has got nothing to do with it, I tell you. It's just
simply a question of what kinda mark I am. You know I care!"

"Well, then, if you do you'll come right over here. If you start now
you can be here by sundown, and it's nice and quiet and no wind at all.
You've absolutely no excuse, Johnny, and you know it. When dad's
willing to forget about those horses--"

"When I come, your dad won't have anything to forget about," Johnny
reiterated obstinately. "I do wish you'd look at the thing right!"

Mary V changed her tactics, relying now upon intimidation. "I shall
begin to look for you in about an hour," she said sweetly. "I shall
keep on looking till you come, or till it gets too dark. If you care
anything about me, Johnny, you'll be here. I'll have dinner all ready,
so you needn't wait to eat." Then she hung up.

Johnny rattled the hook impatiently, called hello with irritated
insistence, and finally succeeded in raising Central's impersonal:
"Number, please?" Whereupon he flung himself angrily out of the booth.

"Do you want to pay at this end?" The girl at the desk looked up at
him with a gleam of curiosity. Mentally Johnny accused her of
"listening in." He snapped an affirmative at her and waited until
"long distance" told her the amount.

"Four dollars and eighty-five cents," she announced, giving him a pert
little smile. Johnny flipped a small gold piece to the desk and
marched off, scorning his fifteen cents change with the air of a
millionaire.

Johnny was angry, grieved, disappointed, worried--and would have been
wholly miserable had not his anger so dominated his other emotions that
he could continue mentally his argument against the attitude of Mary V
and the Rolling R.

They refused to take him seriously, which hurt Johnny's self-esteem
terribly. Were he older, were he a property owner, Sudden Selmer would
not so lightly wave aside that debt. He would pay Johnny the respect
of fighting for his just rights. But no--just because he was barely of
age, just because he was Johnny Jewel, they all acted as though--why,
darn 'em, they acted as though he was a kid offering to earn money to
pay for a broken plate! And Mary V--

Well, Mary V was a great little girl, but she would have to learn some
day that Johnny was master. He considered this as good a day as any
for the lesson. Better, because he was really upholding his principles
by not going to the ranch meekly submissive, because Mary