for flying down that way where Jake could see him and get scared. She had
been very careful to tie Jake back out of sight of the strip of sand
where Johnny had told her they would make their start and their landing.
It wasn't her fault that she was set afoot--but Bland Halliday just
_knew_ Jake would be scared stiff if he went down past where he was, and
he had done it deliberately. And now Sandy was gone, too--and Johnny only
had a couple of bronks in the little pasture--and she would just like to
know what she was going to _do_? She should think that the least Johnny
and Bland could do would be to come back and--do _something_ about the
horses. They surely must have seen Jake running away, and Johnny would
have sense enough to know what that meant.
But Johnny, as it happened, was wholly absorbed in other things. He was
not thinking of horses, nor of Mary V, nor of anything except flying. He
was crowding into a few precious minutes all the pent emotions of his
dearest dreams. He was getting the "feel" of the controls, putting his
theoretical learning to the test, finding just how much and how little
it took to guide, to climb, to dip. Bland Halliday was a good flyer, and
he was doing his best, showing off his skill before Johnny.
He shut off the motor for a minute and volplaned. "Great way to see the
country!" he shouted, and climbed back in an easy spiral.
Johnny looked down. They were still within the lines of the Rolling R
range, he could tell by a certain red hill that, from that height, looked
small and insignificant, but red still and perfect in its contour. Beyond
he could see the small thread stretched across a half-barren slope--the
fence he meant to inspect that day. Between the red hill and the fence
were four moving dots, following behind several other smaller dots, which
his range-trained eyes recognized as horses driven by men on horseback.
The airplane circled hawklike, climbed higher, and disported itself in an
S or two and a "figure eight," all of which Johnny absorbed as a sponge
absorbs water. Then, pointing, flew straight.
They were going back to the ledge. Johnny's heart sank at thought of once
more creeping along on the surface of the earth like a worm, toiling over
the humps and the hollows that looked so tiny from away up there. He
wanted to implore Bland to turn and go back, but he did not know how long
the gasoline would last, and he was afraid they might be compelled to
land in some spot a long way from his rock hangar. He said nothing,
therefore, but strove to squeeze what bliss remained for him in the next
minutes, distressingly few though they were.
As it happened, Bland did not know the topography of Sinkhole as did
Johnny, and in the still air the flour sack did not flutter. Bland was in
a fair way to fly too far. Johnny knew they were much too high to land at
the cleft unless they did an abrupt dive, and he did not quite like the
prospect. He let Bland go on, then daringly banked and circled. Bland had
done it, half a dozen times--so why not Johnny? Luck was with him--or
perhaps his sense of balance was true. He did not side-slip, and he made
the turn on a downward incline, which brought them closer to earth. He
sought out the place where Mary V, a tiny wisp of a figure, stood beside
the cleft, and flattened out as the ground came rushing up to meet him.
To all intents Johnny made that landing alone, for if Bland helped he did
not say so. Johnny was positive that he had made it himself, and his
sense of certainty propelled him whooping to where Mary V stood, her
camera once more slanted uselessly in her two hands, her lips set in a
line that usually meant trouble for somebody.
"How's that--hunh? Say, there's nothing like it! Did you get a picture of
that landing I made? Say--"
"It seems to me that you are doing all the saying, yourself," Mary
V interrupted him unenthusiastically. "It may be all very nice for
you, Johnny Jewel, to go sailing around in an aeroplane. I suppose
it _is_ very nice for you. I grant that without argument. But as for
me--" Sympathy for herself pushed her lips into a trembling, forced a
quiver into her voice.
"As for _me_, you went and stampeded Jake so he broke loose and went off
like a--a bullet! And Bill Hayden will just about _murder_ me for taking
him; I was going to sneak him back while the boys were out after more
horses, and sneak out again with Tango so Bill wouldn't know. And now
_look_ what a mess you've got me into! Of course _you_ don't care--you
and your darned old flying machine! I wish it had busted itself all to
pieces! And you too! And Sandy's stampeded after Jake, and I'm just glad
of it!" She gulped, forced back further angry-little-girl storming, and
recovered her young-lady sarcasm.
"But please don't let me interrupt your very fascinating new pastime. Of
course, since you are a young man of leisure, playing with your new toy
must seem far more important than the fact that I have about twenty miles
to walk--through the sand and the heat, and not even a canteen of water
to save me from parching with thirst. I--I must ask you to pardon me
for--for thrusting my merely personal affairs upon your notice. Well,
what are you grinning about? Do you think it's _funny_?"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A RIDER OF THE SKY
"I could take her home, old top--if I had the gas." Bland turned his pale
stare significantly from Mary V to Johnny. "Come through, bo. You know
you've got more gas hid out on me somewhere. I got a slant at the bill of
it, so I _know_. It wouldn't be polite to let the young lady walk home."
Johnny stilled him to silence with a round-eyed stare.
"Thank you, I'd much prefer to walk--if it was forty miles instead of
twenty!" Mary V chilled him further. "What are we going to do, Johnny? I
don't know _what_ will happen if Bill Hayden finds out that I borrowed
Jake. And then letting him get away, like that--"
"Sandy's at the pasture fence, I'd be willing to bet; but at that it's
going to be the devil's own job to catch him, me afoot. And he wouldn't
let you on him if I did. I guess it's a case of ride the sky or walk,
Mary V."
"Then we better be stepping, bo, before the wind comes up, as I've
noticed it's liable to, late in the forenoon. You dig up the gas, and
I'll take her home."
"Thank you, I do not wish to trouble you, Mr. Halliday. Johnny can take
me, if anybody--"
"Who--him?" Bland Halliday's smile was twisted far to the left. "Say,
where do you get that idea--him flyin' after one lesson? Gee, you must
think flyin' is like driving a Ford!"
"You could go to the shack and 'phone home for some one to come after
you," Johnny suggested uncertainly.
"And let them know where I am? You must be absolutely crazy, if you
think I'd consider such a thing. I'm supposed to be getting 'Desert
Glimpses'--"
"Well, you sure got your glimpse," tittered Bland.
Mary V turned her back on him, took Johnny by the arm, and walked him
away for private conference.
"You better let him take you home, Mary V. He's all right--for flying.
I've got to hand it to him there."
"And give him a chance to steal your aeroplane? He'd never bring it back.
I know he wouldn't."
"He'd have to. I'd only give him gas enough to make the trip on, and--"
"And if he had enough to come back with, he'd have enough to get to the
railroad with. Don't be stupid. You can take me; couldn't you, now,
honest?"
"Well,--I feel as if I could, all right. But a fellow's supposed to
practice a lot with an instructor before he gets gay and goes to flying
alone. Bland says--"
"Oh, plague take Bland! What would you have done if you hadn't run across
him at all? Would you have tried to fly?"
"You know it!" Johnny laughed. "I've sat in that seat and worked the
controls every day since I got it. I know 'em by heart. I've studied the
theory of flying till I'll bet I could stick Bland himself on some of the
principles. And I've been flying in my sleep for months and months. Sure,
I'd have tackled it. But I wouldn't have had you along when I started
in."
"You know how the thing works, then. Well, come on back and work it!
Unless you're scared."
"Me scared? Of an airplane? It's you I'm thinking about. I'd go alone,
quick enough. Maybe we could both crowd into the front seat, and let
Bland pilot the machine. Then--"
"I abso-_lutely_ will not--fly with--Bland Halliday! If you won't take me
home, I'll walk!" Mary V pinched in her lips, which meant stubbornness.
Johnny heaved a sigh. "Oh, shoot! I'm game to tackle it if you are. Far
as I'm personally concerned, _I know I can fly_." His lips, too, set
themselves in the line of stubbornness. And he added with perfect
seriousness, "It ain't half as hard as topping a bronk."
He glanced back, saw that Bland had gone into the cleft, and hurried on
to where he had buried the gasoline in the sand behind a jagged splinter
of rock in a shallow niche.
"Well, the Jane changed her mind, did she?" Bland commented when Johnny
arrived at the plane with the gas. "Thought she would. Walking twenty
miles ain't no sunshine, if you ask me. Better have the tank full-up, bo.
It's always safer."
A suppressed jubilance such as had seized and held him when he first
beheld the disabled airplane in the desert valley, filled Johnny now. As
he climbed up and filled the tank his lips were pursed into a soundless
whistle, his eyes were wide and shining, his whole tanned face glowed.
Bland Halliday regarded him curiously, his opaque blue eyes shifting
inquiringly to Mary V, halted at a sufficient distance to take a picture.
They were very young, these two--wholly inexperienced in the byways of
life, confident, with the supreme assurance of ignorance. It had been a
queer idea, hiding the gasoline; and threatened to be awkward, since
Bland was practically helpless out here in the sand and rocks. But things
always turned out the right way, give them time enough. The kid was
filling the tank--at present Bland asked no more of the gods than that.
His sour lips drew up at the corners, as they had done when Johnny had
made him the proposition in Agua Dulce. Mary V closed her camera and came
toward them, walking springily through the sand, looking more than ever
like a slim boy in her riding breeches and boots.
"All right. You lend Miss Selmer your goggles and cap, Bland. You won't
need 'em yourself till I get back."
"Till you--what?"
"Till I get back. I aim to take Miss Selmer home." Johnny's lips were
still puckered; his face still held the glow of elation. But his eyes
looked down sidelong, searching Bland's face for his inmost thought.
Bland was staring, loose-lipped, incredulous. "Aw, say! D'yuh think I'll
swallow that?" There was a threatening note beneath the whine of his
voice.
"If you don't choke. Come on, Mary V; 'hop in, and we'll take a spin,'
and all the rest of it. Venus'll have nothing on you. Here's my goggles;
put 'em on. I'm going to borrow Bland's." It had occurred to Johnny that
Mary V would probably shrink from wearing anything belonging to Bland
Halliday; girls were queer that way.
Bland stepped pugnaciously forward; his pale eyes were unpleasantly
filmed with anger. "Aw, I see your game, bo; but you can't get away with
it. Not for a minute, you can't. You think I'm such a mark as that? Come
down here and work like a dog to get the plane ready to fly, and then
kiss yuh good-bye and watch yuh go off with it--and leave me here to rot
with the snakes and lizards? Oh, no! I'll take the young lady--"
"Give me a hand up, Johnny. The front seat? How perfectly _ducky_ to ride
home in an aeroplane! Oh, Johnny wants your goggles, Mr. Halliday." Mary
V reached down quickly and lifted them off the irate aviator's head
before he knew what she was after. "Here they are, Johnny. Sit down, and
Mr. Halliday will crank up--or whatever you call it. I'll send him right
back, Mr. Halliday, just as quick as ever he can make the trip!"
Mr. Halliday gave her a venomous glance, and a sneer which included them
both.
"Ain't it a shame she ain't equipped with a self-starter?" he fleered.
"You two look cute, settin' there; but I don't seem to see yuh making any
quick getaway, at that." He spread his legs and stood arrogantly, arms
folded, the sneer looking perfectly at home on his face.
"Don't be a darned boob!" Johnny snapped impatiently. "Turn 'er over.
Miss Selmer wants me to pilot her home, and I'm going to tackle it. You
needn't be scared, though; I'll come back."
"I don't think so," said Bland, teetering a little as he stood.
"I will, unless I bust something. And it's my machine, so I'm sure going
to be right careful that nothing busts." What Johnny wanted to do was get
out and lick Bland Halliday till he howled, but since the gratification
of that desire was neither politic nor convenient, he promised himself a
settlement later on, when Mary V was not present. Just now he must humor
Bland along.
"I don't think you'll come back," Bland repeated, "because I don't think
you'll start. There's a little detail to be looked after first--a little
swingin' on the propeller to be done. I don't see anybody doin' it. And
I never did hear of anybody flying without their motor running." He
tittered malevolently.
"Cut out the comedy, bo, and let me in there. You start 'er for me, and
_I'll_ take Miss Selmer home for you. You ain't got your pilot's license
yet--by a long ways. I never heard of a flyer getting his license on a
thirty or forty minute course. It ain't done, bo--take it from me." He
spat into the sand with an air of patient tolerance.
"Are you all ready, Johnny?" Mary V's voice was rather alarmingly sweet.
"I'm not going to _touch_ this ducky little wheel. I'm afraid I might
think it was my car and do something queer. I shall let you drive--if you
_call_ it driving. Now if Mr. Halliday will crank up for us, we'll go."
"Mr. Halliday will let you set there till you get enough," Bland grinned
sourly. "I'm thinking of your safety, sister. I'm thinkin' more of you
than that piece of cheese in the pilot's seat."
"Mr. Halliday, won't you _please_ start the motor?" There was a
remarkable stress upon the "please," considering the gun in Mary V's
steady little right hand. She peered down owl-eyed at Bland through
the big goggles. "This is Arizona--where guns are not loaded with blanks,
Mr. Halliday. I'll prove it if you like. I'd just _love_ to shoot you!"
Bland Halliday drew his feet together as though he intended to run. Mary
V, still peering down through the goggles, shot a spurt of sand over the
toe of one scuffed shoe. Bland stepped aside hastily.
"I can't see well enough to be sure of missing you next time," Mary V
assured him. "Generally I can shoot awfully close and miss, but--I'd
_like_ to shoot you, really. You'd better crank the motor."
Bland saw the hammer lift again, ominously deliberate. He sidled
hurriedly down to the propeller. His pale stare never left the gun, which
kept him inexorably before its muzzle.
Johnny's eyes looked as big as his goggles, but he did not say a word.
And presently, after three rather hysterical attempts, Bland set the
propeller whirring, and ran out to one side, his hands up as though he
feared for his life if he lowered them. The motor's hum increased to the
steady roar which Johnny's ear recognized as the sound Bland got from it
when he started. And with an erratic wabbling the plane moved forward
jerkily, steadied a bit as Johnny set his teeth and all his stubbornness
to the work, and gradually--very gradually--lifted and went whirring
away through the sunlight.
They say that Providence protects children and fools. Johnny Jewel, I
think, could justly claim protection on both grounds. He was certainly
attempting a foolhardy feat, and he was doing it with a childlike
confidence in himself. As for Mary V--oh, well, Mary V was very young and
a woman, and therefore not to be held accountable for her rash faith that
the man would take care of her. Mary V had centuries of dependent
womanhood behind her, and must be excused.
Johnny wished that he had warned her about the peculiar tendency of the
air currents to follow the contour of the ground. He climbed as high as
Bland had climbed at first, hoping to escape the abruptness of the waves
such as he had studied patiently from charts, and which he had felt when
they flew over arroyos and rough ground. He did not want Mary V to be
alarmed, but the noise of the motor made speech impossible, so he let the
explanation go for the present. Mary V was sitting exactly in the center,
grasping rather tightly the edges of the pit as a timid person holds fast
to the sides of a canoe. Sitting so, she did not look in the least like a
young woman who has just compelled a man at the point of a revolver to do
her bidding. More like a child who is having its first boat ride, and who
is holding its breath, mentally balanced between howls of fear and
shrieks of glee. But Johnny did not believe she was scared.
Johnny was keyed up to the point of working miracles, of accomplishing
the impossible. Johnny was happy, a little awed at his own temerity,
wholly absorbed in his determination to handle that airplane just as well
as Bland or any other living man could handle it. He kept reminding
himself that it was simple enough, if you only had the nerve to go ahead
and _do_ it; if you just forgot that there was such a thing as falling;
and, of course, if you knew what it was you ought to do, and how you
ought to do it. Johnny knew--theoretically. And it did not seem possible
to him that he could fall. He was master of a machine that was master of
the air. He was riding the sky--and Mary V was there, riding with him,
absolutely confident that he would not let her be hurt.
He did not attempt any "fancy stunts," such as Bland had done. He merely
climbed to where he dared circle, then circled deliberately, carefully.
When he came about so that the sun was warming his right shoulder, he
flew straight for the Rolling R ranch, like a homing pigeon at sunset.
It was exhilarating--it was wonderful! Johnny, knowing the country so
well, avoided passing over the roughest places, keeping well out from the
hills, and into the smoother flow over the broad levels. The drone of the
motor was a triumphal song. The flattening wind against his cheeks was
sweeter than kisses. Supreme confidence in himself and in the machine
stimulated him, made him ready to dare anything, do anything. Once more
he was a god, skimming godlike through space, gazing down on the little
world and the little, crawling things of the world with pity.
Ahead of him, Mary V never moved. Her little fingers never loosened their
grip of the padded leather. Wisps of her brown hair, caught in the
terrific air-pressure, stood back from her head like small pennants.
Black Ridge they passed, and it looked squatty and insignificant. Johnny
swerved a little to the westward, to avoid a series of washes and deep
gullies and small ridges between that might affect the smooth flight of
the plane. On and on and on, boring steadily through the air that rushed
to meet them--or so it seemed.
Far ahead, lumped on a brushless level which Johnny knew of old, a
little, milling cluster of antlike creatures attracted Johnny's eye.
He watched it a minute, knew it for a horse round-up, and chuckled to
himself. The Rolling R boys--and revenge for the sneers and the fleers
they had given him when he had only dared to _dream_ of flying. He wanted
to tell Mary V, but then he thought that Mary V's eyes were as sharp as
his. Yes, her fingers reluctantly loosened their hold and she tried to
point--and had her hand swept backward by the wind. She tried again, and
Johnny nodded, though Mary V could not see him without turning her head,
which she seemed to think she must not do.
The Rolling R boys--Tex and Bill Hayden and Curley and Aleck and one or
two more whom this story has not met--were driving a small herd of horses
from which they meant to cut out a few chosen ones for breaking. Away up
toward where the sun would be at two o'clock, a little droning dragonfly
thing coming swiftly, and a little imp of mischief whispering into the
willing ear of one who felt that he had suffered much and patiently. Mary
V, hanging on tight, with her lips pressed together and her eyes big and
bright behind her goggles, watched how swiftly the antlike creatures grew
larger and took the form of horses and men.
Johnny dared a volplane, slanting steeply down at the herd. He wanted to
get close enough so that they could see who he was, and he wanted to fill
his lungs and then shout down to them something that would make them
squirm. He meant to flatten out a hundred feet or so above them and
shout, "_For I'm a rider of the sky!_" and then give a range yell and
climb up away from them with arrogant indifference to their stunned
amazement.
Well, Johnny did it. That is, he volplaned, banked as much as he thought
wise, and flattened out and yelled, "_I'm a rider of the sky!_" just as
he had planned.
It happened that no one heard him, though Johnny did not know that.
Horses and men tilted heads comically and stared up at the great,
swooping thing that came buzzing like a monstrous bumblebee that has
learned to stutter. Then the horses squatted cowering away from it, and
scattered like drops of water when a stone is thrown into a pond.
Johnny did not see any more of it, for Johnny was busy. Which was a pity,
for the horse of Tex bolted a hundred yards and began to pitch so
terrifically that Tex was catapulted from the saddle and had to walk home
with a sprained ankle. Little Curley's horse took to the hills, and
little Curley did not return in time for his dinner. Aleck and Bill
Hayden went careening away toward the north, and one of the two strangers
went so far west that he got lost. Since that day no horse that was
present can see a hawk fly overhead without suffering convulsions of
terror.
Johnny flew to a certain grassy spot he knew, not half a mile from the
house, and landed. I cannot say that he landed smoothly or expertly, but
he landed with no worse mishap than a bent axle on the landing gear, and
a squeal from Mary V, who thought they were going to keep on bouncing
until they landed in a gully farther on. Johnny climbed down and turned
the plane around by hand, and Mary V helped him. Then she took a picture
of him and the plane, and climbed back and let Johnny take a picture of
her in the plane. It was rather tame, for by all the laws of logic they
should have broken their necks.
Before he started back, Johnny leaned over and shouted to Mary V: "You
can tell the boys they can sing that Skyrider thing all they want to,
now."
"They won't want to--now," Mary V yelled back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FLYING COMES HIGH
Johnny Jewel reined his horse on a low ridge and stared dully down into
the little valley where a scattered herd of horses fed restlessly, their
uneven progress toward Sinkhole Creek vaguely indicated by the general
direction of their grazing. The pendulum of his spirits had swung farther
and farther away from his ecstasy of the morning, until now he had
plumbed the deepest well of gloom. That he had flown to the Rolling R
ranch and back without wrecking his airplane or killing himself did not
cheer him. He was in the mood to wish that he had broken his neck instead
of coming safely to earth.
Johnny was like a sleeper who has dreamed pleasantly and has awakened to
find the house falling on him--or something like that. He had dreamed
great things, he had lulled his conscience with promises and reassurances
that all was well, and that he was not shirking any really important
duty. And now he was awake, and the reality was of the full flavor of
bitter herbs long steeped.
The forenoon had been full of achievement. Johnny had, for safety's sake,
removed the propeller from his airplane and carried it home with him, in
the face of Bland Halliday's bitter whining and vituperation, which
reminded Johnny of a snake that coils and hisses and yet does not strike.
It had been an awkward job, because he had been compelled to thrash Bland
first, and then tie his hands behind him to prevent some treacherous blow
from behind while he worked. Johnny had hated to do that, but he felt
obliged to do it, because Bland had found the buried gasoline and had
taken away the full cans and hidden them, replacing them with the empty
cans. If Bland had not shown a town man's ignorance of the tale a man's
tracks will tell, Johnny would never have suspected anything.
Bland had also threatened to wreck the plane for revenge, but Johnny did
not worry about that. He had retaliated with a threat to starve Bland
until he repaired whatever damage he wrought--and Bland had seen the
point, and had subsided into his self-pitying whine.