and returned to the rig for
two other boxes exactly like the first one. He fumbled for Johnny's
canvas mail sack--a new luxury of Johnny's--and stuffed it into the mail
box. Then, climbing wearily back to the driver's seat, he picked up the
lines, released the brake, and started on.

Mary V gave the stage no further attention. She was wondering what in the
world Johnny Jewel wanted with three whole cases of coal oil--if that was
what the boxes contained. Mary V was not, of course, disposed to stand
long on a hill and wonder. The stage was not out of sight before she was
riding down the ridge.

"Gasoline!" she ejaculated, kicking a box tentatively with a booted foot.
"For gracious sake, what does that boy want with five--ten--with _thirty_
gallons of gas? Why that's enough to drive a car from here to Yuma, just
about. Surely to goodness Johnny hasn't--"

Tango lifted his head, pointed both ears forward and nickered a languid
howdy to another horse. Mary V turned quickly, a bit guiltily, and
confronted Johnny himself, riding up with something dragging rigidly from
the saddle to the ground behind Sandy's heels. The confusion in Johnny's
face served to restore somewhat the poise which Mary V had felt slipping.

"Hello, Skyrider," she greeted him chirpily. "Unless Venus has a filling
station, you'll need more gas than this, won't you, for the round trip?
Or--isn't it to be a round trip?"

Johnny's eyes flew wide open. Then he laughed to cover his embarrassment.
"You're not up on sky-riding, are you, Mary V? I'll have to train you a
little. I expect to 'vollup, bank and la-and,' coming back."

"Poor Bud isn't singing to-day. A bronk slammed him against the fence and
hurt his leg so he's going around with a limp. What is that contraption,
for gracious sake?"

"That? Why, that's a travois. You ask Sandy what it is, though, and he'll
give you a different name, I reckon. Sandy's beginning to think life is
just one thing after another. But he's getting educated."

Surreptitiously they eyed each other.

"Why do you buy your gas that way?" Mary V inquired with extreme
casualness. "It's a lot cheaper if you get a drum, the way we do."

"I know; but it's a lot harder to handle a drum too. Besides--" Johnny
broke his speech abruptly, hiding his confusion by straining to carry a
case over to the travois.

Mary V studied his reply carefully, keeping silence until Johnny had
loaded the other cases and was roping them to the t