To enlist as an aviator with his airplane, or to sell the plane in Tucson, turn the proceeds over to Sudden to pay his debt and enlist as an aviator without the machine, had seemed perfectly simple.

Either way would be making good the mistakes of his past and paving the way for future achievements.
Parting with the plane had not promised to so wrench the very heart out of him when he fully expected to fly faster and farther in airplanes owned by the government; faster and farther toward the goal of all red-blooded young males: glory or wealth, the hero's wreath of laurel or the smile of dame Fortune.
Mary V stood on the heights waiting for him, as Johnny had planned and dreamed.

He would come back to her a captain, maybe--perhaps even a major, in these hot times of swift achievement.

They would all be proud to shake his hand, those jeering ones who called him Skyrider for a joke.

Captain Jewel would not have sounded bad at all.