e other business is afoot. It hurt his self-esteem to believe
that--wherefore he prospected his memory for some other theory to take
its place.

"Well! If that's why they did it--it sure worked like a charm," he summed
up his cogitations disgustedly. "I'll say I swallowed the bait whole!"
And he added grimly: "I wish I knew who put them wise."

Youth began to make its demands. He started a fire, boiled coffee, fried
bacon, made fresh bread, and ate a belated supper. Sudden had told him to
do as he pleased. "Well," Johnny muttered, "I will take him at his word."
He did not know just what he would please to do, but he realized that
fasting would not help him any; nor would sleeplessness. He ate,
therefore, washed his few dishes and went straight to bed. And although
he lay for a long while looking at his trouble through the magnifying
glass of worry, he did sleep finally--and without one definite plan for
the morrow.

Half an hour before dawn, Johnny went stumbling along the ledge to the
cleft. On his broad shoulder was balanced the propeller. On his face was
a look of fixed determination. He scared Bland Halliday out of a sleep in
which his dreams were all of a certain cabaret in Los Angeles--dreams
which made Bland's waking all the more disagreeable. Johnny tilted the
propeller carefully against the rock wall, lighted a match, and cupped
the blaze in his palms so that the light shone on Bland.

"Where's the lantern? You better get up--it's most daylight."

"Aw, f'r cat's sake! What more new meanness you got on your mind? Me, I
come down here in good faith to help fix a plane that's to take me back
home--and I work like a dog--"

"Yeah--I know that song by heart, Bland. You in your faith and your
innocence, how you were basely betrayed. I can sing it backward. Lay off
it now for a few minutes. I want to talk to yuh."

He lighted the lantern, and Bland lay blinking at it lugubriously. "And
me--I dreamed I was in to Lemare's just after a big exhibition flight,
and a bunch of movie queens was givin' me the glad eye."

"Yes, I've done some dreaming myself," Johnny interposed dryly. "I'm
awake now. Listen here, Bland. I've been playing square with you, all
along. I want you to get that. I can see how you being so darn crooked
yourself, you may always be looking for some one to do you, so I ain't
kicking at the stand you take. You've got no call, either, to kick
against my opinion of you. I'm satisfied you'd steal my a