by B. M. Bower
“You say they went through the fence on the east line?”
“Yes, sir. It was just after sunrise that I saw them.”
“And it was afternoon, you say, before it occurred to you that they might possibly have been stealing my horses. In the meantime, you were up this way, playing hell with the round-up.”
“Yes, sir, that’s about the way it stacks up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Try and get back what horses I can, I guess.” Johnny did not speak as though he had much faith.
“Going to go out and round them up with your flying machine, I suppose! That sounds practical, perfectly plausible. As much so as the rest of the story.”
Johnny was too utterly miserable and hopeless to squirm at the sarcasm.
“Well, we don’t want to be hasty. In fact, you have not been hasty so far, from what I can gather. Except in the matter of indulging yourself in aircraft at my expense. Don’t leave the cabin. I shall probably want to talk about this again tonight.”
That was all. It was enough. It was like Sudden to withhold condemnation until after he had digested the crime. Johnny did not think much about what Sudden would do, but he had a settled conviction that condemnation was merely postponed for a little while. It would come. But Johnny sat already condemned by the harshest judge a man may have—the harshness of his own youthful conscience.
He sat brooding, his palms holding his jaws, his eyes staring at the floor. What was he going to do? Sudden had asked him that. Johnny had asked himself the same question; indeed, it had drummed insistently in his brain since he had inspected the fence that afternoon and had known just what had befallen him. The bell rang—Sudden was calling again. He got up stolidly to answer more questions.
“Oh—Skyrider! I can only talk a minute. Mom’s in the kitchen, and dad’s gone to hunt up Bill Hayden. Is it true, Johnny, that a lot of horses have been stolen?”
“Yes.”
“I heard dad talking. Oh, I wish I could help hunt them, but I’m in an awful mess, Skyrider! Bill Hayden knew I’d taken Jake, because my saddle was gone, and none of the other horses were. I never saw any one so mean and suspicious! And he knows Jake got away from me, too, because I was trying to catch him when Bill rode up, just perfectly furious over the horses stampeding. And Bill told dad—he certainly is the meanest thing! And now dad won’t let me go out of sight of the house unless he or mom are with me. And mommie never goes anywhere, it’s so hot. And dad only goes to town. But they don’t know it was us in the aeroplane—and I’m just glad of it if we did scatter their old herd for them. Everybody’s so mean to me! And I was planning how you’d teach me to fly, and we’d have the duckiest times—and now—”
She hung up so abruptly that Johnny knew as well as though he had been in the room with her, what had happened. She had heard her dad coming. Before Johnny had sat down again to his brooding, Sudden called him.
“You spoke about a greaser telling you about an aeroplane, and that you went with him and got it.” Sudden’s voice was cool and even—an inexorable voice. “Do you remember my telling you not to let a greaser on the Rolling R range if you could help it?”
“Yes, sir. This one’s brother came first. He was just a kid, and he wanted—a drink.” It struck Johnny quite suddenly that Tomaso’s reason for coming had been a very poor one indeed. For there was water much nearer Tucker Bly’s range, which was to the east of Sinkhole. And Tomaso should have had no occasion whatever to be riding to Sinkhole.
“Oh. He wanted a drink, did he? Where did he come from?”
“He works for Tucker Bly. So he said. And he told me about the airplane that had been lost, across the line. His brother had found it.”
“And you went to see his brother?”
“His brother came to see me. The kid told him I was—interested.”
“You went after the flying machine when? Over two weeks ago, eh? And you were gone—I see. Approximately two days and two nights—nearer three days. Who answered the telephone while you were gone? It happens that I have not missed calling you every night; did the man have a cold?”
“I—I don’t know. I didn’t know anybody—” Johnny frowned. It would be just as well, he felt, to keep Mary V out of it.
“You didn’t know the ’phone was answered in your absence. Well, it was. By a man with a bad cold, who represented himself to be you. Did you notice any signs of any one being there while you were gone?”
“N-no, I can’t say I did. Well, the string was tied different on the door, but I didn’t think much about that.”
“No—you wouldn’t think much about that.” Sudden’s tone made a mental lash of the words. “You had your own affairs to think about. You were merely being—paid to think of my affairs.”
“Yes, sir—that’s the kind of a hound I’ve been.”
Johnny’s abject tone—he who had been so high-chested in the past—may have had its effect upon the boss. When Sudden spoke again his voice was almost kind, which is unusual, surely, for a man who has been robbed.
“Well, I shall have to investigate those greasers, I think. It looks to me as though they had used that flying machine for a bait to get you out of the way, and that looks to me too clever for greasers. It looks to me as though some one knew what bait you would jump at the quickest, young man. Do some thinking along those lines, will you? The horses are gone; but there might be some slight satisfaction in catching the thieves.”
“Yes, sir. What shall I do tomorrow? Am I fired, or what?”
“You are—what!” Sudden was sarcastic again. “I believe, since you have been doing pretty much as you please down there, I shall expect you to go on doing as you please. I don’t see how you are going to do any more damage than you have already done. On the other hand, I don’t see how you are going to do much good—unless I could take those horses out of your hide!”
Johnny stared round-eyed at the ’phone, even after Sudden had hung up his receiver.
“Good golly!” he muttered, with a faint return of his normal spirit. “Old Sudden oughta been a lawyer.” Then he went back to holding his jaws in two spread palms, and brooding over the trouble he was in.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“WE FLY SOUTH”
Johnny did a great deal of thinking along the line suggested by old Sudden. At first he thought merely how groundless was any suspicion that the airplane was in any way connected with the horse-stealing, except that it might justly be accused of contributing to his negligence. Even so, Johnny could not see how one man could possibly protect the whole of Sinkhole range from thieves. He could have been on his guard, could have noticed when the first horses were missing, and notified Sudden at once. That, of course, was what had been expected of him.
But as to Tomaso and his oily brother, Johnny did not at first see any possible connection between them and his present trouble, save that they also had innocently contributed to his neglect. But Sudden had told him to think about it, and the suggestion kept swinging his thoughts that way. Finally, for want of something better, he went back to the very beginning and reconstructed his first meeting with Tomaso. Sudden had hinted that they must have known how deeply he was interested in aviation. But Johnny did not see how that could be. He had not talked much about his ambition, even at the Rolling R, he remembered; not enough to set him apart from the others as one who dreamed day and night of flying. Until the boys got hold of that doggerel he wrote, Johnny was sure they had not paid any attention to his occasional vague rhapsodies on the subject.
Tomaso had seen the letterhead of that correspondence school, and had just accidentally mentioned it. Or was it accidental? To make sure, Johnny got out the circular which Tomaso had seen, laid it where he remembered it to have been that day, and sat down at the table where Tomaso had been sitting. He placed the lamp where the light fell full upon the paper and studied the letterhead for several minutes, scowling.
Tomaso, he decided, had remarkab
ly sharp eyes. Seen from that angle, the letterhead was not conspicuous. The volplaning machine was not at all striking to the eye. Unless a person knew beforehand what it represented, or was looking for something of the sort, Johnny was forced to admit that he would be likely to pass it over without a second glance.
Tomaso, then, must have come there with the intention of leading adroitly to the subject of airplanes. He must have brought those little, steel pliers purposely. And after all, he really had no business on the Rolling R range, if he was riding for the Forty-seven. He had come a good five miles inside the line. And when you looked at it that way, how had he got inside the line? There was no gate on the east side of the fence.
It looked rather far-fetched, improbable. Johnny was slow to accept the theory that he had been led to that airplane just as a toy is given to a child, to keep its attention engrossed with a harmless pastime while other business is afoot. It hurt his self-esteem to believe that—wherefore he prospected his memory for some other theory to take its place.
“Well! If that’s why they did it—it sure worked like a charm,” he summed up his cogitations disgustedly. “I’ll say I swallowed the bait whole!” And he added grimly: “I wish I knew who put them wise.”
Youth began to make its demands. He started a fire, boiled coffee, fried bacon, made fresh bread, and ate a belated supper. Sudden had told him to do as he pleased. “Well,” Johnny muttered, “I will take him at his word.” He did not know just what he would please to do, but he realized that fasting would not help him any; nor would sleeplessness. He ate, therefore, washed his few dishes and went straight to bed. And although he lay for a long while looking at his trouble through the magnifying glass of worry, he did sleep finally—and without one definite plan for the morrow.
Half an hour before dawn, Johnny went stumbling along the ledge to the cleft. On his broad shoulder was balanced the propeller. On his face was a look of fixed determination. He scared Bland Halliday out of a sleep in which his dreams were all of a certain cabaret in Los Angeles—dreams which made Bland’s waking all the more disagreeable. Johnny tilted the propeller carefully against the rock wall, lighted a match, and cupped the blaze in his palms so that the light shone on Bland.
“Where’s the lantern? You better get up—it’s most daylight.”
“Aw, f’r cat’s sake! What more new meanness you got on your mind? Me, I come down here in good faith to help fix a plane that’s to take me back home—and I work like a dog—”
“Yeah—I know that song by heart, Bland. You in your faith and your innocence, how you were basely betrayed. I can sing it backward. Lay off it now for a few minutes. I want to talk to yuh.”
He lighted the lantern, and Bland lay blinking at it lugubriously. “And me—I dreamed I was in to Lemare’s just after a big exhibition flight, and a bunch of movie queens was givin’ me the glad eye.”
“Yes, I’ve done some dreaming myself,” Johnny interposed dryly. “I’m awake now. Listen here, Bland. I’ve been playing square with you, all along. I want you to get that. I can see how you being so darn crooked yourself, you may always be looking for some one to do you, so I ain’t kicking at the stand you take. You’ve got no call, either, to kick against my opinion of you. I’m satisfied you’d steal my airplane and make your getaway, and lie till your tongue wore out, proving it was yours. You’d do it if you got a chance. That’s why I hid the gas on you. That’s why you couldn’t take Miss Selmer home. I knew darn well you wouldn’t come back. And that’s why I took off the propeller and hid it. It ain’t why I licked you yesterday—that was for what you said about Miss—”
“Aw, f’r cat’s sake! Did yuh have to come and wake me up in the middle of the night just to—”
“No—oh, no. I’m merely explaining to you that I don’t trust you for one holy minute. I don’t want you to think you can put anything over on me by getting on my blind side. I haven’t got any, so far as you’re concerned. Now listen. I meant, and if possible I still mean, to keep my promise and take you to the Coast in the plane; but something’s come up that is going to hold up the trip for a few days, maybe—”
“Aw, yes! I had a hunch you’d—”
“Shut up! I told you I’d go as soon as I could without leaving the boss in the hole. Well, it happens that—well, some horses were stolen off this range, and I’m the one that’s responsible. So—”
“Say, bo, you don’t, f’r cat’s sake, think I stole your damn horses? Why, honest, bo, I wouldn’t have a horse on a bet! I—”
“Oh, shut up!” thundered the distracted Johnny above the other’s whine. “Of course I know you didn’t steal ’em. Horses ain’t in your line, or I wouldn’t be so sure. The point is this. I’ve got to get out and get ’em back, or get a line on who did it. I can’t go off without doing something about it. This range was in my charge. I was supposed to report anything that looked suspicious, and I—well, the point is this—”
“So you said,” Bland cut in, with something of his natural venom.
“Shut up. There’s just a chance I can find out where those horses were taken. We’ll go in the plane. You’ll have to go along to handle it, because I’m liable to be busy, if I run across anybody. I’m going to pack a rifle and a six-shooter, and I don’t want my hands full of controls right at the critical minute. Besides,” he added ingenuously, “some of these darned air currents nearly got the best of me yesterday, coming back. You can handle the machine, and I’ll do the look-see.”
“Aw, sa-ay! I—”
“I know it’s against my promise to a certain extent,” Johnny went on. “I know I’ve got you in a corner, too, where you can’t help yourself. You couldn’t walk to the railroad, or even to the closest ranch, if you knew the way—which you don’t. You’d wander around in the heat and the sand—well, you’re pretty helpless without me, all right, or the plane. I sabe that better than you do. You’ve got to do about as I say, because you haven’t got the nerve to kill me, even if I gave you the chance. Sneaking off with the plane is about as much as you’re game for.
“Well, the point is this: I don’t want to take any mean advantage of you. I can’t afford to pay you what your services are really worth, as pilot—and there’s no reason why I should. But—well, I ain’t quite broke yet. I’ll give you twenty-five dollars for helping me out, in case what I want to do only takes a day or two days. If it takes more, I’ll give you ten dollars a day. It isn’t much, but it helps when you’re broke.”
Bland permitted the sour droop of his lips to ease into a grin. “Now you’re coming somewhere near the point, bo,” he said. “But ten dollars—say! Ten dollars ain’t street-car fare. Not in little old L.A. Make it twenty, bo, and you’re on.”
“I’ll make it nothing if ten dollars a day don’t suit you!” Johnny declared hotly. “Why, damn your dirty hide, that’s as much as I make in a week! And listen! I expect to sit in the back seat—and I’ll have two guns on me.”
“Aw, ferget them two guns!” Bland surrendered. “This is sure the gunniest country I ever stopped in. Even the Janes—”
“Shut up!”
“Oh, well, I’ll sign up for ten, bo. It ain’t eatin’ money, but it’ll maybe help buy me the makin’s of a smoke now and then.”
“Well, get up, then. I’ll get us some breakfast, and we’ll go. It’s going to be still today—and hot, I think. You better get up.”
“Aw, that’s right! You’ve got the upper hand, and so you can go ahead and abuse me like a dog—and I ain’t got any come-back. It was Bland this and that, when you wanted the plane repaired. Now you’ve got it, and it’s git-ta-hell and git busy. Pull a gun on me, beat me up—accuse me of things I never done—drag me outa bed before daylight—” His self-pitying whine droned on monotonously, but he nevertheless got into his clothes and pottered around the plane by the light of the lantern and the flaring fire Johnny started.
The one praiseworthy thing he could do he did conscientiously. He inspected carefully the cont
rol wires, went over the motor and filled the radiator and the gas tank, and made sure that he had plenty of oil. His grumbling did not in the least impair his efficiency. He replaced the propeller, cursing under his breath because Johnny had taken it off. He was up in the forward seat testing the control when Johnny called him to come and eat.
In the narrow strip of sky that showed over the niche the stars were paling. A faint flush tinged the blue as Johnny looked up anxiously.
“We’ll take a little grub and my two canteens full of water,” he said, with a shade of uneasiness in his voice. “We don’t want to get caught like those poor devils did that lost the plane. But, of course—”
“Say, where you going, f’r cat’s sake?” Bland looked over his cup in alarm. “Not down where them—”
“We’re going to find out where those horses went. You needn’t be scared, Bland. I ain’t organizing any suicide club. You tend to the flying part, and I’ll tend to my end of the deal. Air-line, it ain’t so far. We ought to make there and back easy.”
He bestirred himself, not exultantly as he had done the day before, but with a certain air of determination that impressed Bland more than his old boyish eagerness had done. This was not to be a joy-ride. Johnny did not feel in the least godlike. Indeed, he would like to have been able to take Sandy along as a substantial substitute in case anything went wrong with the plane. He was taking a risk, and he knew it, and faced it because he had a good deal at stake. He did not consider, however, that it was necessary to tell Bland just how great a risk he was taking. He had not even considered it necessary to telephone the Rolling R and tell Sudden what it was he meant to do. Time enough afterwards—if he succeeded in doing it.
