“Old Kentucky will be the hero of the hour next Saturday, you’ll see,” Jensie exulted. “Kentucky! My Kentucky forever!”
That night Johnny sat long musing beside the fire. Surely there were matters enough to occupy his thoughts. Kentucky was back. These mountain people had a way of winning their way into people’s hearts. He was glad of that. But what of the games that were to come? Could this mountain boy control his hot temper when things went wrong? He wondered and shuddered a little.
He thought of the bear and laughed. The bear was dead all right. He had told Lige Fields about that explosion in the cave. Lige was short of fresh meat. To a Kentucky mountain man, nothing is better than a good juicy bear steak. He had found the bear with his head blown clean off.
“Powerful stuff, liquid air and carbon,” the boy said to himself. He had some of the bear steak in his car. They’d have it for dinner in the back room of the Blue Moon tomorrow. He’d invite Coach Dizney and a few of the boys.
He thought of Old Mose and his mule, thought too of the “ornery no-count” Blinkey Bill who planned to beat Mose out of his coal mine.
“He said we might fix up a little bolt of lightning out of the blue,” Johnny murmured. He was thinking now of Donald Day. Queer sort of fellow, Donald was, mighty fine too. He wondered how a fellow’d go about manufacturing a “bolt from the blue.” He’d like to be around when it happened, would too if it were possible. He could steal away down there in the middle of the week. Artie Stark would manage the Blue Moon in his absence. Plenty of boys needed work.
Another thing he meant to look into. He wanted to visit that young aviator down there in the Kentucky valley. What kind of a motor could he be building? Johnny was interested in all sorts of mechanical contraptions. He had once owned a car that ran on dust, just ordinary coal dust.
“Couldn’t be that,” he whispered to himself. “Couldn’t—”
Johnny was growing drowsy. But now, of a sudden, he was wide awake. The latch clicked. There came the sound of shuffling feet. Johnny caught sight of a shadowy figure.
“Pant,” he called. “Panther Eye, is that you?”