Debt or no debt, he could never go back to the Rolling R and be a rancher.

Lying there under his airplane and staring up at the starred purple of the night he knew that he could not go back.
Yet he knew too that once he had sold his airplane he would be almost as helpless financially as Bland Halliday, unless he returned to the only trade he knew, the trade of riding bronks and performing the various other duties that would be his portion at the Rolling R.
Johnny pictured himself back at the Rolling R; pictured himself riding out with the boys at dawn after horses, or sweating in the corrals, spitting dust and profanity through long, hot hours.

There was a lure, of course; a picturesque, intangible attraction that calls to the wild blood of youth.

But not as calls this other life which he had tasted.
There was no gainsaying the fact--ranch life had grown too tame, too stale for Johnny Jewel.

And there was no gainsaying that other fact--that Mary V would have to reconcile herself to being an aviator's wife, if she would mate with Johnny.
He went to sleep thinking bitterly that neither he nor Mary V need concern themselves at present over that point.