scuits and pie
and two cups of coffee. The cat, he told himself grimly, was not
content with a saucer of milk. It was on the top shelf of the pantry,
lapping all the cream off the pan!

Afterwards he took Bland to the hotel where his room was paid for until
the end of the week, led him up there, produced an old suit of clothes
that had not seemed to wear a sufficiently prosperous air for the owner
of an airplane, and suggestively opened the door to the bathroom.

Bland took the clothes and went in, mumbling a fear that he would do
himself mortal injury if he took a bath right after a meal.

"If you die, you'll die clean, anyway," Johnny told him grimly. So
Bland took a bath and emerged looking almost respectable.

Johnny had brought his second-best shoes out, and Bland put them on,
pursing his loose lips because the shoes were a size too small. But
Johnny had thrown Bland's shoes out of the window, so Bland had to bear
the pinching.

Johnny sat on the edge of the dresser smoking and fanning the smoke
away from his round, meditative eyes while he looked Bland over. Bland
caught the look, and in spite of the shoes he grinned amiably.

"I take it back, bo, what I said about gratitude. You got it, after
all."

"Huh!" Johnny grunted. "Gratitude, huh?"

"I knowed you wouldn't throw down a friend, old top. I was in the
dumps. A feller'll talk most any way when he's feeling the after
effects, and is hungry and broke. Now I'm my own man again. What
next? Name it, bo--I'm game."

"Next," said Johnny, "is bed, I guess. You're clean, now--you can
sleep here."

Bland showed that he could feel the sentiment called compunction.

"Much obliged, bo--but I don't want to crowd you--"

"You won't crowd me," said Johnny drily, "I aim to sleep with the
plane." Bland may have read Johnny's reason for sleeping with his
airplane, but beyond one quick look he made no sign. "Still nuts over
it--I'll say you are," he grunted. "You wait till you've been in the
game long as I have, bo."

With a blanket and pillow bought on his way through the town, Johnny
disposed himself for the night under the nose of the plane with the
wheels of the landing gear at his back. He was not by nature a
suspicious young man, but he knew Bland Halliday; and to know Bland was
to distrust him.

He felt that he was taking a necessary precaution, now that he knew
Bland was in Tucson. With the landing gear behind him, no one could
move th