“Didn’t set me back so much,” Johnny bragged.  “I didn’t have to build one, you see.”

Mary V needed time enough to study that statement also.  She mounted Tango and waited until Johnny was ready to start with his queer load.  “How did you get it—­if I may ask?” she began then.  “Did Bland Halliday happen along and have a wreck, and sell you the pieces?  You want to be careful, because I know he’s an awful grafter, and he’ll cheat you, just as sure as you live, Skyrider.”

“He can’t,” Johnny declared with confidence.  “He’s working for his passage—­er—­”

“Er—­yes?” Mary V smiled demurely.  “You may just as well tell me the whole thing, now. Have you got an aeroplane?  Really truly?  I mean, where did you get it?  I know, of course, you must have one, or you wouldn’t buy all that gas.”

“Some deductionist,” grinned Johnny, tickled with the very human interest he had roused in himself and his doings.  “Where I got it is a secret—­but I’ve got it, all right!”

“Johnny Jewel!  You didn’t let that Bland Halliday sell you—­”

“I picked Bland Halliday up at the station in Agua Dulce,” Johnny explained tolerantly.  “He’d wrecked his plane back East somewhere.  He was beating his way to the Coast, and was waiting to hit a freight.  They’d dumped him off there.  It was just pure luck.  I had some stuff for repairing mine, and he saw me undo it and started talking.  I saw he knew the game” (Johnny’s tone would have amused the birdman!) “and when he showed me his pilot’s license, I got him to help me.  That’s where Bland Halliday comes in—­just helping me get ’er ready to fly.  And he’s going to teach me.  You say you’ve seen him fly, so—­”

“Oh, he can fly,” Mary V admitted slightingly.  “But he’s so tricky, so—­so absolutely impossible!  A girl friend of mine has a brother that goes in for that sort of thing.  I think he invented something that goes on a motor, or something.  And I know he was terribly cheated by Bland Halliday.  I think Bland borrowed a lot of money, or used a lot that was intended for something else—­anyway, Jerry just hates the name of Bland Halliday.  I didn’t know him that day I met him with you, because they look so different all togged up to fly.  But I remembered him afterwards, and I was going to warn you, only,” she looked at Johnny sidelong, “you’re a very difficult person to warn, or to do anything with.  You are always so—­so pugnacious!”

“I like that,” said Johnny, in a tone that meant he did not like it at all.

“Well, you always argue and disagree with a person.  Besides,” she added vaguely, “you weren’t there.  And I can’t be riding every day to Sinkhole.”

“You could have seen me when I took those last horses back the other day,” Johnny reminded her.  “You did see me, only you pretended to be blind.  Deaf, too, for I hollered hello when I passed, and you never looked around!”

“Did you?” Mary V smiled innocently.  “Well, I’m here now; and I came just on purpose to warn you about that fellow.  And you haven’t told me the stingiest little bit about your aeroplane yet, or where you got it, or what you’re going to do with it, or anything.”