I’m willin’ to be it.  I’ll change my name, so nobody needs to know it’s Bland Halliday.  Or you can gimme a share in the net profits, and I’ll keep the name and make it pull things our way.  They’s no use talking, bo, I’ve got the goods!  The name Bland Halliday is a trademark for flyin’—­and never mind if it also stands for damfool.  I’ll brace up and give yuh the best I got.  Honest, that’s what I want—­a chance to get on my feet agin.  I’d ruther help you fly your plane than fly one of my own.  I’d run amuck agin if I owned anything I could raise money on.

“If you think I tried to do you dirt, back there in the desert, bo, you’re wrong.  Ab-so-lutely.  I thought you was fixing to double-cross me, and git away with the plane and leave me there.  It got my goat—­I’ll say it did—­that desert stuff.  So I hid the gas, so you couldn’t go off and leave me.  But that’s behind us.  You can give me a chance now to straighten up, and I can put you in the way to make big money.  You think it over, bo.  They’s no great hurry, and we can make a flight now and see how she stacks up.  Be a sport—­go fill up the tank and let’s go.”

Johnny ground the cigarette stub under his heel in the dirt, shrugged his shoulders with a fine imitation of perfect indifference, and yawned.  He would think over Bland’s idea.  He did not, of course, intend to fall for anything that did not look like good business, and he was not at all anxious to have Bland for a partner.  Indeed, having Bland for a partner was about the last thing Johnny would ever expect himself to do.  Still, there was no harm in letting Bland down easy.  A flight or two, maybe, would give Johnny some good pointers.  He had learned much from Bland, in a very short time, he admitted readily to himself.  He could learn more, and he could let Bland go over the motor.  By that time he would maybe have a buyer.  If not, he would have time to decide about exhibition flying.

Johnny did not know that as he went after gas his step was springier than it had been for a long, long while.  He did not know why it was that he whistled while he filled the torpedo-shaped tank—­indeed, Johnny did not even know that he whistled, nor that it was the first time since he had worked over his plane down at Sinkhole Camp when all his dreams were bright, and bad luck had not knocked at his door.  Yet he did whistle while he made ready for flight, and his eyes were big and round and eager, said he moved with the impatient energy of a youth going to his favorite game.  These signs Mary V would have recognized immediately; Johnny did not know the signs existed.

Bland helped himself to a pair of new coveralls of Johnny’s and tinkered with the motor.  Johnny went around the plane, testing cables and trying to conceal even from himself his new hope of keeping it.

“All right, bo,” Bland announced at last.  “Kick the block away and let’s run her out.  She sounds pretty fair—­better than I expected.”