Skyrider by B. M. Bower (best novels in english txt) 📕

personality she so disliked. "I knew I had seen him. That—whatever made Johnny Jewel take up with him, for gracious sake? I suppose he's persuaded Johnny to build a flying machine—the silly idiot! Well!"

She waited as long as she dared, meaning to give Johnny some much-needed advice and a warning or two. She planned exactly what she would say, and how she would for once avoid quarreling with him. It would be a good plan, she thought, to appeal to his conscience—if he had one, which she rather doubted. She would point out to him, in a kind, firm tone, that his first duty, indeed, his only duty, lay in serving the Rolling R faithfully. Trying to build flying machines on the sly was not serving the Rolling R, and Johnny could not fail to see it once she pointed it out to him.

But Johnny was far afield, appeasing his conscience by riding the range and locating the horse herds. He did not return to camp at noon, for he found it physically impossible to ride past the rock wall without turning into the niche to see what Bland Halliday was doing, and to make sure that the airplane was a reality and not one of his dreams.

Bland was down under the corner of the damaged wing, swearing to himself and tacking linen to mend the jagged hole broken through the covering by the skid. He ducked his head and peered out at Johnny morosely.

"Get down here and I'll show yuh how to do this, so I can go at that tail. I just wanted to get it started, so I could turn it over to you—in case you ever showed up again!"

"I haven't time now to help," Johnny demurred. "I've got a big strip of country to ride, this afternoon. The horses are scattered—"

"Say, listen here, bo. You've got a big strip of linen to tack this afternoon, and don't overlook that fact. Fast as we can, I want to get it on so the dope can be hardening. I've figured out how we can save time, so if the motor's all right, we can maybe get outa this damn country in ten days. If you don't lay down on the job, that is, and make me do it all." He crawled out and got stiffly to his feet, rubbing a cramped elbow and eying Johnny sourly.

"Can't help it, Bland; I've got other work to-day. Boss'll fire me if I don't make—"

"For cat's sake, what do I care about the boss? You're going to quit anyway, ain't you, soon as we're ready to fly?"

"We-ell, yes, of course. But I'd have to give him time to get some one in my place. They're working short-handed as it is. I couldn't just—"

"You're laying down on me; that's what you're doing. Look how I've sweat all forenoon on that darned wing! Got the frame fixed, all ready for the linen to go back on; I've worked to-day, if anybody should ask you! Oughta have that glue, but I'm making out with what little old Abe sent. And you ain't lifted a hand. It ain't right. I can't do it all, and you ride around once in awhile to stall me off with how busy you are. You better can that stuff, and take a hand here."

"Well, don't cry about it. I'll tack that linen on, if that's all that's worrying you. But I can't stay long; I've spent too much time already away from my work. I oughta been riding yesterday, by rights."

Bland Halliday looked at him queerly. "Me, I'd call that riding, what we done," he retorted grimly. "I'm so sore I can hear my muscles squeak. Well, get down here and I'll show yuh how to stretch as yuh tack. And be sure you don't leave a hair's breadth of slack anywheres, or it'll all have to come off and be done over again."

So that is where Johnny was, while Mary V waited for him at the cabin and puzzled her brain over his mysterious actions, and composed her speech—and afterwards lost her temper.

It was three o'clock before Johnny finally finished to the aviator's grudging satisfaction what had looked to be a scant half hour's work. Mary V had gone home, and it was too late for Johnny to catch a fresh mount and make the ride he had intended to make. He made coffee and fried bacon and ate a belated lunch with Halliday, and then, since the afternoon was half gone, he let himself be persuaded—badgered would be a better word—into spending the rest of the daylight helping Bland.

If his conscience buzzed nagging little reminders of his real duty, Johnny's imagination and his ambition were fed a full meal of anticipation, and he had the joy of being actually at work on an airplane that he could proudly speak of as "my plane."

But conscience nagged all the evening. He really must get out on the range to-morrow, no matter how urgent Bland Halliday made the work appear. He really must look over that other bunch of horses, and ride the west fence. Ab-so-lutely without fail, that must be done.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE FIRE THAT MADE THE SMOKE

Mary V, watching from that convenient ridge which commanded the Sinkhole mail box and the faint trail leading from it to the camp, saw the home-coming stage stop there. Through her glasses she saw the horses stretching their sweaty necks away from their burdensome collars, and then stand hipshot, thankful for the brief rest. She saw the driver descend stiffly from the seat, walk around to the back of the vehicle and, with some straining, draw out what appeared to be a box the size and shape of a case of tinned kerosene. He carried it with some labor to the mail box, tilted it on end behind the post, and returned to the rig for two other boxes exactly like the first one. He fumbled for Johnny's canvas mail sack—a new luxury of Johnny's—and stuffed it into the mail box. Then, climbing wearily back to the driver's seat, he picked up the lines, released the brake, and started on.

Mary V gave the stage no further attention. She was wondering what in the world Johnny Jewel wanted with three whole cases of coal oil—if that was what the boxes contained. Mary V was not, of course, disposed to stand long on a hill and wonder. The stage was not out of sight before she was riding down the ridge.

"Gasoline!" she ejaculated, kicking a box tentatively with a booted foot. "For gracious sake, what does that boy want with five—ten—with thirty gallons of gas? Why that's enough to drive a car from here to Yuma, just about. Surely to goodness Johnny hasn't—"

Tango lifted his head, pointed both ears forward and nickered a languid howdy to another horse. Mary V turned quickly, a bit guiltily, and confronted Johnny himself, riding up with something dragging rigidly from the saddle to the ground behind Sandy's heels. The confusion in Johnny's face served to restore somewhat the poise which Mary V had felt slipping.

"Hello, Skyrider," she greeted him chirpily. "Unless Venus has a filling station, you'll need more gas than this, won't you, for the round trip? Or—isn't it to be a round trip?"

Johnny's eyes flew wide open. Then he laughed to cover his embarrassment. "You're not up on sky-riding, are you, Mary V? I'll have to train you a little. I expect to 'vollup, bank and la-and,' coming back."

"Poor Bud isn't singing to-day. A bronk slammed him against the fence and hurt his leg so he's going around with a limp. What is that contraption, for gracious sake?"

"That? Why, that's a travois. You ask Sandy what it is, though, and he'll give you a different name, I reckon. Sandy's beginning to think life is just one thing after another. But he's getting educated."

Surreptitiously they eyed each other.

"Why do you buy your gas that way?" Mary V inquired with extreme casualness. "It's a lot cheaper if you get a drum, the way we do."

"I know; but it's a lot harder to handle a drum too. Besides—" Johnny broke his speech abruptly, hiding his confusion by straining to carry a case over to the travois.

Mary V studied his reply carefully, keeping silence until Johnny had loaded the other cases and was roping them to the travois frame.

"Is that Bland Halliday with you yet?" she asked him suddenly.

"Yeh—er—how do you know anything about Bl—" Johnny was plainly swept off his guard.

"Why, why shouldn't I know about BL?" Mary V's smile was exasperating. "I've seen Bland Halliday fly—and fall, too, once. Because he was drunk, they said. I've seen him drunk, and trying to do figure eights with a car on Wilshire Boulevard. He almost put me in the ditch, trying to dodge him. He was arrested for that, and his car was taken away from him. And I've heard—oh, all kinds of scandal about him. I was awfully surprised at your taking up with him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Johnny Jewel."

"He sure knows airplanes," Johnny blurted unwisely.

"Yours must be ready to fly—the amount of gas you're taking to camp."

"She goes in the air—say, good golly, Mary V! How do you know anything about my—er—"

"I hope," said Mary V very mildly, "that I have some brains. At any rate, I have brains enough to wonder how in the world you can afford to build yourself an aeroplane; I haven't heard a word about any rich uncle dying and leaving you a fortune. And I know it takes a tremendous lot of money to build and fly aeroplanes."

"Didn't set me back so much," Johnny bragged. "I didn't have to build one, you see."

Mary V needed time enough to study that statement also. She mounted Tango and waited until Johnny was ready to start with his queer load. "How did you get it—if I may ask?" she began then. "Did Bland Halliday happen along and have a wreck, and sell you the pieces? You want to be careful, because I know he's an awful grafter, and he'll cheat you, just as sure as you live, Skyrider."

"He can't," Johnny declared with confidence. "He's working for his passage—er—"

"Er—yes?" Mary V smiled demurely. "You may just as well tell me the whole thing, now. Have you got an aeroplane? Really truly? I mean, where did you get it? I know, of course, you must have one, or you wouldn't buy all that gas."

"Some deductionist," grinned Johnny, tickled with the very human interest he had roused in himself and his doings. "Where I got it is a secret—but I've got it, all right!"

"Johnny Jewel! You didn't let that Bland Halliday sell you—"

"I picked Bland Halliday up at the station in Agua Dulce," Johnny explained tolerantly. "He'd wrecked his plane back East somewhere. He was beating his way to the Coast, and was waiting to hit a freight. They'd dumped him off there. It was just pure luck. I had some stuff for repairing mine, and he saw me undo it and started talking. I saw he knew the game" (Johnny's tone would have amused the birdman!) "and when he showed me his pilot's license, I got him to help me. That's where Bland Halliday comes in—just helping me get 'er ready to fly. And he's going to teach me. You say you've seen him fly, so—"

"Oh, he can fly," Mary V admitted slightingly. "But he's so tricky, so—so absolutely impossible! A girl friend of mine has a brother that goes in for that sort of thing. I think he invented something that goes on a motor, or something. And I know he was terribly cheated by Bland Halliday. I think Bland borrowed a lot of money, or used a lot that was intended for something else—anyway, Jerry just hates the name of Bland Halliday. I didn't know him that day I met him with you, because they look so different all togged up to fly. But I remembered him afterwards, and I was going to warn you, only," she looked at Johnny sidelong, "you're a very difficult person to warn, or to do anything with. You are always so—so pugnacious!"

"I like that," said Johnny, in a tone that meant he did not like it at all.

"Well, you always argue and disagree with a person. Besides," she added vaguely, "you weren't there. And I can't be riding every day to Sinkhole."

"You could have seen me when I took those last horses back the other day," Johnny reminded her. "You did see me, only you pretended to be blind. Deaf, too, for I hollered hello when I passed, and you never looked around!"

"Did you?" Mary V smiled innocently. "Well, I'm here now; and I came just on purpose to warn you