sight of the railroad."

Rapidly the earth dropped away. The town shrunk to a handful of toy
houses flung carelessly down upon a dingy gray carpet, with a yellow
seam stretched across--which was the railroad--and yellow gashes here
and there. The toy houses dwindled to mere dots on a relief map of
gray with green splotches here and there for groves and orchards not
yet denuded of leaves. Their ears were filled with the pulsing roar of
the motor, their faces tingled with the keen wind of their passing
through the higher spaces.

Away down below, where the dust they had kicked up had not yet settled,
the messenger boy stood open-mouthed, with his cap tilted precariously
on the bulge of his head, a damp lock of hair straggling down into his
right eyebrow, while he craned his neck to stare after the dwindling
speck.

He waited, leaning against the shady side of the shed with his feet
crossed; but the Thunder Bird did not circle back and prepare to
descend the invisible spiral it had climbed so ardently. Two
cigarettes he smoked leisurely, now and then tilting back his head and
squinting into the silent blue depth above. He drew out his book and
looked at the slip saying that Johnny Jewel was being called by the
Rolling R Ranch on long-distance telephone. He squinted again at the
sky, cocked his ear like a spaniel and got no faint humming, replaced
the slip in his book and the book in his torn-down pocket, and
presently meandered back to town.

Away off to the west, so high that it looked a mere speck floating
swiftly, the Thunder Bird went roaring, steadily boring its way to
journey's end. And a little farther to the south, Mary V was making
life unpleasant for the telephone operator and for her mother who
preached patience and courtesy to those who toll, and for her dad who
had ventured to inquire what she wanted to dog that young imp for,
anyway, and why didn't she try waiting until he showed interest enough
in somebody besides himself to call her up? And where was her pride,
anyway?

Then, after what seemed to Mary V sufficient time to call Johnny from
the farthest corner of the universe, the telephone jangled. The
operator told her, with what Mary V called a perfectly intolerable tone
of spite, that her "party" could not be located for her at present, as
he had left town.

"And I hope to goodness he stays!" gritted Mary V, slamming the
receiver on its hook. "With dad acting the way he did and treating