Skyrider | Page 6

Sudden loved it, and Mary V loved it, and Mary V's mother loved
whatever they loved. So the Rolling R was home. And that is why the
Rolling R boys looked upon Mary V with unglamoured eyes, being
thoroughly accustomed to the sight of her and to the sharp tongue of
her and to the frequent discomfort of having her about.
They liked her, of course. They would have fought for her if ever the
need of fighting came, just as they would have fought for anything else
in their outfit. But they took her very calmly and as a matter of course,
and were not inclined to that worshipful bearing which romancers
would have us accept as the inevitable attitude of cowboys toward the
daughter of the rancho.
Wherefore Johnny Jewel was not committing any heinous act of
treason when he walked past Mary V with stiffened spine and head
averted. Johnny was mad at the whole outfit, and that included Mary V.
Indeed, his anger particularly included Mary V. A young man who has
finished high school and one year at a university, and who reads
technical books rather than fiction and has ambitions for something
much higher than his present calling,--oh, very much higher!--would

naturally object to being called a witless wight.
Johnny objected. He had cussed Aleck for repeating the epithet in the
bunk house, and he had tried to lick Bud Norris, and had failed. He
blamed Mary V for his skinned knuckles and the cut on his lip, and for
all his other troubles. Johnny did not know about the coat, though he
had it on; and if he had known, I doubt whether it would have softened
his mood. He was a terribly incensed young man.
Mary V had let her steps lag a little, knowing that Johnny must
overtake her presently 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 "rudimentary rules of metrical composition" instead of
infant classes. She smiled as disagreeably as was possible to such
humanly kissable lips as hers.
"No, is it?" she agreed sweetly. "Witless wight was rather good, I
thought. Wight fits you so well."
"Oh, that!" Johnny turned