V had
announced that she would be looking for him. Johnny winced from the
thought of Mary V, out on the porch, watching the sky toward Tucson for
the black speck that would be his airplane; listening for the high,
strident drone that would herald his coming. She would cry herself to
sleep.

But she had deliberately sentenced herself to tears and disappointment,
he told himself sternly. She must have known he was in earnest about
not coming. She had no right to think she could kid him out of
something big and vital to his honor. She ought to know him by this
time.

Briefly he considered returning to the hotel and calling up the ranch,
just to tell her not to look for him because he was not coming. But
the small matter of paying the toll deterred him. It was humiliating
to admit, even to himself, that he could not afford another
long-distance conversation with Mary V, but he had come to the point in
his finances where a two-bit piece looked large as a dollar. He would
miss that small gold piece.

Since the government had refused to consider accepting his services and
paying him a bonus for his plane, he would have to sell it--if he could.

There it sat, reared up on its two little wheels, its nose poked
rakishly out of an old shed that had been remodelled to accommodate it,
its tail sticking out at the other side so that it slightly resembled a
turtle with its shell not quite covering its extremities. The Mexican
boy whom Johnny had hired to watch the plane in his absence lay asleep
under one wing. A faint odor of varnish testified to the heat of the
day that was waning toward a sultry night.

Without disturbing the boy Johnny rolled a smoke and stood, as he had
stood many and many a time, staring at his prize and wondering what to
do with it. He had to have money. That was flat, final, admitting no
argument. At a reasonable estimate, three thousand dollars were tied
up in that machine. He could not afford to sell it for any less. Yet
there did not seem to be a man in the country willing to pay three
thousand dollars for it. It was a curiosity, a thing to come out and
stare at, a thing to admire; but not to buy, even though Johnny had as
an added inducement offered to teach the buyer to fly before the
purchase price was taken from the bank.

The stalking shadow of a man moving slowly warned Johnny of an
approaching visitor. He did not trouble to turn his head; he even
moved farther into the shed,