Battling the Clouds Part 2

"You ought to see the one he did for mother," said Bill. "Small enough for a bracelet almost, and the little ball smaller than a pea. The links are all carved on the outside, and there is a sort of rose on the end of this cage thing, and Lee painted it all up pink and green where it ought to be like that.

"He knows all about a car too. This week he has been going over dad's car and the Swallow, and they run like grease."

Frank fiddled with the chain. He had nothing to say. On account of his Indian blood, his silent ways and mischievous nature, Lee had always filled him with interest. He could tell wonderful stories too of his own times and the times that lay long behind him, as he heard of them from his father and grandfather.

Lee's grandfather knew a great many things that he never did tell, but once in awhile he was willing to open his close-set old mouth and talk.

He wore black broadcloth clothes, a long coat, and a white shirt, but never a collar. A wide black, soft-brimmed hat was set squarely on his coal black hair. Under the hat, smooth as a piece of satin, his hair hung in two tight braids close to each ear. They were always wound with bright colored worsted. Grandfather Lee, the old chieftain, liked bright colors, so he usually had red and yellow on his braids. They hung nearly to his waist, down in front, over each coat lapel. Small gold rings hung in his ears, and under his eyes and across each cheek bone was a faint streak of yellow paint.

His Indian name was Bird that Flies by Night, and he lived about a hundred miles away, on a farm given him by the Government. He had lived there quite contentedly for many years, tilling the ground when he had to. But now everything was changed. Oklahoma had given up her treasure, the hidden millions that lay under her sandy stretches. Oil derricks rose thickly everywhere, and Bird that Flies by Night found that all he had to do was to sit on his back porch and look at the derrick that had been raised over the well dug where his three pigs used to root. Two hundred dollars a day that well was bringing to the old Bird and, as Lee said, was "still going strong."

"And here _I_ am," said Lee grimly, "enlisted for three years!"

Lee's father was an Indian of a later day. He had gone through an eastern college and had been in business in a small town when the oil excitement broke out. He went into oil at once, and was far down in the oil fields, Lee did not know where.

As a boy, Lee himself had refused to accept the schooling urged by his mother and college-bred father, and had led a restless, roaming life, filled with hairbreadth escapes, until the beginning of the war, when he had enlisted in the hope of being sent across where the danger lay.

But like many another man as brave and as willing, he had been caught in one of the war's backwaters, and had been stationed at Fort Sill.

Sauntering up to the quarters, the boys found Lee staring moodily at the small and racy Swallow, now standing clean and glistening in the bright sunlight.

"She knocks," he said, knitting his fierce black brows. "All morning I have been working over that car, and I can't find that knock."

The boys came close and listened.

"I don't hear any knock," said Frank.

They all listened.

"Don't you hear it now?" said Lee, speeding the engine.

"Seems as though I hear something," said Bill, partly to please Lee.

They all listened closely.

Lee commenced to pry about in the engine. "I have it, I think," he exclaimed triumphantly as he took out a small piece of the machinery.

Frank motioned Bill one side, and they wandered around the end of the building.

"Don't you feel sort of afraid to let Lee tinker with your car?" he asked with a show of carelessness.

"Not a bit! Dad says he is a born mechanic and he trusts him with all the care of his car. If dad thinks he can fix that, why, I guess it is safe to let him do anything he wants to do with the Swallow."

"Do you ever let anybody else drive the Swallow?" asked Frank. "I wouldn't mind taking it some day if you don't care."

Bill looked embarra.s.sed.

"I would let you take her in a minute," He said, "but dad made me promise that I would never loan the Swallow to anyone. It is not that he wants me to be selfish, but he says if anything should happen, if the car should be broken, or if there should be an accident and some other boy hurt, I would sort of feel that it was my fault."

"I don't see it that way at all," said Frank, who was crazy to get hold of the pretty car and show it off to some boys and girls he knew in Lawton. He didn't want to drive with Bill. He was the sort of a boy who always wants all the glory for himself. That car was quite the most perfect thing; the sort a fellow sees in his dreams. Frank knew that he could never hope to own such a car, and the fact that Bill was always willing to take him wherever he wanted to go was not enough. Bill had never driven to Lawton, the town nearest the Post. He had told Frank that he would take him with him the first time. Frank had thought it would be pretty fine to go humming up the main street past all the people from the Post and the ranches, and the old Indians and the crowds of Indian boys his own age who always came in on Sat.u.r.day from the Indian school near by. He had been antic.i.p.ating that trip ever since Bill had appeared with the Swallow; but now he felt that it would be far nicer if Bill would or could be made to loan him the car. Of course he couldn't run it, but he could run an airplane engine, and he was perfectly willing to try running the little Swallow.

Frank had a great trick of getting his own way about things, and he reflected with satisfaction that as long as the roads to Lawton were almost impossible for traffic after the rainfall, there would be a few days in which to scheme for his plan. Nothing of this, however, appeared in his face. He turned and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, if you and your dad think Lee can handle a car all right, it's all the same to me," he laughed. "My father says you never can trust an Indian anyhow."

"Well, we would trust Lee with anything in the world," reiterated Bill.

"That's all right, too, if you think so," said Frank, trying slyly to breed distrust in Bill's heart. "I guess you never heard my father tell some of his Indian stories. You would feel different if you had."

"But anybody would just _have_ to trust Lee," said Bill. "Why, he is as good as gold! And he hates a lie, and he has such nice people--two of the prettiest little sisters. One of them plays the harp. It's one of those big gold ones, and she is so little that Lee says she has to trot clear round the harp to play some of the notes, because her arms are too short to reach."

"He's half Indian just the same," insisted Frank. He warmed to the subject as he went on. He couldn't forgive Lee, quite the most thrilling and amusing soldier he knew, for _letting_ himself be made Major Sherman's orderly.

"Well, I am for Lee every time," said Bill, "and I would wager anything I have that he is just as true blue as--as--well, as my dad!" Bill could pay no greater compliment, and the words rang out clear and honest. The boys stood beside the quarters, staring idly across the bluff as they talked. They were so interested in their conversation that they were not aware of a listener. Lee, with a part of the Swallow in his hand to show Bill, had followed them in time to overhear the conversation concerning himself, but he quickly drew back and returned to the automobile.

"Good boy, Billy!" he said softly to himself. Then with a dark look coming into his face, "So you can't trust an Indian, can you? Ha ha! I wonder what we had better do about that?"

CHAPTER III

Frank Anderson found no time to invent a scheme that would put the Swallow into his hands because two days later on a bright Sat.u.r.day morning, Frank heard a silvery little siren tooting under his window, and looked out to see the Swallow below and Bill in businesslike goggles.

"Hey!" called Bill joyfully. "Want to come along and show me Lawton? Dad and mother are coming in for dinner to-night, and we can stay in all day and see the sights, then meet them and have dinner with them. Dad sets up a dandy dinner, I will say. Hurry up!" He tooted the siren again gaily, and Frank bolted in search of his mother.

He found her getting ready for a bridge luncheon, and she scarcely listened when he told her the plan for the day. She managed to say yes, however, when she understood the part Major Sherman was going to play, and drifted out of the room leaving Frank to yell down from the window that he was coming and to embark on a more or less thorough toilet. He looked very smooth and clean, however, ten minutes later, when he hopped into the Swallow and settled himself beside Bill.

Frank pointed out the various places of interest as they went along, and before they knew that the miles had been pa.s.sed, they were entering the outskirts of the village. It was a typical Western village: low, squat, unpainted sheds of houses, with sandy front yards, and heaps of refuse lying about.

As the boys picked their way along, they turned a corner into a better part of the town. Here the houses were better; but on the whole very shabby. The influence of the oil boom was being felt, however, and here and there immense and showy residences were being built.

They then turned into the main street, a very wide, splendidly paved thoroughfare crowded with automobiles, carriages, mule teams, saddle horses, and indeed every possible kind of conveyance.

Frank noted with pride that wherever they went the little Swallow created a great commotion. People stopped to stare and exclaim. Bill, who was busy guiding his little beauty among the larger vehicles, did not seem to notice but it was meat and drink to Frank.

Down by Southerland's drug store they parked the Swallow, locking it carefully, and walked off, leaving the Swallow literally swallowed up by a crowd of admiring people. Frank hated to go and when they had wandered half a block away made an excuse for going back. Bill said he would look at some sweaters in a sporting goods window until he returned.

Frank found the crowd larger than ever. A policeman had attached himself to the circle and a couple of old Indians stood looking solemnly down.

Someone was talking and when Frank pressed through the crowd he found a boy about his own age leaning on the fender and addressing everybody in general. Frank listened and studied the boy as he did so. He was a slim, pale chap with a shock of light, wavy hair which was shaved close to his head everywhere except on top where a thick brush waved. He was continually smoothing it back or shaking his head to get it out of his eyes. He seemed to consider it a very fascinating motion. Frank liked his man-of-the-world air and did not see the grins on the faces of many of the listeners.

"Rather nice little machine," said the boy. "I wonder who owns it. I would like to tell him a few things he ought to have changed about it.

Some of the lines are all wrong, and anyone can see the engine couldn't hold up under any strain. I bet he has trouble with the hills. All the cars of this make have trouble. His tires are wrong too. He ought to use a heavier tire if he expects to get any speed out of it. It ought to go at a pretty good clip if the chap knows how to drive. There is everything in the driving. I have taken my eight-cylinder at one hundred and ten miles easily a good many times, but my dad and the chauffeurs never get over eighty-five out of it."

Frank felt his head swim. Here was talk that _was_ talk! He completely forgot Bill, looking at sweaters. He edged up to the car and fumbled under the seat.

"h.e.l.lo!" said the boy. "This your car?"

"It belongs to another fellow and me," said Frank, unable to keep himself from establishing some sort of a claim on the Swallow. "Why?"

"Quite a nice little toy," said the boy, nodding condescendingly. "I never cared much for toys myself but some chaps like 'em. I have an eight-cylinder machine and a six-cylinder runabout, and that's enough to keep me going for the present. I want a racing car built for me pretty soon."