Skyrider | Page 9

head
carried at a provocative tilt. He heard Tex swear under his breath and
mutter something about making the darned little runt come through yet,
whereat Johnny grinned maliciously.
Halfway to the corral, however, Johnny's steps slowed as though he
were walking straight up to a wall. The wall was there, but it was
mental, and it was his mind that halted before it, astonished.
What had touched Tex off so suddenly when Johnny had flung out that
meaningless taunt? Meaningless to Johnny--but how about Tex?
"Gosh! He took it like a guilty conscience," said Johnny. "What the
horn-toad has Tex been doin'?"
CHAPTER THREE
JOHNNY GOES GAILY ENOUGH TO SINKHOLE
Johnny Jewel, moved by the fluctuating determination of the young,
went to bed that night fully resolved that he would not quit a good job
just because untoward circumstance compelled him to herd with a
bunch of brainless clowns. He, who had a definite aim in life, would
not permit that aim to be turned aside because various and sundry
roughneck punchers thought it was funny to go around yelping like a
band of coyotes. Mary V, too--he did not neglect to include Mary V.
Indeed, much of his determination to remain was born of his desire to
crush that insolent young woman with polite, pitying toleration.
Even when the boys trooped in and began to compose what they
believed to be rhymes, Johnny did not weaken. He turned his face to
the wall and ignored them. Poor simps, what more could you expect?
They went so far as to attempt some poetizing on the subject of

Johnny's downfall in the corral, but no one seemed able to eliminate the
word bronk at the end of the first line, "_Johnny tried to ride a bronk._"
No one seemed able, either, to find any rhyme but honk. They tried
ker-plunk, and although that seemed to answer the purpose fairly well,
they were far from satisfied.
So was Johnny, but he would not say a word to save their lives. In spite
of himself he heard a howl of glee when some genius among them
declaimed loudly: "_Johnny volluped into Job's Coffin, and Venus she
most died a-lawfin!_"
Johnny gave a grunt of contempt, and the genius, who happened to be
Bud, lifted his head off the pillow and stared at the black shadow where
Johnny lay curled up like a cat.
"What's the matter with that, Skyrider? Kain't I make up po'try if I want
to?"
"Sure. Help yourself--you poor fish. Vollup! _Hunh!_" The contempt
was even more pronounced than before.
"Well? What's the matter with that? You said it yourself. And look out
how you go peddlin' names around here. You think nobody knows
anything but you! You're the little boy that invented flyin'--got the idea
from yore own head, by thunder, when it swelled up like a balloon with
self-conceit! That there gas-head of yourn'll take yuh right up amongst
the clouds some day, and you won't need no flyin' machine, neither!
Skyrider--is--right!" Accidentally Johnny had touched Bud's
self-esteem in a tender spot. "And that's no kidding, either!" he clinched
his meaning. "Punch a hole in yore skelp, and I'll bet that big haid of
yourn would wizzle all up like them red balloons they sell at circuses!
You--"
"_Hm-m-m!_ Just so it ain't all solid bone like yours," Johnny came
back at him with youth's full quota of scorn. "Keep away from pool
rooms, Bud. Somebody is liable to take your head off and use it for a
cue-ball. _Vollup! Hunh!_"

Bud said more; a great deal more. But Johnny flopped over on the other
side, buried his head under the blankets, and let them talk.
Cue-balls--that was all their heads were good for. So why concern
himself over their senseless patter?
It occurred to him, just before he went to sleep, that the unmistakable,
southern drawl of Tex was missing from the jumble of voices. Tex, he
remembered, had been unusually silent at supper, also, and twice
Johnny had caught Tex watching him somberly. But he could think of
no possible reason why Tex should want him to go down to Sinkhole
Camp, and he could not see how either of them could effect the change
even if Johnny had cared to go. Sudden Selmer did not ask his men
what was their desire. Sudden gave orders; his men could obey or they
could quit. And if Pete left, as Tex had hinted, Sudden would send
some one down there, and that would be an end of it. There was just
about one chance in six that Johnny Jewel would be the man to go.
Yet it so happened that Johnny did go--though Tex had nothing to do
with it, so far as Johnny could see. For all