about them. One fact--the big, important one--was that Johnny still
had his job, and that it looked as secure and permanent as any job can
look in this uncertain world. The other fact--the little, teasingly
mysterious one--was that Sudden evidently did not know of Johnny's
two-day absence from camp, and foolishly believed Johnny the victim of a
cold.

But Johnny's conscience was too much a boy's resilient fear of
consequences to cluck very long over what was, on the face of it, a
piece of good luck. It permitted Johnny to sleep and to dream happily
all night, and it did not pester him when he awoke at daylight.

Just because it became a habit with him, I shall tell you what was the
first thing Johnny did after he crawled into his clothes. He went out
hastily and saddled his horse and rode to the rock-faced bluff, turned
into a niche and rode back to the farther end, then swung sharply to the
left.

It was there. Dusty, desert-whipped, one wing drooping sharply at the
end, the flat tire accentuating the tilt; with its tail perked sidewise
like a fish frozen in the act of flipping; reared up on its landing gear
with its little, radiatored nose crossed rakishly by the gravel-scarred
propeller, that looked as though mice had nibbled the edges of its
blades, it thrilled him as it had never thrilled him before.

It was his own, bought and paid for in money, and the sweat of long,
toil-filled miles. It looked bigger in that niche than it had looked
out on the desert with nothing but the immensity of earth and sky to
measure it by. It looked bigger, more powerful--a mechanical miracle
which still seemed more dream than reality. And it was his, absolutely
the sole property of Johnny Jewel, who had retrieved it from a foreign
country--his prize.

"Boy! I sure do wish she was ready to take the air," Johnny said under
his breath to Sandy, who merely threw up his head and stared at the thing
with sophisticated disapproval.

Johnny got down and went up to it, laid a hand on the propeller, where
its varnish was still smooth. Through a rift in the rock wall a bright
yellow beam of sunlight slid kindly along the padded rim of the pilot's
pit; touched Johnny's face, too, in passing.

Johnny sighed, stood back and looked long at the whole great sweep of the
planes, pulled the smile out of his lips and went back to the cabin. He
wouldn't have time to work on her to-day, he told himself very firmly. He
would have to ride the fences