b any harder if it was his own plane."

"Which he probably intends that it shall be," Mary V retorted. "Before he
does fly off with it, I might like to take a look at it--and a picture.
May I, if you please, Mr. Jewel?"

"On one condition only, Miss Selmer. You must promise that you won't show
the picture to a living soul till I give the word."

"Well, for gracious sake! How is the photographer going to develop and
print it without seeing it?"

"I mean--you know what I mean. Come on, we'll swing over this way. I've
got it cached in a secret hangar, over in that ledge. I've got to haul
the gas over there, anyway, and you may go along if you like."

With a surprising docility Mary V accepted the somewhat patronizing
invitation. Perhaps she really appreciated the fact that Johnny was
proving how much confidence he had in her. Presently she urged that
confidence to further disclosures. What did he really and truly intend to
do with his aeroplane, after he had learned to fly?

"Well, I promised Bland I'd take him to the Coast. I intend to make
aviation my real profession, of course. You surely didn't think, Mary V,
that I'd be satisfied to bog down in a job that just barely pays living
wages? It's all right for fellows like Bud and Curley and Bill, maybe;
but I couldn't go on all my life riding bronks and mending fence and such
as that. I've just got to ride the sky, and that's all there is to it.
Luck happened to come my way, so I can do it a little sooner than I
expected; but I'd have done it anyway, soon as the way was clear.

"Aviation is the coming game, Mary V, and it's my game. Why, look what
they're doing over in France! And if this country should get let in for
a fight, wouldn't they need flyers? I'm not like Bland: I don't just look
at it as furnishing thrills to a crowd that is watching to see you break
your neck. Exhibition flying is all right, for a side line. But me, I'm
going to go after something bigger than the amusement end. I--" his eyes
grew round and dreamy, his lips quivering with all the wonderful future
he saw before him, "I've thought maybe France or England might want me
and my plane--to help lick those Germans. Honest, Mary V, their work
is awful raw--blowing up passenger ships and killing children and
women--and, of course, we aren't doing anything much about it; but if my
little old boat could maybe bring down just one of those raiders that fly
over England and drop bombs on houses where th