Chapter 14 - Page 2

in," he called boredly, and fanned the smoke from before his face that he might look upon this unwelcome visitor who was going to apologize for the sins of his colleagues in Arizona.

The reporter, once he was inside, did not look apologetic, nor did he resemble a reporter, as Johnny knew them. He was a slim young man, tall enough to wear his clothes like the Apollos you see pictured in tailors' advertisements. Indeed, he much resembled those young men. He wore light gray, with the coat buttoned at the bottom and loose over his manly chest. He also wore a gray hat tilted over one temple in the approved style for illustrated catalogues. He had gray gloves crumpled in one hand and a cane in the other, and he stood with his immaculately shod feet slightly apart, gently swung the cane, and regarded Johnny with a faint smile of extreme boredom.

Johnny bore the scrutiny in silence, stifling the impulse to rise and offer Apollo a chair. Instead, he turned lazily and knocked the ash collar off his cigarette, and afterward thumped the top pillow before he resettled himself.

"Won't cost anything to sit down," he observed amiably. "Well, where's that apology?"

The slim young man laughed to himself, deposited his cane and gloves on a chair, moved his feet slightly farther apart and produced a small pad. "For the sins I may commit, I humbly apologize. Whatever it was your sagebrush scribes perpetrated I didn't write it, therefore we should not quarrel. A few details on your trip to-day will be of interest, Mr. Jewel."

Johnny grinned. "There ain't any details. We just flew till we got here, and then we lit."

"We?" The gray-clad one lifted a finely formed eyebrow.

"My mechanic and me."

"Ah." The fellow made a mark or two with his pencil and waited for more--until he perceived that more would not be forthcoming.

"And now that you have lit, what do you expect to do, may I ask?"

"Oh-h--" Johnny covered a wide yawn with his palm, "make money. What else is there to do?"

"Go broke," the reporter suggested, smiling again--with less boredom, by the way.

"Old stuff," Johnny grunted. "I aim to be different."

The fashion plate laughed almost humanly. "If half they said of you is true, you've nothing to complain about. By the way--how much of it was true? I mean how you salvaged the plane from Mexico and used it to catch horse thieves, and the Indian god stuff, and the Lochinvar--"

Johnny sat up belligerently. "Say! What are you looking for? Trouble?"

"Merely verifying rumors. A very natural professional caution, I assure you."

"Caution! Hnh! Funny way you've got of being cautious, old-timer. I'd call it a fine way of heading down-stairs