“Exhibition flight—­of your imagination!” fleered Mary V, curling her lip at him.  “And I won’t need your ears to prove you’re a donkey, so don’t worry about that.”

Johnny Jewel stood up, lifted his arms high above his head to stretch his healthy young muscles, pulled his face all askew in a yawn, rumpled his hair again and reached for his papers and tobacco.  He knew that Mary V never noticed or cared if a fellow smoked; she was too thoroughly range-bred for that affectation.

“Good golly!  Things must sure be dull at the ranch, if you had to ride twenty miles on a day like this to pick a fight with me,” he observed, leisurely singling one leaf out of his book of papers.  “Left your horse to bake in the sun, too, I suppose, while you practice the art of persiflage on me.”

He finished rolling his cigarette, languidly helped himself to a match from a box on the wide window ledge near him, and sauntered to the door—­with a slanting, downward glance at Mary V as he passed her.  A little smile lurked at the corners of his lips now that his face was not visible to her.  Mary V was studying her wrist watch as though it was vital that she knew the time down to the last second.  He judged that she had no retort ready for him, so he picked up his hat and went out into the glaring sunlight.

Tango was sweating patiently under the scant shelter of the eaves, switching at flies and trying to doze.  Johnny led him down to the creek and gave him about half as much water as he wanted, then took him to the corral and unsaddled him under the brush shed that sheltered his own horse from the worst of the heat.  Whatever her mood and whatever her errand, he guessed shrewdly that Mary V would not be anxious to leave for home until the midday fierceness of the heat was past; and even if she were anxious, common sense and some mercy for her horse would restrain her.

Johnny did not confess to himself that he was glad to see Mary V, but it is a fact that his deep gloom had for some reason disappeared, and that he even whistled under his breath while he untied her lunch and camera and took them back with him to the cabin.

Mary V had been calmly inspecting his new Correspondence Course in the Art of Flying, the first lessons of which had arrived at Johnny’s mail box a few days before.  She seemed much amused, and she registered her amusement in certain marginal notes as she read.  At the top of the first lesson she drew a fairly clever cartoon of Johnny in an airplane, ascending to the star Venus.  She made it appear that Johnny’s hair stood straight on end and his eyes goggled with fear, and she made Venus a long-nosed, skinny, old-maid face with a wide, welcoming simper.  Up in a corner she placed the moon, with one eye closed and a twisted grin.

On the blank space at the end of the first lesson she wrote the following—­and could scarcely refrain from calling Johnny’s attention to it, she was so proud of it: