home, I'll walk!" Mary V pinched in her lips, which meant stubbornness.

Johnny heaved a sigh. "Oh, shoot! I'm game to tackle it if you are. Far
as I'm personally concerned, _I know I can fly_." His lips, too, set
themselves in the line of stubbornness. And he added with perfect
seriousness, "It ain't half as hard as topping a bronk."

He glanced back, saw that Bland had gone into the cleft, and hurried on
to where he had buried the gasoline in the sand behind a jagged splinter
of rock in a shallow niche.

"Well, the Jane changed her mind, did she?" Bland commented when Johnny
arrived at the plane with the gas. "Thought she would. Walking twenty
miles ain't no sunshine, if you ask me. Better have the tank full-up, bo.
It's always safer."

A suppressed jubilance such as had seized and held him when he first
beheld the disabled airplane in the desert valley, filled Johnny now. As
he climbed up and filled the tank his lips were pursed into a soundless
whistle, his eyes were wide and shining, his whole tanned face glowed.
Bland Halliday regarded him curiously, his opaque blue eyes shifting
inquiringly to Mary V, halted at a sufficient distance to take a picture.
They were very young, these two--wholly inexperienced in the byways of
life, confident, with the supreme assurance of ignorance. It had been a
queer idea, hiding the gasoline; and threatened to be awkward, since
Bland was practically helpless out here in the sand and rocks. But things
always turned out the right way, give them time enough. The kid was
filling the tank--at present Bland asked no more of the gods than that.
His sour lips drew up at the corners, as they had done when Johnny had
made him the proposition in Agua Dulce. Mary V closed her camera and came
toward them, walking springily through the sand, looking more than ever
like a slim boy in her riding breeches and boots.

"All right. You lend Miss Selmer your goggles and cap, Bland. You won't
need 'em yourself till I get back."

"Till you--what?"

"Till I get back. I aim to take Miss Selmer home." Johnny's lips were
still puckered; his face still held the glow of elation. But his eyes
looked down sidelong, searching Bland's face for his inmost thought.

Bland was staring, loose-lipped, incredulous. "Aw, say! D'yuh think I'll
swallow that?" There was a threatening note beneath the whine of his
voice.

"If you don't choke. Come on, Mary V; 'hop in, and we'll take a spin,'
and all the rest of it.