“Lemme up there, Skyrider, and see what it is yo’all are paintin’ on,” Bud pleaded.  “If it’s po’try, maybe I can sing it.”

Johnny relaxed into a grin, but he did not answer the jibe.  He was disgusted with Bland for having such bad taste as to drum up trade here on the ranch, among the boys who had ridden hard and long, believing him in dire need.  He hoped the boys would not guess that Bland was in earnest; a poor, cheap joke is sometimes better than tactless sincerity.  He was even ashamed now of the name he was painting on the wings.  That, too, seemed cheap and pointless.  He felt nauseated with Bland Halliday and his petty grafting.

A little more and he would have told Bland so and sent him about his business.  At that moment of revulsion against Bland he was almost in the mood to give up the whole scheme and do as Mary V wished him to do:  settle down there at the ranch and work out his debt where he had made it.  Looking down into the grimy, friendly faces of those who had braved desert wind and sun for him, the sallow, shifty-eyed face of Bland Halliday seemed to epitomize the sordid avariciousness of the man and made him wonder if any measure of success would atone for the forced intimacy with the fellow.  Mary V, had she known his mood then, might have won her way with him and altered immeasurably the future.

But Mary V knew only that he was staying down there with that unbearable Bland Halliday, fussing around his horrid old airplane instead of coming to the house and telling her he was sorry.  Besides, there was her dad, who had gone to all that trouble and expense for him, not so much as getting a word of thanks or appreciation from Johnny.  Instead of coming right away to see her dad, he was down there fooling with the boys.  What, for gracious sake, ailed Johnny lately?  He ought to have a good talking to, she decided.  Perhaps her dad could talk some sense into him—­she was sure that she couldn’t.

So she stopped her dad when he was on the point of going down where Johnny was, and she told him what perfectly crazy ideas Johnny had, and how he had refused to listen to a word she said, but instead had taken up with Bland Halliday again.  And wouldn’t dad please talk to Johnny?

“He keeps harping on owing you for those horses he lost,” she said impatiently.  “I’ve told him and told him that you don’t care and would never hold it against him, but he won’t listen.  He keeps on talking about paying it back, and making good before we can be married and all that.  And he simply will not consent to come and make good on the ranch, and pay you out of his salary, if he feels he must pay.