B. M. Bower

“ Bearded men with the flat tone of age in their voices will suck pipes and cackle reminiscently while they tell you of Casey's tumultuous youth—time when he drove the fastest six horses in Colorado to the stage line out from Cripple Creek, and whooped past would-be holdups with a grin of derision on his lips and bullets whining after him, and his passengers praying and clinging white-knuckled to the seats. ”

“ A man who is going to marry a widow with two children had best hurry up and strike every streak of rich ore he has in his claim, thought Casey.
All that afternoon, though the wind blew hot in his face, Casey drilled across the desert, meeting never a living thing, overtaking none. All that afternoon a yellow dust cloud swirled rapidly along the rough desert road, vainly trying to keep up with Casey who made it. In Yucca Pass he had to stop and fill motor and radiator with oil and water, and just as he topped the summit a front tire popped like a pistol. ”

“ Away out on the high mesas that are much like the desert below, except that the nights are cool and the wind is not fanned out of a furnace, Casey fought sand and brush and rocks and found a trail now and then which he followed thankfully, and so came at last to a short range of mountains whose name matched well their sinister stare. The Ghost Mountains had always been reputed rich in mineral and malevolent in their attitude toward man and beast. ”

“ Being an optimist to the middle of his bones, he merely felt a growing pride in himself. He had driven all this aggregation of potential grief, and he had driven with impunity. Whenever anything had happened to his Ford autymobil, Casey could trace the direct cause, and it had always come from the outside instead of the inside, save that time when he had walked in and got a new car without probing into the vitals of the other. ”

“ Casey admitted that it was. A man who handled dynamite ought to shun liquor above all things, she went on; and Casey agreed restively. He had not felt any inclination to imbibe until that minute, when the Irish rose up hotly within him.
“Casey, dear, are you sure you have nothing in camp?”
Casey assured her solemnly that he had not, and drove off down the hill vaguely aware that he was not so content with life as he had been. “Damn that sirup!” he exploded once, quite as abruptly as had the giant powder. After that he chewed tobacco and drove in broody silence. ”

“ I could never forgive myself, if I set before my innocent little ones the example of a husband who drank.”
“You won't,” said Casey. “Not if you marry me, you won't.” Then he changed the subject, beginning to talk of his prospect over on Ghost Mountain. The widow liked to hear him tell about finding a pocket of ore that went seventy ounces in silver and one and seven-tenths ounces in gold, and how he expected any day to get down into the main body of ore and find it a “contact” vein. It all sounded very convincing and as if Casey Ryan were in a fair way to become a rich man. ”

“ Casey drove back to his camp at Ghost Mountain, happy and a little scared. Why, after all these years of careless freedom he should precipitate himself into matrimony with a woman he had known only casually for two days, puzzled him a little.
“Well, a man gits to feelin’ like he wants to settle down when he’s crowdin’ fifty,” he explained his recklessness to the Ford as it hummed away over Furnace Lake which was flat as a floor and dry as a bleached bone—and much the same color. “Any man feels the want of a home as he gits older. And Casey’s the man that will try anything once. ”

“ Casey had a gallon sirup can in the car, which he used for extra oil for the engine. Having an appetite for sour-dough biscuits and sirup, he had also a gallon can of sirup in the car. It was a terrifically hot day, and the wind that blew full against Casey’s left cheek as he drove, burned where it struck. Casey was afraid he was running short of water, and a Ford comes first, as every man knows, so that Casey was parched pretty thoroughly, inside and out. Within a mile of the lake he stopped, took an unsatisfying sip from his big canteen and emptied the rest of the water into the radiator. ”

“ For Furnace Lake is treacherous. The big earthquake—America knows only one big earthquake, that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously—had split Furnace Lake halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest point and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and the passing storms had partly filled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to all men to trust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the big gash here and there, and the cattle men rode often that way, and sometimes not often enough to save their cattle from falling in. ”

“ Ain't another man on the desert can put a car over the trail like this.”
Pleased with himself and the reputation he had made, urged by hunger and the desire to make good on his claim, so that he might have the little home he instinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down another eighth of an inch—when he was already using more than he should—and nearly bounced his dynamite off the seat when he lurched over a sandy hummock and down onto the smooth floor of the lake. ”

“ Thereafter Pinnacle and Lund had a new standard by which to measure the courage of a man. Had he made the trip with Casey?
Casey did not like that. Freely enough he admitted that he was a hard driver. He had always had the name of being the hardest driver in the country, and he was proud of it. When a man started out to go somewhere, he wasn’t much, in Casey’s opinion, if he did not immediately proceed to get there. But he was a safe driver, he argued. ”

“ These went straight to ease the gnawing emptiness of his stomach—and being a man who took his emotions at their face value, he jumped to the conclusion that it was the lady whose presence gave him the glow. ”

“ She ain't as big a fool——” He did not want to fight, although he was aching to lick every man of them. For one thing, he was too sore and lame, and then, the widow would not like it.
With his back very straight, Casey walked down to the house and tried to tell the widow. But the widow was a woman, and she was hurt because Casey, since he was alive and not in the crevice, had not come straight to comfort her, but had lingered up there talking and laughing with the men. ”

“ And when he told them that he had filled his engine with sirup instead of oil, what would any one think?
Their unjust suspicions would not have worried Casey in the least, had Lucky Lode not possessed a lady cook who was a lady. She was a widow with two children, and she had the children with her and held herself aloof from the men in a manner befitting a lady. Casey was hungry and thirsty and tired and, as much as was possible to his nature, disgusted with life in general. The widow gave him a smile of sympathy which went straight to his heart ”

“ Casey paused and looked at him, and spat and grinned. “You're here, ain't yuh?” he retorted finally. “You ain't shot, and you ain't laying in no cañon. Any time a man gets shot outa Casey's stage, it'll be because he jumps out and waits for the bullet to ketch up.”
The lank man snorted and reached under his coat tail for the solacing plug of chewing tobacco. ”

“ Sour-dough biscuits tastes pretty good, and Casey sure can make ’em.” He got out his pipe, filled it, and crammed down the tobacco, found a match, and leaned back smoking relishfully, one leg thrown up over the wheel.
“A man’s best friend is his Ford. ”

“ You ask anybody. Gimme all the hootin’-annies that’s liable to wear out, Bill, and a load uh tires and patches, and Casey’ll come back and hand yuh a diamond big as your fist, some day. Casey Ryan’s goin’ out to see what he can see. If he meets up with Miss Fortune, he’ll tame her, Bill. And this little Ford autymobil is goin’ to eat outa my hand, this summer. I don’t give a cuss if she does git sore and ram her spark plugs into her carburetor now and ag’in. She’ll know who’s boss, Bill. ”

“ But shucks! A Ford can go anywhere a mountain goat can go. You ask anybody.”
So Casey sold his stage line and the good will that went with it, and Pinnacle and Lund breathed long and deep and planned trips they had refrained from taking heretofore, and wished Casey luck. Bill, the garage man, laid a friendly hand on his shoulder and made a suggestion so wise that not even Casey could shut his mind against it.
“You’re starting out where there won’t be no Bill handy to fix what you bust,” he pointed out. “You wait over a day or two, Casey, and let me show yuh a few things about that car. ”