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 cañon, 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?"