y unless he turned short around and went the other way, which
would not be like Johnny. She had meant to say something that would lead
the conversation gently toward the verses, and then she meant to say
something else about the difficulty of making two lines rhyme, and the
necessity of using perfectly idiotic words--such as wight. Mary V was
disgusted with the boys for the way they had acted. She meant to tell
Johnny that she thought his verses were very clever, and that she, too,
was keen for flying. And would he like to borrow a late magazine she had
in the house, that had an article about the growth of the "game"? Mary
V did not know that she would have sounded rather patronizing. Her girl
friends in Los Angeles had filled her head with romantic ideas about
cowboys, especially her father's cowboys. They had taken it so for
granted that the Rolling R boys must simply worship the ground she walked
on, that Mary V had unconsciously come to believe that adoration was her
birthright.

And then Johnny stepped out of the trail and passed her as though she
had been a cactus or a rock that he must walk around! Mary V went hot
all over, with rage before her wits came back. Johnny had not gone ten
feet ahead of her when she was humming softly to herself a little,
old-fashioned tune. And the tune was "Auld Lang Syne."

Johnny whirled in the trail and faced her, hard-eyed.

"You're trying to play smart Aleck, too, are yuh?" he demanded. "Why
don't yuh sing the words that's in your mind? Why don't you _try_ to sing
your own ideas of poetry? You know as much about writing poetry as I do
about tatting! 'Worry'! 'surrey'! Or did you mean that it should be read
'wawry,' 'sorry'?"

A fine way to talk to the Flower of the Rancho! Mary V looked as though
she wanted to slap Johnny Jewel's smooth, boyish face.

"Of course, you're qualified to teach me," she retorted. "Such doggerel!
You ought to send it to the comic papers. Really, Mr. Jewel, I have read
a good deal of amateurish, childish attempts at poetry--in the infant
class at school. But never in all my life--"

"Oh, well, if you ever get out of the infant class, Miss Selmer, you may
learn a few rudimentary rules of metrical composition. I apologize for
criticising your efforts. It is not so bad--for infant class work." He
said that, standing there in the very coat which she had mended for him!

Mary V turned white; also she wished that _she_ had thought of mentioning
the "ru