Chapter 18

FLYING COMES HIGH

Johnny Jewel reined his horse on a low ridge and stared dully down into the little valley where a scattered herd of horses fed restlessly, their uneven progress toward Sinkhole Creek vaguely indicated by the general direction of their grazing. The pendulum of his spirits had swung farther and farther away from his ecstasy of the morning, until now he had plumbed the deepest well of gloom. That he had flown to the Rolling R ranch and back without wrecking his airplane or killing himself did not cheer him. He was in the mood to wish that he had broken his neck instead of coming safely to earth.

Johnny was like a sleeper who has dreamed pleasantly and has awakened to find the house falling on him--or something like that. He had dreamed great things, he had lulled his conscience with promises and reassurances that all was well, and that he was not shirking any really important duty. And now he was awake, and the reality was of the full flavor of bitter herbs long steeped.

The forenoon had been full of achievement. Johnny had, for safety's sake, removed the propeller from his airplane and carried it home with him, in the face of Bland Halliday's bitter whining and vituperation, which reminded Johnny of a snake that coils and hisses and yet does not strike. It had been an awkward job, because he had been compelled to thrash Bland first, and then tie his hands behind him to prevent some treacherous blow from behind while he worked. Johnny had hated to do that, but he felt obliged to do it, because Bland had found the buried gasoline and had taken away the full cans and hidden them, replacing them with the empty cans. If Bland had not shown a town man's ignorance of the tale a man's tracks will tell, Johnny would never have suspected anything.

Bland had also threatened to wreck the plane for revenge, but Johnny did not worry about that. He had retaliated with a threat to starve Bland until he repaired whatever damage he wrought--and Bland had seen the point, and had subsided into his self-pitying whine.

Johnny felt perfectly easy in his mind so far as the airplane was concerned. He had explained to Bland that he meant to keep his promise as soon as he could and be square with his boss, and Bland had at the last resigned himself to the delay--no doubt comforting himself with some cunning plan of revenge later, when he had gotten Johnny into the city, where Bland felt more at home and where Johnny would have all the odds against him, being a stranger and--in Bland's opinion--a "hick."

The forenoon, therefore, had been all triumph for Johnny. All triumph and all glowing with the rose tints of promise. The afternoon was a different matter.

Johnny had ridden out on the recaptured Sandy. When he had time to think of it, that glimpse of the horsemen and the loose horses over beyond the red hill nagged him with a warning that all was not well on the Rolling