ng it with a childlike
confidence in himself. As for Mary V--oh, well, Mary V was very young and
a woman, and therefore not to be held accountable for her rash faith that
the man would take care of her. Mary V had centuries of dependent
womanhood behind her, and must be excused.

Johnny wished that he had warned her about the peculiar tendency of the
air currents to follow the contour of the ground. He climbed as high as
Bland had climbed at first, hoping to escape the abruptness of the waves
such as he had studied patiently from charts, and which he had felt when
they flew over arroyos and rough ground. He did not want Mary V to be
alarmed, but the noise of the motor made speech impossible, so he let the
explanation go for the present. Mary V was sitting exactly in the center,
grasping rather tightly the edges of the pit as a timid person holds fast
to the sides of a canoe. Sitting so, she did not look in the least like a
young woman who has just compelled a man at the point of a revolver to do
her bidding. More like a child who is having its first boat ride, and who
is holding its breath, mentally balanced between howls of fear and
shrieks of glee. But Johnny did not believe she was scared.

Johnny was keyed up to the point of working miracles, of accomplishing
the impossible. Johnny was happy, a little awed at his own temerity,
wholly absorbed in his determination to handle that airplane just as well
as Bland or any other living man could handle it. He kept reminding
himself that it was simple enough, if you only had the nerve to go ahead
and _do_ it; if you just forgot that there was such a thing as falling;
and, of course, if you knew what it was you ought to do, and how you
ought to do it. Johnny knew--theoretically. And it did not seem possible
to him that he could fall. He was master of a machine that was master of
the air. He was riding the sky--and Mary V was there, riding with him,
absolutely confident that he would not let her be hurt.

He did not attempt any "fancy stunts," such as Bland had done. He merely
climbed to where he dared circle, then circled deliberately, carefully.
When he came about so that the sun was warming his right shoulder, he
flew straight for the Rolling R ranch, like a homing pigeon at sunset.

It was exhilarating--it was wonderful! Johnny, knowing the country so
well, avoided passing over the roughest places, keeping well out from the
hills, and into the smoother flow over the broa