Battling the Clouds Part 6

So he cleverly kept silence whenever the Major was around, only asking questions that he knew would please him to answer and enlarge upon.

With Mrs. Anderson he worked a different scheme. He launched into glowing accounts of parties and bridge luncheons his mother had given, recounting with more or less truth details about the food and the decorations, and the jewels worn by the guests.

"Seems to be a very quiet, studious boy," was Major Anderson's decision, and Mrs. Anderson proclaimed him "The sweetest child, with such _lovely_ manners, and perfectly unspoiled by his enormous wealth."

Jardin laughed in his sleeve, and Frank, also a willing listener, but to a greatly differing line of talk, was rapidly absorbing all the mental and moral poison that Jardin could think up.

As Bill looked at his friend, he was conscious of a change in him. He had a worldly, bored air that to Bill was extremely funny. Frank and Horace did not trouble to speak to Lee, who grinned cheerfully and said nothing, while he cared even less. Lee saw through the two boys and was determined to keep them from doing any harm to Bill, for whom he felt the truest affection. They were growing into a friendship that was destined to last for many years.

Lee was the soul of honor and had a sense of humor seldom found in one of Indian blood, and was as ready to romp and roughhouse as a boy of twelve. His straightforwardness and his tender care of Mrs. Sherman caused the Major to rejoice every day that he had transferred him to his service as orderly.

Lee had the Indian gift of silence, so he made no comment at all when he was alone with Bill and Bill commenced to sputter and fuss about the change in Frank. He just stared ahead, gazing off across the prairie or carving delicately on another length of chain which Mrs. Sherman had asked him to make for her sister back in the east.

"My airplane is finished," said Horace as soon as he could make Bill hear the glad news. For once he looked genuinely pleased and excited.

"Good enough!" cried Bill. "Is it here?"

"Of course not," scoffed Jardin. "I will not get it until I go back east. But Major Anderson has arranged for me to learn to fly here. My father called him on long distance and arranged it."

"I guess I will hang around and pick up some pointers myself," said Bill. "When do these lessons come off? 'Most any time?"

"Almost any time we want to go over to the Field and get hold of an instructor," answered Frank. "Now the war is over, the rush is over too and we are taking our time over here. Stick around all you want to, Bill; I can fly myself."

Walking over to the hangars, the boys found the field bright with the giant dragonflies hopping here and there or rising slowly from the ground, and taking wing with ever increasing noise and speed. Lee followed the boys and was glad when he found that Bill could not make a flight without written permission from his parents. This was a rule of the Field, no minor being allowed to go up without the presentation of such a paper, which acted as a sort of release in ease of any accident.

Jardin b.u.t.toned himself into an elaborate and most expensive leather coat, carefully, adjusted his goggles, stepped into a plane beside the usual pilot who winked slyly at Lee, and proceeded, to send his big bug skimming here and there across the field under the wobbly and uncertain guidance of Horace. They did not leave the ground, but Frank soon soared upward on a short flight that filled Bill with joy and envy all at the same time. He felt that he _must_ fly.

Frank was really mastering the control of a plane in a remarkable manner. The instructors said that he was a born birdman. He seemed to know by instinct what to do and when to do it.

Bill and Lee, on the sidelines by the hangars, did not find all this very exciting. Bill grew more and more crazy to go up, and Lee, who was an artilleryman and had no use for flying, was sorry to see the craze for the dangerous sport grow in his favorite.

Finally the lesson was over, and Frank and Horace, both much inclined to crow, rejoined Bill and Lee to talk it over. They wandered over to the Andersons' quarters, where Lee left them to go to the men's mess for his luncheon. Mrs. Anderson was out attending a bridge luncheon, and the Major did not come home at noon, so the boys had the table to themselves.

"Well, I have decided to be an aviator," declared Jardin. "There will be another war sometime perhaps, and there is nothing like being ready.

I suppose I will have to go to school this winter because I agreed to.

Gee, I hate the thought of it! Perhaps there will be some way of getting out of it, I can almost always work dad one way or another. He is crazy for me to go through college."

"So is my father," said Frank. "But I am going to be an aviator too, and I don't see any need of college."

"My father is set on college, too," said Bill, "or at least a good training school."

"Well, he is only your stepfather, so I suppose you will do just as you like about it," said Jardin.

"I don't see it that way," replied Bill, flushing, "Of course he is my stepfather, but he is the kindest and best man I ever knew or heard of and I will say right now I am perfectly crazy over him. If I hadn't been, I would never have let mother marry him."

"Much she would have cared what you wanted!" chuckled Jardin.

"She would have done exactly as I said," Bill insisted. "We always talk things over together and never decide any really _big_ things without a good old consultation."

"n.o.body ever consults me," grumbled Frank.

"None of the women consult me," said Jardin. "They know I won't be bothered with them. Dad and I usually go over things together."

How Horace Jardin's father would have laughed if he could have heard his son and heir make that remark! Horace was Mr. Jardin's greatest care and problem. He often said that his son caused him more trouble than it gave him to run all his factories. Mr. Jardin was a very unwise man who loved his only son so much that he did not seem able to make him obey. Horace had not been a bad boy to start with, but twelve years of having his own way and feeling that, as he said, he could work his father and mother for anything that trouble could procure or money buy had made him selfish, grasping and unreliable. Other and graver faults were developing in him fast, to his mother's amazement and his father's sorrow.

When Mr. Jardin found that he must go down into the oil fields to look after his wells there, he was greatly relieved and pleased to find that he could leave his son with such pleasant people as the Andersons. He knew that for awhile at least the novelty of being right at an Aviation Post would keep Horace out of any serious mischief. In a measure he was right. The discipline and routine, the sharp commands, the rage of the instructors if anything went even a shade wrong, impressed Horace as he had never been impressed before. All the good in him came to the surface; the bad hid itself away.

Unfortunately, however, while Horace was spending his time in what seemed to all a highly creditable manner, his influence over Frank was bad, and grew worse as time went on. He absorbed like a sponge every word of Jardin's boastful tales; he learned a thousand new ways in which to gain his own ends; he learned to cheat; he learned to lie without the feeling of guilt and distress that used to bother him when he slipped from the truth. And most of all, he was made to feel that there was nothing so necessary as money, money and still more money. Every letter from Mr. Jardin brought Horace a check for anything from twenty-five to a hundred dollars, and this money was spent like water.

Frank, who had thought his allowance of a dollar a week a fine and generous amount, watched Jardin buy his way and squander money in every direction. Frank commenced to worry about school. It must be as Horace said: useless to try to be happy or comfortable unless one had a pocket full of change all the time. He commenced to wish for some money, then the wish changed, and he wished for a certain sum, the amount he thought would be sufficient to carry him through the three terms of school. He made up his mind that he wanted six hundred dollars. Where this vast sum was to come from he did not know. He knew very well that his father and mother would not give it to him. He could not earn it. Only a few weeks later the boys would be sent east to school. Six hundred dollars he wanted, and his whole mind seemed to focus on that amount like a burning gla.s.s, and the thought of it scorched him.

All through luncheon Frank thought of the money. He went off into day-dreams in which he rescued the daughter of the Colonel from all sorts of dangers and invariably after each rescue, the Colonel would say, "My boy, thanks are too tame. I insist, in fact I _order_ you to accept this little token of my regard." And then he would press into Frank's hand six hundred dollars. It was thrilling; and in a day-dream so easy.

The fact that the Colonel's only daughter was a strapping damsel who stood five feet eight and weighed one hundred and sixty pounds and always took the best of care of herself in all kinds of tight places without asking odds of anyone, did not affect Frank's day-dreams at all.

Neither did the fact that the Colonel was well known to be so close with his money that he had learned to read the headlines upside down so that he seldom had to buy a paper of a newsy! Six hundred dollars ... it would have killed him!

Frank was called back to the present by hearing Horace say,

"Six hundred dollars! Where does a common soldier get all that?"

Frank looked up from his dessert quite wild-eyed. It was so pat!

"His grandfather sent it to him. He has a lot more than that."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Frank, coming wholly out of his trance and looking from one to the other. "Who has six hundred dollars, and whose grandfather sent it to him?"

"Lee's," said Bill.

"I don't believe it!"

"It is true," Bill affirmed. "I was just telling Horace that I went to Lawton this morning before I came here, so that Lee could bank the money. He has a nice bank account. He is saving up so he can go into business when he is discharged."

"Well, I don't believe it," said Frank bitterly. Six hundred dollars--and someone else had it!

"It is true anyhow," repeated Bill, "and this is the way it happened.

Years and years ago, as the storytellers say, the Government decided to grant to every Indian a certain amount of ground. I forget how much Lee told me. Anyhow, it was a nice large farm, and they gave one to each Indian. Some of the Indians were glad to get the grant and went right off and settled down and did their best to be farmers. And some of them didn't want land, and said they wouldn't _have_ land. It looked too much like work.

"Lee's grandfather was one of those. He just said no, he wouldn't take it. But the Government knew that what one Indian had, the rest ought to have or there would be sc.r.a.pping over it sooner or later, sure as shooting.

"So old Foxy Grandpa found a farm wished off on him whether he liked it or not. He was quite mad about it--so mad that for a long while he wouldn't speak more than once a week instead of once in a day or two, the way he usually did. Bimeby he built a house and his boys, who were all getting an education, commenced to work the ground and collect cattle and horses. This commenced to interest grandpa a little, although he wouldn't help, and he used to sit on the back porch and look over the farm and watch his children, and just rattle right along, saying nothing at all.

"Then all at once oil was discovered in Oklahoma, and the Government took control of the Indian grants. That; is, they dig the wells and give the Indians a big royalty. If the well is a dry hole, it does not cost the Indian anything.

"The fellows who knew about such things came moseying around grandfather's farm and thought they smelled oil. So they put up a derrick, and commenced to drill right where the pig yard was, not far from the house.

"Grandfather just sat right on the back porch and watched them do it.

Didn't keep them from work by his talking; just sat and looked on. It took several weeks to drill the well, but grandfather kept right on watching.

"Finally bing, bang! They struck, and it was a gusher. Just poured right out and most drowned grandfather on the back porch before they could plug it and fix the tanks.