There hope crept in,—­a faint, weary-winged, bedraggled hope, it is true,—­to comfort him a little.  He was not down and out—­yet!  He could still show them that he had the stuff in him to make good.

He went to the window and listened eagerly.  Once more he heard the high, strident droning of the Thunder Bird.  He watched, pressing his forehead against the bars.  The sound increased steadily, and Johnny, gripping the bars until his fingers cramped afterwards, felt a suffocating beat in his throat.  A great revulsion seized him, an overwhelming desire to master a situation that had so far mastered him.  What were six days—­five days now?  Why, already one day had gone, and the Thunder Bird was still in town.

Johnny let go the bars and returned to his cot.  The brief spasm of hope had passed.  What good would it do him if Bland carried passengers from morning until night, every day of the six?  Bland couldn’t save a cent.  The more he made, the more he would spend.  He would simply go on a spree and perhaps wreck the plane before Johnny was free to hold him in check.

Once more the motor’s thrumming pulled him to the window.  Again he craned and listened, and this time he saw it, flying low so that the landing gear showed plainly and he could even see Bland in the rear seat.  He knew him by the drooping shoulders, the set of his head, by that indefinable something which identifies a man to his acquaintances at a distance.  In the front seat was a stranger.

He could see the swirl of the propeller, like fine, circular lines drawn in the air.  The exhaust trailed a ribbon of bluish white behind the tail.  And that indescribable thrumming vibrated through the air and tore the very soul of him with yearning.

There it went, his airplane, that he loved more than he had ever loved anything in his life.  There it went, boring through the air, all aquiver with life, a sentient, live thing to be worshipped; a thing to fight for, a thing to cling to as he clung to life itself.  And here was he, locked into a hot, bare little room, fed as one feeds a caged beast.  Disgraced, abandoned, impotent.

It was in that hour that Johnny found deeper depths of despair than he had dreamed of before.  Bedraggled hope limped away, crushed and battered anew by this fresh tragedy.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE THUNDER BIRD TAKES WING

The days dragged interminably, but they passed somehow, and one morning Johnny was free to go where he would.  Where he would go he believed was a matter of little interest to him, but without waiting for his brain to decide, his feet took him down the sandy side street to the calf shed that had held his treasure.  He did not expect to see it there.  For three days he had not heard the unmistakable hum of its motor, though his ears were always strained to catch the sound that would tell him Bland had not gone.  Some stubborn streak in him would not permit him to ask the jailer whether the airplane was still in town.  Or perhaps he dreaded to hear that it was gone.