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B. M. Bower
The Thunder Bird & Skyrider
(Western Adventure Classics)
Adventures of a Wild West Cowboy Who Wanted to be a Pilot
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2017 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-272-2060-1
Table of Contents
Skyrider
Chapter One. A Poet Without Honor
Chapter Two. One Fight, Two Quarrels, and a Riddle
Chapter Three. Johnny Goes Gaily Enough to Sinkhole
Chapter Four. A Thing That Sets like a Hawk
Chapter Eight. Over the Telephone
Chapter Ten. Signs, And No One to Read Them
Chapter Eleven. Thieves Ride Boldly
Chapter Twelve. Johnny's Amazing Run of Luck Still Holds its Pace
Chapter Thirteen. Mary V Confronts Johnny
Chapter Fourteen. Johnny Would Serve Two Masters
Chapter Fifteen. The Fire that Made the Smoke
Chapter Seventeen. A Rider of the Sky
Chapter Eighteen. Flying Comes High
Chapter Nineteen. "We Fly South"
Chapter Twenty. Men Are Stupid
Chapter Twenty-One. Mary V Will not be Bluffed
Chapter Twenty-Two. Luck Turns Traitor
Chapter Twenty-Three. Dreams and Darkness
Chapter Twenty-Four. Johnny's Dilemma
Chapter Twenty-Five. Skyrider "Has Flew"!
Chapter One. A Poet Without Honor
Before I die, I'll ride the sky;
I'll part the clouds like foam.
I'll brand each star with the Rolling R,
And lead the Great Bear home.
I'll circle Mars to beat the cars,
On Venus I will call.
If she greets me fair as I ride the air,
To meet her I will stall.
I'll circle high—as if passing by—
Then volplane, bank, and land.
Then if she'll smile I'll stop awhile,
And kiss her snow-white hand.
To toast her health and wish her wealth
I'll drink the Dipper dry.
Then say, "Hop in, and we'll take a spin,
For I'm a rider of the sky."
Through the clouds we'll float in my airplane boat—
Mary V flipped the rough paper over with so little tenderness that a corner tore in her fingers, but the next page was blank. She made a sound suspiciously like a snort, and threw the tablet down on the littered table of the bunk house. After all, what did she care where they floated—Venus and Johnny Jewel? Riding the sky with Venus when he knew very well that his place was out in the big corral, riding some of those broom-tail bronks that he was being paid a salary—a good salary—for breaking! Mary V thought that her father ought to be told about the way Johnny was spending all his time—writing silly poetry about Venus. It was the first she had ever known about his being a poet. Though it was pretty punk, in Mary V's opinion. She was glad and thankful that Johnny had refrained from writing any such doggerel about her. That would have been perfectly intolerable. That he should write poetry at all was intolerable. The more she thought of it, the more intolerable it became.
Just for punishment, and as a subtle way of letting him know what she thought of him and his idiotic jingle, she picked up the tablet, found the pencil Johnny had used, and did a little poetizing herself. She could have rhymed it much better, of course, if she had condescended to give any thought whatever to the matter, which she did not. Condescension went far enough when she stooped to reprove the idiot by finishing the verse that he had failed to finish, because he had already overtaxed his poor little brain.
Stooping, then, to reprove, and flout, and ridicule, Mary V finished the verse so that it read thus:
"Through