“Which he probably intends that it shall be,” Mary V retorted.  “Before he does fly off with it, I might like to take a look at it—­and a picture.  May I, if you please, Mr. Jewel?”

“On one condition only, Miss Selmer.  You must promise that you won’t show the picture to a living soul till I give the word.”

“Well, for gracious sake!  How is the photographer going to develop and print it without seeing it?”

“I mean—­you know what I mean.  Come on, we’ll swing over this way.  I’ve got it cached in a secret hangar, over in that ledge.  I’ve got to haul the gas over there, anyway, and you may go along if you like.”

With a surprising docility Mary V accepted the somewhat patronizing invitation.  Perhaps she really appreciated the fact that Johnny was proving how much confidence he had in her.  Presently she urged that confidence to further disclosures.  What did he really and truly intend to do with his aeroplane, after he had learned to fly?

“Well, I promised Bland I’d take him to the Coast.  I intend to make aviation my real profession, of course.  You surely didn’t think, Mary V, that I’d be satisfied to bog down in a job that just barely pays living wages?  It’s all right for fellows like Bud and Curley and Bill, maybe; but I couldn’t go on all my life riding bronks and mending fence and such as that.  I’ve just got to ride the sky, and that’s all there is to it.  Luck happened to come my way, so I can do it a little sooner than I expected; but I’d have done it anyway, soon as the way was clear.

“Aviation is the coming game, Mary V, and it’s my game.  Why, look what they’re doing over in France!  And if this country should get let in for a fight, wouldn’t they need flyers?  I’m not like Bland:  I don’t just look at it as furnishing thrills to a crowd that is watching to see you break your neck.  Exhibition flying is all right, for a side line.  But me, I’m going to go after something bigger than the amusement end.  I—­” his eyes grew round and dreamy, his lips quivering with all the wonderful future he saw before him, “I’ve thought maybe France or England might want me and my plane—­to help lick those Germans.  Honest, Mary V, their work is awful raw—­blowing up passenger ships and killing children and women—­and, of course, we aren’t doing anything much about it; but if my little old boat could maybe bring down just one of those raiders that fly over England and drop bombs on houses where there’s kids and women, I’d be willing to call it a day!”

“B-but that’s dangerous, Johnny!  You—­you’d be killed, and—­and it’s so much finer to go on living and doing a little good right along every day.  It would count up more—­in the long run.  And we’re neutral.  I—­I don’t think you ought to!”

“Why not?  That’s the biggest thing the world has ever seen or will see.  The men that are in it—­look what they’re doing!  It’s tremendous, Mary V!  It would be hitting a wallop for civilization.”