Bland Halliday looked at him queerly.  “Me, I’d call that riding, what we done,” he retorted grimly.  “I’m so sore I can hear my muscles squeak.  Well, get down here and I’ll show yuh how to stretch as yuh tack.  And be sure you don’t leave a hair’s breadth of slack anywheres, or it’ll all have to come off and be done over again.”

So that is where Johnny was, while Mary V waited for him at the cabin and puzzled her brain over his mysterious actions, and composed her speech—­and afterwards lost her temper.

It was three o’clock before Johnny finally finished to the aviator’s grudging satisfaction what had looked to be a scant half hour’s work.  Mary V had gone home, and it was too late for Johnny to catch a fresh mount and make the ride he had intended to make.  He made coffee and fried bacon and ate a belated lunch with Halliday, and then, since the afternoon was half gone, he let himself be persuaded—­badgered would be a better word—­into spending the rest of the daylight helping Bland.

If his conscience buzzed nagging little reminders of his real duty, Johnny’s imagination and his ambition were fed a full meal of anticipation, and he had the joy of being actually at work on an airplane that he could proudly speak of as “my plane.”

But conscience nagged all the evening.  He really must get out on the range to-morrow, no matter how urgent Bland Halliday made the work appear.  He really must look over that other bunch of horses, and ride the west fence.  Ab-so-lutely without fail, that must be done.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE FIRE THAT MADE THE SMOKE

Mary V, watching from that convenient ridge which commanded the Sinkhole mail box and the faint trail leading from it to the camp, saw the home-coming stage stop there.  Through her glasses she saw the horses stretching their sweaty necks away from their burdensome collars, and then stand hipshot, thankful for the brief rest.  She saw the driver descend stiffly from the seat, walk around to the back of the vehicle and, with some straining, draw out what appeared to be a box the size and shape of a case of tinned kerosene.  He carried it with some labor to the mail box, tilted it on end behind the post, and returned to the rig for two other boxes exactly like the first one.  He fumbled for Johnny’s canvas mail sack—­a new luxury of Johnny’s—­and stuffed it into the mail box.  Then, climbing wearily back to the driver’s seat, he picked up the lines, released the brake, and started on.

Mary V gave the stage no further attention.  She was wondering what in the world Johnny Jewel wanted with three whole cases of coal oil—­if that was what the boxes contained.  Mary V was not, of course, disposed to stand long on a hill and wonder.  The stage was not out of sight before she was riding down the ridge.

“Gasoline!” she ejaculated, kicking a box tentatively with a booted foot.  “For gracious sake, what does that boy want with five—­ten—­with thirty gallons of gas?  Why that’s enough to drive a car from here to Yuma, just about.  Surely to goodness Johnny hasn’t—­”