Mary V had no faith in his dreams, and not even to please Johnny would she pretend that she had.  She had nothing but impatience for his plans, nothing but disgust for his partner, nothing but disappointment from his visit.  She moved her arm so that she could look at him, and wondered why it should give her no pleasure to see him standing there unharmed, sturdy, alive to his finger tips—­him whom she had but a little while ago believed dead.  Johnny, I must confess, was cot a cheerful object.  He was scowling, with his face turned so that Mary V saw only his sullen profile; with his mouth pinched in at the corners and his chin set in the lines of stubbornness.

As if he felt her eyes upon him, Johnny turned and sent her a look not calculated to be conciliating.  If Mary V wanted to sulk, he’d give her a chance.  He certainly could not throw up all his plans just on her whim.

“I guess I’ll go down and help Bland,” he said in the repressed tone of anger forcing itself to be civil.  “We ought to be getting back to-night.”  He opened the screen door, gave her another look, and went off toward the corral, sulks written all over him.

Mary V waited until she was sure he did not mean to turn back, then went off to her room, shut the door with a force that vibrated the whole house, and turned the key in the lock.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SUDDEN MUST DO SOMETHING

“I been thinking, bo, what we better do.”  Bland climbed down from the motor and approached Johnny eagerly, casting suspicious glances here and there lest eavesdroppers be near.  That air of secrecy was a habit with Bland, yet it never quite failed to impress Johnny and lend weight to Bland’s utterances.  Now, having been put on the defensive by Mary V, he was more than ever inclined to listen.

“Shoot,” he said glumly, and sent a resentful glance back at the house.  At least, Bland showed some interest in his welfare, he thought, and regretted that it had not occurred to him to tell Mary V that and see how she would take it.

“Well, bo, all this limelight stuff is playing right into your mitt.  I didn’t spill who I was to them news hounds, and I don’t have to.  I let you take all the foreground.  I was the mechanic—­see?  So it’s you that will have to put this over; and put it over strong, I say.

“Now first off you want some catchy name for the plane, and you’ve got it ready-made.  All yuh need is paint to put it on with.  Across the top of the wings you want to paint THE THUNDER BIRD—­just like that.  Get the idea?  And we’ll go back to Tucson and clean up a piece of money.  While you work into the exhibition stuff we can take up passengers and make good money.  Ten minutes of joyride, at ten dollars per joy—­you mind the mob that follered us to the hotel just for a look-in?  Say one in ten takes a ride, look at the clean-up!  You take ’em yourself,