abuse me like a dog--and I ain't got any come-back. It was Bland this
and that, when you wanted the plane repaired. Now you've got it, and it's
git-ta-hell and git busy. Pull a gun on me, beat me up--accuse me of
things I never done--drag me outa bed before daylight--" His self-pitying
whine droned on monotonously, but he nevertheless got into his clothes
and pottered around the plane by the light of the lantern and the flaring
fire Johnny started.
The one praiseworthy thing he could do he did conscientiously. He
inspected carefully the control wires, went over the motor and filled the
radiator and the gas tank, and made sure that he had plenty of oil. His
grumbling did not in the least impair his efficiency. He replaced the
propeller, cursing under his breath because Johnny had taken it off. He
was up in the forward seat testing the control when Johnny called him to
come and eat.
In the narrow strip of sky that showed over the niche the stars were
paling. A faint flush tinged the blue as Johnny looked up anxiously.
"We'll take a little grub and my two canteens full of water," he said,
with a shade of uneasiness in his voice. "We don't want to get caught
like those poor devils did that lost the plane. But, of course--"
"Say, where you going, f'r cat's sake?" Bland looked over his cup in
alarm. "Not down where them--"
"We're going to find out where those horses went. You needn't be scared,
Bland. I ain't organizing any suicide club. You tend to the flying part,
and I'll tend to my end of the deal. Air-line, it ain't so far. We ought
to make there and back easy."
He bestirred himself, not exultantly as he had done the day before, but
with a certain air of determination that impressed Bland more than his
old boyish eagerness had done. This was not to be a joy-ride. Johnny did
not feel in the least godlike. Indeed, he would like to have been able to
take Sandy along as a substantial substitute in case anything went wrong
with the plane. He was taking a risk, and he knew it, and faced it
because he had a good deal at stake. He did not consider, however, that
it was necessary to tell Bland just how great a risk he was taking. He
had not even considered it necessary to telephone the Rolling R and tell
Sudden what it was he meant to do. Time enough afterwards--if he
succeeded in doing it.
He was anxious about the gas, and about water, but he did not say
anything about his anxiety. He made sure that the tank would not hold
another pint of gas, and he was careful not to forget the canteens.
Then, when he had taken every precaution possible for their welfare, he
climbed into his place and told Bland to start the motor. He was taking
precautions with Bland, also.
"We fly south," he yelled, when Bland climbed into the front seat. "Make
it southeast for ten miles or so--and then swing south. I'll tap you on
the shoulder when I want you to turn. Whichever shoulder I tap, turn that
way. Middle of your back, go straight ahead; two taps will mean fly low;
three taps, land. You got that?"
Bland, pulling down his cap and adjusting his goggles, nodded. He drew
on his gloves and slid down into the seat--alert, efficient, the Bland
Halliday which the general public knew and admired without a thought for
his personal traits.
"About how high?" he leaned back to ask. "High enough so the hum won't be
noticed on the ground? Or do you want to fly lower?"
"Top of your head means high, and on the neck, low," Johnny promptly
finished his code. Having thus made a code keyboard of Bland's person,
he settled himself with his guns beside him.
Bland eased on the power, glancing unconsciously to the right and left
ailerons, as he always did when he started.
The buzz of the motor grew louder and louder, the big plane quivered,
started down the barren strip toward the reddening east, skimmed lighter
and lighter the ground, rose straight and true, and went whirring away
into the barbaric splendor of the dawn.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MEN ARE STUPID
Into that same dawn light filed the riders of the Rolling R, driving
before them a small _remuda_. Behind them clucked the loaded chuck wagon,
the leathery-faced cook braced upon the front seat, his booted feet far
spread upon the scarred dashboard, his arms swaying stiffly to the pull
of the four-horse team. Behind him still came the hoodlum wagon with its
water barrels joggling sloppily behind the seat. Little Curley drove
that, and little Curley's face was sober. It had been whispered in the
bunk house that Skyrider was deep in disgrace, and Curley was worried.
On the porch of the bungalow Sudden stood with his morning cigar
unlighted in his fingers, watching the little cavaleade swing past to the
gate. He waved his cigar beckoningly to Bill Hayden, turned his head to
shake it at something Mary V had said from the doorway, and waited for
Bill to ride close.
Mary V, camouflaged in her blue negligee worn over her riding clothes,
came out and stood insistently, her two hands clasped around Sudden's
unwilling arm.
"No, sir, dad, I'm not going back to bed. I'm going to say every little
thing I want to say, and you and Bill have both got to listen. Get off
that horse, Bill. He makes me nervous, dancing around like that. Heaven
knows I'm just about raving distracted, as it is. Dad, give Bill that
cigar so he won't look quite so disagreeable."
Bill looked inquiringly at Sudden. It did not seem to him that even so
spoiled an offspring as Mary V should be permitted to delay him now, when
minutes counted for a good deal. He wished briefly that Mary V belonged
to him; Bill mistakenly believed that he would know how to handle her.
Still, he took the cigar which Sudden obediently surrendered, and he got
down off his horse and stood with one spurred foot lifted to the second
step of the porch while he felt in his pocket for a match.
"Well, now, Bill's in a hurry, Mary V. We haven't got time--"
"You'd better take time, then! What's the use of Bill going off to
Sinkhole unless he listens to me first? Do you think, for gracious sake,
I've been riding around all over the country with my eyes shut? Or do I
look nearsighted, or _what_? What do you suppose I laid awake all night
for, piecing things that I know together, if you're not going to pay
attention? Do you think, for gracious sake--"
"There, now, we don't want to get all excited, Mary V. Sit down here and
stop for-gracious-saking, and tell dad and Bill what it is you've seen.
If it's anything that'll help run down them horse thieves, you'll get
that Norman car, kitten, if I have to pawn my watch." Sudden gave Bill a
lightened look of hope, and pulled Mary V down beside him on the striped
porch swing. Then he snorted at something he saw. "What's the riding
breeches and boots for? Didn't I tell you--"
"Well, Bill's going to lend me Jake, and I'll be in a hurry."
"Like h--" Bill began explosively, and stopped himself in time.
"Just like that," Mary V told him calmly. "Dad, if Bill doesn't let me
ride Jake, I don't believe I can remember some things I saw down on
Sinkhole range--through the field glasses, from Snake Ridge. I shall
feel so badly I'll just have to go into my room, and lock the door and
cry--all--day--long!" To prove it, Mary V's lips began to quiver and
droop at the corners. To prepare for the deluge, Mary V got out her
handkerchief.
Bill looked unhappy. "That horse ain't safe for yuh to ride," he
temporized. "He's liable to run away and kill yuh. He--"
"I've ridden him twice, and he didn't," Mary V stopped quivering her lips
long enough to retort. "I don't see why people want to be so mean to me,
when I am trying my best to help about those horse thieves, and when I
know things no other person on this ranch suspects, and if they did, they
would simply be stunned at knowing there is a thief on their own pay
roll. And when I just want Jake so I can hel-lp--and Tango is getting so
lazy I simply _can't_ get anywhere with him in a month--" Mary V did it.
She actually was crying real tears, that slipped down her cheeks and made
little dark spots on her blue kimono.
Bill Hayden looked at Sudden with harassed eyes. Sudden looked at Bill,
and smoothed Mary V's hair--figuratively speaking; in reality he drew his
fingers over a silk-and-lace cap.
"H--well, it's up to your dad. You can ride Jake if he's willin' to take
the chance of you getting your neck broke. I shore won't be responsible."
Bill looked more unhappy than ever, not at all as though he gloried in
his martyrdom to the Rolling R.
"Why, Jake's as gentle as a ki-kitten!" Mary V sobbed.
"Like hell he's gentle!" muttered Bill, so far under his breath that he
did not feel called upon to apologize.
"Well, now, we'll talk about Jake later on. Tell dad and Bill what it was
you saw, and what you mean by a thief on the pay roll. I don't promise
I'll be simply stunned with surprise; that story young Jewel told last
night does seem to have some awful weak points in it--"
"Why dad _Selmer_! You know perfectly well that Johnny Jewel is the soul
of honor! Why you owe an _apology_ to Johnny for ever _thinking_ such a
thing about him! Why, for gracious sake, must everybody on this ranch be
so blind and stupid?" Mary V asked the glorious sunrise that question,
and straightway hid her face behind her handkerchief.
"Well, now, we're wasting time. I apologize to the soul of honor, and
you may ride Jake--when Bill or I are with you to see how he behaves.
Now tell us what you know. This is a serious matter, Mary V. Far too
serious--"
"I should think _I_ am the person who knows how serious it is," Mary V
came from behind her handkerchief to remind him.
"Just who or what did you see, through your field glasses, when you
looked from the top of Snake Ridge?" Sudden wisely chose to waive any
irrelevant arguments.
"Why," said Mary V, "I first saw one of your men dodging along down a
draw, to a place where there were some cottonwood trees. I saw him get
off his horse and wait there for a few minutes, and then I saw another
man riding along the gully from the other direction. And so I saw them
meet, and talk a few minutes, and ride back. And--your man was in a great
hurry, and the other man was a Mexican."
"H-m-m. And who was my--"
"And so I thought I'd ride a little farther, and see what they were
waving their hands toward the south for. And so I did. And it was very
hot," said Mary V pensively, "and I was so tired that when I found I was
close to Sinkhole camp I went on and rested there. And before I left,
that same Mexican came to the cabin, and Johnny didn't know him at all,
because the Mexican said right away, 'I am the brother of Tomaso,' which,
of course, was to introduce himself. And then he saw me, and he said he
had come to borrow some matches, and Johnny gave him some and he beat it.
And after I left, I had gone perhaps a mile when I happened to look back,
and the same Mexican was riding in a hurry to the cabin. So, of course,
he had waited until I left. And that was the man," she finished with some
attention to the dramatic effect, "who told Johnny he would take him to
where the airplane was sitting like a hawk--a broken-winged hawk--on the
burning sands of Mexico."
"Jerusalem!" Sudden paid tribute to the tale. But Bill said a shorter
word. "And which one of my--"
"And it was right after that," Mary V went on calmly, "that you found
your man at Sinkhole talking with a very bad cold. The second night, I--I
was curious. And so after you had called him up, I called him. I had to
wait a few minutes, as though he had to come into the house to answer.
And _I_ knew perfectly well that it was not Johnny speaking. I--tested
him to make sure. I spoke of things that were perfectly ridiculous, and
he was afraid to seem not to understand. I said I was Venus speaking, and
so he called me Miss Venus. And it was _not_ that Mexican," she added
quickly, seeing the guess in her dad's face. "He was a white man--an
American. I can _almost_ recognize the voice, in spite of his pretended
cold. I jarred him away from that once or twice. He said, 'Uh course I
knowed yer voice,' and no Mexican would say that."
"So then I was _very_ curious. I--I knew Johnny would never permit things
to be said that were said. So it was a beautiful moonlight evening, and I
wanted--I shall be expected to describe our Arizona plains by moonlight.
So I decided that I would solve a mystery and collect my material that
evening, and I--went riding."
"The deuce you--"
"So I had quite a distance to go, and I did not want to worry any one by
being gone long. So I--er--didn't like to wake Bill up--"
"Hunh!" from Bill, this time.
"I really intended to take Tango as usual," Mary V explained with
dignity. "I had no thought of intruding on a person's piggishness with
their old race horse, but Jake came right up and put his nose in the feed
pan, and--and acted so--sort of eager--and I knew he just suffers for
exercise, standing in that old corral, so it was very wrong, but I
yielded to him. I rode him down to Sinkhole, and I found him a perfectly
gentle lady's horse. So there now, Mr. Bill. You just--"
"And what did you find at Sinkhole?" Sudden led her firmly back to the
subject.
"I found that the beans were sour, and the bread was hard as a rock, and
there wasn't one thing to show that a meal had been cooked in that camp
for two days, at least. And Johnny's bedding was gone--or some of it,
anyway. And so was Sandy. So I came back, and changed horses, and took
Tango. I knew, of course, how stingy a person can be about a horse. And
as I was riding away, behind that line of rocks so Mr. Stingy wouldn't
see me, I saw a certain person come sneaking up to the corral and turn
his horse inside. It was just barely daylight then, but it was the same
person I saw meet the Mexican.
"And I hurried hack to Snake Ridge, so I got there quite early in the
morning. And I saw two men ride off toward the eastern line of Sinkhole
range, and they were not Johnny Jewel at all, which would be perfectly
impossible. Because soon afterwards I saw something very queer being
hauled by mules, and that was Johnny bringing home his airplane,
perfectly innocent."
"Who's the fellow--" Sudden and Bill spoke together, the question which
harried the minds of both.
"Of course," said Mary V, "I understand that some one from the ranch
would have to put them up to distracting Johnny's attention by letting
him have that airplane. I can see that they would want to keep him busy
so he wouldn't pay so much attention to the horses down there, and would
not notice a few horses gone now and then. So somebody had heard about
the airplane, and told them that Johnny was perfectly mad about aviation,
and--"
Sudden turned, and took her by the shoulders. "Mary V, who was that man?
Don't try to shield him, because I shall--"
"The very idea! I don't want to shield him at all. I merely want Jake,
without any strings on him whatever. Because he can go like the very
dickens, and I want to keep an eye on Tex myself. He won't pay any
attention--"
"Tex! Good Lord! Bill, you--"
"Listen, dad, I think I _deserve_ to have Jake. You _know_ I can ride
him, and you're so short-handed, and I can watch Tex--"
"Go saddle him up for her, Bill, will you? I guess the kid's done enough
to put her on a par with the rest of us."
"I'll say she has," Bill surrendered, a grin splitting his leathery face
straight across the middle. "I been watchin' Tex myself, but I didn't
know it was horses he was after. I thought it was some woman."
"I can't see what _makes_ men so stupid!" Mary V observed pensively. "I
never did like Tex. I don't like his eyes."
"I see," said her dad. "You ought to 've told me before." And he added
disapprovingly, "There's a good deal you ought to 've told your dad. It
would have saved the Rolling R some mighty fine horses, I reckon. I don't
know what your mother's going to say about me letting you go--"
But Mary V had whisked into the house to complete her preparations for
the day's ride. Also to escape whatever her dad would have to say in that
particular tone. She saw him leave the porch and follow Bill to the
corral, whereupon she immediately tried to call Johnny on the telephone.
Failing in that, she proceeded to powder her nose.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MARY V WILL NOT BE BLUFFED
Old Sudden in the ranch Ford, and Bill and Mary V on horseback, overtook
the jogging cavalcade of riders and loose horses. Sudden looked pained
and full of determination, as he always did when necessity called him
forth upon the range in a lurching mechanical conveyance where once he
had ridden with the best of them. Too many winters had been spent
luxuriously in the towns; a mile or two, at a comfortable trail trot, was
all that Sudden cared to attempt nowadays on horseback. But that did not
lessen his dislike of negotiating sand and rocks and washes and rough
slopes with an automobile. Every mile that he traveled added something
to his condemnation of that young reprobate, Johnny Jewel, who had let
the Rolling R in for all this trouble.
A bend in the trail brought him close to the boys, who had ridden
straight across country. Mary V and Bill had just joined the group, and
Sudden gave a snort when he saw Mary V maneuver Jake so that he sidled in
alongside Tex, who rode a little apart with his hat pulled over his eyes,
evidently in deep thought. Sudden had all the arrogance of a strong man
who has managed his life and his business successfully. He wanted to
attend to Tex himself, without any meddling from Mary V.
He squawked the horn to attract her attention, and caused a wave of
turbulence among the horses that made more than one of his men say
unpleasant things about him. Mary V looked back, and he beckoned with one
sweeping gesture that could scarcely be mistaken. Mary V turned to ride
up to him, advanced a rod or two and abruptly retreated, bolting straight
through the group of riders and careening away across the level, with
Bill and Tex tearing after her. Presently they slowed, and later Bill was
seen to lag behind. Tex and Mary V kept straight on, a furlong in advance
of the others.
The road swung away to the right, to avoid a rough stretch of rocks and
gullies, and Sudden perforce followed it, feelingly speaking his mind
upon the subjects of spoiled daughters and good-for-nothing employees,
and horses and the men that bestrode them, and Fords, and the roads of
Arizona, and the curse of being too well fed and growing a paunch that
made riding a martyrdom. He would put that girl in a convent, and he
would see that she stayed there till she was old enough to have some
sense. He would have that young hound at Sinkhole arrested as an
accomplice of the horse thieves. He would put a bullet through that fool
of a horse, Jake, and he would lynch Tex if he ever got his hands on him.
He would sell out, by glory, and buy himself a prune orchard.
And then he had a blow-out while he was down in a hollow a mile from the
outfit. And some darned fool had lost the handle to the jack, and the
best of the two extra tires was a darn poor excuse and wouldn't last a
mile, probably, and he got hold of a tube that had a leaky valve, and had
to hunt out another one after he had worked half an hour trying to pump
up the first one. And what in the blinkety blink did any darn fool want
to live in such a country for, anyway?
Thus it happened that Mary V was not forbidden to ride with Tex. And, not
being forbidden, Mary V carried out her own ideas of diplomacy and tact.
Her idea was to make Tex believe that she liked him better than the other
boys. Just what she would gain by that, Mary V did not stop to wonder. It
was the approved form of diplomacy, employed by all the leading heroines
of ancient and modern fiction and of film drama, and was warranted to
produce results in the way of information, guilty secrets, stolen wills,
plots and plans and papers.
Tex was inclined to eye her askance, just at first. He was also very
curious about her riding Jake, and he seemed inquisitive about whether
that was the first time she had ever ridden him. He was, too, very
absent-minded at times, and would go off into vacant-eyed reveries that
sealed his ears against her artfully artless chatter.
Some girls would have been discouraged. Mary V was merely stimulated to
further efforts. Tex did not mention the stealing of any horses at
Sinkhole. He seemed to take it for granted that they were going to work
the range to get horses for breaking, and Mary V wondered if perhaps her
dad had not thought it best to confine the knowledge of horse-stealing to
himself and Bill--at least until he had made an investigation. That would
be like dad--and also like Bill Hayden. Mary V was glad that she had not
said anything about it. She thought she would try Tex out first on the
subject of airplanes. None of the boys knew that Johnny had one, and she
was perfectly sure that she would detect any guilty knowledge of it in
the mind of Tex. She had just read a long article in a magazine about
"How our Faces Betray our Thoughts," and this seemed a splendid chance
to put it to the test.
"Bill says an aeroplane came and stampeded all you boys yesterday," she
began with much innocence.
"Yeah. One did fly over our haids. I didn't git to see much of it. My
fool hawse, he started in pitchin' right away, soon as he seen it."
Mary V paused, meditating upon the significance of his words, his tone,
his profile. That there was no particular significance did not in the
least affect her deliberate intention.
"I wonder who it could have been!" she said, stealing a glance from under
her lashes.
"Hunh? Who? The flyin' machine? Search me!" This time his tone was surely
significant. It signified, more than anything else, that the mind of Tex
was busy with other matters. Contrary to the magazine article, his face
did not betray his thoughts. "Yore dad buy Jake off'n Bill for yo' all to
ride?" he asked suddenly.
"No. Bill just lent him to me."
"Hnh! Bill, he shore is generous-hearted to lend yuh Jake."
"Yes," said Mary V, smiling at Tex innocently. "Yes, isn't he?"
But Tex did not reiterate, as pleasant converse demanded. He went off
again into meditation so deep that it quite excluded Mary V.
"Yo' all going to help round up?" Tex asked her suddenly. "You shore can
ride the ridges, with that hawse. I guess yo' all can bring in more
hawses than what any two of us kin."
"That's exactly what I mean to do," Mary V assured him promptly. "You'll
see me riding the ridges almost exclusively."
Tex looked at her and grinned, which did not enhance his good looks,
because his teeth were badly stained with tobacco.
"Yo' all don't want to ride away over in them breaks toward the southeast
corner," he advised. "That's a long, hard ride to make. It's too much for
a girl to tackle--combin' the hawses outa them little brushy draws. They
like to git in there away from the flies, in the heat uh the day. But yo'
all better not tackle it, even if Bill lets yuh. I don't guess he would,
though."
"Bill," said Mary V with a little tilt to her chin, "does not enjoy the
privilege of 'letting' me do things. I shall ride wherever I please. And
it is possible that I may please to bring in what horses are in the
red-hill end of the range. I'm sure I don't see why I shouldn't, if I
like."
"Well," said Tex, "that country's plumb hard to ride. It takes real work
to bring in hawses from there. I wouldn't tackle that, if I was you; I'd
ride out where it's easier."
"Oh, would you? Well, thank you very much for the advice, I'm sure." Mary
V looked back, saw the other boys jogging closer, and held Jake in to
wait for them. She did not want to tell Tex that she certainly would make
it a point to ride the red-hill side of the range. There was probably
some sly, secret reason Tex did not want her to go over that way. She
remembered that she had seen the Mexican coming from that direction both
times. Certainly, there must be some secret reason. Tex was afraid
she might find out something.
Mary V waited for the boys, and talked to them prettily, and wondered
aloud where her dad was all this time, and hoped he had not had a
puncture or anything. Because, she said, it was bad enough for his temper
to have to drive the flivver, without any bad luck to make it worse.
She was particularly nice to Bill, and forced him to confess that she
really got along perfectly all right with Jake. She comported herself so
agreeably, in fact, that Bill was reconciled to her coming and paid no
attention when she presently swung off to the southeast, saying that she
wanted to get a picture of a perfectly ducky giant cactus which she had
seen through her glasses one day. Indeed, the dismal honking of the
machine called Bill back to the trail, where Sudden came jouncing along
like a little, leaky boat laboring through a choppy sea. Bill rode off
without noticing Mary V at all.