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.

Johnny felt perfectly easy in his mind so far as the airplane was concerned. He had explained to Bland that he meant to keep his promise as soon as he could and be square with his boss, and Bland had at the last resigned himself to the delay—no doubt comforting himself with some cunning plan of revenge later, when he had gotten Johnny into the city, where Bland felt more at home and where Johnny would have all the odds against him, being a stranger and—in Bland's opinion—a "hick."

The forenoon, therefore, had been all triumph for Johnny. All triumph and all glowing with the rose tints of promise. The afternoon was a different matter.

Johnny had ridden out on the recaptured Sandy. When he had time to think of it, that glimpse of the horsemen and the loose horses over beyond the red hill nagged him with a warning that all was not well on the Rolling R range. He had headed straight for the red hill, and he had noticed many little, betraying signs that had long escaped him in his preoccupation with his own dreams and ambitions.

The horses were wild, and ducked into whatever cover was nearest when he approached. Johnny knew that they had lately been chased and frightened, and that there was only one logical reason for that, because none of the Rolling R boys had been down on the Sinkhole range since the colts were branded and these horses driven down for the summer grazing.

Johnny rode to where he had seen the horseman, picked up the tracks of shod hoofs and followed them to the fence. Saw where two panels of wire had been loosened and afterwards refastened. Some one had dropped a couple of new staples beside one post, and there were fresh hammer dents in the wood. Johnny had not done it; there was only one other answer to the question of the fence-mender's reason. There was no mystery whatever. Johnny looked, and he knew.

He looked out across the fence and knew, too, how helpless he was. He had not even brought his rifle, as Sudden had told him to do. The rifle had been a nuisance, and Johnny conveniently forgot it once or twice, and then had told himself that it was just a notion of old Sudden's—and what was the use of packing something you never would need? He had not carried it with him for more than three weeks. But if he had it now, he knew that it would not help him any. The thieves had hours the start of him. It had been just after sunrise that he had seen them—he, a Rolling R man, sailing foolishly around in an airplane and actually seeing a bunch of Rolling R horses being stolen, without caring enough to think what the fellows were up to! Self-disgust seized him nauseatingly. It was there at the fence he first wished he had fallen and broken his neck.

He turned back, rode until he had located a bunch of horses, made a rough count, and went on, heavy-hearted, steeped in self-condemnation. He located other horses, scattered here and there in little groups, and kept a mental tally of their numbers. Now, while the sun dipped low toward the western hills, he watched this last herd dismally, knowing how completely he had failed in his trust.

Square with his boss! He, Johnny Jewel, had presumed to prate of it that day, with half the horses stolen from Sinkhole. For so did conscience magnify the catastrophe. He had dared to assume that his presence there at Sinkhole was necessary to the welfare of the Rolling R! Johnny laughed, but tears would have been less bitter than his laughter.

He had been proud of himself, arrogantly sure of his ability, his nerve, his general superiority. He, who had shirked his duty, the work that won him his food and clothes and money to spend, he had blandly considered himself master of himself, master of his destiny! He had fatuously believed that, had belittled his work and thought it unworthy his time and thought and ability—and he had let himself be hoodwinked and robbed in broad daylight!

He remembered the days when he had compromised with his work, had ridden to a certain pinnacle that commanded a wide view of the range, and had looked out over the country from the top—and had hurried back to the niche to work on the airplane, calling his duty to the Rolling R done for that day. He might better have stolen those horses himself, Johnny thought. He would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he had accomplished what he had set out to do; he would not have to bear this sickening feeling of failure along with his guilt.

But staring at the horses the thieves had left would not bring back the ones they had stolen, so Johnny rode back to camp, caught the gentlest of his two bronks and turned Sandy loose in the pasture. He had formed the habit of riding over to the airplane before he cooked his supper; sometimes eating with Bland so that he might the longer gaze upon his treasure. But to-night he neither rode to the niche nor cooked supper. He did not want to eat, and he did not want to see his airplane, that had tempted him to such criminal carelessness.

The telephone called him, and Johnny went dismally to answer. It was old Sudden, of course; the full, smooth voice that could speak harsh commands or criticisms and make them sound like pleasantries. Johnny thought the voice was a little smoother, a little fuller than usual.

"Hello. The boys tell me that they had quite a lot of—excitement—this morning when they were rounding up a bunch of horses. An aeroplane swooped down on them with—er—somewhat unpleasant results. Yes. The horses stampeded, and—er—the boys were compelled to do some hard riding. Yes. Tex was thrown—that makes two of the boys that are laid up for repairs. They haven't succeeded in gathering the horses so far. Know anything about it, Johnny?"

"Yes, sir." Johnny's voice was apathetic. What did a little thing like a stampede amount to, in the face of what Sudden had yet to hear?

"Oh, you do?" Sudden was plainly expectant. He did not, however, sound particularly reassuring. "Where did that aeroplane come from? Do you know?"

"Yes, sir. It's one I—salvaged from Mexico. I—was trying it out."

"Oh. You were? Trying it out on the stock. Well, I don't believe I care to work my stock with flying machines. Aviators—come high. I prefer just plain, old-fashioned riders."

He paused, quite evidently waiting to hear what Johnny had to say. But Johnny did not seem to have anything at all to say, so Sudden spoke again.

"How about the horses down at Sinkhole? Are they broken to aeroplane herding, or have they all stampeded like these up here?"

Here was escape, reprieve, an excuse that might save him. Johnny hesitated just long enough to draw his breath deeply, as a man does before diving into cold water.

"They haven't stampeded. I never had the plane in the air till this morning, and then I flew—toward the ranch. These horses down here have been stolen. About half of them, I should say. I was gone for nearly three days, getting that airplane from across the line. A greaser told me about it, and took me where it was. And when I got back I didn't ride the range the way I should have done—the way I did do, at first. I was working on the airplane, all the time I possibly could. I ran across a fellow that's been an aviator, and brought him down here, and he helped. And so the horses were stolen—a few at a time, I think. I believe I'd have missed them if they had gone all at once."

Johnny could feel the silence at the other end of the line. It lasted so long that he wondered dully if Sudden were waiting for more, but Johnny felt as though there was nothing more to add. Of what use would it be to protest that he was sorry? Bad enough to rob a man, without insulting him with puerile regrets.

"Now—let's get this thing straight." Sudden's voice when it came was fuller than ever, smoother than ever. It was a bad sign. "You say—about half of the horses on that range have been stolen? Have you counted them?"

"No. I'm just guessing. I don't think I've lost more than half. I just made a rough tally of what I found to-day."

"You say not more than half, then. But you're guessing. Now, when did you first miss them?"

"To-day. I was all taken up with that damned airplane before, and I didn't pay much attention. This morning the fellow here took me for a flight, and we went east. Beyond the red hill I happened to see four riders driving a few horses. They were inside our fence. I didn't think what it meant then, because Bland was climbing in a spiral and my mind was on that. But I rode over there this afternoon, and I saw where they'd let down the fence and then put it back up again. And they'd tried to cover up the tracks of horses going through. So I rode all afternoon, making a sort of tally of what horses ranged over that way. A lot of 'em's gone. I missed some of the best ones—some big geldings that I think I'd know anywhere."

"You say they went through the fence on the east line?"

"Yes, sir. It was just after sunrise that I saw them."

"And it was afternoon, you say, before it occurred to you that they might possibly have been stealing my horses. In the meantime, you were up this way, playing hell with the round-up."

"Yes, sir, that's about the way it stacks up."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Try and get back what horses I can, I guess." Johnny did not speak as though he had much faith.

"Going to go out and round them up with your flying machine, I suppose! That sounds practical, perfectly plausible. As much so as the rest of the story."

Johnny was too utterly miserable and hopeless to squirm at the sarcasm.

"Well, we don't want to be hasty. In fact, you have not been hasty so far, from what I can gather. Except in the matter of indulging yourself in aircraft at my expense. Don't leave the cabin. I shall probably want to talk about this again to-night."

That was all. It was enough. It was like Sudden to withhold condemnation until after he had digested the crime. Johnny did not think much about what Sudden would do, but he had a settled conviction that condemnation was merely postponed for a little while. It would come. But Johnny sat already condemned by the harshest judge a man may have—the harshness of his own youthful conscience.

He sat brooding, his palms holding his jaws, his eyes staring at the floor. What was he going to do? Sudden had asked him that. Johnny had asked himself the same question; indeed, it had drummed insistently in his brain since he had inspected the fence that afternoon and had known just what had befallen him. The bell rang—Sudden was calling again. He got up stolidly to answer more questions.

"Oh—Skyrider! I can only talk a minute. Mom's in the kitchen, and dad's gone to hunt up Bill Hayden. Is it true, Johnny, that a lot of horses have been stolen?"

"Yes."

"I heard dad talking. Oh, I wish I could help hunt them, but I'm in an awful mess, Skyrider! Bill Hayden knew I'd taken Jake, because my saddle was gone, and none of the other horses were. I never saw any one so mean and suspicious! And he knows Jake got away from me, too, because I was trying to catch him when Bill rode up, just perfectly furious over the horses stampeding. And Bill told dad—he certainly is the meanest thing! And now dad won't let me go out of sight of the house unless he or mom are with me. And mommie never goes anywhere, it's so hot. And dad only goes to town. But they don't know it was us in the aeroplane—and I'm just glad of it if we did scatter their old herd for them. Everybody's so mean to me! And I was planning how you'd teach me to fly, and we'd have the duckiest times—and now—"

She hung up so abruptly that Johnny knew as well as though he had been in the room with her, what had happened. She had heard her dad coming. Before Johnny had sat down again to his brooding, Sudden called him.

"You spoke about a greaser telling you about an aeroplane, and that you went with him and got it." Sudden's voice was cool and even—an inexorable voice. "Do you remember my telling you not to let a greaser on the Rolling R range if you could help it?"

"Yes, sir. This one's brother came first. He was just a kid, and he wanted—a drink." It struck Johnny quite suddenly that Tomaso's reason for coming had been a very poor one indeed. For there was water much nearer Tucker Bly's range, which was to the east of Sinkhole. And Tomaso should have had no occasion whatever to be riding to Sinkhole.

"Oh. He wanted a drink, did he? Where did he come from?"

"He works for Tucker Bly. So he said. And he told me about the airplane that had been lost, across the line. His brother had found it."

"And you went to see his brother?"

"His brother came to see me. The kid told him I was—interested."

"You went after the flying machine when? Over two weeks ago, eh? And you were gone—I see. Approximately two days and two nights—nearer three days. Who answered the telephone while you were gone? It happens that I have not missed calling you every night; did the man have a cold?"

"I—I don't know. I didn't know anybody—" Johnny frowned. It would be just as well, he felt, to keep Mary V out of it.

"You didn't know the 'phone was answered in your absence. Well, it was. By a man with a bad cold, who represented himself to be you. Did you notice any signs of any one being there while you were gone?"

"N-no, I can't say I did. Well, the string was tied different on the door, but I didn't think much about that."

"No—you wouldn't think much about that." Sudden's tone made a mental lash of the words. "You had your own affairs to think about. You were merely being—paid to think of my affairs."

"Yes, sir—that's the kind of a hound I've been."

Johnny's abject tone—he who had been so high-chested in the past—may have had its effect upon the boss. When Sudden spoke again his voice was almost kind, which is unusual, surely, for a man who has been robbed.

"Well, I shall have to investigate those greasers, I think. It looks to me as though they had used that flying machine for a bait to get you out of the way, and that looks to me too clever for greasers. It looks to me as though some one knew what bait you would jump at the quickest, young man. Do some thinking along those lines, will you? The horses are gone; but there might be some slight satisfaction in catching the thieves."

"Yes, sir. What shall I do to-morrow? Am I fired, or what?"

"You are—what!" Sudden was sarcastic again. "I believe, since you have been doing pretty much as you please down there, I shall expect you to go on doing as you please. I don't see how you are going to do any more damage than you have already done. On the other hand, I don't see how you are going to do much good—unless I could take those horses out of your hide!"

Johnny stared round-eyed at the 'phone, even after Sudden had hung up his receiver.

"Good golly!" he muttered, with a faint return of his normal spirit. "Old Sudden oughta been a lawyer." Then he went back to holding his jaws in two spread palms, and brooding over the trouble he was in.



CHAPTER NINETEEN

"WE FLY SOUTH"

Johnny did a great deal of thinking along the line suggested by old Sudden. At first he thought merely how groundless was any suspicion that the airplane was in any way connected with the horse-stealing, except that it might justly be accused of contributing to his negligence. Even so, Johnny could not see how one man could possibly protect the whole of Sinkhole range from thieves. He could have been on his guard, could have noticed when the first horses were missing, and notified Sudden at once. That, of course, was what had been expected of him.

But as to Tomaso and his oily brother, Johnny did not at first see any possible connection between them and his present trouble, save that they also had innocently contributed to his neglect. But Sudden had told him to think about it, and the suggestion kept swinging his thoughts that way. Finally, for want of something better, he went back to the very beginning and reconstructed his first meeting with Tomaso. Sudden had hinted that they must have known how deeply he was interested in aviation. But Johnny did not see how that could be. He had not talked much about his ambition, even at the Rolling R, he remembered; not enough to set him apart from the others as one who dreamed day and night of flying. Until the boys got hold of that doggerel he wrote, Johnny was sure they had not paid any attention to his occasional vague rhapsodies on the subject.

Tomaso had seen the letterhead of that correspondence school, and had just accidentally mentioned it. Or was it accidental? To make sure, Johnny got out the circular which Tomaso had seen, laid it where he remembered it to have been that day, and sat down at the table where Tomaso had been sitting. He placed the lamp where the light fell full upon the paper and studied the letterhead for several minutes, scowling.

Tomaso, he decided, had remarkably sharp eyes. Seen from that angle, the letterhead was not conspicuous. The volplaning machine was not at all striking to the eye. Unless a person knew beforehand what it represented, or was looking for something of the sort, Johnny was forced to admit that he would be likely to pass it over without a second glance.

Tomaso, then, must have come there with the intention of leading adroitly to the subject of airplanes. He must have brought those little, steel pliers purposely. And after all, he really had no business on the Rolling R range, if he was riding for the Forty-seven. He had come a good five miles inside the line. And when you looked at it that way, how had he got inside the line? There was no gate on the east side of the fence.

It looked rather far-fetched, improbable. Johnny was slow to accept the theory that he had been led to that airplane just as a toy is given to a child, to keep its attention engrossed with a harmless pastime while other business is afoot. It hurt his self-esteem to believe that—wherefore he prospected his memory for some other theory to take its place.

"Well! If that's why they did it—it sure worked like a charm," he summed up his cogitations disgustedly. "I'll say I swallowed the bait whole!" And he added grimly: "I wish I knew who put them wise."

Youth began to make its demands. He started a fire, boiled coffee, fried bacon, made fresh bread, and ate a belated supper. Sudden had told him to do as he pleased. "Well," Johnny muttered, "I will take him at his word." He did not know just what he would please to do, but he realized that fasting would not help him any; nor would sleeplessness. He ate, therefore, washed his few dishes and went straight to bed. And although he lay for a long while looking at his trouble through the magnifying glass of worry, he did sleep finally—and without one definite plan for the morrow.

Half an hour before dawn, Johnny went stumbling along the ledge to the cleft. On his broad shoulder was balanced the propeller. On his face was a look of fixed determination. He scared Bland Halliday out of a sleep in which his dreams were all of a certain cabaret in Los Angeles—dreams which made Bland's waking all the more disagreeable. Johnny tilted the propeller carefully against the rock wall, lighted a match, and cupped the blaze in his palms so that the light shone on Bland.

"Where's the lantern? You better get up—it's most daylight."

"Aw, f'r cat's sake! What more new meanness you got on your mind? Me, I come down here in good faith to help fix a plane that's to take me back home—and I work like a dog—"

"Yeah—I know that song by heart, Bland. You in your faith and your innocence, how you were basely betrayed. I can sing it backward. Lay off it now for a few minutes. I want to talk to yuh."

He lighted the lantern, and Bland lay blinking at it lugubriously. "And me—I dreamed I was in to Lemare's just after a big exhibition flight, and a bunch of movie queens was givin' me the glad eye."

"Yes, I've done some dreaming myself," Johnny interposed dryly. "I'm awake now. Listen here, Bland. I've been playing square with you, all along. I want you to get that. I can see how you being so darn crooked yourself, you may always be looking for some one to do you, so I ain't kicking at the stand you take. You've got no call, either, to kick against my opinion of you. I'm satisfied you'd steal my airplane and make your getaway, and lie till your tongue wore out, proving it was yours. You'd do it if you got a chance. That's why I hid the gas on you. That's why you couldn't take Miss Selmer home. I knew darn well you wouldn't come back. And that's why I took off the propeller and hid it. It ain't why I licked you yesterday—that was for what you said about Miss—"

"Aw, f'r cat's sake! Did yuh have to come and wake me up in the middle of the night just to—"

"No—oh, no. I'm merely explaining to you that I don't trust you for one holy minute. I don't want you to think you can put anything over on me by getting on my blind side. I haven't got any, so far as you're concerned. Now listen. I meant, and if possible I still mean, to keep my promise and take you to the Coast in the plane; but something's come up that is going to hold up the trip for a few days, maybe—"

"Aw, yes! I had a hunch you'd—"

"Shut up! I told you I'd go as soon as I could without leaving the boss in the hole. Well, it happens that—well, some horses were stolen off this range, and I'm the one that's responsible. So—"

"Say, bo, you don't, f'r cat's sake, think I stole your damn horses? Why, honest, bo, I wouldn't have a horse on a bet! I—"

"Oh, shut up!" thundered the distracted Johnny above the other's whine. "Of course I know you didn't steal 'em. Horses ain't in your line, or I wouldn't be so sure. The point is this. I've got to get out and get 'em back, or get a line on who did it. I can't go off without doing something about it. This range was in my charge. I was supposed to report anything that looked suspicious, and I—well, the point is this—"

"So you said," Bland cut in, with something of his natural venom.

"Shut up. There's just a chance I can find out where those horses were taken. We'll go in the plane. You'll have to go along to handle it, because I'm liable to be busy, if I run across anybody. I'm going to pack a rifle and a six-shooter, and I don't want my hands full of controls right at the critical minute. Besides," he added ingenuously, "some of these darned air currents nearly got the best of me yesterday, coming back. You can handle the machine, and I'll do the look-see."

"Aw, sa-ay! I—"

"I know it's against my promise to a certain extent," Johnny went on. "I know I've got you in a corner, too, where you can't help yourself. You couldn't walk to the railroad, or even to the closest ranch, if you knew the way—which you don't. You'd wander around in the heat and the sand—well, you're pretty helpless without me, all right, or the plane. I sabe that better than you do. You've got to do about as I say, because you haven't got the nerve to kill me, even if I gave you the chance. Sneaking off with the plane is about as much as you're game for.

"Well, the point is this: I don't want to take any mean advantage of you. I can't afford to pay you what your services are really worth, as pilot—and there's no reason why I should. But—well, I ain't quite broke yet. I'll give you twenty-five dollars for helping me out, in case what I want to do only takes a day or two days. If it takes more, I'll give you ten dollars a day. It isn't much, but it helps when you're broke."

Bland permitted the sour droop of his lips to ease into a grin. "Now you're coming somewhere near the point, bo," he said. "But ten dollars—say! Ten dollars ain't street-car fare. Not in little old L.A. Make it twenty, bo, and you're on."

"I'll make it nothing if ten dollars a day don't suit you!" Johnny declared hotly. "Why, damn your dirty hide, that's as much as I make in a week! And listen! I expect to sit in the back seat—and I'll have two guns on me."

"Aw, ferget them two guns!" Bland surrendered. "This is sure the gunniest country I ever stopped in. Even the Janes—"

"Shut up!"

"Oh, well, I'll sign up for ten, bo. It ain't eatin' money, but it'll maybe help buy me the makin's of a smoke now and then."

"Well, get up, then. I'll get us some breakfast, and we'll go. It's going to be still to-day—and hot, I think. You better get up."

"Aw, that's right! You've got the upper hand, and so you can go ahead and 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.

It was a little after noon, and the boys were eating dinner at the camp set up close to the creek at Sinkhole cabin. Sudden, sprawled in the shade of the wagon, was staring glumly at the sluggish little stream, smoking his after-dinner cigar and trying to formulate some plan that would promise results where results were most vital to his bank account. It would, of course, take two or three days to gather in all the horses on Sinkhole range, and the restless lot in the corral yonder might be a large or a small part of the entire number down there. Sudden was not worrying so much over those that were left, as he was over what had been stolen. It seemed to him that there ought to be some way of getting those horses back. He was trying to think of the way.

"Oh, Bill!" he called, getting stiffly to his feet. "Let's get into the cabin and go over those tally books." Which was merely a subterfuge to get Bill away from the wagon without letting the boys know something was wrong. Bill got up, brushed the dirt off his trousers with a flick of his fingers, lighted the cigarette he had just rolled and followed the boss.

"Bill, what's your idea about this horse-stealing, anyway? If they were going to steal horses, why didn't they run off a whole herd and be done with it?"

Bill seated himself on Johnny's bunk, spat toward the stove, pulled a splinter off the rough board of the bunk's side, and began carefully nipping off tiny shreds with his finger nails. Bill, by all these signs and tokens, was limbering up his keen old range-bred wits for action.

"Well, I'll tell yuh. The way to get at the thing is to figger out why you'd do it, s'posin' you was in their place. Now if it was me that was stealin' these hawses—say, s'posin' I was aimin' to sell 'em over across the line—I'd aim to take the best I could git holt of, because I'd be wanting 'em for good, all-round, tough saddle hawses. Them greasers, the way they're hellin' around over the country shootin' and fightin', they got to have good hawses under 'em. Er they want good hawses, if they can git 'em.

"Well, s'posin' 't I was out to furnish what I could. Chances is I wouldn't have a very big bunch in with me—say five or six of us, jest enough to handle a few head at a time. I'd aim to git 'em over acrost the line first shot. Anybody would do that. Well, s'posin' I didn't have a place that'd take care of very many at a time. Feed's pore, over there, and a hawse has got to eat. These here hawses are in purty fair condition, and I'd aim to keep 'em in flesh whilst I was breakin' 'em—I'd git better prices. And then again, mebby I wouldn't want too many on hand at once, in case some party come along with the gall to loot 'em instead of buy 'em.

"I figger I'd be plumb content if I could take over a few at a time, and let the rest go ahead eatin' grass here till I was ready for 'em. The longer I could keep that up, the better I'd like it. Same as we been doin' at the home ranch, y' see. We didn't go t' work and haze in the hull bunch and keep 'em up, eatin' their heads off, waitin' till we got ready for 'em. No, sir, we go out and bring in half a dozen, or a dozen at most and cut out what we want. We bust them, and git more.

"I figger, Mr. Selmer, that these geezers down here have been doin' that very same way. They had the kid baited with that flyin' machine, so he wouldn't have no eyes for anything else. And he was here, so you wouldn't be worryin' none about the stock. And they've been helpin' theirselves at their own convenience—like Mary V would put it. I dunno, but that's the way I figger it. And I don't guess, Mr. Selmer, you'll see none of yore hawses again, unless mebby it's the last ones they took. And I don't guess there's very much chance of gittin' them back, either, because we don't know whereabouts they took 'em to. Way I look at it, you're doin' about the only thing that can be did—cleanin' out this range and drivin' the hawses all up on the north range. That kinda leaves the jam pot empty when they come lickin' their lips for more of the same."

"Well, I guess you're right, Bill. And how do you figure young Jewel not being here? His saddle is out there in the shed, and all his horses are here."

"Him?" Bill laughed a little. "Me, I don't aim to do no figgerin' about Skyrider. He's got his flyin' machine workin', though, accordin' to Mary V. I guess Skyrider has mebby flew the country. He'd likely think it was about time—way he gummed things up around here."

Sudden permitted himself a snort, probably in agreement with Bill's statement that things were "gummed up" at Sinkhole. He went to the door and stood looking out, his face sour as one may expect a face to be when thoughts of loss are behind it.

"Where's Mary V?" he turned abruptly to ask of Bill.

"Mary V? Why, I guess she went home. Said something about takin' a picture of some darn thing; she never come on with the boys to camp, anyhow."

"She didn't go foolin' off with Tex, did she?"

"Tex? No, Tex rode after stock. Had some trouble with his hawse. I heard him tellin' the boys. Said his hawse run away with him. Come in all lathered up."

Sudden turned back, went to the telephone, changed his mind. No use worrying her mother by asking if she had got home, he thought.

"You're sure she went home?" his eyes dwelt rather sharply upon Bill's lean, leathery face. Bill looked up from the slow disintegration of the splinter. He spat toward the stove again, looked down at the splinter, and then got up quite unexpectedly.

"Hell, no! I ain't shore, but I can quick enough find out." He brushed past Sudden and took long steps toward the camp. Sudden followed him.

The boys were standing in a group, holding their hat brims down to shield their eyes from the bitter glare of the sun while they gazed up into the sky, their faces turned towards the south. A speck was scudding across the blue—a speck that rapidly grew larger, circled downward in a great, easy spiral. Sudden and Bill perforce turned and held their own hat brims while they looked.

"Sa-ay, if that there's Skyrider sailin' around in an airship, he's shore got the laugh on us fellers," Aleck observed, squinting his nose until his gums showed red above his teeth. "Look at 'im come down, would yuh!"

"Wonder where he got it?" little Curley hazarded. "I always told you fellers—"

"Does anybody know where Mary V went?" Sudden's voice brought them all facing him. They looked at him uncomprehendingly for a minute, then uncertainly at one another.

"Why—she was going to take a picture of a cactus. I dunno where she went after that." This was Bud, a shade of uneasiness creeping into his face.

"Which way did she go? Toward home?"

"She started that way—back toward Snake Ridge—"

"I seen her riding east," Curley broke in. "Jake shore was pickin' 'em up and layin' 'em down too. I thought at first he was running off with her, but he wasn't. He slowed down, climbin' that lava slope—and after that I didn't see no more of 'er."

Sudden looked at his watch, frowning a little. Mary V probably was all right; there was nothing unusual in her absence. But this country south of Snake Ridge was closer to the lawless land across the boundary than he liked. Their very errand down there gave proof enough of its character. North of Snake Ridge, Sudden would merely have stored away a lecture for Mary V. Down here at Sinkhole—

"You boys get out and hunt her up!" he snapped, almost as though they were to blame for her absence. "I didn't tell you before, but I'm telling you now that rustlers have been at work down here, and that's why we're taking the horses off this range. This is no place for Mary V to be riding around by herself."

"It's a wonder he wouldn't of woke up to that fact before," Bud grumbled to Aleck, while he went limping to the corral. "If she was a girl uh mine, she'd be home with her maw, where she belongs!"

"Rustlers—that sounds like greasers had been at work here. Runnin' hawses acrost the line. For Lord sake, git a faster wiggle on than that limp, Bud! If that poor little kid meets up with a bunch of them damn renegades—"

Bud swore and increased his pace in spite of the pain. Others were before him. Already Tex had his loop over the head of a speedy horse, and was leading it toward his saddle. Curley, the quickest of them all, was giving frantic tugs to his latigo. Bill was in the saddle ready to direct the search, and Sudden was standing by his car, wondering whether it would be possible to negotiate that rough country to the eastward with a "mechanical bronk."

Nothing much was said. You would have thought, to look at them, that they were merely in a hurry to get back to the work. Nevertheless, if it should happen that Mary V was being annoyed or in any danger, it would go hard with the miscreants if the Rolling R boys once came within sight of them.



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LUCK TURNS TRAITOR

Johnny Jewel, carrying the propeller balanced on his shoulder and his rifle in the other hand—and perspiring freely with the task—came hurrying through the sage brush, following the faint trail his own eager feet had worn in the sand. His eyes were turned frowning upon the ground, his lips were set together in the line of stubbornness.

He tilted the propeller against the adobe wall of the cabin, and went in without noticing that the door was open instead of closed as he had left it. He was at the telephone when Sudden stepped in after him. Johnny looked over his shoulder with wide, startled eyes.

"Oh. I was just going to call up the ranch," he said with the brusqueness of a man whose mind is concentrated on one thing.

"What you want of the ranch?" Sudden's tone was noncommittal. Here was the fellow that had caused all this trouble and worry and loss. Sudden meant to deal with him as he deserved, but that did not mean he would fly into a passion and handicap his judgment.

"I want the boys, if you can get hold of them. I've located the ranch where they've been taking those horses to that they stole. There's some there now—or there was. I went down and let down the fence of the little field they had 'em in, and headed 'em for the gap. There wasn't anybody around but two women—an old one and a young one—and some kids. They spluttered a lot, but I went ahead anyway. There's about a dozen Rolling R horses I turned loose. The brands were blotched, but I knew 'em anyway.

"So I got 'em outa the field, and then we went back to the plane and circled around and come up on 'em from the south, and flew low enough to scare 'em good, but not enough to scatter 'em like that bunch up at the ranch scattered. They high-tailed it this way, and I guess they'll keep coming, all right, if they aren't turned back again. The boys can pick 'em up.

"If the boys could come down I think they could get a whack at the rustlers themselves. I got a sight of 'em, with a little bunch of horses, as I was coming back. Far as I could see, they didn't notice the plane—we were high, and soon as I saw 'em I had Bland shut off the motor and glide. They must have camped just across the line till they got a bunch together, or something. They were taking their time, and if the boys could get down here right away, I believe we could get 'em. If not, I'll go back and stampede the horses this way, and see if I can't get me a greaser or two. We had to come back and fill up the tank again, anyway. I didn't want to get caught the way those other fellows did. Is Bill at the ranch, Mr. Selmer?"

It speaks well for Sudden Selmer that he could listen to this amazing statement without looking dazed. As it was, his first bewildered stare subsided into mere astonishment. Later other emotions crept in. By the time Johnny had finished his headlong report, Sudden had recovered his mental poise and was able to speak coherently.

"Been hunting horses with a flying machine, eh? I must say you're right up to date, young man. No, Bill isn't at the ranch. If you'd keep your eyes open here at home, same as you do when you're flying around next the clouds, you'd see the chuck wagon down there by the creek. I moved 'em down here to save what horses are left. The boys are out now hunting up Mary V. She had to go larruping off by herself on Bill's horse Jake, and she hasn't come back yet. I guess she's all right; but the boys went after her so as not to take any chances. I'm kinda hoping the kid went home. I don't like to scare her mother, though, by calling up to see."

Johnny's eyes had widened and grown round, just as they always did when something stirred him unexpectedly. "I could call up, Mr. Selmer, and ask if I can speak to Mary V. That wouldn't scare her mother."

"Sure, you can find out; only don't you say anything about the wagons being camped here. If she asks, say you haven't seen us yet. She'll think we made camp somewhere else. Go ahead."

It did not take long, and when Johnny turned to Selmer he had the white line around his mouth. "She says Mary V went out with you and the boys, to a round-up somewhere down this way."

"Well, maybe she just rode farther than she intended. But she was on Jake; she deviled us into letting her take him. Bill thinks Jake isn't very safe. I don't think he is, either. You say the rustlers were away down across the line, driving a bunch of horses, so there's no danger—"

"I didn't say all of them were down that way. I don't know how many there are. They were just little dots crawling along—but I guessed there were about four riders." Johnny started for the door, picking up his rifle from the table where he had placed it. "I wish I'd got after 'em as I wanted to, but Bland kept hollering about gas—" He balanced the propeller on his shoulder again, and turned to Sudden.

"Don't you worry, Mr. Selmer, we'll get right out after her. Which way did she go? There's times when an airplane comes in kinda handy, after all!"

"You young hound, there wouldn't be all this hell a-poppin' if it wasn't for you and your bederned airplane! Don't overlook that fact. You've managed to hold up all my plans, and lose me Lord-knows-how-many horses that are probably the pick of the herds; and you've got the gall to crow because your flying machine will fly! And if that girl of mine's in any trouble, it'll be your fault more than anybody's. If you'd stuck to your job and done what I've been paying you wages to do—"

"You don't have to rub all that in, Mr. Selmer. I guess I know it better than you do. Just because I don't come crying around you with a lot of please-forgive-me stuff, you think I don't give a cuss! Which way did Mary V go? That's more important right now than naming over all the kinds of damn fools I've been. I can sing that song backwards. Which way—"

"She went east. Damn yuh, don't yuh stand there talking back to me, or I'll—"

"Oh, go to—war," said Johnny sullenly, and hitched the propeller to a better balance on his shoulder, and went striding back whence he had come.

He had not meant to crow. He knew perfectly well what harm he had wrought. He was doing what he could to undo that harm, and he was at that high pitch of self-torment when the lash of another was unbearable. He did not want to quarrel with the boss, but no human being could have reproached Johnny then without receiving some of the bitterness which filled Johnny's soul.

He routed Bland out of nap and commanded him to make ready for another flight. Bland protested, with his usual whine against extra work, and got a look from Johnny that sent him hurrying around the plane to make his regular before-flying inspection.

Fifteen minutes after Johnny's arrival the plane was quivering outside on the flying field, and Bland was pulling down his goggles while Johnny kicked a small rock away from a wheel and climbed up to straddle into the rear seat, carrying his rifle with him—to the manifest discomfort of Bland, who was "gun-shy."

"Fly a kinda zigzag course east till I tell yuh to swing south," Johnny called, close to Bland's ear. "Miss Selmer's off that way somewhere. If you see her, don't fly low enough to scare her horse—keep away a little and hunt a landing. I'll tell yuh when to land, same as before."

He settled back, and Bland nodded, glanced right and left, eased the motor on and started. They took the air and climbed steadily, circling until they had the altitude Johnny wanted. Then, swinging away toward Snake Ridge, they worked eastward. Johnny did not use the controls at all. He wanted all his mind for scanning the country spread out below them.

Ridges, arroyos, brushy flats—Johnny's eyes went over them all. Almost before they had completed the first circle he spied a rider, then two—and over to the right a couple more, scattered out and riding eastward. Johnny wished that he could have speech with the boys, could tell them what he meant to do. But he knew too well how the horses would feel about the plane, so he kept on, skimming high over their heads like a great, humming dragon fly. He saw them crane necks to watch him, saw the horses plunge and try to bolt. Then they were far behind, and his eyes were searching anxiously the landscape below.

Mary V, it occurred to him suddenly, might be lying hurt. Jake might have thrown her—though on second thought that was not likely, for Mary V was too good a rider to be thrown unless a horse pitched rather viciously. Jake would run away, would rear and plunge and sidle when fear gripped him or his temper was up, but Johnny had never heard of his pitching. Jake was not a range-bred horse, and if there was a buck-jump in his system, it had never betrayed itself. After all, Mary V's chance of lying hurt was minimized by the very fact that she rode Jake.

Red hill came sliding rapidly toward them. Now it was beneath, and the plane had risen sharply to the air current that flowed steadily over the hill. It swooped down again—they were over the flat where he had seen the riders. The line of fence showed like knotted thread drawn across the land. And within it was no Mary V.

Johnny tapped Bland's shoulder for a circle to the north, hoping that she might be riding back that way. He strained his eyes, and saw tiny dots of horses feeding quietly, but no rider moving anywhere. He sent Bland swinging southward, while he leaned a little and watched the swift-sliding panorama of arid land beneath. It was a rough country, as Tex had said. To look for one little moving speck in all that veined network of little ridges and draws was enough to tax quicker, keener eyes than Johnny Jewel's.

But Johnny would not think of failure. Somewhere he would see her; he would circle and seek until he did find her—if she were there.

Twice they sailed round, keeping within the boundaries of the east and south fences. Then, flying as low as was safe, Johnny turned south, along the course which he believed the horse thieves to have followed. It did not seem possible—rather, he did not want to think it possible—that they should have met Mary V. But Mexico is always Mexico, and sinister things do happen along its border. The boys were coming on horseback, and they would scatter and comb the draws which Johnny had looked down into as he passed over. He would leave that closer search to the boys, while he himself went farther—as far as Jake could travel in half a day.

They reached the south fence, left it dwindling behind them. Minutes brought them over the invisible line which divides lawful country from lawless. They went on, until Johnny spied again the group of stolen horses being herded loosely in a shallow arroyo where there was a little sparse grass. The men he did not at first see, save the one on herd. Then he thought he could detect them sprawled in the shade of a few stunted trees.

Apparently they felt safe, close though they were to the line. Indeed, they were safe enough—from horsemen riding down from the Rolling R. So far they had thieved at their leisure and with impunity. The element of risk had been discounted until they no longer considered it at all, except when they were actually within the Rolling R Boundaries. Now, in the heat of the day, they slept as was their habit. Even the herder was probably dozing in the saddle and leaving watchfulness to his cow-pony. Certainly he did not give any sign that he saw the airplane as it glided silently over so that they could come back from the south.

"What I want, Bland, is to scare these horses back toward home," Johnny said. "We'll come at 'em first from the south, and if they don't run straight, we'll have to circle round till they do. But I want to come within shooting distance of them hombres under the trees. See? So fly as low as yuh dare, when we come back."

Bland threw on the motor, circled and came volplaning back. He did not complain; he left that for times when he was not flying. Johnny braced himself, rifle ready. He was sorry then that he was not an expert shot; but he hoped that luck would be with him and make up for what he lacked in skill.

The horses stampeded, carrying the herder with them. They ran north, in a panic that would keep them going for some time. As they raced clattering past the camp, Johnny saw four men rise up hastily, their faces turned up to the sky. He leaned, took what aim was possible, and fired four shots as the plane swept over.

He did not hit any one, so far as he could see, but he saw them duck and run close to the tree trunks, which gave him some satisfaction. Moreover, they were afoot. Not a single horse remained within sight or hearing of that camp.

Johnny did not go back for another try at them, though he was tempted to land and fight it out with them. There was Mary V to think of, and there were the horses. They went on, shying off from the fleeing animals lest they drive them back instead of forward. Bland spiraled upward, waiting to see what Johnny wanted next. Whatever it might be, Bland would do it—with two guns and a headstrong young man just behind him.

The thrum of the motor stuttered a little on the last upward turn. Bland straightened out the plane, fussed with the spark and the gas, banked cautiously around and headed for home. Like a heart that skips a beat now and then, an odd little pause, scarcely to be distinguished except when the ear has become accustomed to the rhythm of perfect firing, manifested itself. Bland turned his head sidewise, listening. The pause became more marked. The steady, forward thrust slackened a little. Johnny was aware that the monotonous waste below did not slip behind them quite so fast; not quite.

Bland was nursing the motor along, Johnny could tell by his slight movements. It seemed to him that a tenseness had crept into the set of Bland's head. Johnny braced himself for something—just what, he did not know. His knowledge of motors was superficial. Something was wrong with the ignition, he guessed, but he had no idea what it could be.

A sick feeling of thwarted purpose came over him. He knew it was not fear. He felt as though he could not possibly be afraid in an airplane, however much reason he might have for fear. He felt betrayed, as though this wonderful piece of mechanism, for which he had paid so dear a price and which he worshiped in proportion, had suddenly turned traitor. It was failing him, just when his need of it was so vital. Just when he had so much to retrieve, just when he had counted on its help in re-establishing his self-respect.

Bland turned his head, and gave Johnny a fleeting glance from the corner of one eye. Bland's face was a sallow white.

Johnny laid down his rifle and carefully placed feet and hands on the controls. Bland might get scared and lose his head, and if he did, Johnny did not want to be altogether at his mercy. Anyway, Bland did not know the country.

"How far will she glide?" Johnny shouted above the sputtering cough of the motor. But Bland only shook his head slowly from right to left and back again. Bland's ears were a waxy white now, and the line of his jaw had sharpened. Johnny believed that Bland would fail him too.

They were gliding down an invisible incline, and it was a long way to Sinkhole. Johnny began to think feverishly of certain sandy patches, bare of brush and rocks, and to estimate distances. Now they crossed the line fence and were over the rough country below Red Hill and the plane was lifting and falling to the uneven currents like a boat riding the waves. Gliding parallel with a dry tributary of Sinkhole Creek, the plane side-slipped and came perilously close to disaster. Bland righted it, but Johnny held his breath at the way the ground had jumped up at them.

Ahead, and a little to one side, three riders went creeping up a slope. They seemed to be heading toward Sinkhole Camp, and Johnny signaled Bland to keep off, and so avoid scaring the horses. But the slight detour cost them precious feet of altitude while the nearest sandy stretch was yet far off.

The earth was rising with incredible swiftness to meet them. The nearest landing Johnny could think of was farther over, across Sinkhole Creek. He did not believe they could make it, but he headed for it desperately, and felt Bland yielding to his control.

Rocks, brush, furrowed ditches; rocks, brush. Ahead, they could see the irregular patch of yellow that was sand. But the brush seemed fairly to leap at them, the rocks grew malignantly larger while they looked, the ditches deepened ominously. Over these the frail thing of cloth and little strips of wood and wire and the delicate, dumb motor, skimmed like a weary-winged bird. Bland flattened it out, coaxed it to keep the air. Lower, lower—a high bush was flicked by a wheel in passing. On a little farther, and yet a little.

She landed just at the edge of the goal. The loose sand dragged at the wheels, flipped the plane on its nose so suddenly that Johnny never did know just how it happened. Bland had feared that sand, and braced himself. But Johnny did not know. His head had snapped forward against the rim of the cowl—a terrible blow that sent him sagging inertly against the strap that held him. Bland got out, took one look at Johnny, and sank down weakly upon the sand.



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DREAMS AND DARKNESS

Johnny dreamed two separate dreams. The first dream was confused and fragmentary. He seemed to hear certain sentences spoken while he was whirling through space with the Milky Way flinging stars at him. As nearly as he could remember afterwards, this is what he heard.

Mary V's voice: "Don't be so stupid! If a girl happens to bring in two perfectly bandittish outlaws that imagine they are kidnaping her, why must she be lectured, pray tell? If a man had done it—"

Mumble, mumble, and a buzzing in Johnny's head.

Bland's voice: "I don't know as I could tell. He could, if he should come to. We got 'em headed this way—"

Bill's voice: "—and I seen him hittin' for the line and headed him off—"

More mumbling.

Mary V's voice: "I can't see why he doesn't hurry! Why, for gracious sake, must a person lie forever out in the sun when he's all smashed—"

Bland's voice: "—not as much as yuh might think, in all this brush. I ain't gone over it yet—" (mumble) "—short circuit—" (mumble, buzz-buzz) "went past me so close I could feel the wind—" (mumble) "—I dunno. I've seen 'em hurt worse and get over it, and I've seen 'em die when you'd think—"

After that it was all mumble and buzz, and then more stars, and blackness and silence.

Piecing together the fragments, as Johnny could not do, here is the interpretation.

The three riders whom Johnny had seen as the plane was dipping to its final fall were Mary V, Tomaso, and Tomaso's brother. Mary V had gone off to ride the country which Tex had said was too difficult for her—"and it was not too difficult for a person who had any brains or any gumption and who did not lose all the sense a person had," etc. She had gone some distance toward the southeast boundary, and Jake was behaving like a perfect dear. She had seen a few horses, and they had all run every which way when they got sight of her, so she was keeping right along and planning to just gently urge them toward Sinkhole as she came back.

Well, and on the way back she had seen the young Mexican riding along, and he had looked perfectly harmless and innocent, and he had a rag tied around his head besides, and kept putting his hand up, and wabbling in the saddle exactly as though he was just about ready to fall off his horse. And how, for gracious sake, was a person going to know he was only pretending and not sick or hurt a speck, but merely taking a low and mean advantage of a person's kindness of heart?

Well, and so she had let him come up to her, and he had asked her if she had any water with her. And she had, and so she twisted around in the saddle to untie the canteen, and Jake kept stepping around, so the young Mexican just reached out and held Jake by the bridle while she got the water—and how was a person to know that he was not trying to help but was kidnaping a person's horse and herself in the most treacherous manner ever heard of?

Just when she had got the canteen untied, and was unscrewing the cap to give it to the boy, another Mexican rode up behind, and he had the most insipid smile on his face, and a detestable way of trying to be polite. And he said it was a nice horse she was riding, and he would like to show that horse to his brother, if she would be so kind to come with him. It would not be far, he said, and they would show her the way. And they went on talking in the most detestable manner, and actually forced her to go along with them. They had guns, and they said they would shoot her in a perfectly polite way.