I learn how--and then maybe you'll
wish you hadn't."

"Oh, won't the boys be just _wild_! Where have you got it, Johnny?
I've looked every place I could think of, the last two weeks, and I
couldn't--"

"Oh--_hoh!_" cried Johnny. "So it was you I've been trailing, was it? I
wondered who was doing so much riding down this way. You had me guessing,
and that's a fact."

"Well, you've had me; now 'fess up the whole mystery of it, Johnny. You
_know_ that wasn't you, telephoning with a cold, that night. You know
very well you weren't at camp at all; not for a couple of days, anyway.
Probably that was while you went to the burning sands of Mexico. I don't
understand that part, either; how you found out, and all. But who was it
'phoned for you? There were things he said--"

"Huh? What things? On the square, I don't know, Mary V. I never told
anybody to 'phone--nobody knew I was going, except a greaser that told
me about the plane, and went with me to see it."

"Well, I don't understand it at all. He certainly pretended he was you,
and he must have 'phoned from Sinkhole, because there's no other 'phone
on that wire. And the way he talked--"

"Oh, I think I know who it could have been," Johnny interposed hastily,
thinking of Tomaso. "He--"

Just then the travois hung itself on a lava out-cropping which Sandy
himself had dodged with his feet, and Johnny had a few busy minutes. By
the time they were again moving forward, Mary V's curiosity had seized
upon something else. She wanted to know if Johnny wasn't afraid Bland
Halliday might steal his aeroplane and fly off with it in the night.

"Well, he might, at that--if he got a chance," Johnny admitted. "Which he
won't--take it from me."

"Which he will--take it from you, if you don't keep an eye on him. From
all Jerry said about him, he couldn't be honest to save his life. And I'm
sure Jerry--"

"Good golly! You sure do seem to bank a lot on this Jerry person. At
that, he may be wrong. Bland Halliday is all right if you treat him
right. I ought to know; I've worked right alongside him for over two
weeks now. And I'll say, he has _worked_! I'd have been all summer doing
what he's done in a couple of weeks; and then it wouldn't have been done
right. This said Jerry is welcome to his opinions, and you're welcome to
swallow them whole, but me, I've got to hand it to Bland Halliday for
sticking right on the job and doing his level best. Why, he couldn't have
gone after the jo