"I could take her home, old top--if I had the gas." Bland turned his pale stare significantly from Mary V to Johnny. "Come through, bo. You know you've got more gas hid out on me somewhere. I got a slant at the bill of it, so I know. It wouldn't be polite to let the young lady walk home."
Johnny stilled him to silence with a round-eyed stare.
"Thank you, I'd much prefer to walk--if it was forty miles instead of twenty!" Mary V chilled him further. "What are we going to do, Johnny? I don't know what will happen if Bill Hayden finds out that I borrowed Jake. And then letting him get away, like that--"
"Sandy's at the pasture fence, I'd be willing to bet; but at that it's going to be the devil's own job to catch him, me afoot. And he wouldn't let you on him if I did. I guess it's a case of ride the sky or walk, Mary V."
"Then we better be stepping, bo, before the wind comes up, as I've noticed it's liable to, late in the forenoon. You dig up the gas, and I'll take her home."
"Thank you, I do not wish to trouble you, Mr. Halliday. Johnny can take me, if anybody--"
"Who--him?" Bland Halliday's smile was twisted far to the left. "Say, where do you get that idea--him flyin' after one lesson? Gee, you must think flyin' is like driving a Ford!"
"You could go to the shack and 'phone home for some one to come after you," Johnny suggested uncertainly.
"And let them know where I am? You must be absolutely crazy, if you think I'd consider such a thing. I'm supposed to be getting 'Desert Glimpses'--"
"Well, you sure got your glimpse," tittered Bland.
Mary V turned her back on him, took Johnny by the arm, and walked him away for private conference.
"You better let him take you home, Mary V. He's all right--for flying. I've got to hand it to him there."
"And give him a chance to steal your aeroplane? He'd never bring it back. I know he wouldn't."
"He'd have to. I'd only give him gas enough to make the trip on, and--"
"And if he had enough to come back with, he'd have enough to get to the railroad with. Don't be stupid. You can take me; couldn't you, now, honest?"
"Well,--I feel as if I could, all right. But a fellow's supposed to practice a lot with an instructor before he gets gay and goes to flying alone. Bland says--"
"Oh, plague take Bland! What would you have done if you hadn't run across him at all? Would you have tried to fly?"
"You know it!" Johnny laughed. "I've sat in that seat and worked the controls every day since I got it. I know 'em by heart. I've studied the theory of flying till I'll bet I could stick Bland himself on some of the principles. And I've been flying in my sleep for months and months. Sure, I'd have tackled it. But I wouldn't have had you along when I started in."
"You know how the thing works, then. Well, come on back and work it! Unless you're scared."
"Me scared? Of an airplane? It's you I'm thinking about. I'd go alone, quick enough. Maybe we could both crowd into the front seat, and let Bland pilot the machine. Then--"
"I abso-lutely will not--fly with--Bland Halliday! If you won't take me home, I'll walk!" Mary V pinched in her lips, which meant stubbornness.
Johnny heaved a sigh. "Oh, shoot! I'm game to tackle it if you are. Far as I'm personally concerned, I know I can fly." His lips, too, set themselves in the line of stubbornness. And he added with perfect seriousness, "It ain't half as hard as topping a bronk."
He glanced back, saw that Bland had gone into the cleft, and hurried on to where he had buried the gasoline in the sand behind a jagged splinter of rock in a shallow niche.
"Well, the Jane changed her mind, did she?" Bland commented when Johnny arrived at the plane with the gas. "Thought she would. Walking twenty miles ain't no sunshine, if you ask me. Better have the tank full-up, bo. It's always safer."
A suppressed jubilance such as had seized and held him when he first beheld the disabled airplane in the desert valley, filled Johnny now. As he climbed up and filled the tank his lips were pursed into a soundless whistle, his eyes were wide and shining, his whole tanned face glowed. Bland Halliday regarded him curiously, his opaque blue eyes shifting inquiringly to Mary V, halted at a sufficient distance to take a picture. They were very young, these two--wholly inexperienced in the byways of life, confident, with the supreme assurance of ignorance. It had been a queer idea, hiding the gasoline; and threatened to be awkward, since Bland was practically helpless out here in the sand and rocks. But things always turned out the right way, give them time enough. The kid was filling the tank--at present Bland asked no more of the gods than that. His sour lips drew up at the corners, as they had done when Johnny had made him the proposition in Agua Dulce. Mary V closed her camera and came toward them, walking springily through the sand, looking more than ever like a slim boy in her riding breeches and boots.
"All right. You lend Miss Selmer your goggles and cap, Bland. You won't need 'em yourself till I get back."
"Till you--what?"
"Till I get back. I aim to take Miss Selmer home." Johnny's lips were still puckered; his face still held the glow of elation. But his eyes looked down sidelong, searching Bland's face for his inmost thought.
Bland was staring, loose-lipped, incredulous. "Aw, say! D'yuh think I'll swallow that?" There was a threatening note beneath the whine of his voice.
"If you don't choke. Come on, Mary V; 'hop in, and we'll take a spin,' and all the rest of it. Venus'll have nothing on you. Here's my goggles; put 'em on. I'm going to borrow Bland's." It had occurred to Johnny that Mary V would probably shrink from wearing anything belonging to Bland Halliday; girls were queer that way.
Bland stepped pugnaciously forward; his pale eyes were unpleasantly filmed with anger. "Aw, I see your game, bo; but you can't get away with it. Not for a minute, you can't. You think I'm such a mark as that? Come down here and work like a dog to get the plane ready to fly, and then kiss yuh good-bye and watch yuh go off with it--and leave me here to rot with the snakes and lizards? Oh, no! I'll take the young lady--"
"Give me a hand up, Johnny. The front seat? How perfectly ducky to ride home in an aeroplane! Oh, Johnny wants your goggles, Mr. Halliday." Mary V reached down quickly and lifted them off the irate aviator's head before he knew what she was after. "Here they are, Johnny. Sit down, and Mr. Halliday will crank up--or whatever you call it. I'll send him right back, Mr. Halliday, just as quick as ever he can make the trip!"
Mr. Halliday gave her a venomous glance, and a sneer which included them both.
"Ain't it a shame she ain't equipped with a self-starter?" he fleered. "You two look cute, settin' there; but I don't seem to see yuh making any quick getaway, at that." He spread his legs and stood arrogantly, arms folded, the sneer looking perfectly at home on his face.
"Don't be a darned boob!" Johnny snapped impatiently. "Turn 'er over. Miss Selmer wants me to pilot her home, and I'm going to tackle it. You needn't be scared, though; I'll come back."
"I don't think so," said Bland, teetering a little as he stood.
"I will, unless I bust something. And it's my machine, so I'm sure going to be right careful that nothing busts." What Johnny wanted to do was get out and lick Bland Halliday till he howled, but since the gratification of that desire was neither politic nor convenient, he promised himself a settlement later on, when Mary V was not present. Just now he must humor Bland along.
"I don't think you'll come back," Bland repeated, "because I don't think you'll start. There's a little detail to be looked after first--a little swingin' on the propeller to be done. I don't see anybody doin' it. And I never did hear of anybody flying without their motor running." He tittered malevolently.
"Cut out the comedy, bo, and let me in there. You start 'er for me, and I'll take Miss Selmer home for you. You ain't got your pilot's license yet--by a long ways. I never heard of a flyer getting his license on a thirty or forty minute course. It ain't done, bo--take it from me." He spat into the sand with an air of patient tolerance.
"Are you all ready, Johnny?" Mary V's voice was rather alarmingly sweet. "I'm not going to touch this ducky little wheel. I'm afraid I might think it was my car and do something queer. I shall let you drive--if you call it driving. Now if Mr. Halliday will crank up for us, we'll go."
"Mr. Halliday will let you set there till you get enough," Bland grinned sourly. "I'm thinking of your safety, sister. I'm thinkin' more of you than that piece of cheese in the pilot's seat."
"Mr. Halliday, won't you please start the motor?" There was a remarkable stress upon the "please," considering the gun in Mary V's steady little right hand. She peered down owl-eyed at Bland through the big goggles. "This is Arizona--where guns are not loaded with blanks, Mr. Halliday. I'll prove it if you like. I'd just love to shoot you!"
Bland Halliday drew his feet together as though he intended to run. Mary V, still peering down through the goggles, shot a spurt of sand over the toe of one scuffed shoe. Bland stepped aside hastily.
"I can't see well enough to be sure of missing you next time," Mary V assured him. "Generally I can shoot awfully close and miss, but--I'd like to shoot you, really. You'd better crank the motor."
Bland saw the hammer lift again, ominously deliberate. He sidled hurriedly down to the propeller. His pale stare never left the gun, which kept him inexorably before its muzzle.
Johnny's eyes looked as big as his goggles, but he did not say a word. And presently, after three rather hysterical attempts, Bland set the propeller whirring, and ran out to one side, his hands up as though he feared for his life if he lowered them. The motor's hum increased to the steady roar which Johnny's ear recognized as the sound Bland got from it when he started. And with an erratic wabbling the plane moved forward jerkily, steadied a bit as Johnny set his teeth and all his stubbornness to the work, and gradually--very gradually--lifted and went whirring away through the sunlight.
They say that Providence protects children and fools. Johnny Jewel, I think, could justly claim protection on both grounds. He was certainly attempting a foolhardy feat, and he was doing it with a childlike confidence in himself. As for Mary V--oh, well, Mary V was very young and a woman, and therefore not to be held accountable for her rash faith that the man would take care of her. Mary V had centuries of dependent womanhood behind her, and must be excused.
Johnny wished that he had warned her about the peculiar tendency of the air currents to follow the contour of the ground. He climbed as high as Bland had climbed at first, hoping to escape the abruptness of the waves such as he had studied patiently from charts, and which he had felt when they flew over arroyos and rough ground. He did not want Mary V to be alarmed, but the noise of the motor made speech impossible, so he let the explanation go for the present. Mary V was sitting exactly in the center, grasping rather tightly the edges of the pit as a timid person holds fast to the sides of a canoe. Sitting so, she did not look in the least like a young woman who has just compelled a man at the point of a revolver to do her bidding. More like a child who is having its first boat ride, and who is holding its breath, mentally balanced between howls of fear and shrieks of glee. But Johnny did not believe she was scared.
Johnny was keyed up to the point of working miracles, of accomplishing the impossible. Johnny was happy, a little awed at his own temerity, wholly absorbed in his determination to handle that airplane just as well as Bland or any other living man could handle it. He kept reminding himself that it was simple enough, if you only had the nerve to go ahead and do it; if you just forgot that there was such a thing as falling; and, of course, if you knew what it was you ought to do, and how you ought to do it. Johnny knew--theoretically. And it did not seem possible to him that he could fall. He was master of a machine that was master of the air. He was riding the sky--and Mary V was there, riding with him, absolutely confident that he would not let her be hurt.
He did not attempt any "fancy stunts," such as Bland had done. He merely climbed to where he dared circle, then circled deliberately, carefully. When he came about so that the sun was warming his right shoulder, he flew straight for the Rolling R ranch, like a homing pigeon at sunset.
It was exhilarating--it was wonderful! Johnny, knowing the country so well, avoided passing over the roughest places, keeping well out from the hills, and into the smoother flow over the broad levels. The drone of the motor was a triumphal song. The flattening wind against his cheeks was sweeter than kisses. Supreme confidence in himself and in the machine stimulated him, made him ready to dare anything, do anything. Once more he was a god, skimming godlike through space, gazing down on the little world and the little, crawling things of the world with pity.
Ahead of him, Mary V never moved. Her little fingers never loosened their grip of the padded leather. Wisps of her brown hair, caught in the terrific air-pressure, stood back from her head like small pennants.
Black Ridge they passed, and it looked squatty and insignificant. Johnny swerved a little to the westward, to avoid a series of washes and deep gullies and small ridges between that might affect the smooth flight of the plane. On and on and on, boring steadily through the air that rushed to meet them--or so it seemed.
Far ahead, lumped on a brushless level which Johnny knew of old, a little, milling cluster of antlike creatures attracted Johnny's eye.
He watched it a minute, knew it for a horse round-up, and chuckled to himself. The Rolling R boys--and revenge for the sneers and the fleers they had given him when he had only dared to dream of flying. He wanted to tell Mary V, but then he thought that Mary V's eyes were as sharp as his. Yes, her fingers reluctantly loosened their hold and she tried to point--and had her hand swept backward by the wind. She tried again, and Johnny nodded, though Mary V could not see him without turning her head, which she seemed to think she must not do.
The Rolling R boys--Tex and Bill Hayden and Curley and Aleck and one or two more whom this story has not met--were driving a small herd of horses from which they meant to cut out a few chosen ones for breaking. Away up toward where the sun would be at two o'clock, a little droning dragonfly thing coming swiftly, and a little imp of mischief whispering into the willing ear of one who felt that he had suffered much and patiently. Mary V, hanging on tight, with her lips pressed together and her eyes big and bright behind her goggles, watched how swiftly the antlike creatures grew larger and took the form of horses and men.
Johnny dared a volplane, slanting steeply down at the herd. He wanted to get close enough so that they could see who he was, and he wanted to fill his lungs and then shout down to them something that would make them squirm. He meant to flatten out a hundred feet or so above them and shout, "For I'm a rider of the sky!" and then give a range yell and climb up away from them with arrogant indifference to their stunned amazement.
Well, Johnny did it. That is, he volplaned, banked as much as he thought wise, and flattened out and yelled, "I'm a rider of the sky!" just as he had planned.
It happened that no one heard him, though Johnny did not know that. Horses and men tilted heads comically and stared up at the great, swooping thing that came buzzing like a monstrous bumblebee that has learned to stutter. Then the horses squatted cowering away from it, and scattered like drops of water when a stone is thrown into a pond.
Johnny did not see any more of it, for Johnny was busy. Which was a pity, for the horse of Tex bolted a hundred yards and began to pitch so terrifically that Tex was catapulted from the saddle and had to walk home with a sprained ankle. Little Curley's horse took to the hills, and little Curley did not return in time for his dinner. Aleck and Bill Hayden went careening away toward the north, and one of the two strangers went so far west that he got lost. Since that day no horse that was present can see a hawk fly overhead without suffering convulsions of terror.
Johnny flew to a certain grassy spot he knew, not half a mile from the house, and landed. I cannot say that he landed smoothly or expertly, but he landed with no worse mishap than a bent axle on the landing gear, and a squeal from Mary V, who thought they were going to keep on bouncing until they landed in a gully farther on. Johnny climbed down and turned the plane around by hand, and Mary V helped him. Then she took a picture of him and the plane, and climbed back and let Johnny take a picture of her in the plane. It was rather tame, for by all the laws of logic they should have broken their necks.
Before he started back, Johnny leaned over and shouted to Mary V: "You can tell the boys they can sing that Skyrider thing all they want to, now."
