"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.