thrum dominated. + +"Oh-h-h!" gasped Mary V, and caught Johnny's arm and gripped it. + +Johnny did not hear, did not feel her fingers pressing hard upon his +biceps. Johnny stood like a man hypnotized; wide-eyed, the white line +around his mouth, all his young soul straining after the airplane that +went sailing away like a hawk balancing on outstretched wings. + +"Oh-h-h-h!" gasped Mary V again, and squeezed his arm without +knowing that she did so. "O-h--he's coming back! See--see how he +circles--oh-h--he's doing an S, Johnny! Oh, Johnny, you lucky, lucky boy! +Oh, and it's yours! Johnny Jewel, you've simply _got_ to let me fly! +Oh-h, I'm going to learn too! Oh-h-Skyrider! You wooden image, you, why +don't you _say_ something?" + +Johnny looked at her, and there were tears pushing up to the edge of his +eyelids. He looked away quickly and blinked them back. + +Mary V bit her lip, abashed at the revelation of what this meant to +Johnny. And then the drone was a roar again, and the airplane was +skimming down to them. A _pop-pop-pop--pop_, and the motor stilled +suddenly. The little wheels touched the ground, spurned it, touched again +and came spinning toward them, reminding Johnny again of a lighting +plover. The propeller revolved slower and slower, stopped at a rakish +angle. Mary V felt the trembling of Johnny's arm as he pulled loose from +her and went up to steady the machine to its final stand. + +Bland Halliday pushed up his goggles. "She's runnin' like a new watch," +he announced. "Juh get a picture?" This last to Mary V. + +She shook her head, refusing to explain the omission. Bland turned to +Johnny. + +"She's O.K., old man. All we gotta do now is load up and start. You sure +have balled things up by not getting enough gas, though. How far is it to +that tank station--or some other that's closer?" + +"There isn't any closer. I don't know exactly, but--" + +"It's fifty-seven miles," Mary V fibbed hastily, and reached back a foot +to kick Johnny into silence. + +"Not air-line?" + +"Certainly, air-line. Do you realize that you rode _seventy-five miles_, +the way you came? And it's pretty rough country to land on, if you ran +out of gas." She gave Johnny another kick, which Bland could not observe +because of the wing they were leaning against. + +Bland's mouth pulled down at the corners. "I _told_ yuh we needed more +gas," he complained. "Where'd you git the idea of packing gas in a tin +cup to run an airplane on?" + +"Where'd you get the idea we could pack a fifty-gallon drum on +horseback?" Johnny retorted. "Believe me, you're lucky to get any at +all!" + +"I'll say this is some country!" Bland observed sourly. "Here we are--all +ready to go--and not enough gas to take us to the railroad, even! Well, +get in. I'll joy-ride yuh up and down this damn' scenery till the gas +gives out." + +"You'll teach me to fly. There's enough gas for one good lesson, anyway." + +"Oh, all right. Sure, I'll teach you, if you're able to learn. But you +hustle more gas down here, see? I'm all fed up on this country, and I +ain't denying it. First off, we'll do a straightaway. I spotted a good +level strip of ground over there a ways; that'll do to teach you how to +land. Then we'll come back and fly straight off east for a ways, and +circle and come back. How does that suit?" + +"Fine and dandy. Hold my hat, Mary V." Johnny went to the front, reached +high and caught the propeller blade. "All ready?" he cried, with the air +of a veteran. + +"A'right!" answered Bland, and Johnny put his weight into the pull, +failed to "turn 'er over," took a deep breath and tried it again. The +third attempt set the propeller whirling in a blurred circle. The motor +woke to throbbing life again. + +"Help me turn 'er first," called Bland, with a gesture to make his +meaning clear. + +"'Bye, Mary V! Now's your chance to get a picture--but you'll have to +hurry!" + +Johnny climbed up, straddled into the seat ahead of Bland. He placed his +feet, pulled down his goggles, grasped the wheel and felt himself +balanced--poised, with a drumming beat in his throat, a suffocating +fulness in his chest. His moment had come, he thought swiftly, as one +thinks when facing a sudden, whelming event. The biggest moment in his +life--the moment that he had dreamed of--the culmination of all his hopes +while he studied and worked--the moment when he took flight in an +airplane of his own! + +"Easy on the controls, bo, till you get the feel of it." Bland leaned to +shout in his ear. "You can over-control, if yuh don't watch out. You feel +my control. Don't try to do anything yourself at first. You'll come into +it gradual." + +He sat back, and Johnny waited, breathing unevenly. He had meant to wave +a hand nonchalantly to Mary V, but when the time came he forgot. + +The motor drummed to a steady roar. The plane started, ran along the sand +for a shorter distance than before, smoothed suddenly as it left the +ground, climbed insidiously. The beat in Johnny's throat lessened. He +forgot the suffocated feeling in his chest. He glanced to the right and +looked down on the ridge that held the hangar in its rocky face. A +perfect assurance, a tranquil exaltation possessed him. Godlike he was +riding the air--and it was as though he had done it always. + +He frowned. The earth, that had flattened to a gray smoothness, roughened +again, neared him swiftly. Ahead was a bare, yellow patch--they were +pointed toward it at a slackened speed. They were just over it--the +wheels touched, ran for ten feet or so, bounced away and returned again. +They were circling slowly, just skimming the surface of the ground. They +slowed and stopped, the plane quivering like a scared horse. + +"Fine!" Bland shouted above the eased thrum of the motor. "You done +fine, but seems like you showed a tendency to freeze onto the wheel +when we were coming down; yuh don't wanta do that, bo. Keep your control +easy--flexible, like. Now we'll go back where the girl is and make a +landing there. And then we'll make a flight--as far as is safe on our +teacup of gas!" + +"I brought five gallons; that ought to run us a ways," Johnny pointed +out. "I didn't want to land, that is why I froze to the wheel, as you +call it. I wanted to keep a-goin'!" + +"You get me the gas, and we'll keep a-goin', all right, all right! I got +a hunch, bo, you're holding out on me." + +"Forget it! Let's go!" + +Again the short run, the smooth, upward flight, the slower descent, the +bouncing along to a stop. + +"You done better, bo. I guess this ain't the first time you ever flew, +if you told it all. I hardly touched the controls. Now, say! On the +square--where's that gas at? She's working perfect, and now's the time +we oughta beat it outa here, before something goes wrong. I _know_ you've +got more gas than what you claim you've got." + +"You know a lot you just think. I'll send for some, right off. Let's go. +No use burning gas standing still!" + +Mary V, her camera sagging in her two hands so that the lens looked at +the wheels, gazed wistfully after them as they rose and went humming away +toward the rising sun, that had just cleared the jagged rim of mountains +and was gilding the ledge behind her. They climbed and swerved a little +to the south, evidently to avoid looking straight into the sun. + +Sandy stamped and snorted, tugging at the rope that tied him. Mary V +looked down, away from the diminishing airplane, and gave a shrill cry of +dismay. + +"Jake! You come back here--_Whoa!_" + +She stood with her mouth partly open, staring down along the ledge to +where Jake, whom she had daringly borrowed again because of his strength +and his speed that could bring her to Sinkhole in time to watch the trial +flight, was clattering away with broken bridle reins snapping. Sandy +wanted to follow. When she ran toward him to catch him before he broke +loose, he, too, snapped a rein and went racing away after Jake. + +Mary V stamped her foot, and cried a little, and blamed Bland Halliday +for flying down that way where Jake could see him and get scared. She had +been very careful to tie Jake back out of sight of the strip of sand +where Johnny had told her they would make their start and their landing. +It wasn't her fault that she was set afoot--but Bland Halliday just +_knew_ Jake would be scared stiff if he went down past where he was, and +he had done it deliberately. And now Sandy was gone, too--and Johnny only +had a couple of bronks in the little pasture--and she would just like to +know what she was going to _do_? She should think that the least Johnny +and Bland could do would be to come back and--do _something_ about the +horses. They surely must have seen Jake running away, and Johnny would +have sense enough to know what that meant. + +But Johnny, as it happened, was wholly absorbed in other things. He was +not thinking of horses, nor of Mary V, nor of anything except flying. He +was crowding into a few precious minutes all the pent emotions of his +dearest dreams. He was getting the "feel" of the controls, putting his +theoretical learning to the test, finding just how much and how little +it took to guide, to climb, to dip. Bland Halliday was a good flyer, and +he was doing his best, showing off his skill before Johnny. + +He shut off the motor for a minute and volplaned. "Great way to see the +country!" he shouted, and climbed back in an easy spiral. + +Johnny looked down. They were still within the lines of the Rolling R +range, he could tell by a certain red hill that, from that height, looked +small and insignificant, but red still and perfect in its contour. Beyond +he could see the small thread stretched across a half-barren slope--the +fence he meant to inspect that day. Between the red hill and the fence +were four moving dots, following behind several other smaller dots, which +his range-trained eyes recognized as horses driven by men on horseback. + +The airplane circled hawklike, climbed higher, and disported itself in an +S or two and a "figure eight," all of which Johnny absorbed as a sponge +absorbs water. Then, pointing, flew straight. + +They were going back to the ledge. Johnny's heart sank at thought of once +more creeping along on the surface of the earth like a worm, toiling over +the humps and the hollows that looked so tiny from away up there. He +wanted to implore Bland to turn and go back, but he did not know how long +the gasoline would last, and he was afraid they might be compelled to +land in some spot a long way from his rock hangar. He said nothing, +therefore, but strove to squeeze what bliss remained for him in the next +minutes, distressingly few though they were. + +As it happened, Bland did not know the topography of Sinkhole as did +Johnny, and in the still air the flour sack did not flutter. Bland was in +a fair way to fly too far. Johnny knew they were much too high to land at +the cleft unless they did an abrupt dive, and he did not quite like the +prospect. He let Bland go on, then daringly banked and circled. Bland had +done it, half a dozen times--so why not Johnny? Luck was with him--or +perhaps his sense of balance was true. He did not side-slip, and he made +the turn on a downward incline, which brought them closer to earth. He +sought out the place where Mary V, a tiny wisp of a figure, stood beside +the cleft, and flattened out as the ground came rushing up to meet him. + +To all intents Johnny made that landing alone, for if Bland helped he did +not say so. Johnny was positive that he had made it himself, and his +sense of certainty propelled him whooping to where Mary V stood, her +camera once more slanted uselessly in her two hands, her lips set in a +line that usually meant trouble for somebody. + +"How's that--hunh? Say, there's nothing like it! Did you get a picture of +that landing I made? Say--" + +"It seems to me that you are doing all the saying, yourself," Mary +V interrupted him unenthusiastically. "It may be all very nice for +you, Johnny Jewel, to go sailing around in an aeroplane. I suppose +it _is_ very nice for you. I grant that without argument. But as for +me--" Sympathy for herself pushed her lips into a trembling, forced a +quiver into her voice. + +"As for _me_, you went and stampeded Jake so he broke loose and went off +like a--a bullet! And Bill Hayden will just about _murder_ me for taking +him; I was going to sneak him back while the boys were out after more +horses, and sneak out again with Tango so Bill wouldn't know. And now +_look_ what a mess you've got me into! Of course _you_ don't care--you +and your darned old flying machine! I wish it had busted itself all to +pieces! And you too! And Sandy's stampeded after Jake, and I'm just glad +of it!" She gulped, forced back further angry-little-girl storming, and +recovered her young-lady sarcasm. + +"But please don't let me interrupt your very fascinating new pastime. Of +course, since you are a young man of leisure, playing with your new toy +must seem far more important than the fact that I have about twenty miles +to walk--through the sand and the heat, and not even a canteen of water +to save me from parching with thirst. I--I must ask you to pardon me +for--for thrusting my merely personal affairs upon your notice. Well, +what are you grinning about? Do you think it's _funny_?" + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +A RIDER OF THE SKY + + +"I could take her home, old top--if I had the gas." Bland turned his pale +stare significantly from Mary V to Johnny. "Come through, bo. You know +you've got more gas hid out on me somewhere. I got a slant at the bill of +it, so I _know_. It wouldn't be polite to let the young lady walk home." + +Johnny stilled him to silence with a round-eyed stare. + +"Thank you, I'd much prefer to walk--if it was forty miles instead of +twenty!" Mary V chilled him further. "What are we going to do, Johnny? I +don't know _what_ will happen if Bill Hayden finds out that I borrowed +Jake. And then letting him get away, like that--" + +"Sandy's at the pasture fence, I'd be willing to bet; but at that it's +going to be the devil's own job to catch him, me afoot. And he wouldn't +let you on him if I did. I guess it's a case of ride the sky or walk, +Mary V." + +"Then we better be stepping, bo, before the wind comes up, as I've +noticed it's liable to, late in the forenoon. You dig up the gas, and +I'll take her home." + +"Thank you, I do not wish to trouble you, Mr. Halliday. Johnny can take +me, if anybody--" + +"Who--him?" Bland Halliday's smile was twisted far to the left. "Say, +where do you get that idea--him flyin' after one lesson? Gee, you must +think flyin' is like driving a Ford!" + +"You could go to the shack and 'phone home for some one to come after +you," Johnny suggested uncertainly. + +"And let them know where I am? You must be absolutely crazy, if you +think I'd consider such a thing. I'm supposed to be getting 'Desert +Glimpses'--" + +"Well, you sure got your glimpse," tittered Bland. + +Mary V turned her back on him, took Johnny by the arm, and walked him +away for private conference. + +"You better let him take you home, Mary V. He's all right--for flying. +I've got to hand it to him there." + +"And give him a chance to steal your aeroplane? He'd never bring it back. +I know he wouldn't." + +"He'd have to. I'd only give him gas enough to make the trip on, and--" + +"And if he had enough to come back with, he'd have enough to get to the +railroad with. Don't be stupid. You can take me; couldn't you, now, +honest?" + +"Well,--I feel as if I could, all right. But a fellow's supposed to +practice a lot with an instructor before he gets gay and goes to flying +alone. Bland says--" + +"Oh, plague take Bland! What would you have done if you hadn't run across +him at all? Would you have tried to fly?" + +"You know it!" Johnny laughed. "I've sat in that seat and worked the +controls every day since I got it. I know 'em by heart. I've studied the +theory of flying till I'll bet I could stick Bland himself on some of the +principles. And I've been flying in my sleep for months and months. Sure, +I'd have tackled it. But I wouldn't have had you along when I started +in." + +"You know how the thing works, then. Well, come on back and work it! +Unless you're scared." + +"Me scared? Of an airplane? It's you I'm thinking about. I'd go alone, +quick enough. Maybe we could both crowd into the front seat, and let +Bland pilot the machine. Then--" + +"I abso-_lutely_ will not--fly with--Bland Halliday! If you won't take me +home, I'll walk!" Mary V pinched in her lips, which meant stubbornness. + +Johnny heaved a sigh. "Oh, shoot! I'm game to tackle it if you are. Far +as I'm personally concerned, _I know I can fly_." His lips, too, set +themselves in the line of stubbornness. And he added with perfect +seriousness, "It ain't half as hard as topping a bronk." + +He glanced back, saw that Bland had gone into the cleft, and hurried on +to where he had buried the gasoline in the sand behind a jagged splinter +of rock in a shallow niche. + +"Well, the Jane changed her mind, did she?" Bland commented when Johnny +arrived at the plane with the gas. "Thought she would. Walking twenty +miles ain't no sunshine, if you ask me. Better have the tank full-up, bo. +It's always safer." + +A suppressed jubilance such as had seized and held him when he first +beheld the disabled airplane in the desert valley, filled Johnny now. As +he climbed up and filled the tank his lips were pursed into a soundless +whistle, his eyes were wide and shining, his whole tanned face glowed. +Bland Halliday regarded him curiously, his opaque blue eyes shifting +inquiringly to Mary V, halted at a sufficient distance to take a picture. +They were very young, these two--wholly inexperienced in the byways of +life, confident, with the supreme assurance of ignorance. It had been a +queer idea, hiding the gasoline; and threatened to be awkward, since +Bland was practically helpless out here in the sand and rocks. But things +always turned out the right way, give them time enough. The kid was +filling the tank--at present Bland asked no more of the gods than that. +His sour lips drew up at the corners, as they had done when Johnny had +made him the proposition in Agua Dulce. Mary V closed her camera and came +toward them, walking springily through the sand, looking more than ever +like a slim boy in her riding breeches and boots. + +"All right. You lend Miss Selmer your goggles and cap, Bland. You won't +need 'em yourself till I get back." + +"Till you--what?" + +"Till I get back. I aim to take Miss Selmer home." Johnny's lips were +still puckered; his face still held the glow of elation. But his eyes +looked down sidelong, searching Bland's face for his inmost thought. + +Bland was staring, loose-lipped, incredulous. "Aw, say! D'yuh think I'll +swallow that?" There was a threatening note beneath the whine of his +voice. + +"If you don't choke. Come on, Mary V; 'hop in, and we'll take a spin,' +and all the rest of it. Venus'll have nothing on you. Here's my goggles; +put 'em on. I'm going to borrow Bland's." It had occurred to Johnny that +Mary V would probably shrink from wearing anything belonging to Bland +Halliday; girls were queer that way. + +Bland stepped pugnaciously forward; his pale eyes were unpleasantly +filmed with anger. "Aw, I see your game, bo; but you can't get away with +it. Not for a minute, you can't. You think I'm such a mark as that? Come +down here and work like a dog to get the plane ready to fly, and then +kiss yuh good-bye and watch yuh go off with it--and leave me here to rot +with the snakes and lizards? Oh, no! I'll take the young lady--" + +"Give me a hand up, Johnny. The front seat? How perfectly _ducky_ to ride +home in an aeroplane! Oh, Johnny wants your goggles, Mr. Halliday." Mary +V reached down quickly and lifted them off the irate aviator's head +before he knew what she was after. "Here they are, Johnny. Sit down, and +Mr. Halliday will crank up--or whatever you call it. I'll send him right +back, Mr. Halliday, just as quick as ever he can make the trip!" + +Mr. Halliday gave her a venomous glance, and a sneer which included them +both. + +"Ain't it a shame she ain't equipped with a self-starter?" he fleered. +"You two look cute, settin' there; but I don't seem to see yuh making any +quick getaway, at that." He spread his legs and stood arrogantly, arms +folded, the sneer looking perfectly at home on his face. + +"Don't be a darned boob!" Johnny snapped impatiently. "Turn 'er over. +Miss Selmer wants me to pilot her home, and I'm going to tackle it. You +needn't be scared, though; I'll come back." + +"I don't think so," said Bland, teetering a little as he stood. + +"I will, unless I bust something. And it's my machine, so I'm sure going +to be right careful that nothing busts." What Johnny wanted to do was get +out and lick Bland Halliday till he howled, but since the gratification +of that desire was neither politic nor convenient, he promised himself a +settlement later on, when Mary V was not present. Just now he must humor +Bland along. + +"I don't think you'll come back," Bland repeated, "because I don't think +you'll start. There's a little detail to be looked after first--a little +swingin' on the propeller to be done. I don't see anybody doin' it. And +I never did hear of anybody flying without their motor running." He +tittered malevolently. + +"Cut out the comedy, bo, and let me in there. You start 'er for me, and +_I'll_ take Miss Selmer home for you. You ain't got your pilot's license +yet--by a long ways. I never heard of a flyer getting his license on a +thirty or forty minute course. It ain't done, bo--take it from me." He +spat into the sand with an air of patient tolerance. + +"Are you all ready, Johnny?" Mary V's voice was rather alarmingly sweet. +"I'm not going to _touch_ this ducky little wheel. I'm afraid I might +think it was my car and do something queer. I shall let you drive--if you +_call_ it driving. Now if Mr. Halliday will crank up for us, we'll go." + +"Mr. Halliday will let you set there till you get enough," Bland grinned +sourly. "I'm thinking of your safety, sister. I'm thinkin' more of you +than that piece of cheese in the pilot's seat." + +"Mr. Halliday, won't you _please_ start the motor?" There was a +remarkable stress upon the "please," considering the gun in Mary V's +steady little right hand. She peered down owl-eyed at Bland through +the big goggles. "This is Arizona--where guns are not loaded with blanks, +Mr. Halliday. I'll prove it if you like. I'd just _love_ to shoot you!" + +Bland Halliday drew his feet together as though he intended to run. Mary +V, still peering down through the goggles, shot a spurt of sand over the +toe of one scuffed shoe. Bland stepped aside hastily. + +"I can't see well enough to be sure of missing you next time," Mary V +assured him. "Generally I can shoot awfully close and miss, but--I'd +_like_ to shoot you, really. You'd better crank the motor." + +Bland saw the hammer lift again, ominously deliberate. He sidled +hurriedly down to the propeller. His pale stare never left the gun, which +kept him inexorably before its muzzle. + +Johnny's eyes looked as big as his goggles, but he did not say a word. +And presently, after three rather hysterical attempts, Bland set the +propeller whirring, and ran out to one side, his hands up as though he +feared for his life if he lowered them. The motor's hum increased to the +steady roar which Johnny's ear recognized as the sound Bland got from it +when he started. And with an erratic wabbling the plane moved forward +jerkily, steadied a bit as Johnny set his teeth and all his stubbornness +to the work, and gradually--very gradually--lifted and went whirring +away through the sunlight. + +They say that Providence protects children and fools. Johnny Jewel, I +think, could justly claim protection on both grounds. He was certainly +attempting a foolhardy feat, and he was doing it with a childlike +confidence in himself. As for Mary V--oh, well, Mary V was very young and +a woman, and therefore not to be held accountable for her rash faith that +the man would take care of her. Mary V had centuries of dependent +womanhood behind her, and must be excused. + +Johnny wished that he had warned her about the peculiar tendency of the +air currents to follow the contour of the ground. He climbed as high as +Bland had climbed at first, hoping to escape the abruptness of the waves +such as he had studied patiently from charts, and which he had felt when +they flew over arroyos and rough ground. He did not want Mary V to be +alarmed, but the noise of the motor made speech impossible, so he let the +explanation go for the present. Mary V was sitting exactly in the center, +grasping rather tightly the edges of the pit as a timid person holds fast +to the sides of a canoe. Sitting so, she did not look in the least like a +young woman who has just compelled a man at the point of a revolver to do +her bidding. More like a child who is having its first boat ride, and who +is holding its breath, mentally balanced between howls of fear and +shrieks of glee. But Johnny did not believe she was scared. + +Johnny was keyed up to the point of working miracles, of accomplishing +the impossible. Johnny was happy, a little awed at his own temerity, +wholly absorbed in his determination to handle that airplane just as well +as Bland or any other living man could handle it. He kept reminding +himself that it was simple enough, if you only had the nerve to go ahead +and _do_ it; if you just forgot that there was such a thing as falling; +and, of course, if you knew what it was you ought to do, and how you +ought to do it. Johnny knew--theoretically. And it did not seem possible +to him that he could fall. He was master of a machine that was master of +the air. He was riding the sky--and Mary V was there, riding with him, +absolutely confident that he would not let her be hurt. + +He did not attempt any "fancy stunts," such as Bland had done. He merely +climbed to where he dared circle, then circled deliberately, carefully. +When he came about so that the sun was warming his right shoulder, he +flew straight for the Rolling R ranch, like a homing pigeon at sunset. + +It was exhilarating--it was wonderful! Johnny, knowing the country so +well, avoided passing over the roughest places, keeping well out from the +hills, and into the smoother flow over the broad levels. The drone of the +motor was a triumphal song. The flattening wind against his cheeks was +sweeter than kisses. Supreme confidence in himself and in the machine +stimulated him, made him ready to dare anything, do anything. Once more +he was a god, skimming godlike through space, gazing down on the little +world and the little, crawling things of the world with pity. + +Ahead of him, Mary V never moved. Her little fingers never loosened their +grip of the padded leather. Wisps of her brown hair, caught in the +terrific air-pressure, stood back from her head like small pennants. + +Black Ridge they passed, and it looked squatty and insignificant. Johnny +swerved a little to the westward, to avoid a series of washes and deep +gullies and small ridges between that might affect the smooth flight of +the plane. On and on and on, boring steadily through the air that rushed +to meet them--or so it seemed. + +Far ahead, lumped on a brushless level which Johnny knew of old, a +little, milling cluster of antlike creatures attracted Johnny's eye. + +He watched it a minute, knew it for a horse round-up, and chuckled to +himself. The Rolling R boys--and revenge for the sneers and the fleers +they had given him when he had only dared to _dream_ of flying. He wanted +to tell Mary V, but then he thought that Mary V's eyes were as sharp as +his. Yes, her fingers reluctantly loosened their hold and she tried to +point--and had her hand swept backward by the wind. She tried again, and +Johnny nodded, though Mary V could not see him without turning her head, +which she seemed to think she must not do. + +The Rolling R boys--Tex and Bill Hayden and Curley and Aleck and one or +two more whom this story has not met--were driving a small herd of horses +from which they meant to cut out a few chosen ones for breaking. Away up +toward where the sun would be at two o'clock, a little droning dragonfly +thing coming swiftly, and a little imp of mischief whispering into the +willing ear of one who felt that he had suffered much and patiently. Mary +V, hanging on tight, with her lips pressed together and her eyes big and +bright behind her goggles, watched how swiftly the antlike creatures grew +larger and took the form of horses and men. + +Johnny dared a volplane, slanting steeply down at the herd. He wanted to +get close enough so that they could see who he was, and he wanted to fill +his lungs and then shout down to them something that would make them +squirm. He meant to flatten out a hundred feet or so above them and +shout, "_For I'm a rider of the sky!_" and then give a range yell and +climb up away from them with arrogant indifference to their stunned +amazement. + +Well, Johnny did it. That is, he volplaned, banked as much as he thought +wise, and flattened out and yelled, "_I'm a rider of the sky!_" just as +he had planned. + +It happened that no one heard him, though Johnny did not know that. +Horses and men tilted heads comically and stared up at the great, +swooping thing that came buzzing like a monstrous bumblebee that has +learned to stutter. Then the horses squatted cowering away from it, and +scattered like drops of water when a stone is thrown into a pond. + +Johnny did not see any more of it, for Johnny was busy. Which was a pity, +for the horse of Tex bolted a hundred yards and began to pitch so +terrifically that Tex was catapulted from the saddle and had to walk home +with a sprained ankle. Little Curley's horse took to the hills, and +little Curley did not return in time for his dinner. Aleck and Bill +Hayden went careening away toward the north, and one of the two strangers +went so far west that he got lost. Since that day no horse that was +present can see a hawk fly overhead without suffering convulsions of +terror. + +Johnny flew to a certain grassy spot he knew, not half a mile from the +house, and landed. I cannot say that he landed smoothly or expertly, but +he landed with no worse mishap than a bent axle on the landing gear, and +a squeal from Mary V, who thought they were going to keep on bouncing +until they landed in a gully farther on. Johnny climbed down and turned +the plane around by hand, and Mary V helped him. Then she took a picture +of him and the plane, and climbed back and let Johnny take a picture of +her in the plane. It was rather tame, for by all the laws of logic they +should have broken their necks. + +Before he started back, Johnny leaned over and shouted to Mary V: "You +can tell the boys they can sing that Skyrider thing all they want to, +now." + +"They won't want to--now," Mary V yelled back. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +FLYING COMES HIGH + + +Johnny Jewel reined his horse on a low ridge and stared dully down into +the little valley where a scattered herd of horses fed restlessly, their +uneven progress toward Sinkhole Creek vaguely indicated by the general +direction of their grazing. The pendulum of his spirits had swung farther +and farther away from his ecstasy of the morning, until now he had +plumbed the deepest well of gloom. That he had flown to the Rolling R +ranch and back without wrecking his airplane or killing himself did not +cheer him. He was in the mood to wish that he had broken his neck instead +of coming safely to earth. + +Johnny was like a sleeper who has dreamed pleasantly and has awakened to +find the house falling on him--or something like that. He had dreamed +great things, he had lulled his conscience with promises and reassurances +that all was well, and that he was not shirking any really important +duty. And now he was awake, and the reality was of the full flavor of +bitter herbs long steeped. + +The forenoon had been full of achievement. Johnny had, for safety's sake, +removed the propeller from his airplane and carried it home with him, in +the face of Bland Halliday's bitter whining and vituperation, which +reminded Johnny of a snake that coils and hisses and yet does not strike. +It had been an awkward job, because he had been compelled to thrash Bland +first, and then tie his hands behind him to prevent some treacherous blow +from behind while he worked. Johnny had hated to do that, but he felt +obliged to do it, because Bland had found the buried gasoline and had +taken away the full cans and hidden them, replacing them with the empty +cans. If Bland had not shown a town man's ignorance of the tale a man's +tracks will tell, Johnny would never have suspected anything. + +Bland had also threatened to wreck the plane for revenge, but Johnny did +not worry about that. He had retaliated with a threat to starve Bland +until he repaired whatever damage he wrought--and Bland had seen the +point, and had subsided into his self-pitying whine. + +Johnny felt perfectly easy in his mind so far as the airplane was +concerned. He had explained to Bland that he meant to keep his promise as +soon as he could and be square with his boss, and Bland had at the last +resigned himself to the delay--no doubt comforting himself with some +cunning plan of revenge later, when he had gotten Johnny into the city, +where Bland felt more at home and where Johnny would have all the odds +against him, being a stranger and--in Bland's opinion--a "hick." + +The forenoon, therefore, had been all triumph for Johnny. All triumph and +all glowing with the rose tints of promise. The afternoon was a different +matter. + +Johnny had ridden out on the recaptured Sandy. When he had time to think +of it, that glimpse of the horsemen and the loose horses over beyond the +red hill nagged him with a warning that all was not well on the Rolling R +range. He had headed straight for the red hill, and he had noticed many +little, betraying signs that had long escaped him in his preoccupation +with his own dreams and ambitions. + +The horses were wild, and ducked into whatever cover was nearest when he +approached. Johnny knew that they had lately been chased and frightened, +and that there was only one logical reason for that, because none of the +Rolling R boys had been down on the Sinkhole range since the colts were +branded and these horses driven down for the summer grazing. + +Johnny rode to where he had seen the horseman, picked up the tracks of +shod hoofs and followed them to the fence. Saw where two panels of wire +had been loosened and afterwards refastened. Some one had dropped a +couple of new staples beside one post, and there were fresh hammer dents +in the wood. Johnny had not done it; there was only one other answer to +the question of the fence-mender's reason. There was no mystery whatever. +Johnny looked, and he knew. + +He looked out across the fence and knew, too, how helpless he was. He had +not even brought his rifle, as Sudden had told him to do. The rifle had +been a nuisance, and Johnny conveniently forgot it once or twice, and +then had told himself that it was just a notion of old Sudden's--and what +was the use of packing something you never would need? He had not carried +it with him for more than three weeks. But if he had it now, he knew that +it would not help him any. The thieves had hours the start of him. It had +been just after sunrise that he had seen them--he, a Rolling R man, +sailing foolishly around in an airplane and actually _seeing_ a bunch of +Rolling R horses being stolen, without caring enough to think what the +fellows were up to! Self-disgust seized him nauseatingly. It was there at +the fence he first wished he had fallen and broken his neck. + +He turned back, rode until he had located a bunch of horses, made a rough +count, and went on, heavy-hearted, steeped in self-condemnation. He +located other horses, scattered here and there in little groups, and kept +a mental tally of their numbers. Now, while the sun dipped low toward the +western hills, he watched this last herd dismally, knowing how completely +he had failed in his trust. + +Square with his boss! He, Johnny Jewel, had presumed to prate of it that +day, with half the horses stolen from Sinkhole. For so did conscience +magnify the catastrophe. He had dared to assume that his presence there +at Sinkhole was necessary to the welfare of the Rolling R! Johnny +laughed, but tears would have been less bitter than his laughter. + +He had been proud of himself, arrogantly sure of his ability, his nerve, +his general superiority. He, who had shirked his duty, the work that won +him his food and clothes and money to spend, he had blandly considered +himself master of himself, master of his destiny! He had fatuously +believed that, had belittled his work and thought it unworthy his time +and thought and ability--and he had let himself be hoodwinked and robbed +in broad daylight! + +He remembered the days when he had compromised with his work, had ridden +to a certain pinnacle that commanded a wide view of the range, and had +looked out over the country from the top--and had hurried back to the +niche to work on the airplane, calling his duty to the Rolling R done for +that day. He might better have stolen those horses himself, Johnny +thought. He would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he had +accomplished what he had set out to do; he would not have to bear this +sickening feeling of failure along with his guilt. + +But staring at the horses the thieves had left would not bring back the +ones they had stolen, so Johnny rode back to camp, caught the gentlest of +his two bronks and turned Sandy loose in the pasture. He had formed the +habit of riding over to the airplane before he cooked his supper; +sometimes eating with Bland so that he might the longer gaze upon his +treasure. But to-night he neither rode to the niche nor cooked supper. He +did not want to eat, and he did not want to see his airplane, that had +tempted him to such criminal carelessness. + +The telephone called him, and Johnny went dismally to answer. It was old +Sudden, of course; the full, smooth voice that could speak harsh commands +or criticisms and make them sound like pleasantries. Johnny thought the +voice was a little smoother, a little fuller than usual. + +"Hello. The boys tell me that they had quite a lot of--excitement--this +morning when they were rounding up a bunch of horses. An aeroplane +swooped down on them with--er--somewhat unpleasant results. Yes. The +horses stampeded, and--er--the boys were compelled to do some hard +riding. Yes. Tex was thrown--that makes two of the boys that are laid up +for repairs. They haven't succeeded in gathering the horses so far. Know +anything about it, Johnny?" + +"Yes, sir." Johnny's voice was apathetic. What did a little thing like a +stampede amount to, in the face of what Sudden had yet to hear? + +"Oh, you do?" Sudden was plainly expectant. He did not, however, sound +particularly reassuring. "Where did that aeroplane come from? Do you +know?" + +"Yes, sir. It's one I--salvaged from Mexico. I--was trying it out." + +"Oh. You were? Trying it out on the stock. Well, I don't believe I care +to work my stock with flying machines. Aviators--come high. I prefer just +plain, old-fashioned riders." + +He paused, quite evidently waiting to hear what Johnny had to say. But +Johnny did not seem to have anything at all to say, so Sudden spoke +again. + +"How about the horses down at Sinkhole? Are they broken to aeroplane +herding, or have they all stampeded like these up here?" + +Here was escape, reprieve, an excuse that might save him. Johnny +hesitated just long enough to draw his breath deeply, as a man does +before diving into cold water. + +"They haven't stampeded. I never had the plane in the air till this +morning, and then I flew--toward the ranch. These horses down here have +been stolen. About half of them, I should say. I was gone for nearly +three days, getting that airplane from across the line. A greaser told me +about it, and took me where it was. And when I got back I didn't ride the +range the way I should have done--the way I did do, at first. I was +working on the airplane, all the time I possibly could. I ran across a +fellow that's been an aviator, and brought him down here, and he helped. +And so the horses were stolen--a few at a time, I think. I believe I'd +have missed them if they had gone all at once." + +Johnny could feel the silence at the other end of the line. It lasted so +long that he wondered dully if Sudden were waiting for more, but Johnny +felt as though there was nothing more to add. Of what use would it be to +protest that he was sorry? Bad enough to rob a man, without insulting him +with puerile regrets. + +"Now--let's get this thing straight." Sudden's voice when it came was +fuller than ever, smoother than ever. It was a bad sign. "You say--about +half of the horses on that range have been stolen? Have you counted +them?" + +"No. I'm just guessing. I don't think I've lost more than half. I just +made a rough tally of what I found to-day." + +"You say not _more_ than half, then. But you're guessing. Now, when did +you first miss them?" + +"To-day. I was all taken up with that damned airplane before, and I +didn't pay much attention. This morning the fellow here took me for a +flight, and we went east. Beyond the red hill I happened to see four +riders driving a few horses. They were inside our fence. I didn't think +what it meant then, because Bland was climbing in a spiral and my mind +was on that. But I rode over there this afternoon, and I saw where they'd +let down the fence and then put it back up again. And they'd tried to +cover up the tracks of horses going through. So I rode all afternoon, +making a sort of tally of what horses ranged over that way. A lot of +'em's gone. I missed some of the best ones--some big geldings that I +think I'd know anywhere." + +"You say they went through the fence on the east line?" + +"Yes, sir. It was just after sunrise that I saw them." + +"And it was afternoon, you say, before it occurred to you that they might +possibly have been stealing my horses. In the meantime, you were up this +way, playing hell with the round-up." + +"Yes, sir, that's about the way it stacks up." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"I don't know. Try and get back what horses I can, I guess." Johnny did +not speak as though he had much faith. + +"Going to go out and round them up with your flying machine, I suppose! +That sounds practical, perfectly plausible. As much so as the rest of the +story." + +Johnny was too utterly miserable and hopeless to squirm at the sarcasm. + +"Well, we don't want to be hasty. In fact, you have not been hasty so +far, from what I can gather. Except in the matter of indulging yourself +in aircraft at my expense. Don't leave the cabin. I shall probably want +to talk about this again to-night." + +That was all. It was enough. It was like Sudden to withhold condemnation +until after he had digested the crime. Johnny did not think much about +what Sudden would do, but he had a settled conviction that condemnation +was merely postponed for a little while. It would come. But Johnny sat +already condemned by the harshest judge a man may have--the harshness of +his own youthful conscience. + +He sat brooding, his palms holding his jaws, his eyes staring at the +floor. What was he going to do? Sudden had asked him that. Johnny had +asked himself the same question; indeed, it had drummed insistently +in his brain since he had inspected the fence that afternoon and had +known just what had befallen him. The bell rang--Sudden was calling +again. He got up stolidly to answer more questions. + +"Oh--Skyrider! I can only talk a minute. Mom's in the kitchen, and dad's +gone to hunt up Bill Hayden. Is it true, Johnny, that a lot of horses +have been stolen?" + +"Yes." + +"I heard dad talking. Oh, I wish I could help hunt them, but I'm in an +awful mess, Skyrider! Bill Hayden knew I'd taken Jake, because my saddle +was gone, and none of the other horses were. I never _saw_ any one so +mean and suspicious! And he knows Jake got away from me, too, because I +was trying to catch him when Bill rode up, just perfectly furious over +the horses stampeding. And Bill told dad--he certainly is the _meanest_ +thing! And now dad won't let me go out of sight of the house unless he or +mom are with me. And mommie never goes anywhere, it's so hot. And dad +only goes to town. But they don't know it was us in the aeroplane--and +I'm just glad of it if we did scatter their old herd for them. +Everybody's so mean to me! And I was planning how you'd teach me to fly, +and we'd have the duckiest times--and now--" + +She hung up so abruptly that Johnny knew as well as though he had been +in the room with her, what had happened. She had heard her dad coming. +Before Johnny had sat down again to his brooding, Sudden called him. + +"You spoke about a greaser telling you about an aeroplane, and that you +went with him and got it." Sudden's voice was cool and even--an +inexorable voice. "Do you remember my telling you not to let a greaser on +the Rolling R range if you could help it?" + +"Yes, sir. This one's brother came first. He was just a kid, and he +wanted--a drink." It struck Johnny quite suddenly that Tomaso's reason +for coming had been a very poor one indeed. For there was water much +nearer Tucker Bly's range, which was to the east of Sinkhole. And Tomaso +should have had no occasion whatever to be riding to Sinkhole. + +"Oh. He wanted a drink, did he? Where did he come from?" + +"He works for Tucker Bly. So he said. And he told me about the airplane +that had been lost, across the line. His brother had found it." + +"And you went to see his brother?" + +"His brother came to see me. The kid told him I was--interested." + +"You went after the flying machine when? Over two weeks ago, eh? And you +were gone--I see. Approximately two days and two nights--nearer three +days. Who answered the telephone while you were gone? It happens that I +have not missed calling you every night; did the man have a cold?" + +"I--I don't know. I didn't know anybody--" Johnny frowned. It would be +just as well, he felt, to keep Mary V out of it. + +"You didn't know the 'phone was answered in your absence. Well, it was. +By a man with a bad cold, who represented himself to be you. Did you +notice any signs of any one being there while you were gone?" + +"N-no, I can't say I did. Well, the string was tied different on the +door, but I didn't think much about that." + +"No--you wouldn't think much about that." Sudden's tone made a mental +lash of the words. "You had your own affairs to think about. You were +merely being--_paid_ to think of my affairs." + +"Yes, sir--that's the kind of a hound I've been." + +Johnny's abject tone--he who had been so high-chested in the past--may +have had its effect upon the boss. When Sudden spoke again his voice was +almost kind, which is unusual, surely, for a man who has been robbed. + +"Well, I shall have to investigate those greasers, I think. It looks to +me as though they had used that flying machine for a bait to get you out +of the way, and that looks to me too clever for greasers. It looks to me +as though some one knew what bait you would jump at the quickest, young +man. Do some thinking along those lines, will you? The horses are gone; +but there might be some slight satisfaction in catching the thieves." + +"Yes, sir. What shall I do to-morrow? Am I fired, or what?" + +"You are--_what_!" Sudden was sarcastic again. "I believe, since you have +been doing pretty much as you please down there, I shall expect you to go +on doing as you please. I don't see how you are going to do any more +damage than you have already done. On the other hand, I don't see how you +are going to do much good--unless I could take those horses out of your +hide!" + +Johnny stared round-eyed at the 'phone, even after Sudden had hung up his +receiver. + +"Good golly!" he muttered, with a faint return of his normal spirit. "Old +Sudden oughta been a lawyer." Then he went back to holding his jaws in +two spread palms, and brooding over the trouble he was in. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +"WE FLY SOUTH" + + +Johnny did a great deal of thinking along the line suggested by old +Sudden. At first he thought merely how groundless was any suspicion +that the airplane was in any way connected with the horse-stealing, +except that it might justly be accused of contributing to his negligence. +Even so, Johnny could not see how one man could possibly protect the +whole of Sinkhole range from thieves. He could have been on his guard, +could have noticed when the first horses were missing, and notified +Sudden at once. That, of course, was what had been expected of him. + +But as to Tomaso and his oily brother, Johnny did not at first see any +possible connection between them and his present trouble, save that they +also had innocently contributed to his neglect. But Sudden had told him +to think about it, and the suggestion kept swinging his thoughts that +way. Finally, for want of something better, he went back to the very +beginning and reconstructed his first meeting with Tomaso. Sudden had +hinted that they must have known how deeply he was interested in +aviation. But Johnny did not see how that could be. He had not talked +much about his ambition, even at the Rolling R, he remembered; not enough +to set him apart from the others as one who dreamed day and night of +flying. Until the boys got hold of that doggerel he wrote, Johnny was +sure they had not paid any attention to his occasional vague rhapsodies +on the subject. + +Tomaso had seen the letterhead of that correspondence school, and had +just accidentally mentioned it. Or was it accidental? To make sure, +Johnny got out the circular which Tomaso had seen, laid it where he +remembered it to have been that day, and sat down at the table where +Tomaso had been sitting. He placed the lamp where the light fell full +upon the paper and studied the letterhead for several minutes, scowling. + +Tomaso, he decided, had remarkably sharp eyes. Seen from that angle, the +letterhead was not conspicuous. The volplaning machine was not at all +striking to the eye. Unless a person knew beforehand what it represented, +or was looking for something of the sort, Johnny was forced to admit that +he would be likely to pass it over without a second glance. + +Tomaso, then, must have come there with the intention of leading adroitly +to the subject of airplanes. He must have brought those little, steel +pliers purposely. And after all, he really had no business on the Rolling +R range, if he was riding for the Forty-seven. He had come a good five +miles inside the line. And when you looked at it that way, how had he +got inside the line? There was no gate on the east side of the fence. + +It looked rather far-fetched, improbable. Johnny was slow to accept +the theory that he had been led to that airplane just as a toy is given +to a child, to keep its attention engrossed with a harmless pastime +while other business is afoot. It hurt his self-esteem to believe +that--wherefore he prospected his memory for some other theory to take +its place. + +"Well! If that's why they did it--it sure worked like a charm," he summed +up his cogitations disgustedly. "I'll say I swallowed the bait whole!" +And he added grimly: "I wish I knew who put them wise." + +Youth began to make its demands. He started a fire, boiled coffee, fried +bacon, made fresh bread, and ate a belated supper. Sudden had told him to +do as he pleased. "Well," Johnny muttered, "I will take him at his word." +He did not know just what he would please to do, but he realized that +fasting would not help him any; nor would sleeplessness. He ate, +therefore, washed his few dishes and went straight to bed. And although +he lay for a long while looking at his trouble through the magnifying +glass of worry, he did sleep finally--and without one definite plan for +the morrow. + +Half an hour before dawn, Johnny went stumbling along the ledge to the +cleft. On his broad shoulder was balanced the propeller. On his face was +a look of fixed determination. He scared Bland Halliday out of a sleep in +which his dreams were all of a certain cabaret in Los Angeles--dreams +which made Bland's waking all the more disagreeable. Johnny tilted the +propeller carefully against the rock wall, lighted a match, and cupped +the blaze in his palms so that the light shone on Bland. + +"Where's the lantern? You better get up--it's most daylight." + +"Aw, f'r cat's sake! What more new meanness you got on your mind? Me, I +come down here in good faith to help fix a plane that's to take me back +home--and I work like a dog--" + +"Yeah--I know that song by heart, Bland. You in your faith and your +innocence, how you were basely betrayed. I can sing it backward. Lay off +it now for a few minutes. I want to talk to yuh." + +He lighted the lantern, and Bland lay blinking at it lugubriously. "And +me--I dreamed I was in to Lemare's just after a big exhibition flight, +and a bunch of movie queens was givin' me the glad eye." + +"Yes, I've done some dreaming myself," Johnny interposed dryly. "I'm +awake now. Listen here, Bland. I've been playing square with you, all +along. I want you to get that. I can see how you being so darn crooked +yourself, you may always be looking for some one to do you, so I ain't +kicking at the stand you take. You've got no call, either, to kick +against my opinion of you. I'm satisfied you'd steal my airplane and make +your getaway, and lie till your tongue wore out, proving it was yours. +You'd do it if you got a chance. That's why I hid the gas on you. That's +why you couldn't take Miss Selmer home. I knew darn well you wouldn't +come back. And that's why I took off the propeller and hid it. It ain't +why I licked you yesterday--that was for what you said about Miss--" + +"Aw, f'r cat's sake! Did yuh have to come and wake me up in the middle of +the night just to--" + +"No--oh, no. I'm merely explaining to you that I don't trust you for one +holy minute. I don't want you to think you can put anything over on me by +getting on my blind side. I haven't got any, so far as you're concerned. +Now listen. I meant, and if possible I still mean, to keep my promise and +take you to the Coast in the plane; but something's come up that is going +to hold up the trip for a few days, maybe--" + +"Aw, yes! I had a hunch you'd--" + +"Shut up! I told you I'd go as soon as I could without leaving the boss +in the hole. Well, it happens that--well, some horses were stolen off +this range, and I'm the one that's responsible. So--" + +"Say, bo, you don't, f'r cat's sake, think _I_ stole your damn horses? +Why, honest, bo, I wouldn't have a horse on a bet! I--" + +"Oh, shut _up_!" thundered the distracted Johnny above the other's whine. +"Of course I know you didn't steal 'em. Horses ain't in your line, or I +wouldn't be so sure. The point is this. I've got to get out and get 'em +back, or get a line on who did it. I can't go off without doing something +about it. This range was in my charge. I was supposed to report anything +that looked suspicious, and I--well, the point is this--" + +"So you said," Bland cut in, with something of his natural venom. + +"Shut up. There's just a chance I can find out where those horses were +taken. We'll go in the plane. You'll have to go along to handle it, +because I'm liable to be busy, if I run across anybody. I'm going to pack +a rifle and a six-shooter, and I don't want my hands full of controls +right at the critical minute. Besides," he added ingenuously, "some of +these darned air currents nearly got the best of me yesterday, coming +back. You can handle the machine, and I'll do the look-see." + +"Aw, sa-ay! I--" + +"I know it's against my promise to a certain extent," Johnny went on. +"I know I've got you in a corner, too, where you can't help yourself. +You couldn't walk to the railroad, or even to the closest ranch, if you +knew the way--which you don't. You'd wander around in the heat and the +sand--well, you're pretty helpless without me, all right, or the plane. +I sabe that better than you do. You've got to do about as I say, because +you haven't got the nerve to kill me, even if I gave you the chance. +Sneaking off with the plane is about as much as you're game for. + +"Well, the point is this: I don't want to take any mean advantage of +you. I can't afford to pay you what your services are really worth, as +pilot--and there's no reason why I should. But--well, I ain't quite broke +yet. I'll give you twenty-five dollars for helping me out, in case what I +want to do only takes a day or two days. If it takes more, I'll give you +ten dollars a day. It isn't much, but it helps when you're broke." + +Bland permitted the sour droop of his lips to ease into a grin. +"Now you're coming somewhere near the point, bo," he said. "But ten +dollars--say! Ten dollars ain't street-car fare. Not in little old L.A. +Make it twenty, bo, and you're on." + +"I'll make it nothing if ten dollars a day don't suit you!" Johnny +declared hotly. "Why, damn your dirty hide, that's as much as I make in a +_week_! And listen! I expect to sit in the back seat--and I'll have two +guns on me." + +"Aw, ferget them two guns!" Bland surrendered. "This is sure the gunniest +country I ever stopped in. Even the Janes--" + +"Shut up!" + +"Oh, well, I'll sign up for ten, bo. It ain't eatin' money, but it'll +maybe help buy me the makin's of a smoke now and then." + +"Well, get up, then. I'll get us some breakfast, and we'll go. It's going +to be still to-day--and hot, I think. You better get up." + +"Aw, that's right! You've got the upper hand, and so you can go ahead and +abuse me like a dog--and I ain't got any come-back. It was Bland this +and that, when you wanted the plane repaired. Now you've got it, and it's +git-ta-hell and git busy. Pull a gun on me, beat me up--accuse me of +things I never done--drag me outa bed before daylight--" His self-pitying +whine droned on monotonously, but he nevertheless got into his clothes +and pottered around the plane by the light of the lantern and the flaring +fire Johnny started. + +The one praiseworthy thing he could do he did conscientiously. He +inspected carefully the control wires, went over the motor and filled the +radiator and the gas tank, and made sure that he had plenty of oil. His +grumbling did not in the least impair his efficiency. He replaced the +propeller, cursing under his breath because Johnny had taken it off. He +was up in the forward seat testing the control when Johnny called him to +come and eat. + +In the narrow strip of sky that showed over the niche the stars were +paling. A faint flush tinged the blue as Johnny looked up anxiously. + +"We'll take a little grub and my two canteens full of water," he said, +with a shade of uneasiness in his voice. "We don't want to get caught +like those poor devils did that lost the plane. But, of course--" + +"Say, where you going, f'r cat's sake?" Bland looked over his cup in +alarm. "Not down where them--" + +"We're going to find out where those horses went. You needn't be scared, +Bland. I ain't organizing any suicide club. You tend to the flying part, +and I'll tend to my end of the deal. Air-line, it ain't so far. We ought +to make there and back easy." + +He bestirred himself, not exultantly as he had done the day before, but +with a certain air of determination that impressed Bland more than his +old boyish eagerness had done. This was not to be a joy-ride. Johnny did +not feel in the least godlike. Indeed, he would like to have been able to +take Sandy along as a substantial substitute in case anything went wrong +with the plane. He was taking a risk, and he knew it, and faced it +because he had a good deal at stake. He did not consider, however, that +it was necessary to tell Bland just how great a risk he was taking. He +had not even considered it necessary to telephone the Rolling R and tell +Sudden what it was he meant to do. Time enough afterwards--if he +succeeded in doing it. + +He was anxious about the gas, and about water, but he did not say +anything about his anxiety. He made sure that the tank would not hold +another pint of gas, and he was careful not to forget the canteens. +Then, when he had taken every precaution possible for their welfare, he +climbed into his place and told Bland to start the motor. He was taking +precautions with Bland, also. + +"We fly south," he yelled, when Bland climbed into the front seat. "Make +it southeast for ten miles or so--and then swing south. I'll tap you on +the shoulder when I want you to turn. Whichever shoulder I tap, turn that +way. Middle of your back, go straight ahead; two taps will mean fly low; +three taps, land. You got that?" + +Bland, pulling down his cap and adjusting his goggles, nodded. He drew +on his gloves and slid down into the seat--alert, efficient, the Bland +Halliday which the general public knew and admired without a thought for +his personal traits. + +"About how high?" he leaned back to ask. "High enough so the hum won't be +noticed on the ground? Or do you want to fly lower?" + +"Top of your head means high, and on the neck, low," Johnny promptly +finished his code. Having thus made a code keyboard of Bland's person, +he settled himself with his guns beside him. + +Bland eased on the power, glancing unconsciously to the right and left +ailerons, as he always did when he started. + +The buzz of the motor grew louder and louder, the big plane quivered, +started down the barren strip toward the reddening east, skimmed lighter +and lighter the ground, rose straight and true, and went whirring away +into the barbaric splendor of the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +MEN ARE STUPID + + +Into that same dawn light filed the riders of the Rolling R, driving +before them a small _remuda_. Behind them clucked the loaded chuck wagon, +the leathery-faced cook braced upon the front seat, his booted feet far +spread upon the scarred dashboard, his arms swaying stiffly to the pull +of the four-horse team. Behind him still came the hoodlum wagon with its +water barrels joggling sloppily behind the seat. Little Curley drove +that, and little Curley's face was sober. It had been whispered in the +bunk house that Skyrider was deep in disgrace, and Curley was worried. + +On the porch of the bungalow Sudden stood with his morning cigar +unlighted in his fingers, watching the little cavaleade swing past to the +gate. He waved his cigar beckoningly to Bill Hayden, turned his head to +shake it at something Mary V had said from the doorway, and waited for +Bill to ride close. + +Mary V, camouflaged in her blue negligee worn over her riding clothes, +came out and stood insistently, her two hands clasped around Sudden's +unwilling arm. + +"No, sir, dad, I'm not going back to bed. I'm going to say every little +thing I want to say, and you and Bill have both got to listen. Get off +that horse, Bill. He makes me nervous, dancing around like that. Heaven +knows I'm just about raving distracted, as it is. Dad, give Bill that +cigar so he won't look quite so disagreeable." + +Bill looked inquiringly at Sudden. It did not seem to him that even so +spoiled an offspring as Mary V should be permitted to delay him now, when +minutes counted for a good deal. He wished briefly that Mary V belonged +to him; Bill mistakenly believed that he would know how to handle her. +Still, he took the cigar which Sudden obediently surrendered, and he got +down off his horse and stood with one spurred foot lifted to the second +step of the porch while he felt in his pocket for a match. + +"Well, now, Bill's in a hurry, Mary V. We haven't got time--" + +"You'd better take time, then! What's the use of Bill going off to +Sinkhole unless he listens to me first? Do you think, for gracious sake, +I've been riding around all over the country with my eyes shut? Or do I +look nearsighted, or _what_? What do you suppose I laid awake all night +for, piecing things that I know together, if you're not going to pay +attention? Do you think, for gracious sake--" + +"There, now, we don't want to get all excited, Mary V. Sit down here and +stop for-gracious-saking, and tell dad and Bill what it is you've seen. +If it's anything that'll help run down them horse thieves, you'll get +that Norman car, kitten, if I have to pawn my watch." Sudden gave Bill a +lightened look of hope, and pulled Mary V down beside him on the striped +porch swing. Then he snorted at something he saw. "What's the riding +breeches and boots for? Didn't I tell you--" + +"Well, Bill's going to lend me Jake, and I'll be in a hurry." + +"Like h--" Bill began explosively, and stopped himself in time. + +"Just like that," Mary V told him calmly. "Dad, if Bill doesn't let me +ride Jake, I don't believe I can remember some things I saw down on +Sinkhole range--through the field glasses, from Snake Ridge. I shall +feel so badly I'll just have to go into my room, and lock the door and +cry--all--day--long!" To prove it, Mary V's lips began to quiver and +droop at the corners. To prepare for the deluge, Mary V got out her +handkerchief. + +Bill looked unhappy. "That horse ain't safe for yuh to ride," he +temporized. "He's liable to run away and kill yuh. He--" + +"I've ridden him twice, and he didn't," Mary V stopped quivering her lips +long enough to retort. "I don't see why people want to be so mean to me, +when I am trying my best to help about those horse thieves, and when I +know things no other person on this ranch suspects, and if they did, they +would simply be stunned at knowing there is a thief on their own pay +roll. And when I just want Jake so I can hel-lp--and Tango is getting so +lazy I simply _can't_ get anywhere with him in a month--" Mary V did it. +She actually was crying real tears, that slipped down her cheeks and made +little dark spots on her blue kimono. + +Bill Hayden looked at Sudden with harassed eyes. Sudden looked at Bill, +and smoothed Mary V's hair--figuratively speaking; in reality he drew his +fingers over a silk-and-lace cap. + +"H--well, it's up to your dad. You can ride Jake if he's willin' to take +the chance of you getting your neck broke. I shore won't be responsible." +Bill looked more unhappy than ever, not at all as though he gloried in +his martyrdom to the Rolling R. + +"Why, Jake's as gentle as a ki-kitten!" Mary V sobbed. + +"Like hell he's gentle!" muttered Bill, so far under his breath that he +did not feel called upon to apologize. + +"Well, now, we'll talk about Jake later on. Tell dad and Bill what it was +you saw, and what you mean by a thief on the pay roll. I don't promise +I'll be simply stunned with surprise; that story young Jewel told last +night does seem to have some awful weak points in it--" + +"Why dad _Selmer_! You know perfectly well that Johnny Jewel is the soul +of honor! Why you owe an _apology_ to Johnny for ever _thinking_ such a +thing about him! Why, for gracious sake, must everybody on this ranch be +so blind and stupid?" Mary V asked the glorious sunrise that question, +and straightway hid her face behind her handkerchief. + +"Well, now, we're wasting time. I apologize to the soul of honor, and +you may ride Jake--when Bill or I are with you to see how he behaves. +Now tell us what you know. This is a serious matter, Mary V. Far too +serious--" + +"I should think _I_ am the person who knows how serious it is," Mary V +came from behind her handkerchief to remind him. + +"Just who or what did you see, through your field glasses, when you +looked from the top of Snake Ridge?" Sudden wisely chose to waive any +irrelevant arguments. + +"Why," said Mary V, "I first saw one of your men dodging along down a +draw, to a place where there were some cottonwood trees. I saw him get +off his horse and wait there for a few minutes, and then I saw another +man riding along the gully from the other direction. And so I saw them +meet, and talk a few minutes, and ride back. And--your man was in a great +hurry, and the other man was a Mexican." + +"H-m-m. And who was my--" + +"And so I thought I'd ride a little farther, and see what they were +waving their hands toward the south for. And so I did. And it was very +hot," said Mary V pensively, "and I was so tired that when I found I was +close to Sinkhole camp I went on and rested there. And before I left, +that same Mexican came to the cabin, and Johnny didn't know him at all, +because the Mexican said right away, 'I am the brother of Tomaso,' which, +of course, was to introduce himself. And then he saw me, and he said he +had come to borrow some matches, and Johnny gave him some and he beat it. +And after I left, I had gone perhaps a mile when I happened to look back, +and the same Mexican was riding in a hurry to the cabin. So, of course, +he had waited until I left. And that was the man," she finished with some +attention to the dramatic effect, "who told Johnny he would take him to +where the airplane was sitting like a hawk--a broken-winged hawk--on the +burning sands of Mexico." + +"Jerusalem!" Sudden paid tribute to the tale. But Bill said a shorter +word. "And which one of my--" + +"And it was right after that," Mary V went on calmly, "that you found +your man at Sinkhole talking with a very bad cold. The second night, I--I +was curious. And so after you had called him up, I called him. I had to +wait a few minutes, as though he had to come into the house to answer. +And _I_ knew perfectly well that it was not Johnny speaking. I--tested +him to make sure. I spoke of things that were perfectly ridiculous, and +he was afraid to seem not to understand. I said I was Venus speaking, and +so he called me Miss Venus. And it was _not_ that Mexican," she added +quickly, seeing the guess in her dad's face. "He was a white man--an +American. I can _almost_ recognize the voice, in spite of his pretended +cold. I jarred him away from that once or twice. He said, 'Uh course I +knowed yer voice,' and no Mexican would say that." + +"So then I was _very_ curious. I--I knew Johnny would never permit things +to be said that were said. So it was a beautiful moonlight evening, and I +wanted--I shall be expected to describe our Arizona plains by moonlight. +So I decided that I would solve a mystery and collect my material that +evening, and I--went riding." + +"The deuce you--" + +"So I had quite a distance to go, and I did not want to worry any one by +being gone long. So I--er--didn't like to wake Bill up--" + +"Hunh!" from Bill, this time. + +"I really intended to take Tango as usual," Mary V explained with +dignity. "I had no thought of intruding on a person's piggishness with +their old race horse, but Jake came right up and put his nose in the feed +pan, and--and acted so--sort of eager--and I knew he just suffers for +exercise, standing in that old corral, so it was very wrong, but I +yielded to him. I rode him down to Sinkhole, and I found him a perfectly +gentle lady's horse. So there now, Mr. Bill. You just--" + +"And what did you find at Sinkhole?" Sudden led her firmly back to the +subject. + +"I found that the beans were sour, and the bread was hard as a rock, and +there wasn't one thing to show that a meal had been cooked in that camp +for two days, at least. And Johnny's bedding was gone--or some of it, +anyway. And so was Sandy. So I came back, and changed horses, and took +Tango. I knew, of course, how stingy a person can be about a horse. And +as I was riding away, behind that line of rocks so Mr. Stingy wouldn't +see me, I saw a certain person come sneaking up to the corral and turn +his horse inside. It was just barely daylight then, but it was the same +person I saw meet the Mexican. + +"And I hurried hack to Snake Ridge, so I got there quite early in the +morning. And I saw two men ride off toward the eastern line of Sinkhole +range, and they were not Johnny Jewel at all, which would be perfectly +impossible. Because soon afterwards I saw something very queer being +hauled by mules, and that was Johnny bringing home his airplane, +perfectly innocent." + +"Who's the fellow--" Sudden and Bill spoke together, the question which +harried the minds of both. + +"Of course," said Mary V, "I understand that some one from the ranch +would have to put them up to distracting Johnny's attention by letting +him have that airplane. I can see that they would want to keep him busy +so he wouldn't pay so much attention to the horses down there, and would +not notice a few horses gone now and then. So somebody had heard about +the airplane, and told them that Johnny was perfectly mad about aviation, +and--" + +Sudden turned, and took her by the shoulders. "Mary V, who was that man? +Don't try to shield him, because I shall--" + +"The very idea! I don't want to shield him at all. I merely want Jake, +without any strings on him whatever. Because he can go like the very +dickens, and I want to keep an eye on Tex myself. He won't pay any +attention--" + +"Tex! Good Lord! Bill, you--" + +"Listen, dad, I think I _deserve_ to have Jake. You _know_ I can ride +him, and you're so short-handed, and I can watch Tex--" + +"Go saddle him up for her, Bill, will you? I guess the kid's done enough +to put her on a par with the rest of us." + +"I'll say she has," Bill surrendered, a grin splitting his leathery face +straight across the middle. "I been watchin' Tex myself, but I didn't +know it was horses he was after. I thought it was some woman." + +"I can't see what _makes_ men so stupid!" Mary V observed pensively. "I +never did like Tex. I don't like his eyes." + +"I see," said her dad. "You ought to 've told me before." And he added +disapprovingly, "There's a good deal you ought to 've told your dad. It +would have saved the Rolling R some mighty fine horses, I reckon. I don't +know what your mother's going to say about me letting you go--" + +But Mary V had whisked into the house to complete her preparations for +the day's ride. Also to escape whatever her dad would have to say in that +particular tone. She saw him leave the porch and follow Bill to the +corral, whereupon she immediately tried to call Johnny on the telephone. +Failing in that, she proceeded to powder her nose. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +MARY V WILL NOT BE BLUFFED + + +Old Sudden in the ranch Ford, and Bill and Mary V on horseback, overtook +the jogging cavalcade of riders and loose horses. Sudden looked pained +and full of determination, as he always did when necessity called him +forth upon the range in a lurching mechanical conveyance where once he +had ridden with the best of them. Too many winters had been spent +luxuriously in the towns; a mile or two, at a comfortable trail trot, was +all that Sudden cared to attempt nowadays on horseback. But that did not +lessen his dislike of negotiating sand and rocks and washes and rough +slopes with an automobile. Every mile that he traveled added something +to his condemnation of that young reprobate, Johnny Jewel, who had let +the Rolling R in for all this trouble. + +A bend in the trail brought him close to the boys, who had ridden +straight across country. Mary V and Bill had just joined the group, and +Sudden gave a snort when he saw Mary V maneuver Jake so that he sidled in +alongside Tex, who rode a little apart with his hat pulled over his eyes, +evidently in deep thought. Sudden had all the arrogance of a strong man +who has managed his life and his business successfully. He wanted to +attend to Tex himself, without any meddling from Mary V. + +He squawked the horn to attract her attention, and caused a wave of +turbulence among the horses that made more than one of his men say +unpleasant things about him. Mary V looked back, and he beckoned with one +sweeping gesture that could scarcely be mistaken. Mary V turned to ride +up to him, advanced a rod or two and abruptly retreated, bolting straight +through the group of riders and careening away across the level, with +Bill and Tex tearing after her. Presently they slowed, and later Bill was +seen to lag behind. Tex and Mary V kept straight on, a furlong in advance +of the others. + +The road swung away to the right, to avoid a rough stretch of rocks and +gullies, and Sudden perforce followed it, feelingly speaking his mind +upon the subjects of spoiled daughters and good-for-nothing employees, +and horses and the men that bestrode them, and Fords, and the roads of +Arizona, and the curse of being too well fed and growing a paunch that +made riding a martyrdom. He would put that girl in a convent, and he +would see that she stayed there till she was old enough to have some +sense. He would have that young hound at Sinkhole arrested as an +accomplice of the horse thieves. He would put a bullet through that fool +of a horse, Jake, and he would lynch Tex if he ever got his hands on him. +He would sell out, by glory, and buy himself a prune orchard. + +And then he had a blow-out while he was down in a hollow a mile from the +outfit. And some darned fool had lost the handle to the jack, and the +best of the two extra tires was a darn poor excuse and wouldn't last a +mile, probably, and he got hold of a tube that had a leaky valve, and had +to hunt out another one after he had worked half an hour trying to pump +up the first one. And what in the blinkety blink did any darn fool want +to live in such a country for, anyway? + +Thus it happened that Mary V was not forbidden to ride with Tex. And, not +being forbidden, Mary V carried out her own ideas of diplomacy and tact. +Her idea was to make Tex believe that she liked him better than the other +boys. Just what she would gain by that, Mary V did not stop to wonder. It +was the approved form of diplomacy, employed by all the leading heroines +of ancient and modern fiction and of film drama, and was warranted to +produce results in the way of information, guilty secrets, stolen wills, +plots and plans and papers. + +Tex was inclined to eye her askance, just at first. He was also very +curious about her riding Jake, and he seemed inquisitive about whether +that was the first time she had ever ridden him. He was, too, very +absent-minded at times, and would go off into vacant-eyed reveries that +sealed his ears against her artfully artless chatter. + +Some girls would have been discouraged. Mary V was merely stimulated to +further efforts. Tex did not mention the stealing of any horses at +Sinkhole. He seemed to take it for granted that they were going to work +the range to get horses for breaking, and Mary V wondered if perhaps her +dad had not thought it best to confine the knowledge of horse-stealing to +himself and Bill--at least until he had made an investigation. That would +be like dad--and also like Bill Hayden. Mary V was glad that she had not +said anything about it. She thought she would try Tex out first on the +subject of airplanes. None of the boys knew that Johnny had one, and she +was perfectly sure that she would detect any guilty knowledge of it in +the mind of Tex. She had just read a long article in a magazine about +"How our Faces Betray our Thoughts," and this seemed a splendid chance +to put it to the test. + +"Bill says an aeroplane came and stampeded all you boys yesterday," she +began with much innocence. + +"Yeah. One did fly over our haids. I didn't git to see much of it. My +fool hawse, he started in pitchin' right away, soon as he seen it." + +Mary V paused, meditating upon the significance of his words, his tone, +his profile. That there was no particular significance did not in the +least affect her deliberate intention. + +"I wonder who it could have been!" she said, stealing a glance from under +her lashes. + +"Hunh? Who? The flyin' machine? Search me!" This time his tone was surely +significant. It signified, more than anything else, that the mind of Tex +was busy with other matters. Contrary to the magazine article, his face +did not betray his thoughts. "Yore dad buy Jake off'n Bill for yo' all to +ride?" he asked suddenly. + +"No. Bill just lent him to me." + +"Hnh! Bill, he shore is generous-hearted to lend yuh Jake." + +"Yes," said Mary V, smiling at Tex innocently. "Yes, isn't he?" + +But Tex did not reiterate, as pleasant converse demanded. He went off +again into meditation so deep that it quite excluded Mary V. + +"Yo' all going to help round up?" Tex asked her suddenly. "You shore can +ride the ridges, with that hawse. I guess yo' all can bring in more +hawses than what any two of us kin." + +"That's exactly what I mean to do," Mary V assured him promptly. "You'll +see me riding the ridges almost exclusively." + +Tex looked at her and grinned, which did not enhance his good looks, +because his teeth were badly stained with tobacco. + +"Yo' all don't want to ride away over in them breaks toward the southeast +corner," he advised. "That's a long, hard ride to make. It's too much for +a girl to tackle--combin' the hawses outa them little brushy draws. They +like to git in there away from the flies, in the heat uh the day. But yo' +all better not tackle it, even if Bill lets yuh. I don't guess he would, +though." + +"Bill," said Mary V with a little tilt to her chin, "does not enjoy the +privilege of 'letting' me do things. I shall ride wherever I please. And +it is possible that I may please to bring in what horses are in the +red-hill end of the range. I'm sure I don't see why I shouldn't, if I +like." + +"Well," said Tex, "that country's plumb hard to ride. It takes real work +to bring in hawses from there. I wouldn't tackle that, if I was you; I'd +ride out where it's easier." + +"Oh, would you? Well, thank you very much for the advice, I'm sure." Mary +V looked back, saw the other boys jogging closer, and held Jake in to +wait for them. She did not want to tell Tex that she certainly would make +it a point to ride the red-hill side of the range. There was probably +some sly, secret reason Tex did not want her to go over that way. She +remembered that she had seen the Mexican coming from that direction both +times. Certainly, there must be some secret reason. Tex was afraid +she might find out something. + +Mary V waited for the boys, and talked to them prettily, and wondered +aloud where her dad was all this time, and hoped he had not had a +puncture or anything. Because, she said, it was bad enough for his temper +to have to drive the flivver, without any bad luck to make it worse. + +She was particularly nice to Bill, and forced him to confess that she +really got along perfectly all right with Jake. She comported herself so +agreeably, in fact, that Bill was reconciled to her coming and paid no +attention when she presently swung off to the southeast, saying that she +wanted to get a picture of a perfectly ducky giant cactus which she had +seen through her glasses one day. Indeed, the dismal honking of the +machine called Bill back to the trail, where Sudden came jouncing along +like a little, leaky boat laboring through a choppy sea. Bill rode off +without noticing Mary V at all. + +It was a little after noon, and the boys were eating dinner at the camp +set up close to the creek at Sinkhole cabin. Sudden, sprawled in the +shade of the wagon, was staring glumly at the sluggish little stream, +smoking his after-dinner cigar and trying to formulate some plan that +would promise results where results were most vital to his bank account. +It would, of course, take two or three days to gather in all the horses +on Sinkhole range, and the restless lot in the corral yonder might be a +large or a small part of the entire number down there. Sudden was not +worrying so much over those that were left, as he was over what had been +stolen. It seemed to him that there ought to be some way of getting those +horses back. He was trying to think of the way. + +"Oh, Bill!" he called, getting stiffly to his feet. "Let's get into the +cabin and go over those tally books." Which was merely a subterfuge to +get Bill away from the wagon without letting the boys know something was +wrong. Bill got up, brushed the dirt off his trousers with a flick of his +fingers, lighted the cigarette he had just rolled and followed the boss. + +"Bill, what's your idea about this horse-stealing, anyway? If they were +going to steal horses, why didn't they run off a whole herd and be done +with it?" + +Bill seated himself on Johnny's bunk, spat toward the stove, pulled a +splinter off the rough board of the bunk's side, and began carefully +nipping off tiny shreds with his finger nails. Bill, by all these signs +and tokens, was limbering up his keen old range-bred wits for action. + +"Well, I'll tell yuh. The way to get at the thing is to figger out why +you'd do it, s'posin' you was in their place. Now if it was _me_ that was +stealin' these hawses--say, s'posin' I was aimin' to sell 'em over across +the line--I'd aim to take the best I could git holt of, because I'd be +wanting 'em for good, all-round, tough saddle hawses. Them greasers, the +way they're hellin' around over the country shootin' and fightin', they +got to have good hawses under 'em. Er they want good hawses, if they can +git 'em. + +"Well, s'posin' 't I was out to furnish what I could. Chances is I +wouldn't have a very big bunch in with me--say five or six of us, jest +enough to handle a few head at a time. I'd aim to git 'em over acrost +the line first shot. Anybody would do that. Well, s'posin' I didn't +have a place that'd take care of very many at a time. Feed's pore, over +there, and a hawse has got to eat. These here hawses are in purty fair +condition, and I'd aim to keep 'em in flesh whilst I was breakin' +'em--I'd git better prices. And then again, mebby I wouldn't want too +many on hand at once, in case some party come along with the gall to loot +'em instead of buy 'em. + +"I figger I'd be plumb content if I could take over a few at a time, and +let the rest go ahead eatin' grass here till I was ready for 'em. The +longer I could keep that up, the better I'd like it. Same as we been +doin' at the home ranch, y' see. We didn't go t' work and haze in the +hull bunch and keep 'em up, eatin' their heads off, waitin' till we got +ready for 'em. No, sir, we go out and bring in half a dozen, or a dozen +at most and cut out what we want. We bust them, and git more. + +"I figger, Mr. Selmer, that these geezers down here have been doin' that +very same way. They had the kid baited with that flyin' machine, so he +wouldn't have no eyes for anything else. And he was _here_, so you +wouldn't be worryin' none about the stock. And they've been helpin' +theirselves at their own convenience--like Mary V would put it. I dunno, +but that's the way I figger it. And I don't guess, Mr. Selmer, you'll see +none of yore hawses again, unless mebby it's the last ones they took. And +I don't guess there's very much chance of gittin' them back, either, +because we don't know whereabouts they took 'em to. Way I look at it, +you're doin' about the only thing that can be did--cleanin' out this +range and drivin' the hawses all up on the north range. That kinda leaves +the jam pot empty when they come lickin' their lips for more of the +same." + +"Well, I guess you're right, Bill. And how do you figure young Jewel not +being here? His saddle is out there in the shed, and all his horses are +here." + +"Him?" Bill laughed a little. "Me, I don't aim to do no figgerin' about +Skyrider. He's got his flyin' machine workin', though, accordin' to Mary +V. I guess Skyrider has mebby flew the country. He'd likely think it was +about time--way he gummed things up around here." + +Sudden permitted himself a snort, probably in agreement with Bill's +statement that things were "gummed up" at Sinkhole. He went to the door +and stood looking out, his face sour as one may expect a face to be when +thoughts of loss are behind it. + +"Where's Mary V?" he turned abruptly to ask of Bill. + +"Mary V? Why, I guess she went home. Said something about takin' a +picture of some darn thing; she never come on with the boys to camp, +anyhow." + +"She didn't go foolin' off with Tex, did she?" + +"Tex? No, Tex rode after stock. Had some trouble with his hawse. I heard +him tellin' the boys. Said his hawse run away with him. Come in all +lathered up." + +Sudden turned back, went to the telephone, changed his mind. No use +worrying her mother by asking if she had got home, he thought. + +"You're sure she went home?" his eyes dwelt rather sharply upon Bill's +lean, leathery face. Bill looked up from the slow disintegration of the +splinter. He spat toward the stove again, looked down at the splinter, +and then got up quite unexpectedly. + +"Hell, no! I ain't shore, but I can quick enough find out." He brushed +past Sudden and took long steps toward the camp. Sudden followed him. + +The boys were standing in a group, holding their hat brims down to shield +their eyes from the bitter glare of the sun while they gazed up into the +sky, their faces turned towards the south. A speck was scudding across +the blue--a speck that rapidly grew larger, circled downward in a great, +easy spiral. Sudden and Bill perforce turned and held their own hat brims +while they looked. + +"Sa-ay, if that there's Skyrider sailin' around in an airship, he's shore +got the laugh on us fellers," Aleck observed, squinting his nose until +his gums showed red above his teeth. "Look at 'im come down, would yuh!" + +"Wonder where he got it?" little Curley hazarded. "I always told you +fellers--" + +"Does anybody know where Mary V went?" Sudden's voice brought them all +facing him. They looked at him uncomprehendingly for a minute, then +uncertainly at one another. + +"Why--she was going to take a picture of a cactus. I dunno where she went +after that." This was Bud, a shade of uneasiness creeping into his face. + +"Which way did she go? Toward home?" + +"She started that way--back toward Snake Ridge--" + +"I seen her riding east," Curley broke in. "Jake shore was pickin' 'em up +and layin' 'em down too. I thought at first he was running off with her, +but he wasn't. He slowed down, climbin' that lava slope--and after that +I didn't see no more of 'er." + +Sudden looked at his watch, frowning a little. Mary V probably was all +right; there was nothing unusual in her absence. But this country south +of Snake Ridge was closer to the lawless land across the boundary than he +liked. Their very errand down there gave proof enough of its character. +North of Snake Ridge, Sudden would merely have stored away a lecture for +Mary V. Down here at Sinkhole-- + +"You boys get out and hunt her up!" he snapped, almost as though they +were to blame for her absence. "I didn't tell you before, but I'm telling +you now that rustlers have been at work down here, and that's why we're +taking the horses off this range. This is no place for Mary V to be +riding around by herself." + +"It's a wonder he wouldn't of woke up to that fact before," Bud grumbled +to Aleck, while he went limping to the corral. "If she was a girl uh +mine, she'd be home with her maw, where she belongs!" + +"Rustlers--that sounds like greasers had been at work here. Runnin' +hawses acrost the line. For Lord sake, git a faster wiggle on than that +limp, Bud! If that poor little kid meets up with a bunch of them damn +renegades--" + +Bud swore and increased his pace in spite of the pain. Others were before +him. Already Tex had his loop over the head of a speedy horse, and was +leading it toward his saddle. Curley, the quickest of them all, was +giving frantic tugs to his latigo. Bill was in the saddle ready to direct +the search, and Sudden was standing by his car, wondering whether it +would be possible to negotiate that rough country to the eastward with +a "mechanical bronk." + +Nothing much was said. You would have thought, to look at them, that +they were merely in a hurry to get back to the work. Nevertheless, if it +should happen that Mary V was being annoyed or in any danger, it would go +hard with the miscreants if the Rolling R boys once came within sight of +them. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + +LUCK TURNS TRAITOR + + +Johnny Jewel, carrying the propeller balanced on his shoulder and his +rifle in the other hand--and perspiring freely with the task--came +hurrying through the sage brush, following the faint trail his own eager +feet had worn in the sand. His eyes were turned frowning upon the ground, +his lips were set together in the line of stubbornness. + +He tilted the propeller against the adobe wall of the cabin, and went in +without noticing that the door was open instead of closed as he had left +it. He was at the telephone when Sudden stepped in after him. Johnny +looked over his shoulder with wide, startled eyes. + +"Oh. I was just going to call up the ranch," he said with the brusqueness +of a man whose mind is concentrated on one thing. + +"What you want of the ranch?" Sudden's tone was noncommittal. Here was +the fellow that had caused all this trouble and worry and loss. Sudden +meant to deal with him as he deserved, but that did not mean he would fly +into a passion and handicap his judgment. + +"I want the boys, if you can get hold of them. I've located the ranch +where they've been taking those horses to that they stole. There's some +there now--or there was. I went down and let down the fence of the little +field they had 'em in, and headed 'em for the gap. There wasn't anybody +around but two women--an old one and a young one--and some kids. They +spluttered a lot, but I went ahead anyway. There's about a dozen Rolling +R horses I turned loose. The brands were blotched, but I knew 'em anyway. + +"So I got 'em outa the field, and then we went back to the plane and +circled around and come up on 'em from the south, and flew low enough to +scare 'em good, but not enough to scatter 'em like that bunch up at the +ranch scattered. They high-tailed it this way, and I guess they'll keep +coming, all right, if they aren't turned back again. The boys can pick +'em up. + +"If the boys could come down I think they could get a whack at the +rustlers themselves. I got a sight of 'em, with a little bunch of horses, +as I was coming back. Far as I could see, they didn't notice the +plane--we were high, and soon as I saw 'em I had Bland shut off the motor +and glide. They must have camped just across the line till they got a +bunch together, or something. They were taking their time, and if the +boys could get down here right away, I believe we could get 'em. If not, +I'll go back and stampede the horses this way, and see if I can't get me +a greaser or two. We had to come back and fill up the tank again, anyway. +I didn't want to get caught the way those other fellows did. Is Bill at +the ranch, Mr. Selmer?" + +It speaks well for Sudden Selmer that he could listen to this amazing +statement without looking dazed. As it was, his first bewildered stare +subsided into mere astonishment. Later other emotions crept in. By the +time Johnny had finished his headlong report, Sudden had recovered his +mental poise and was able to speak coherently. + +"Been hunting horses with a flying machine, eh? I must say you're right +up to date, young man. No, Bill isn't at the ranch. If you'd keep your +eyes open here at home, same as you do when you're flying around next the +clouds, you'd see the chuck wagon down there by the creek. I moved 'em +down here to save what horses are left. The boys are out now hunting up +Mary V. She had to go larruping off by herself on Bill's horse Jake, and +she hasn't come back yet. I guess she's all right; but the boys went +after her so as not to take any chances. I'm kinda hoping the kid went +home. I don't like to scare her mother, though, by calling up to see." + +Johnny's eyes had widened and grown round, just as they always did when +something stirred him unexpectedly. "I could call up, Mr. Selmer, and ask +if I can speak to Mary V. That wouldn't scare her mother." + +"Sure, you can find out; only don't you say anything about the wagons +being camped here. If she asks, say you haven't seen us yet. She'll think +we made camp somewhere else. Go ahead." + +It did not take long, and when Johnny turned to Selmer he had the white +line around his mouth. "She says Mary V went out with you and the boys, +to a round-up somewhere down this way." + +"Well, maybe she just rode farther than she intended. But she was on +Jake; she deviled us into letting her take him. Bill thinks Jake isn't +very safe. I don't think he is, either. You say the rustlers were away +down across the line, driving a bunch of horses, so there's no danger--" + +"I didn't say all of them were down that way. I don't know how many there +are. They were just little dots crawling along--but I guessed there were +about four riders." Johnny started for the door, picking up his rifle +from the table where he had placed it. "I wish I'd got after 'em as I +wanted to, but Bland kept hollering about gas--" He balanced the +propeller on his shoulder again, and turned to Sudden. + +"Don't you worry, Mr. Selmer, we'll get right out after her. Which way +did she go? There's times when an airplane comes in kinda handy, after +all!" + +"You young hound, there wouldn't be all this hell a-poppin' if it wasn't +for you and your bederned airplane! Don't overlook that fact. You've +managed to hold up all my plans, and lose me Lord-knows-how-many horses +that are probably the pick of the herds; and you've got the gall to crow +because your flying machine will fly! And if that girl of mine's in any +trouble, it'll be your fault more than anybody's. If you'd stuck to your +job and done what I've been paying you wages to do--" + +"You don't have to rub all that in, Mr. Selmer. I guess I know it better +than you do. Just because I don't come crying around you with a lot of +please-forgive-me stuff, you think I don't give a cuss! Which way did +Mary V go? That's more important right now than naming over all the kinds +of damn fools I've been. I can sing that song backwards. Which way--" + +"She went east. Damn yuh, don't yuh stand there talking back to me, or +I'll--" + +"Oh, go to--war," said Johnny sullenly, and hitched the propeller to a +better balance on his shoulder, and went striding back whence he had +come. + +He had not meant to crow. He knew perfectly well what harm he had +wrought. He was doing what he could to undo that harm, and he was at that +high pitch of self-torment when the lash of another was unbearable. He +did not want to quarrel with the boss, but no human being could have +reproached Johnny then without receiving some of the bitterness which +filled Johnny's soul. + +He routed Bland out of nap and commanded him to make ready for another +flight. Bland protested, with his usual whine against extra work, and got +a look from Johnny that sent him hurrying around the plane to make his +regular before-flying inspection. + +Fifteen minutes after Johnny's arrival the plane was quivering outside on +the flying field, and Bland was pulling down his goggles while Johnny +kicked a small rock away from a wheel and climbed up to straddle into the +rear seat, carrying his rifle with him--to the manifest discomfort of +Bland, who was "gun-shy." + +"Fly a kinda zigzag course east till I tell yuh to swing south," Johnny +called, close to Bland's ear. "Miss Selmer's off that way somewhere. If +you see her, don't fly low enough to scare her horse--keep away a little +and hunt a landing. I'll tell yuh when to land, same as before." + +He settled back, and Bland nodded, glanced right and left, eased the +motor on and started. They took the air and climbed steadily, circling +until they had the altitude Johnny wanted. Then, swinging away toward +Snake Ridge, they worked eastward. Johnny did not use the controls at +all. He wanted all his mind for scanning the country spread out below +them. + +Ridges, arroyos, brushy flats--Johnny's eyes went over them all. Almost +before they had completed the first circle he spied a rider, then +two--and over to the right a couple more, scattered out and riding +eastward. Johnny wished that he could have speech with the boys, could +tell them what he meant to do. But he knew too well how the horses would +feel about the plane, so he kept on, skimming high over their heads like +a great, humming dragon fly. He saw them crane necks to watch him, saw +the horses plunge and try to bolt. Then they were far behind, and his +eyes were searching anxiously the landscape below. + +Mary V, it occurred to him suddenly, might be lying hurt. Jake might have +thrown her--though on second thought that was not likely, for Mary V +was too good a rider to be thrown unless a horse pitched rather +viciously. Jake would run away, would rear and plunge and sidle when fear +gripped him or his temper was up, but Johnny had never heard of his +pitching. Jake was not a range-bred horse, and if there was a buck-jump +in his system, it had never betrayed itself. After all, Mary V's chance +of lying hurt was minimized by the very fact that she rode Jake. + +Red hill came sliding rapidly toward them. Now it was beneath, and the +plane had risen sharply to the air current that flowed steadily over the +hill. It swooped down again--they were over the flat where he had seen +the riders. The line of fence showed like knotted thread drawn across the +land. And within it was no Mary V. + +Johnny tapped Bland's shoulder for a circle to the north, hoping that +she might be riding back that way. He strained his eyes, and saw tiny +dots of horses feeding quietly, but no rider moving anywhere. He sent +Bland swinging southward, while he leaned a little and watched the +swift-sliding panorama of arid land beneath. It was a rough country, as +Tex had said. To look for one little moving speck in all that veined +network of little ridges and draws was enough to tax quicker, keener eyes +than Johnny Jewel's. + +But Johnny would not think of failure. Somewhere he would see her; he +would circle and seek until he did find her--if she were there. + +Twice they sailed round, keeping within the boundaries of the east and +south fences. Then, flying as low as was safe, Johnny turned south, along +the course which he believed the horse thieves to have followed. It did +not seem possible--rather, he did not want to think it possible--that +they should have met Mary V. But Mexico is always Mexico, and sinister +things do happen along its border. The boys were coming on horseback, and +they would scatter and comb the draws which Johnny had looked down into +as he passed over. He would leave that closer search to the boys, while +he himself went farther--as far as Jake could travel in half a day. + +They reached the south fence, left it dwindling behind them. Minutes +brought them over the invisible line which divides lawful country from +lawless. They went on, until Johnny spied again the group of stolen +horses being herded loosely in a shallow arroyo where there was a little +sparse grass. The men he did not at first see, save the one on herd. +Then he thought he could detect them sprawled in the shade of a few +stunted trees. + +Apparently they felt safe, close though they were to the line. Indeed, +they were safe enough--from horsemen riding down from the Rolling R. So +far they had thieved at their leisure and with impunity. The element of +risk had been discounted until they no longer considered it at all, +except when they were actually within the Rolling R Boundaries. Now, in +the heat of the day, they slept as was their habit. Even the herder was +probably dozing in the saddle and leaving watchfulness to his cow-pony. +Certainly he did not give any sign that he saw the airplane as it glided +silently over so that they could come back from the south. + +"What I want, Bland, is to scare these horses back toward home," Johnny +said. "We'll come at 'em first from the south, and if they don't run +straight, we'll have to circle round till they do. But I want to come +within shooting distance of them hombres under the trees. See? So fly as +low as yuh dare, when we come back." + +Bland threw on the motor, circled and came volplaning back. He did not +complain; he left that for times when he was not flying. Johnny braced +himself, rifle ready. He was sorry then that he was not an expert shot; +but he hoped that luck would be with him and make up for what he lacked +in skill. + +The horses stampeded, carrying the herder with them. They ran north, in a +panic that would keep them going for some time. As they raced clattering +past the camp, Johnny saw four men rise up hastily, their faces turned up +to the sky. He leaned, took what aim was possible, and fired four shots +as the plane swept over. + +He did not hit any one, so far as he could see, but he saw them duck and +run close to the tree trunks, which gave him some satisfaction. Moreover, +they were afoot. Not a single horse remained within sight or hearing of +that camp. + +Johnny did not go back for another try at them, though he was tempted to +land and fight it out with them. There was Mary V to think of, and there +were the horses. They went on, shying off from the fleeing animals lest +they drive them back instead of forward. Bland spiraled upward, waiting +to see what Johnny wanted next. Whatever it might be, Bland would do +it--with two guns and a headstrong young man just behind him. + +The thrum of the motor stuttered a little on the last upward turn. Bland +straightened out the plane, fussed with the spark and the gas, banked +cautiously around and headed for home. Like a heart that skips a beat now +and then, an odd little pause, scarcely to be distinguished except when +the ear has become accustomed to the rhythm of perfect firing, manifested +itself. Bland turned his head sidewise, listening. The pause became more +marked. The steady, forward thrust slackened a little. Johnny was aware +that the monotonous waste below did not slip behind them quite so fast; +not quite. + +Bland was nursing the motor along, Johnny could tell by his slight +movements. It seemed to him that a tenseness had crept into the set of +Bland's head. Johnny braced himself for something--just what, he did not +know. His knowledge of motors was superficial. Something was wrong with +the ignition, he guessed, but he had no idea what it could be. + +A sick feeling of thwarted purpose came over him. He knew it was not +fear. He felt as though he could not possibly be afraid in an airplane, +however much reason he might have for fear. He felt betrayed, as though +this wonderful piece of mechanism, for which he had paid so dear a price +and which he worshiped in proportion, had suddenly turned traitor. It was +failing him, just when his need of it was so vital. Just when he had so +much to retrieve, just when he had counted on its help in re-establishing +his self-respect. + +Bland turned his head, and gave Johnny a fleeting glance from the corner +of one eye. Bland's face was a sallow white. + +Johnny laid down his rifle and carefully placed feet and hands on the +controls. Bland might get scared and lose his head, and if he did, Johnny +did not want to be altogether at his mercy. Anyway, Bland did not know +the country. + +"How far will she glide?" Johnny shouted above the sputtering cough of +the motor. But Bland only shook his head slowly from right to left and +back again. Bland's ears were a waxy white now, and the line of his jaw +had sharpened. Johnny believed that Bland would fail him too. + +They were gliding down an invisible incline, and it was a long way to +Sinkhole. Johnny began to think feverishly of certain sandy patches, bare +of brush and rocks, and to estimate distances. Now they crossed the line +fence and were over the rough country below Red Hill and the plane was +lifting and falling to the uneven currents like a boat riding the waves. +Gliding parallel with a dry tributary of Sinkhole Creek, the plane +side-slipped and came perilously close to disaster. Bland righted it, +but Johnny held his breath at the way the ground had jumped up at them. + +Ahead, and a little to one side, three riders went creeping up a slope. +They seemed to be heading toward Sinkhole Camp, and Johnny signaled Bland +to keep off, and so avoid scaring the horses. But the slight detour cost +them precious feet of altitude while the nearest sandy stretch was yet +far off. + +The earth was rising with incredible swiftness to meet them. The nearest +landing Johnny could think of was farther over, across Sinkhole Creek. He +did not believe they could make it, but he headed for it desperately, and +felt Bland yielding to his control. + +Rocks, brush, furrowed ditches; rocks, brush. Ahead, they could see the +irregular patch of yellow that was sand. But the brush seemed fairly to +leap at them, the rocks grew malignantly larger while they looked, the +ditches deepened ominously. Over these the frail thing of cloth and +little strips of wood and wire and the delicate, dumb motor, skimmed +like a weary-winged bird. Bland flattened it out, coaxed it to keep the +air. Lower, lower--a high bush was flicked by a wheel in passing. On a +little farther, and yet a little. + +She landed just at the edge of the goal. The loose sand dragged at the +wheels, flipped the plane on its nose so suddenly that Johnny never did +know just how it happened. Bland had feared that sand, and braced +himself. But Johnny did not know. His head had snapped forward against +the rim of the cowl--a terrible blow that sent him sagging inertly +against the strap that held him. Bland got out, took one look at Johnny, +and sank down weakly upon the sand. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE + +DREAMS AND DARKNESS + + +Johnny dreamed two separate dreams. The first dream was confused and +fragmentary. He seemed to hear certain sentences spoken while he was +whirling through space with the Milky Way flinging stars at him. As +nearly as he could remember afterwards, this is what he heard. + +Mary V's voice: "Don't be so stupid! If a girl happens to bring in two +perfectly bandittish outlaws that imagine they are kidnaping her, why +must she be lectured, pray tell? If a man had done it--" + +Mumble, mumble, and a buzzing in Johnny's head. + +Bland's voice: "I don't know as I could tell. He could, if he should come +to. We got 'em headed this way--" + +Bill's voice: "--and I seen him hittin' for the line and headed him +off--" + +More mumbling. + +Mary V's voice: "I can't see why he doesn't hurry! Why, for gracious +sake, must a person lie forever out in the sun when he's all smashed--" + +Bland's voice: "--not as much as yuh might think, in all this brush. +I ain't gone over it yet--" (mumble) "--short circuit--" (mumble, +buzz-buzz) "went past me so close I could feel the wind--" (mumble) "--I +dunno. I've seen 'em hurt worse and get over it, and I've seen 'em die +when you'd think--" + +After that it was all mumble and buzz, and then more stars, and blackness +and silence. + +Piecing together the fragments, as Johnny could not do, here is the +interpretation. + +The three riders whom Johnny had seen as the plane was dipping to its +final fall were Mary V, Tomaso, and Tomaso's brother. Mary V had gone +off to ride the country which Tex had said was too difficult for +her--"and it was _not_ too difficult for a person who had any brains or +any gumption and who did not lose all the sense a person had," etc. She +had gone some distance toward the southeast boundary, and Jake was +behaving like a perfect dear. She had seen a few horses, and they had all +run every which way when they got sight of her, so she was keeping right +along and planning to just gently urge them toward Sinkhole as she came +back. + +Well, and on the way back she had seen the young Mexican riding along, +and he had looked perfectly harmless and innocent, and he had a rag tied +around his head besides, and kept putting his hand up, and wabbling in +the saddle exactly as though he was just about ready to fall off his +horse. And how, for gracious sake, was a person going to know he was +only pretending and not sick or hurt a speck, but merely taking a low and +mean advantage of a person's kindness of heart? + +Well, and so she had let him come up to her, and he had asked her if she +had any water with her. And she had, and so she twisted around in the +saddle to untie the canteen, and Jake kept stepping around, so the young +Mexican just reached out and held Jake by the bridle while she got the +water--and how was a person to know that he was not trying to help but +was kidnaping a person's horse and herself in the most treacherous manner +ever heard of? + +Just when she had got the canteen untied, and was unscrewing the cap to +give it to the boy, another Mexican rode up behind, and he had the most +insipid smile on his face, and a detestable way of trying to be polite. +And he said it was a nice horse she was riding, and he would like to show +that horse to his brother, if she would be so kind to come with him. It +would not be far, he said, and they would show her the way. And they went +on talking in the most detestable manner, and actually forced her to go +along with them. They had guns, and they said they would shoot her in a +perfectly polite way. + +So Mary V had gone back with them toward the line fence, because the fat +one rode behind her with a gun and the boy had a gun, too, and they said +they would not tie her hands if she would be good, because there was a +swarm of gnats and little flies that kept pestering so, and she had to +brush them away from her face. + +They kept down in hollows, and mostly they had to go single file, with +the boy in front and the detestable one behind. But after awhile they had +to climb over a ridge, and the horses were picking their own way, and the +horrid one got off to one side, where Mary V could see him out of the +corner of her eye. And he was not watching her very closely, and the gun +was not pointing at her as she naturally supposed it would be, from what +he said. + +So Mary V very carefully turned in her heel, and watched her chance, and +gave Jake a kick in the ribs. And Jake did exactly as a person expected, +and gave a big jump against the horse of the boy. And the fat one did not +shoot after all, because he thought it was Jake that did it himself. + +So Mary V, having reached into her riding shirt and got her gun, whirled +Jake around and took a shot at the fat one before he saw what she meant +to do. And she hit him in the hand where he was holding the gun across +the saddle horn, which was careless of him, but, of course, he never +_dreamed_ that Mary V had a gun and would use it. + +So the gun dropped on the ground, and the man tried to grab his hand and +his side at the same time, because the bullet hit his side too. And then +Mary V got Jake down off his hind feet where he had stood with surprise, +and made the boy drop his gun. And they were there on the ground yet, +just where they dropped them, because Mary V thought they were safer +there than being picked up by any one present. + +So that was all there was to it. The fat one was all wilted down in the +saddle, and their ponies were used to shooting and just stopped and stood +there thankful that they had an excuse, because the poor things were +terribly hot and sweaty and tired. And Mary V made the boy get off and +back up to her, which was some trouble on account of Jake and the gun she +had to hold ready to shoot, so she only had one hand for Jake, really. +And she was going to take the rag off his head to tie his hands the best +she could under the circumstances, but the boy would not do as she said, +but instead tried to run away and duck into the bushes. And that was how +the boy got shot in the leg. It seemed a pity to do it, still a person +couldn't surely be expected to tie outlaws and hold a gun and hold Jake +and everything, and not mess them up any. He seemed a kind of nice boy, +and his tricky ways were no doubt because he had not been raised +properly. + +So she made him get on his horse, which was difficult on account of being +shot in the leg, and then it seemed cruel and unnecessary to tie him, +because they had both been sufficiently shot by her to know what they +might expect if they did it again. And that was how it happened that she +drove them both ahead of her without being tied or anything, as a person +would naturally expect outlaws and horse thieves and kidnapers would be. +But Mary V would like to know how, for gracious sake, a person could do +_everything_ right, with a horse to manage and a gun to hold, and only +two hands to their name? + +What Bill had said was that he had kept an eye on Tex, because it looked +to him like Tex was at the bottom of the whole business. He had seen Tex +working away from the others, innocent as a hen turkey with a nest hid +out in the weeds. Bill had done some innocent kinda sidlin' off himself, +and he had seen Tex suddenly duck into a narrow wash and disappear. + +Wherefore, knowing the country even better than did Tex, Bill had ducked +into another draw that would intercept Tex, if Tex was going where Bill +guessed he was aiming to go. Tex must have aimed that way, because Bill +got him and brought him back with his hands tied behind him and his gun +riding in Bill's holster, and with no bullet holes in his person such as +Mary V's captives carried. + +Johnny did not know that the other boys had been signaled back with +shots, and that the prisoners had been turned over to them while Bill, +Bland, and Mary V stayed with Johnny and waited for Sudden to negotiate +that rough stretch of country with the Ford. That was what Mary V's voice +referred to when she couldn't see why he didn't hurry. + +Between times, Bland told their side of the adventure, as far as Bland +understood it. He told of the horses they had scared back, and of the +horse thieves left afoot several miles across the line. He did not know +just where, however. He told of the rancho they had flown to that +morning, the rancho Johnny had discovered a short mile from where he +had got the plane in the first place. + +The horses which they had turned loose from the field would probably make +their way back, Bill said. So would the last little bunch. But he would +send the boys down after them just as soon as they had put the three +prisoners away in the cabin with a guard until the sheriff could come and +get them. Which would be easy, Bill said. They'd telephone to the ranch +and have the message repeated on the town line. + +Everything was easy, Bill said, except getting Skyrider to a doctor +quick, without shaking him up too much. And getting the flying machine +outa there--though he guessed mebby Skyrider wouldn't want no more flyin' +in his. He guessed mebby Skyrider would aim to keep one foot on solid +ground hereafter--if he didn't go clean under it. That shore was a bad +lookin' head he had on 'im. + +Which brought forth questions from Mary V, and the somewhat qualified +comfort of Bland's experience. + +Johnny's next dream was a nightmare of pain and jolting. He did not know +where he was, but it seemed to him that something kept pounding him on +the head; something very hot and very heavy--something he could not +escape because his head was being held in a vice of some sort. The pain +and the jolting seemed to have no relation to this steady beating. The +dream lasted a long, long while. And after that there was darkness and +silence. + +That came when he had been put to bed at the Rolling R ranch house, in a +guest room that faced north. A doctor was there, waiting for them when +they arrived, because Sudden had telephoned him when he had finished +calling for the sheriff. The boys had told him soberly that Skyrider was +bad off, and that his whole head was smashed, and that the flyin' machine +was busted all to pieces. They didn't hardly think it would be worth +while getting a doctor to the ranch, because they didn't see how Skyrider +was goin' to last long enough for a doctor to git to work on him. It was +a damn shame. Skyrider was one fine boy--and did anybody know where his +folks lived? + +But the doctor was sent for just the same, and he was ready to do what +could be done. It looked at first as though that was not much. Mary V had +kept cold cloths on Johnny's head during the whole drive, and the doctor +told her that she had made it a little more possible to pull the young +man through. He certainly had received a terrible blow, and--well, the +doctor refused to predict anything at all. Johnny was a strong-looking, +healthy young man--it took a lot to kill a youngster like that. He +advised a nurse, and gave the name of a young woman who was very good, +he said. + +Sudden telephoned straightway for the nurse, and Mary V locked herself +into her room to cry about it. + +The nurse came that night, and went briskly in and out of the guest room. +She wore her hair parted and slicked back from her face, and rubber +heels; and she smiled reassuringly whenever she saw Mary V or Mrs. Selmer +or any one else who looked anxious. And she never once failed to close +the door of the guest room gently but firmly behind her. Mary V hated +that nurse with a vindictiveness wholly out of proportion to the cause. + +None of these things did Johnny know. Johnny lay quietly on his back with +a neat, white bandage around his head. His eyes were closed, his face was +placid with the inscrutable calm of death or deep unconsciousness. The +next day it was the same, and the day after that--except that his cheeks +began to hollow a little, and his eye sockets to deepen and darken. + +And that pesky nurse wouldn't let Mary V stay in the room two minutes! +She just shooed her out with that encouraging smile of hers, that Mary V +wanted to slap. Did she think, for gracious sake, that Mary V was going +to murder Johnny? Mary V was just going to tell the doctor that she had +learned all about nursing, in her "Useful Knowledge" class at school. She +should think she was just exactly as well qualified to moisten that +bandage with whatever it was they put on it, and keep the flies out of +the room, and little things like that, as any old tow-headed nurse that +ever shook down a thermometer. + +But when the doctor came he looked so sort of sober that Mary V was +afraid to ask him anything at all. She went out into the hammock on the +porch, where she could see the curtains flapping gently in the open +window of Johnny's room. And after awhile the doctor came out and looked +at her and smiled a little, and said, "Well, have we captured any more +bandits? By George, I'd hate to be one and run across you, young lady. I +had the honor of repairing the damage you did to 'em; and I will say, you +are so-ome bone smasher!" + +Which was all very well--but what did Mary V care about the damage done +to those Mexicans? She looked at the open window with the flapping +curtains, and then she looked at the doctor. She did not ask a single +question, and I don't think she dreamed how wistful her eyes were. + +"Well, our young aviator seems to be--holding on," the doctor observed +very, very casually, seeming not to see the question Mary V's eyes were +asking because her lips would not form it in words. "Better, on the +whole, than I expected." + +"Then you think--" + +"I think we won't worry about it until we have to. They're tough, these +young devils." + +Mary V tried and tried to wring encouragement from the words, but it was +very hard, with Johnny lying like that and never moving. + +They brought the airplane to the ranch, much as Johnny had brought it up +from "the burning sands of Mexico." Mary V went out to look at it, but it +seemed too terrible to think of how high Johnny's hopes had been, how he +had worshiped that thing--and what it had done to him. She went to her +ledge on the bluff, and sat there and cried heart-brokenly. + +There it stood, reared up on its silly little wheels, with its broken +propeller still pointing straight up at the sky. Its tail was broken +too--and served it right for thrashing around like that in the brush. + +She had not known her dad was having it brought in, until she saw them +coming with it. Little Curley had driven the team, and he had looked as +though he was driving a hearse. She did not even know what her dad was +going to do with it. He hadn't said a word to anybody, about anything. He +just went ahead as if taking care of Johnny and Johnny's airplane was +part of the regular work on the ranch. Even Bill did not appear to know, +nor Bland. Perhaps Sudden himself did not know. It seemed to Mary V that +the whole ranch was just waiting, minute by minute, for Johnny to open +his eyes, or stop breathing. The unbearable part of it was, no one said +anything much about it. They just waited. + +The doctor came again, and he did not say anything at all to Mary V. He +stayed at the ranch all night, mostly in the room with Johnny. The next +day another doctor came, and the nurse went in and out of the room +sterilizing things and looking very mysterious and important--but always +with that intolerably reassuring smile. Mary V gritted her teeth every +time she saw that nurse. + +They were going to operate, the nurse said, when Mary V simply could not +stand it another minute. She went and sat all curled up in the hammock, +not letting it swing, but just keeping very, very still, and listening. +There were voices in there mumbling sentences she could not catch. After +awhile a sickly odor came drifting through the window, and more muttering +between the two doctors. Sudden came wandering up, tiptoed to his chair +on the porch, and sat down rather heavily and twirled a cigar in his +fingers without lighting it. Mary V pulled a magazine toward her and +began turning the leaves idly, her lips pressed tight together, her ears +strained and listening still. + +Ages passed. Twice Mary V placed her fingers over her lips to stifle an +impulse to scream. Then-- + +"We can't make it. Damn that brush," said a new voice--Johnny's +voice--quite clearly. + +Mary V dropped the magazine and went and put her arms around her dad's +neck and pressed her face hard against his shoulder. Her dad held her +tight, and swallowed fast, and said never a word. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR + +JOHNNY'S DILEMMA + + +"Well, thank heavens she's gone! Perhaps a person can have a minute or +two of peace and comfort on this ranch now. I don't know when I have ever +disliked a person so much. I don't see how you stood her. For my part, +that creature would _make_ me sick, just having her around!" As a final +venting of her animosity, Mary V made faces at the car that carried the +nurse hack to town. + +Johnny looked at Mary V, looked after the nurse, and looked at Mary V +again. He had thought the nurse a very nice nurse, with a quiet kind of +efficiency that soothed a fellow without any fuss or frills. It was queer +Mary V did not like her, but then-- + +"I know I've been a darned nuisance," he apologized so meekly that he did +not sound in the least like Johnny Jewel. "But I'm getting well fast. +I'll be able to beat it in a few days now." + +"Why, for gracious sake? Haven't we--er--made you _comfortable_?" + +"Sure, you have. Only you shouldn't have put yourselves out, this way. +I ought to have gone to a hospital or some place." Johnny looked so +distressed that Mary V could have cried. Only she was afraid that would +distress him still more, and the doctor had said he must not be worried +about anything. + +"It wasn't any trouble. You are being absolutely silly, so I guess you +are getting well, all right. I--I didn't see any sense of having that +nurse in the first place. Because I can take temperature and count pulse +and everything. I've really been crazy for a chance to practice nursing +on somebody. And then when I had the chance, they wouldn't let me do a +thing." + +Johnny grinned, which was rather pathetic--he was so thin and so white. +"Why didn't you practice on the greasers?" he taunted her. "Bill says you +sure made some dandy work for the hospitals." + +"Well, I couldn't help that. I didn't have any way of tying them, or +anything, and--" + +"Brag, girl! For Lord's sake don't apologize; it doesn't come natural to +you. What gets me is that I was ripping the atmosphere wide open, trying +to rescue you, and all the while you were making a whole sheriff's posse +of yourself--and it was you that rescued me. I should think--" + +"I did not! I--did Bill tell you the latest, Johnny? You know how dad +is--about making people tell things he wants to know, and keeping them +right to the point--" + +"I know." Johnny's tone was eloquent. + +"Well, he got at those Mexicans, and they told everything they knew--and +some besides. And who do you think was the real leader of that gang, +Johnny? And I know now it was his voice that I couldn't quite recognize +over the 'phone. They've arrested him and two or three of his men, and +you wouldn't _believe_ a neighbor could be so tricky and mean as that +Tucker Bly. Stealing _our_ horses to sell to the Mexicans, if you please, +and selling his own to the government mostly--but some to the Mexicans, +too, I suppose. And nobody suspecting a thing all the while, and Tex in +with them and all. And if you hadn't stampeded the horses so they came +back to the line, and the boys rounded them up, dad would have lost a lot +more than he did. But now the whole thing is out, and really, if I hadn't +caught those two greasers, there wouldn't be any evidence against the +Tucker Bly outfit, or Tex either. And I just think it's awful, the way--" + +She stopped abruptly. Johnny's bandaged head was leaning against the back +of his big chair, and his eyes were closed. His face looked whiter than +it had a few minutes ago. Mary V was scared. She should have known better +than to talk of those things. + +"Shall--would you like a drink, or--or something?" she asked in a small, +contrite voice. + +Johnny opened his eyes and looked at her. + +"No, I don't want a drink; I just want somebody to give me another knock +on the head that will finish me." And before Mary V could think of +anything soothing to say, Johnny spoke again. "I think I'll go back and +lie down awhile. I--don't feel very good." + +He would not let Mary V help him at all, but walked slowly, steadying +himself by the chairs, the wall, by anything solid within reach. He did +not look much like the very self-assured, healthy specimen of young +manhood whom Mary V could bully and tease and talk to without constraint. +She felt as though she scarcely knew this thin, pale young man with the +bandaged head and the somber eyes. He seemed so aloof, as though his +spirit walked alone in dark places where she could not follow. + +After that she did not mention stolen horses, nor thieves, nor airplanes, +nor anything that could possibly lead his thoughts to those taboo +subjects. Under that heavy handicap conversation lagged. There seemed to +be so little that she dared mention! She would sit and prattle of school +and shows and such things, and tell him about the girls she knew; and +half the time she knew perfectly well that Johnny was not listening. But +she could not bear his moody silences, and he sat out on the porch a good +deal of the time, so she had to go on talking, whether she bored him to +death or not. + +Then one day, when the bandage had dwindled to a small patch held in +place by strips of adhesive plaster, Johnny broke into her detailed +description of a silly Western picture she had seen. + +"What's become of Bland?" he asked, just when she was describing a +thrilling scene. + +"Bland? Oh, why--Bland's gone." Mary V was very innocent as to eyes and +voice, and very uneasy as to her mind. + +"Gone where? He was broke. I didn't get a chance to pay him--" + +"Oh, well, as to that--I suppose dad fixed him up with a ticket and so +on. And so this girl, Inez, overhears them plotting--" + +"Where's your dad?" + +"Dad? Why, dad's in Tucson, I believe, at the trial. What _makes_ you so +rude when I'm telling you the most thrill--" + +"When's he coming back?" + +"For gracious _sake_, Johnny! What do you want of dad all at once? Am I +not entertaining--" + +"You are. As entertaining as a meadow lark. I love meadow larks, but I +never could put in all my time listening to 'em sing. I generally had +something else I had to do." + +"Well, you've nothing else to do now, so listen to this meadow lark, will +you? Though I must say--" + +"I'd like to, but I can't. There are things I've got to do." + +"There are not! Not a single thing but be a nice boy and get well. And to +get well you must--" + +"A lot you know about it--you, with nothing to worry you, any more than a +meadow lark. Not as much, because they do have to rustle their own +worms and watch out for hawks and things, and you--" + +"I suppose you would imply that I have about as much brains as a meadow +lark, perhaps!" Mary V rose valiantly to the argument. If Johnny would +rather quarrel than talk about things that didn't interest either of them +a bit, why, a quarrel he should have. + +But Johnny would not quarrel. He made no reply whatever to the tentative +charge. When Mary V stopped scolding, she became aware that Johnny had +not heard a word of what she had said. + +"How many horses did your dad figure had been stolen? I mean, besides the +ones he got back." + +"Why--er--you'll have to ask dad. I don't see what that can have to do +with meadow larks' brains." + +"It hasn't a thing to do with brains. I was merely wondering." + +"Well," Mary V retorted flippantly, "I believe the wondering is very good +to-day. Help yourself, Johnny." + +Johnny looked at her unsmilingly. "That," he told her bitterly, "is what +I'm trying to do." + +He did not explain that somewhat cryptical remark, and presently he left +her and went to his room. Mary V felt that she was not being trusted by +a person who surely ought to know by this time that he needn't be so +secretive about his thoughts and intentions. If she had not proved her +loyalty and her friendship by this time, what did a person want her to +do, for gracious sake? + +Mary V had rather an unhappy time of it, the next week or so. She had, +for some reason, lost all interest in collecting "Desert Glimpses"; so +much so that when her mother told her she must stay close to the ranch +lest she meet more of those terrible Mexican bandits, Mary V was very +sweet about it and did not argue with her mother at all. She seldom went +farther than the ledge, these days, and she could not keep her mind off +Johnny Jewel, even when there was no doubt at all that he was nearly +as well as ever. + +Of course, it did not really matter--but why was Johnny so glum with her? +Why wouldn't he talk, or at least quarrel the way he used to do? He did +not seem angry about anything. He simply did not seem to care whether she +was with him or not. She might as well be a stick or a stone, she told +herself viciously, for all the attention Johnny Jewel ever paid to her. +She did not mind in the least; but it did seem perfectly silly and +unaccountable; she wondered merely because she hated mysteries. + +It really should not have been mysterious. Mary V made the mistake of not +putting herself in Johnny's place and from that angle interpreting his +preoccupation. Had she done that she would have seen at once that Johnny +was fighting a battle within himself. All his ideas, his plans, and his +hopes had been turned bottom up, and Johnny was working over the wreck. + +She sat and watched him from the ledge one day, and wondered why he did +not act more pleased when he walked down toward the corral and discovered +his airplane all repaired, just exactly as good as it had been before. He +stood there looking at it with the same apathetic gloom in his bearing +that had marked him ever since he was able to be out of bed. Mary V +thought he might at least show a little gratitude--not to herself, but +toward her dad, because he had kept Bland and had paid him to repair +the machine for Johnny, when Johnny was too sick to know anything about +it--too sick even to hear the noise of it when Bland tried out the +motor--and the nurse was so afraid it would disturb "her patient." + +She saw her dad stroll down that way, and stop and look at the airplane +with Johnny. Johnny seemed to be asking a few questions. But they did +not talk five minutes until Johnny went off by himself to the bunk house, +and stayed there. He did not even come back to the house for supper, but +ate with the boys. + +Mary V would have died before she would ask Johnny what was the matter, +but she took what measures she could to find out, nevertheless. She asked +her dad, that evening, what Johnny thought about his aeroplane being all +fixed up again. + +Sudden smoked for a minute or two before he answered. "Well, I don't +know, kitten. He didn't say." Sudden's tone was drawling and comfortable, +but Mary V somehow got the notion that her dad, too, was rather +disappointed in Johnny's lack of appreciation. + +"Well, but what's he going to do with it, dad?" + +"He didn't say, kitten." + +"Well, but dad, he was looking at it, and you were with him, and didn't +he say _anything_, for gracious sake?" Mary V could not have kept the +exasperation out of her voice if she had tried. + +Sudden's lips quirked with the beginning of a smile. He looked at the end +of his cigar, looked toward the bunk house, scraped off the cigar's ash +collar on the porch rail, looked at Mary V. + +"Well, he asked me how it got here to the ranch, and I told him with a +wagon and team and so on. And he said, 'Mh-hum, I see.' Then he asked me +who repaired it, and I told him that buttermilk-eyed aviator he'd had +with him. He replied, 'I--see.' Then he asked me what the repairing had +cost, and the fellow's wages or whatever he had got, and I told him, +'Dam-fi recollect, Johnny.' And he didn't say a word. Just strolled off +as if he'd talked himself tired--which I guess maybe he had." + +"Well, but dad, what do you _suppose_ he's going to do? He--he's awfully +queer since he was hurt. Do you suppose--?" + +"Kitten," said her dad quietly, "when you're breaking a high-strung colt +he sometimes sorta resents his schooling and sulks. Then you've just got +to wait till he figures things out for himself a little. If you force him +you're liable to spoil him and make him mean. Johnny's like that. He's +just a high-strung human colt that life is breaking. I guess, kitten, we +better not crowd him right now." + +"Well, I don't see why he should act that way with _me_," Mary V +complained, and thereby proved herself altogether human and feminine in +her point of view. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE + +SKYRIDER "HAS FLEW"! + + +Just at dawn the humming of the airplane motor woke Mary V. She sat up in +bed and listened, a little fear gripping at her heart; a fear which she +fought with her reason, her hopes, and all her natural optimism. Surely +Johnny would not be foolish enough to attempt a flight that morning. He +must be just trying put the motor. He would know he was not yet in +condition to bear any physical or nervous strain, sick as he had been. Of +course he wouldn't be so selfish as to make a flight without so much as +asking her if she would like to go with him. He knew she was simply crazy +over flying. + +By that time she was out on the porch, where she was immediately joined +by her father and mother, also awakened by the motor. They were just in +time. From the neighborhood of the corral came an increasing roar. A +sudden rush of cool morning wind brought dust and bits of hay and gravel +flying in a cloud. A great, wide-winged, teetering bird-thing went racing +out into sight, spurned the earth and lifted, climbed steadily, circling +like a hungry hawk over a meadow full of mice. + +"By heck, the boy can fly, all right!" Sudden paid tribute to Johnny's +skill in one unpremeditated ejaculation. "An airplane using our very +dooryard for a flying field, mommie! Times are certainly changing." + +Mary V bit her lip and blinked very fast while she watched the plane +go circling up and up, the motor droning its monotonous song like a hive +of honey bees at work. It was pure madness for Johnny to attempt flying +so soon again. He would be killed; anything could happen that was +terrible. She shut her eyes for a minute, trying to rout a swift vision +of Johnny crumpled down limp in the pilot's seat as she had seen him that +day--nearly a month ago--with Bland, white-faced and helpless, walking +aimlessly around the crippled plane, so sure Johnny was dead that he +would not touch him to find out. If anything like that should happen +again, Mary V believed that she would go crazy. She simply couldn't +stand it to go through such a horror again. + +The plane was circling around once more and flew straight northeast. They +watched it until they could not hear the humming; until it looked like a +bird against the glow of sunrise. + +"Hm-mm, I wonder where--" Sudden began, but Mary V did not stay to hear +the rest of the sentence. + +She went back and crept into her bed, sick at heart with an unnamed fear +and a hurt that went deep into her soul. She gave a little, dry sob or +two and lay very still, her face crushed into a pillow. + +But Mary V was not born to take life's hurts passively. Presently she +dressed and went straight down to the bunk house, where she knew the boys +would be at their breakfast--unless they had finished and gone to the +corral. She walked into the old-fashioned, low-ceiled living room where +she had first learned to walk, and stood just inside the door, smiling a +little. + +Bud had just finished eating, and was rolling a cigarette before he got +up from the long table. The others were finishing their coffee and hot +biscuits, and they said hello to Mary V and went on undisturbed. + +"Hello--what's all that racket I heard as I was getting up?" Mary V +inquired lightly. "My good gracious, I thought you boys had started a +sawmill--or maybe somebody had overslept down here and was snoring. It +sounded like Aleck." + +They laughed, and Curley spoke. "That there was Skyrider. He has flew--" + +Bud, fumbling for a match, had a fit of genius. He grinned, cleared his +throat, and began to warble unexpectedly. + + "Skyrider-r has flew into-o the blew + Ta-da, da-da, da-daa-a-a-- + No-obody knew what he aimed to do + Till he went and said adieu. + + "Says he, 'Good-bye, I aim to fly + To foreign lands, ta da-a--'" + +"Oh, for gracious _sake_, Bud! I always knew you were queer at times, but +I really didn't know you had fits. So it was Skyrider riding off to call +on Venus, was it? I wish I had seen him start; but that's just my luck, +of course. Er--_where_ was he going? Or didn't he say?" + +"He didn't say. But he shook hands with us and told us we had treated him +white at times, and that some day he'd write--" + +"Oh, say! I got a letter he left for your father," Curley broke in. "I'll +git it and you can take it up to the house." He gave Mary V a mysterious +look and went into the room where he slept. + +Mary V followed him as far as the door, and saw Curley take two letters +from under his pillow. Her heart gave a jump at that, and it began to +beat very fast when he turned and put them into her hand with another +mysterious look. She thanked him and hurried out on the porch and +straight to her pet ledge. Her dad's letter could wait. + +On the ledge she sat down, and with fingers that shook she tore open, an +envelope addressed to "Miss Mary V. Selmer, care of Curley." It had been +sealed very tightly, as though it contained secrets. Which it did. + +Mary V read that letter through from beginning to end five times before +she left the ledge. It was not exactly a love letter, either, though Mary +V squeezed it between her palms and then kissed it before she put it away +out of sight. After that she cried lonesomely and stared away into that +part of the sky where Johnny and his airplane had last been a +disappearing speck. + + "_Dear Mary V_," (Johnny had written) "I'm not going to tell anybody + good-bye. Not even you, or I might say especially not you. It's hard + enough to go as it is. + + "Maybe you won't care much, but I am a hopeful cuss, and I'm going to + build air castles about you till I come back, which I hope to do when I + have made good. I made an awful mess of things here, and it's up to me + to make good now before I say anything to you about air castles and so + on. + + "I told you once that they need flyers in France, and that's where I'm + going if they will have me. I've got to fly and that's all there is to + it, and I can't fly and be a stock hand at one and the same time + because the two don't go together worth a cent, and I have sure found + that out, and so has your dad, I guess. + + "Well, I can't ask you to wait till I have made good, because that + wouldn't be square, but I can say that when I have made good I am + coming back, and then if some other fellow has got the start of me he + will sure have to go some to keep his start. Because I am going to have + you some day, if I have anything to say about it. I'll teach you to + fly, and we will sure part the clouds like foam and all the rest of it. + You've got more nerve than any other girl I ever saw, and, anyway, I'd + like you just the same if you was a coward, because I couldn't help it + no matter what you was, just so you were Mary V. + + "So good-bye, and look for me back with my chest all dolled up with + medals, because I am sure coming if you will let me. When I get to + Tucson, I'll call you up on long distance, and then if your folks ain't + in the room, I wish you'd tell me if it's all right with you, my loving + you the way I do. Or if they are in the room, you can just say 'all + right,' and I'll know what you mean. And anyway I'll write to you and I + hope you'll write to me, because I am sure going to miss you till I + come back. I wish I had the nerve to go right up to the house and tell + you all this instead of writing, but I know I couldn't do it, so I + won't try. But you be sure and let me know some way over the 'phone. So + good-bye for the present. Always your faithful Skyrider, Johnny." + +His letter to her father was not so long, and it was more coherent. To +Sudden he had written: + + Mr. Selmer. + + _Dear Sir_,--I have decided to fly my airplane to where I can sell it, + and will turn the money over to you to help pay for the expense you + have been under of having your horses stole. I can't find out how many + you lost all told, but whatever I can get for the plane will not cover + it, I am afraid, so I will make up the balance as soon as possible. + + I want to thank you for all the kindness of yourself and family while + I was sick, and before and afterwards. You have certainly treated me + white, and much better than I deserve, and I certainly appreciate it + all, and some day I will refund every nickel you are out on account of + having me in your employ. The doctor's bill I intend to pay and the + nurse, too, and whatever you were out on getting the plane repaired. + + I am thinking of enlisting somewhere as an aviator, as that seems to be + my chosen field. I am leaving early in the morning if the weather is + all right for flying, and one of the boys will give you this letter so + you will know why I went and not think I sneaked off. I am fully + determined to make good, and when I have done so I will come back and + finish squaring up for your trouble and expense in having the horses + stole. I feel that I balled things up bad, and it is my desire to + square everything up. + + I feel that it is merely the square thing to tell you I love your + daughter Mary V, and I hope you will not object to having me marry her + when I have made good. Of course, I would not want to until I had done + so. And I hope that will be all right with you; but if it isn't, it + is only fair to tell you that you won't be able to stop me if she is + willing, and I hope she is. So I am merely telling you, and not asking, + because that ain't my style; when I have made good I will do my asking + to Mary V. And I hope you will not think I have got my gall, because I + am very grateful for all you have done for me and your family also. I + will write when I have made some deal to turn the plane so I can send + you whatever it brings. + + Yours truly, + + John Ivan Jewel. + +Old Sudden did not say anything when he had read that letter--read it +twice, to be exact. He folded it carefully and gave it to his wife to +read, and sat smoothing down his face with his hand while she studied it, +reading slowly, sometimes going back to get the full meaning out of a +somewhat involved sentence. + +"Johnny's a dear boy," she observed meditatively, after they had sat for +a little while in silence. "I hope he doesn't enlist in that terrible +war; it's so dangerous!" + +Sudden turned in his chair and looked in through a window to where Mary V +was sitting very quietly within three feet of the telephone, her album of +"Desert Glimpses" in her lap. Undoubtedly Mary V was listening, but she +was also undoubtedly waiting for something. He looked at his wife, and +his wife also glanced into the room and caught the significance of Mary +V's position and attitude. + +The telephone rang, and Mary V dropped the album in her haste to answer +the call. She glanced out at them while she announced, "Yes, this is +Mary V--it's _all right_--right on the porch, but it's all right--" + +Dad and mommie took the hint and withdrew. + + +THE END + + + * * * * * + + + +B. M. BOWER'S NOVELS + +CHIP OF THE FLYING U. Wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della Whitman +are charmingly and humorously told. + +THE HAPPY FAMILY. A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures +of eighteen jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. + +HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT. Describing a gay party of Easterners who exchange a +cottage at Newport for a Montana ranch-house. + +THE RANGE DWELLERS. Spirited action, a range feud between two families, +and a Romeo and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly story. + +THE LURE OF THE DIM TRAILS. A vivid portrayal of the experience of an +Eastern author among the cowboys. + +THE LONESOME TRAIL. A little branch of sage brush and the recollection of +a pair of large brown eyes upset "Weary" Davidson's plans. + +THE LONG SHADOW. A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free +outdoor life of a mountain ranch. It is a fine love story. + +GOOD INDIAN. A stirring romance of life on an Idaho ranch. + +FLYING U RANCH. Another delightful story about Chip and his pals. + +THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND. An amusing account of Chip and the other boys +opposing a party of school teachers. + +THE UPHILL CLIMB. A story of a mountain ranch and of a man's hard fight +on the uphill road to manliness. + +THE PHANTOM HERD. The title of a moving-picture staged in New Mexico by +the "Flying U" boys. + +THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX. The "Flying U" boys stage a fake bank robbery +for film purposes which precedes a real one for lust of gold. + +THE GRINGOS. A story of love and adventure on a ranch in California. + +STARR OF THE DESERT. A New Mexico ranch story of mystery and adventure. + +THE LOOKOUT MAN. A Northern California story full of action, excitement +and love. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKYRIDER*** + + +******* This file should be named 16871.txt or 16871.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/8/7/16871 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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