Johnny rode along in a trance.  He, his conscious inward self, was not riding a sweating bronk along a trail that wound more-or-less southward across the desert.  That was his body, chained by grim necessity to work for a wage.  He, Johnny Jewel’s ego, was soaring up and up and up—­up till the eagles themselves gazed enviously after.  He was darting in and out among the convolutions of fluffy white clouds; was looping earthward in great, invisible volutes; catching himself on the upward curve and zigzagging away again, swimming ecstatically the high, clean air currents which the poor, crawling, earthbound ones never know.

Johnny jarred back to earth and to the sordid realities of life.  He had ridden half way to Sinkhole without knowing it, and now his horse had stopped, facing another horse whose rider was staring curiously at Johnny.  This was Pete, on his way in from Sinkhole.

“Say-y!  Yuh snake-bit, or what?” Pete asked.  “Ridin’ glassy-eyed right at a feller!  If my hawse had been a mite shorter, I expect you’d of rode right on over me and never of saw me.  What’s bitin’ yuh, Johnny?”

“Me?  Nothing!” No daydreamer likes being pulled out of his dream by so ugly a reality as Pete, and Johnny was petulant.  “Why didn’t you get outa the way, then?  You saw me coming, didn’t you?”

“Me?  Sure!  I ain’t loco.  I seen yuh five mile back, about.  I knowed it was somebody from the ranch.  Sudden ’phoned in and said I could drag it.  And you can bet yore sweet young life I hailed them words with joy!  What yuh done to ‘im that he’s sendin’ yuh off down to Sinkhole?  Me, I ’phoned in and much as told ’em he’d have to double my pay if he wanted me to stay down there any longer.  That was a coupla days ago.  Didn’t git no satisfaction atall till to-day.  Me, I’d ruther go to jail, twicet over, than stay here a week longer.  Ain’t saw a soul in two weeks down there.  Well, I’ll be pushin’ along.  Adios—­and here’s hopin’ you like it better than what I done.”

Johnny told him good-bye and straightway forgot him.  Once he had his two horses “lined out” in their shuffling little trail-trot that was their natural gait, he picked up his dream where he had been interrupted.  Where his body went mattered little to Johnny Jewel, so long as he was left alone with his thoughts.  So presently his eyes were once more staring vacantly at the dim trail, while in spirit he was soaring high and swooping downward with the ease of a desert lark, while thousands thrilled to watch his flight.

What did he care about Sinkhole Camp?  Loneliness meant long, uninterrupted hours in which to ride and read and dream of the great things he meant some day to do.

CHAPTER FOUR

A THING THAT SETS LIKE A HAWK

Six days are not many when they are lived with companions and the numberless details of one’s everyday occupation.  They may seem a month if you pass them in jail, or in waiting for some great event,—­or at Sinkhole Camp, down near the Border.