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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--