Skyrider Part 14

Deadlocked, they looked at each other and tried not to let their eyes smile.

"You're all over your cold, I see," said Mary V meaningly. "You didn't come after all to ride with me last Sunday, although you promised to come."

"Promised? I did? Well, what did you expect? Not me--I'll bet on it."

Johnny had been nearly caught, but he recovered himself in time, he believed.

"I expected you wouldn't know the first thing about it--which you didn't.

Oh, there's something here I want to show you." She tilted her head backward, and gave him a warning scowl, and rode slowly away.

Johnny followed, uncomfortably mystified. She did not go more than fifty yards--just out of the hearing of the stranger. She stopped and pointed her finger at a rock which was like any other rock in that locality.

"What is that fellow doing here? He can't ride. I saw you, when you came out of the canon, so he isn't a new hand. And why did somebody answer your telephone for you, and pretend he had a cold so dad wouldn't know he was a stranger? Dad didn't, for that matter, but _I_ knew, the very first words he spoke. And what are you up to, Johnny Jewel? You better tell me, because I shall find out anyway."

"Go to it!" Johnny defied her. "If you're going to find out anyway, what's the use of me telling yuh?"

"Who was it answered your 'phone? You better tell me that, because if I were to just _hint_ to dad--"

"What would you hint? I've been answering the 'phone pretty regularly, seems to me. And can't I have a cold and get over it if I want to? And can't I fool you with my voice? You'd pine away if you didn't have some mystery to mill over. You ought to be glad--"

"You weren't at Sinkhole camp that night I 'phoned." Mary V looked at him accusingly.

"Oh, _weren't_ I?" Johnny took refuge in mockery. "How do you know?"

Naturally, Mary V disliked to tell him how she knew. She shied from the subject. "You're the most _secretive_ thing; you are doing something dad doesn't know about, but you ought to know better than to think you can fool _me_. Really, I should not like to see you get into trouble with my father, even though--"

"Even though I am merely your father's hired man. I get you, perfectly.

Why not let papa's hired man take care of himself?"

Mary V flushed angrily. Johnny was reminding her of the very beginning of their serial quarrel, when he had overheard her telling a girl guest at the ranch that Johnny Jewel was "only one of my father's hired men." Mary V had not been able to explain to Johnny that the girl guest had exhibited altogether too great an interest in his youth and his good looks, and had frankly threatened a flirtation. The girl guest was something of the sn.o.b, and Mary V had taken the simplest, surest way of squelching her romantic interest. She had done that effectually, but she had also given Johnny Jewel a mortal wound in the very vitals of his young egotism.

"We are so short-handed this season!" Mary V explained sweetly. "And dad is so stubborn, he'd fire the last man on the ranch if he caught him doing things he didn't like. And if he doesn't get all the horses broken and sold that he has set his heart on selling, he says he won't be able to buy me a new car this fall. There's the _dearest_ little sport Norman that I want--"

"Hope you get it, I'm sure. I'll take an airplane for mine. In the meantime, you're holding up a hired hand when he's in a hurry to get on the job again. That won't get you any sport Normans, nor buy gas for the one you've got."

"That man--" Mary V lowered her voice worriedly. "I know something nasty and unpleasant about him. I can't remember what it is, but I shall. I've seen him somewhere. What is he doing here? You might tell me that much."

"Why, he's going to stay over night with me. Maybe a little longer. I'm willing to pay for all he eats, if that--"

"Shame on you! Why _must_ you be so perfectly intolerable? I hope he stays long enough to steal the coat off your back. He's a crook. He couldn't be anything else, with those eyes."

"Poor devil can't change the color of his eyes; but that's a girl's reason, every time. You better be fanning for home, Mary V. You've no business out this far alone. I think I'll have to put your dad wise to the way you drift around promiscuous. You can't tell when a stray greaser might happen along. No, I mean it! You're always kicking about my doing things I shouldn't; well, you've got to quit riding around alone the way you do. What if I had been somebody else--a greaser, maybe?"

Mary V had seen Johnny angry, often enough, but she had never seen just that look in his eyes; a stern anxiety that rather pleased her.

"Why, I should have said '_Como esta Vd_,' and ridden right along. If he had been half as disagreeable as you have been, I expect maybe I'd have shot him. Go on home to Sinkhole, why don't you? I'm sure _I_ don't enjoy this continual bickering." She rode five steps away from him, and pulled up again. "Of course you want me to tell dad you have a--a guest at Sinkhole camp?"

Johnny gave a little start, opened his lips and closed them. Opened them again and said, "You'll suit yourself about that--as usual." If she thought he would beg her to keep this secret or any other, she was mistaken.

"Oh, thank you so much. I shall tell him, then--of course."

She gave her head a little tilt that Johnny knew of old, and rode away at as brisk a trot as Tango could manage on that rough ground.

"Some chicken!" Bland Halliday grinned wryly when Johnny waved him to come on. "Great place to keep a date, I must say."

Johnny turned upon him furiously. "You cut that out--quick! Or hoof it back to the railroad after I've licked the stuffin' outa you. That girl is a real girl. You don't need to speak to her or about her. She ain't your kind."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JOHNNY WOULD SERVE TWO MASTERS

Bland Halliday objected to rising with the sun. In fact, he objected to rising at all. He groaned a great deal, and he swore with great fluency and complained of excruciating pains here and there. The only thing to which he did not object was eating the breakfast that Johnny had cooked.

And since Johnny could not remember the time when riding had been really painful, and therefore discounted the misery of his guest, he refused to concede the point of Bland Halliday's inability to get up and go about the business for which he had come so far.

"Aw, you'll be all right when you stir around a little," was the scant comfort he gave. "It's a good big half mile over to where I've got it cached. A ride'll limber you up--"

"Ride? On a horse? Not on your life! Honest, old top, I'm all in; I couldn't walk if you was to pay me a million a step. On the square, bo--"

"Say, I wish you'd cut out that 'bo' and 'old top' and call me Johnny.

That's my name. And I wish you'd cut out the misery talk too. Why, good golly! What do you think I brought yuh down here for? Just to give you a ride? I've got an airplane to repair, and you claimed you could repair it. If you do, I promised to take you to the Coast with it. That's the understanding, and she still rides that way. Get up and come eat. We've got to get busy. I ain't taking summer boarders."

"Aw, have a heart, bo--"

Johnny's code was simple and direct, and therefore effective. He had brought this fellow to Sinkhole for a purpose, and he did not intend to be thwarted in that purpose just because the man happened to be a whiner.

Johnny went over to the bunk, grabbed Bland Halliday by a shoulder and a leg, and hauled him into the middle of the cabin.

"Maybe you can fly; you sure don't hit me as being good for anything else," he said in deep disgust. "And I wouldn't be surprised right now to hear you swiped that pilot's license. If you did, and if you don't know airplanes, the Lord help yuh--that's all I got to say. Get into your pants. I'm in a hurry this morning."

Bland Halliday nearly cried, but he managed to insert his aching limbs into his trousers, and somehow he managed to move to the washbasin, and afterwards to hobble to the table. He let himself down by slow and painful degrees into a chair, swore that he'd lie on the track and let a train run over him before he would sit again on the back of a horse, and began to eat voraciously.

Johnny listened, watched the food disappear, gave a snort, and fried more bacon for himself. His mood was not optimistic that morning. He was not even hopeful. He had held an exalted respect for aviators, believing them all supermen, gifted beyond the common herd and certainly owning a fine valor, a gameness that surpa.s.sed the best courage of men content to remain close to earth. He had brought Bland Halliday away down here only to find that he lacked all the fine qualities which Johnny had taken for granted he possessed.

"Say! On the square, did you ever get any farther away from the ground than an elevator could take you?" he asked bluntly, when he was finishing his coffee after a heavy silence.

"Ten thousand feet--well, once I went twelve, but I didn't stay up. There was a heavy cross-current up there, and I didn't stay. Why?"

Johnny looked him over with round, unfriendly eyes. "I was just wondering," he said. "You seem so scared about getting on the back of a horse--"

"You ain't doing me justice," the aviator protested. "Every fellow to his own game. I never was on a horse's back before, and I'll say I hope I never get on one again. But that ain't saying I can't fly, because I can, and I'll prove it if you lead me to something I can fly with."

"I'll lead you--right now. You can ride that far, can't you?"

Bland Halliday thought he would prefer to walk, which he did, slowly and with much groaning complaint. Earth and sky were wonderful with the blush of sunrise, but he never gave the miracle a thought.

Nor did Johnny, for that matter. Johnny was leading Sandy, packed with the repair stuff and a makeshift camp outfit for the aviator. He had decided, during breakfast, to put Bland Halliday in the niche with the airplane, and leave him there. He had three very good reasons for doing that, and ridding himself of Bland's incessant whining was not the smallest, though the necessity of keeping Bland's presence a secret from the Rolling R loomed rather large, as did Johnny's desire to have some one always with the plane. He had no fear that Halliday would do anything but his level best at the repairing. He also reasoned that he would prove a faithful, if none too courageous watchdog. That airplane was Bland's one hope of escape from the country, since riding horseback was so unpopular a mode of travel with him.