Chapter 15 - Page 2

"I know; but it's a lot harder to handle a drum too. Besides--" Johnny broke his speech abruptly, hiding his confusion by straining to carry a case over to the travois.

Mary V studied his reply carefully, keeping silence until Johnny had loaded the other cases and was roping them to the travois frame.

"Is that Bland Halliday with you yet?" she asked him suddenly.

"Yeh--er--how do you know anything about Bl--" Johnny was plainly swept off his guard.

"Why, why shouldn't I know about BL?" Mary V's smile was exasperating. "I've seen Bland Halliday fly--and fall, too, once. Because he was drunk, they said. I've seen him drunk, and trying to do figure eights with a car on Wilshire Boulevard. He almost put me in the ditch, trying to dodge him. He was arrested for that, and his car was taken away from him. And I've heard--oh, all kinds of scandal about him. I was awfully surprised at your taking up with him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Johnny Jewel."

"He sure knows airplanes," Johnny blurted unwisely.

"Yours must be ready to fly--the amount of gas you're taking to camp."

"She goes in the air--say, good golly, Mary V! How do you know anything about my--er--"

"I hope," said Mary V very mildly, "that I have some brains. At any rate, I have brains enough to wonder how in the world you can afford to build yourself an aeroplane; I haven't heard a word about any rich uncle dying and leaving you a fortune. And I know it takes a tremendous lot of money to build and fly aeroplanes."

"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