The Thunder Bird

was a curiosity, a thing to come out and stare at, a thing to admire; but not to buy, even though Johnny had as an added inducement offered to teach the buyer to fly before the purchase price was taken from the bank.

The stalking shadow of a man moving slowly warned Johnny of an approaching visitor. He did not trouble to turn his head; he even moved farther into the shed, to tighten a turnbuckle that was letting a cable sag a little.

"Hello, old top--how they using yuh?" greeted a voice that had in it a familiar, whining note.

Johnny's muscles stiffened. Hostility, suspicion, surprise surged confusingly through his brain. He turned as one who was bracing himself to meet an enemy, with a primitive prickling where the bristles used to rise on the necks of our cavemen ancestors.

CHAPTER TWO

AND THE CAT CAME BACK

"Why, hello, Bland," Johnny exclaimed after the first blank silence. "I thought you was tied up in a sack and throw