"Thanks," said Johnny, apparently unmoved. "I didn't know I was a point of interest in your eyes; but seeing I am, I'm willing the girls should have a picture of me framed. If you'll go out and sit in the shade of the shack while I shave and doll up a little, you may take a picture. And I'll autograph it for you. Five years from now," he went on complacently, "you're going to brag about having it in your possession. One of those I-knew-him-when kind of brags. And if you'll bring the girls around some time when I'm pulling off an exhibition flight, I'll let 'em shake hands with me." "Well, of all the conceit!" By that one futile phrase Mary V owned herself defeated in the first charge. "Of all--" "Conceit? Nothing like that! When you thought it was a good cause to ride all these miles on the hottest day of the year, just to get my picture--" Johnny smirked at her in a perfectly maddening way. He knew it was maddening to Mary V, for he had meant it to be so. "I did not!" Mary V's face could not be any redder than the heat had made it, but even so one could see the rise in her mental temperature. "You said you did." "Well--I merely want your picture to put with my collection of donkeys! You--" "You said points of interest," Johnny reminded her. He had lost all his moroseness in the interest of the conversation. He had forgotten what a tonic his word-battles with Mary V could furnish. "You better stick to it, because it will sure pan out that way. You'll hate to admit, five years from now, that you once took me for a donkey. Besides, you can't have my ears to pin to the frame; I'll need 'em to listen to all the nice things some _real_ girls will be saying to me when I've just made an exhibition flight." "Exhibition flight--of your imagination!" fleered Mary V, curling her lip at him. "And I won't need your ears to prove you're a donkey, so don't worry about that." Johnny Jewel stood up, lifted his arms high above his head to stretch his healthy young muscles, pulled his face all askew in a yawn, rumpled his hair again and reached for his papers and tobacco. He knew that Mary V never noticed or cared if a fellow smoked; she was too thoroughly range-bred for that affectation. "Good golly! Things must sure be dull at the ranch, if you had to ride twenty miles on a day like this to pick a fight with me," he observed, leisurely singling one leaf out of his book of papers. "Left your horse to bake in the sun, too, I suppose, while you practice the art of persiflage on me."