ravois frame.

"Is that Bland Halliday with you yet?" she asked him suddenly.

"Yeh--er--how do _you_ know anything about Bl--" Johnny was plainly swept
off his guard.

"Why, why shouldn't I know about BL?" Mary V's smile was exasperating.
"I've seen Bland Halliday fly--and fall, too, once. Because he was drunk,
they said. I've seen him drunk, and trying to do figure eights with a car
on Wilshire Boulevard. He almost put me in the ditch, trying to dodge
him. He was arrested for that, and his car was taken away from him. And
I've heard--oh, all kinds of scandal about him. I was awfully surprised
at your taking up with him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Johnny
Jewel."

"He sure knows airplanes," Johnny blurted unwisely.

"Yours must be ready to fly--the amount of gas you're taking to camp."

"She goes in the air--say, good golly, Mary V! How do _you_ know anything
about my--er--"

"I hope," said Mary V very mildly, "that I have _some_ brains. At any
rate, I have brains enough to wonder how in the world you can afford to
build yourself an aeroplane; I haven't heard a word about any rich uncle
dying and leaving you a fortune. And I know it takes a tremendous lot of
money to build and fly aeroplanes."

"Didn't set me back so much," Johnny bragged. "I didn't have to build
one, you see."

Mary V needed time enough to study that statement also. She mounted Tango
and waited until Johnny was ready to start with his queer load. "How did
you get it--if I may ask?" she began then. "Did Bland Halliday happen
along and have a wreck, and sell you the pieces? You want to be careful,
because I know he's an awful grafter, and he'll cheat you, just as sure
as you live, Skyrider."

"He can't," Johnny declared with confidence. "He's working for his
passage--er--"

"Er--yes?" Mary V smiled demurely. "You may just as well tell me the
whole thing, now. _Have_ you got an aeroplane? Really truly? I mean,
where did you get it? I know, of course, you must have one, or you
wouldn't buy all that gas."

"Some deductionist," grinned Johnny, tickled with the very human interest
he had roused in himself and his doings. "Where I got it is a secret--but
I've got it, all right!"

"Johnny Jewel! You didn't let that Bland Halliday sell you--"

"I picked Bland Halliday up at the station in Agua Dulce," Johnny
explained tolerantly. "He'd wrecked his plane back East somewhere. He
was beating his way to the Coast, and was waiting to hit a