aves--stared and saw not the monotonous
neutral tints of sand and rock and gray sage and yellow weeds and the
rutted, dusty trail that wound away across the desert. But Mary V's face
turned expectantly toward him from the crowd as he walked nonchalantly
around his big tractor, testing every cable, inspecting the landing gear
and the elevators and the--what-ye-may-call-'ems--and then climbing in
and trying out his control--and pulling down his goggles and settling his
moleskin cap and all--and then nodding imperiously to his helper--not
little Curley; he was not big enough to crank his powerful motor--but
some big guy that had a reach like--

And then the buzz and the hum, and fellows braced against the wings to
hold 'er till he was ready to give the word! And the dust storm he kicked
up behind--he hoped Mary V got her eyes full, darn her!--and then,
getting the feel of 'er, and giving a nod to the fellows to let go the
wings! And then--

Johnny rode along in a trance. He, his conscious inward self, was not
riding a sweating bronk along a trail that wound more-or-less southward
across the desert. That was his body, chained by grim necessity to work
for a wage. He, Johnny Jewel's ego, was soaring up and up and up--up till
the eagles themselves gazed enviously after. He was darting in and out
among the convolutions of fluffy white clouds; was looping earthward in
great, invisible volutes; catching himself on the upward curve and
zigzagging away again, swimming ecstatically the high, clean air currents
which the poor, crawling, earthbound ones never know.

Johnny jarred back to earth and to the sordid realities of life. He had
ridden half way to Sinkhole without knowing it, and now his horse had
stopped, facing another horse whose rider was staring curiously at
Johnny. This was Pete, on his way in from Sinkhole.

"Say-y! Yuh snake-bit, or what?" Pete asked. "Ridin' glassy-eyed right
_at_ a feller! If my hawse had been a mite shorter, I expect you'd of
rode right on over me and never of saw me. What's bitin' yuh, Johnny?"

"Me? Nothing!" No daydreamer likes being pulled out of his dream by so
ugly a reality as Pete, and Johnny was petulant. "Why didn't you get outa
the way, then? You saw me coming, didn't you?"

"Me? Sure! I ain't _loco_. I seen yuh five mile back, about. I knowed it
was somebody from the ranch. Sudden 'phoned in and said I could drag it.
And you can bet yore sweet young life I hailed them words with jo