Running like the wind to the shed where his racer was kept, he quickly had the engine spinning. The next instant he shot past the group of startled cowboys. They saw him feeling on his belt for his guns, and then man and car were swallowed up in a cloud of dust.
CHAPTER XVIII—THE LOST AIRPLANE
Josephine rode away from Bar X ranch with a feeling of misgiving. She knew that she had treated Mason rather mean, but she felt piqued because he had neglected her for the last few days.
Ethel noticed her abstracted manner, and asked her the reason for it.
“I think your big brother has been neglecting us shamefully,” she said at last in answer to a repeated query from Ethel. “Dad doesn’t need him to work about the ranch as he persists in doing, and I think it mean of him while you are visiting us.”
Ethel smiled at her serious manner.
“You certainly cut him to-day when you refused his offer to go with us,” she said, watching keenly the effect of her words on her friend.
“Serves him right,” Josephine answered spiritedly. “I suppose he thinks I am a very unreasonable girl, but you know we planned to visit the secret passage at the Ricker ranch, and I really wanted to ask him to go with us, but for the last three days I have scarcely been able to get a word with him.”
“Jack thinks you are in love with Bud Anderson,” Ethel ventured gently.
Josephine laughed merrily.