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"That there was him learnin' not to pick nice, deep, soft sand for a landin'," Bland explained equably, glancing up to where Johnny was painting a somewhat wobbly B. "He ain't done it lately, bo." "Lemme up there, Skyrider, and see what it is yo'all are paintin' on," Bud pleaded. "If it's po'try, maybe I can sing it." Johnny relaxed into a grin, but he did not answer the jibe.
And if he sold his own airplane, how then would he fly? How could he ever hope to be in the game as long as Bland had been? How could he do anything but go back meekly to the Rolling R Ranch and ride bronks for Mary V's father, and be hailed as Skyrider still, who had no more any hope of riding the sky?
It had been whispered in the bunk house that Skyrider was deep in disgrace, and Curley was worried. On the porch of the bungalow Sudden stood with his morning cigar unlighted in his fingers, watching the little cavaleade swing past to the gate.
Is it true, Johnny, that a lot of horses have been stolen?" "Yes." "I heard dad talking. Oh, I wish I could help hunt them, but I'm in an awful mess, Skyrider! Bill Hayden knew I'd taken Jake, because my saddle was gone, and none of the other horses were. I never saw any one so mean and suspicious!
Bud wanted to know when the first excitement had subsided. "Writin' poetry for friend Venus to read? I'll bet that there's where Skyrider has been all this while! I'll bet he's been visitin' with Venus and brandin' stars with the Rollin' R whilst we been ridin' the tails off our hawses huntin' his mangled ree-mains. Ain't that right, Eyebrow?" Bland grinned sourly.
"I'm doing a make-believe nose dive, Skyrider," she chirped down at him, looking over the edge through Johnny's goggles, and hoping that he would accept her play as a tacit reconciliation, so that they could start all over again without any fussing. No doubt dad had fixed things up with Johnny and everything would be perfectly all right. "Look out below."
"Yo' all ain't quittin'?" Tex roused himself to ask. "Not over a little josh? Say, you're layin' yoreself wide open to more of the same. Yo' all wants to take it the way it's meant, Skyrider. Listen here, boy, if yo' all wants to git away from the ranch right now, why don't yo' all speak for to stay at Sinkhole camp?
On the blank space at the end of the first lesson she wrote the following and could scarcely refrain from calling Johnny's attention to it, she was so proud of it: "Skyrider, Skyrider, where have you been? I've been to see Venus, which made the moon grin. Skyrider, Skyrider, what saw you there? I saw old maid Venus a-dyeing her hair!"
"Sa-ay, if that there's Skyrider sailin' around in an airship, he's shore got the laugh on us fellers," Aleck observed, squinting his nose until his gums showed red above his teeth. "Look at 'im come down, would yuh!" "Wonder where he got it?" little Curley hazarded. "I always told you fellers " "Does anybody know where Mary V went?" Sudden's voice brought them all facing him.
And anyway I'll write to you and I hope you'll write to me, because I am sure going to miss you till I come back. I wish I had the nerve to go right up to the house and tell you all this instead of writing, but I know I couldn't do it, so I won't try. But you be sure and let me know some way over the 'phone. So good-bye for the present. Always your faithful Skyrider, Johnny."
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