ches which the Rolling R boys had dubbed
slipped eyebrows. And ordinarily he would have objected to a mouth drawn
at the corners in a permanent whine. To offset these objectionable
features there were the greasy, brown overalls and the cap which
certainly looked bird-mannish enough for any one, and there was the
pilot's license--no fake about that--and the fact that the fellow had
known all about Abe Smith and the linen.

Johnny threw away his cigarette and his caution together. "Say, I might
be able to take you to Los Angeles, all right--provided you will take a
hand on the little old boat and help me put her in shape again. It
oughtn't to take long, if we go right after it. I--er--to tell the truth,
it's hard to get hold of any one around here that knows anything about
it. Why, I had one fellow working for me, Mr. Halliday, and just for a
josh I asked him where the fuselage was. And he went hunting all over the
place and finally brought me a monkey wrench! He--"

"No brains--that's the main trouble with the game," commented Bland
Halliday, after he had exhaled a long, thin wreath of smoke which he
watched dreamily. "What you got?"

"Hunh? What kind of a plane? Why, it's a tractor. A military--"

"Unh-huh. Dual dep control, or have you monkeyed with it and--?"

"It's a regular military type tractor. It--well, it has been in
government service before--"

"You an army flier? Then what 'n hell you doing here? Say, put over
something I can take, bo. You don't look the part. Only for that stuff
you unwrapped, I'd tag you for a wild and woolly cowboy."

His tone was not flattering, and his very frank skepticism ill became a
tramp. But Johnny had plunged, and he swallowed his indignation and
explained with sufficient truth to be convincing. He even confessed that
he could not fly--yet. There was something pathetic in his eagerness and
his trustfulness, though Bland Halliday seemed to miss altogether the
pathos, in his greed for technical details of the damage to the plane,
and a crafty inquisitiveness as to distance and location.

He smoked another of Johnny's cigarettes, stared opaquely at the
sweltering little village and meditated, while Johnny wrapped his parcels
and tied them securely, and waited nervously for the decision.

"I wish I'd happened along before you sent for that stuff," Halliday
remarked at last, flicking Johnny's face with a glance. "I've got a dope
of my own that beats that, any way you take it--