s it had to be. For a moment he and Beatrice stood
arranging the time for their proposed ride. Then, with a cool little
nod that included them both, she turned and ran lightly up the steps
into the house.

"Some sure-enough queen," murmured Johnnie in naive admiration, staring
after her with open mouth.

Clay smiled. He had an opinion of his own on that point.

CHAPTER XI

JOHNNIE GREEN--MATCH-MAKER

Johnnie Green gave an upward jerk to the frying-pan and caught the
flapjack deftly as it descended.

"Fust and last call for breakfast in the dining-cyar. Come and get it,
old-timer," he sang out to Clay.

That young man emerged from his bedroom glowing. He was one or two
shades of tan lighter than when he had reached the city, but the paint
of Arizona's untempered sun still distinguished him from the
native-born, if there are any such among the inhabitants of upper New
York.

"You're one sure-enough cook," he drawled to his satellite. "Some girl
will ce'tainly have a good wife when she gets you. I expect I'd better
set one of these suffragette ladies on yore trail."

"Don't you, Clay," blushed Johnnie. "I ain't no ladies' man. They
make me take to the tall timber when I see 'em comin'."

"That ain't hardly fair to them, and you the best flapjack artist in
Graham County."

"Sho! I don't make no claims, old sock. Mebbe I'm handy with a
fry-pan, mebbe I ain't. Likely you're jest partial to my flapjacks,"
the little man said in order to have his modest suggestion refuted.

"They suit me, Johnnie." And Clay reached for the maple syrup. "Best
flapjacks ever made in this town."

The Runt beamed all over. If he had really been a puppy he would have
wagged his tail. Since he couldn't do that he took it out in grinning.
Any word of praise from Clay made the world a sunshiny one for him.

"This here place ain't Arizona, but o' course we got to make the best
of it. You know I can cook when I got the fixin's," he agreed.

The two men were batching it. They had a little apartment in the Bronx
and Johnnie looked after it for his friend. One of Johnnie's
vices--according to the standard of the B-in-a-Box boys--was that he
was as neat as an old maid. He liked to hang around a mess-wagon and
cook doughnuts and pies. His talent came in handy now, for Clay was no
housekeeper.

After the breakfast things were cleared away Johnnie fared forth to a
certain house adjoining Riverside Drive, where he