have worried, for the cabin was empty. Since Johnny had
not washed the dishes, Mary V observed that two persons had breakfasted.
She observed also that Johnny had been in so great a hurry to get that
letter to the mail box ahead of the stage that he had unceremoniously
pushed all the dishes to one side of the table to make space for writing.
She picked up a paper on which an address that matched the letter in the
mail box and various items were scribbled, in a handwriting unlike
Johnny's, and she studied those items curiously. It was like a riddle.
She could not see what possible use Johnny could have for a quart of
cabinet glue, for instance, or for a blowtorch, or soldering iron, or
brass wire, or for any of the other things named in the list. She saw
that the amount totaled a little over twenty-five dollars, and she
considered that a very extravagant sum for a boy in Johnny's humble
circumstances to spend for a lot of junk which she could see no sense
in at all.

Having set herself to the solving of a mystery, she examined carefully
the blue print laid uppermost on a thin pile of his lessons and
circulars. There were pencil markings here and there which seemed to
indicate a special interest in certain parts of an airplane. There was a
letter, too, from Smith Brothers Supply Factory. She hesitated before she
withdrew the letter from the envelope, for reading another's mail was
going rather far, even for Mary V in her ruthless quest of clues. But it
was not a personal letter, which of course made a difference. She finally
read it; twice, to be exact.

Its meaning was not clear to Mary V, but she saw that it had to do with
airplanes, or at least with certain parts of an airplane. She wondered if
Johnny Jewel was crazy enough to try and make himself a flying machine,
away down here miles and miles from any place, and when he did not know
the first thing about it. Perhaps that horrid man he had brought was
going to help.

"Bland Halliday!" she said abruptly, memory flashing the name that fitted
the personality she so disliked. "I _knew_ I had seen him. That--whatever
made Johnny Jewel take up with _him_, for gracious sake? I suppose he's
persuaded Johnny to build a flying machine--the silly idiot! Well!"

She waited as long as she dared, meaning to give Johnny some much-needed
advice and a warning or two. She planned exactly what she would say, and
how she would for once avoid quarreling with him. It would be a good
p