Skyrider still, who had no more any hope of
riding the sky?

Gloom at last plumbed the depths of Johnny's soul, and showed him where
grew the root of his unalterable determination to combat Mary V's plan
to have him at the ranch. Much as he loved Mary V he would hate going
back to the dull routine of ranch life. (And after all, a youth like
Johnny loves nothing quite so much as his air castles.) As a rider of
bronks he was spoiled, he who had ridden triumphant the high air lanes.
He had talked of paying his debt to Sudden, he had talked of his
self-respect and his honesty and his pride--but above and beyond them
all he was fighting to save his castle in the air. Debt or no debt, he
could never go back to the Rolling R and be a rancher. Lying there
under his airplane and staring up at the starred purple of the night he
knew that he could not go back.

Yet he knew too that once he had sold his airplane he would be almost
as helpless financially as Bland Halliday, unless he returned to the
only trade he knew, the trade of riding bronks and performing the
various other duties that would be his portion at the Rolling R.

Johnny pictured himself back at the Rolling R; pictured himself riding
out with the boys at dawn after horses, or sweating in the corrals,
spitting dust and profanity through long, hot hours. There was a lure,
of course; a picturesque, intangible attraction that calls to the wild
blood of youth. But not as calls this other life which he had tasted.
There was no gainsaying the fact--ranch life had grown too tame, too
stale for Johnny Jewel. And there was no gainsaying that other
fact--that Mary V would have to reconcile herself to being an aviator's
wife, if she would mate with Johnny.

He went to sleep thinking bitterly that neither he nor Mary V need
concern themselves at present over that point. It would be some time
before the issue need be faced, judging from Johnny's present prospects.

CHAPTER THREE

JOHNNY WOULD DO STUNTS

Bland woke him, just as day was coming. A new Bland, fresh
shaven,--with Johnny's razor,--and with a certain languid animation in
his manner that was in sharp contrast to his extreme dejection of the
night before.

"Thought I'd come out and see if you was going to make a flight this
morning," he said. "It's a good morning for it, bo. How's she
working, these days? Old man at the ranch wouldn't let me try her out
after I'd fixed her up; said you was too