“What yo’ all think I’m trying to put over?  Hey?  What yo’ all mean by that statement?”

Johnny looked up, one eye still squinted against the smoke.  The other showed surprise back of the indifference.  “You there yet?” he wanted to know.  “What’s the big idea?  Gone to roost for the night?”

Tex leaned toward him, waggling one finger at Johnny.  The outer end of his eyebrows were twitching—­a sign of anger in Tex, as Johnny knew well.

“What yo’ all got up yore sleeve—­saying my work is raw!  What yo’ all aimin’ at?  That’s what I’m roostin’ here to learn.”

Johnny fanned away the smoke and gave a little chuckle meant to exasperate Tex, which it did.

“I guess the roosting’s going to be pretty good,” he said.  “You better send cookee word to bring your meals to yuh, Tex.  Because if you roost there till I tell yuh, you’ll be roosting a good long while!” He got up and lounged out, his hands in his pockets, his well-shaped head carried at a provocative tilt.  He heard Tex swear under his breath and mutter something about making the darned little runt come through yet, whereat Johnny grinned maliciously.

Halfway to the corral, however, Johnny’s steps slowed as though he were walking straight up to a wall.  The wall was there, but it was mental, and it was his mind that halted before it, astonished.

What had touched Tex off so suddenly when Johnny had flung out that meaningless taunt?  Meaningless to Johnny—­but how about Tex?

“Gosh!  He took it like a guilty conscience,” said Johnny.  “What the horn-toad has Tex been doin’?”

CHAPTER THREE

JOHNNY GOES GAILY ENOUGH TO SINKHOLE

Johnny Jewel, moved by the fluctuating determination of the young, went to bed that night fully resolved that he would not quit a good job just because untoward circumstance compelled him to herd with a bunch of brainless clowns.  He, who had a definite aim in life, would not permit that aim to be turned aside because various and sundry roughneck punchers thought it was funny to go around yelping like a band of coyotes.  Mary V, too—­he did not neglect to include Mary V. Indeed, much of his determination to remain was born of his desire to crush that insolent young woman with polite, pitying toleration.

Even when the boys trooped in and began to compose what they believed to be rhymes, Johnny did not weaken.  He turned his face to the wall and ignored them.  Poor simps, what more could you expect?  They went so far as to attempt some poetizing on the subject of Johnny’s downfall in the corral, but no one seemed able to eliminate the word bronk at the end of the first line, “Johnny tried to ride a bronk.” No one seemed able, either, to find any rhyme but honk.  They tried ker-plunk, and although that seemed to answer the purpose fairly well, they were far from satisfied.