Tex was not one of these diabolically cunning villains.  He did not consider himself any kind of a villain.  He accepted himself more or less contentedly as a poor, striving young man who wanted to get ahead in the world and was eager to pick up what he called “side money,” which might, if he were on to his job, amount to more than his wages.  Tex did not consider that he owed the Rolling R anything whatever save a certain number of days’ work in each month that he drew a pay check.  He sold Sudden his time and his skill in the saddle—­a month of it for fifty dollars.  But if he could double that fifty without harm to himself, Tex was not going to split any hairs over the method.

Tex was not displaying any great genius when he edged the boys on to tease Johnny beyond the limit of that young man’s endurance, or when he tattled to Mary V a slighting remark about her ability as a poet.  Tex was merely carrying out an idea which had come to him when he saw Johnny with his hands full of aircraft literature.  If it worked, all right.  If it didn’t work, Johnny would not be on the Rolling R pay roll any longer, but Tex would not have lost anything.  It would be convenient to have Johnny down at Sinkhole Camp, shirking his job while he fiddled around with his flying bug.  Tex believed he knew how he could keep the bug very active, and Johnny very much engrossed with it—­down at Sinkhole Camp.  It was simple enough, and worth the slight effort Tex was making.

So there was Johnny Jewel with his saddle and bridle and suitcase and chaps, waiting out by the mail box for the stage.  And there came Sudden, driving back from the railroad—­Tex knew he was expected back that forenoon—­and reaching the gate before the stage had come in sight around the southwest spur of the ridge it could not cross.  Sudden liked Johnny—­and Tex knew that too. (Tex made it his business to know a good deal which had nothing to do with his legitimate work.) And good riders who did not get drunk every chance that offered were not to be hired every day in the week.

Johnny opened the gate, but Sudden did not drive through.  He stopped and eyed the suitcase and the saddle and the chaps, and then he looked at Johnny.

“Too much song-bird stuff?” he asked, which showed how sensitive was the finger Sudden kept on the pulse of his outfit.

“I’ve got to work for a living, but I don’t have to work with that bunch of idiots,” Johnny stated with much dignity.

Sudden rubbed a gauntleted hand across the lower part of his face; and that, I think, is why Johnny saw himself taken as seriously as his young egotism demanded.

“Rather be by yourself, would you?  Well, throw your baggage in the back of the car.  I want you to catch up a couple of horses and go on down to Sinkhole.  You won’t be annoyed down there with anybody’s foolishness but your own, young man.  You’ll work for your living, all right!  Got a gun?  A rifle?  Well, there’s one at the house you can take.  There may not be any Rolling R horses going across the line—­but it’ll be your business to know there aren’t.  If you see a greaser prowling around, put him on the run.  They’re paying good money for horses in Mexico, remember.  You’re down there to see they don’t get ’em too cheap on this side.  Do you get that?”