and so avoid scaring the horses. But the slight detour cost
them precious feet of altitude while the nearest sandy stretch was yet
far off.

The earth was rising with incredible swiftness to meet them. The nearest
landing Johnny could think of was farther over, across Sinkhole Creek. He
did not believe they could make it, but he headed for it desperately, and
felt Bland yielding to his control.

Rocks, brush, furrowed ditches; rocks, brush. Ahead, they could see the
irregular patch of yellow that was sand. But the brush seemed fairly to
leap at them, the rocks grew malignantly larger while they looked, the
ditches deepened ominously. Over these the frail thing of cloth and
little strips of wood and wire and the delicate, dumb motor, skimmed
like a weary-winged bird. Bland flattened it out, coaxed it to keep the
air. Lower, lower--a high bush was flicked by a wheel in passing. On a
little farther, and yet a little.

She landed just at the edge of the goal. The loose sand dragged at the
wheels, flipped the plane on its nose so suddenly that Johnny never did
know just how it happened. Bland had feared that sand, and braced
himself. But Johnny did not know. His head had snapped forward against
the rim of the cowl--a terrible blow that sent him sagging inertly
against the strap that held him. Bland got out, took one look at Johnny,
and sank down weakly upon the sand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DREAMS AND DARKNESS

Johnny dreamed two separate dreams. The first dream was confused and
fragmentary. He seemed to hear certain sentences spoken while he was
whirling through space with the Milky Way flinging stars at him. As
nearly as he could remember afterwards, this is what he heard.

Mary V's voice: "Don't be so stupid! If a girl happens to bring in two
perfectly bandittish outlaws that imagine they are kidnaping her, why
must she be lectured, pray tell? If a man had done it--"

Mumble, mumble, and a buzzing in Johnny's head.

Bland's voice: "I don't know as I could tell. He could, if he should come
to. We got 'em headed this way--"

Bill's voice: "--and I seen him hittin' for the line and headed him
off--"

More mumbling.

Mary V's voice: "I can't see why he doesn't hurry! Why, for gracious
sake, must a person lie forever out in the sun when he's all smashed--"

Bland's voice: "--not as much as yuh might think, in all this brush.
I ain't gone over it yet--" (mumble) "--short circuit--" (mumble,
buzz-buzz) "w