Casey Ryan

e Union, and some from Canada and Mexico. From Needles way they came, searching their souls for words to tell Casey what they thought

tween here and Ludlow with a boilin' radiator and not water enough. Got oil enough? Juan, you look and see. Can't afford to run low on oil, stranger. No, ma'am, there ain't any other road-and i

r tires, his hands on his hips perhaps and

t ain't goin' to last yuh five miles up the road." He would kick the tire whose character he was blackening. "Better lay in a supply of blow-out

he obeyed Bill's commands. He never took a check or a promise for his pay, and he never once let his Irish temper get beyon

r would wait. The man or woman never lived who refused a drink of cold water on the desert in summer. Casey would return with a pale green glass water pitcher and a pale green glass. He would grin at their exclamations, and pour for them water that was actually cold and came from th

ved in dry, hot places before, and he was conscientiously trying to please the public and also make money for Bill, who had befriended him. You are not to jump to the conclusion, however,

s the case might be. Any fool, thought Casey, would know without asking, since there was no other road, and since the one road was signed conscientiously every mile or two. But he always grinned good-naturedly and told th

ored harder than Fords. There were limousines, sedans, sport cars,-and they all carried suitcases an

fill it, but Casey never grumbled. He merely retied the luggage with a packer's hitch that would take the greenhorn through his whole vocabulary before he untie

ere himself, a party pulled slowly up to the garage and stopped. Casey was inside sitting on the ground and letting the most recently filled water bag drip down the back of his neck. He shouted to Juan, but Juan had gone somewhere to find himself a cool sp

from his suspenders and did not seem to touch his person anywhere, climbed out and st

I got your size, at that. Fabrics and cords-and the difference in price is more'n m

ck all along," the man

but it shore doe

man himself and would have shied a little. But Casey could meet Trouble every mor

uade the man to invest. He surely needed rubber, thought Casey, as he scrutinized the two casings on the car. He stood aside while the man backed, turned a wide half-circle and drove into the g

t the wheels of the trucks and dwelt upon a trai

all told. Makes quite a drag on the ole boat. Knocks thunder outa tires, too

ore I hit that lava stretch up ahead here. You could keep them two fer extras in case of accident. Might git som

-I don't see how I'm goin' to

n into money, as Casey was telling himself complacently. He had not yet sold any tires for a two-ton truck, and he had just two fabrics and two cords, in trade vernac

ering, and wondered what it was that smelled so unpleasant. A goat bleated plaintively to remind him of their presence. Another goat carried on the theme, and the c

lks git out and rest awhile," he invited hospitably. "It's goin' to take a litt

ot water here, ain't yuh? An' they might graze around a mite whilst we're here. Travelin' like this, I try to kinda give 'em a chanc

he had never heard, and he had learned to name figures at random very convincingly. He named now what seemed to him a sufficient number, and the man said "Gosh!" and went back t

d. Juan, squatted on his heels while he languidly pumped the jack handle up and down, and seeming pleased than otherwise when the jack slipped and tilted so that he must lower it and begin all over again, got languidly to his bare feet and

t he returned with the tub, and the incessant bleating of the goats stilled intermittently while t

sking questions which no man could answer and remain normal. Casey had, while he unwrapped the casings, made a mental reduction in the price. Even Bill would throw off a little, he told himself, on

mpt young girls standing there at Casey's elbow so that he could not expectorate where he pleased, or swear at all. Wherefore Casey was appreciably handicapped in his work, and he wished that he were away out in the hills

oice repeated three times rapidly, with a

hich he called affectionately by the name Maud. The biggest girl had Maud. She had turned it upright on its handle and was sitt

at he had said before the girls appeared to silence him. The woman was very large both in height and in bulk, and she was heaving herself out of the truck in a way that reminded Casey oddly of a disgruntled hippopotamus he had once watched coming out of its tan

d, jumped three feet and caught the lady's full weight in his arms as she was falling toward him. Probably he would have caught it

hought again of the hippopotamus in its infancy. The fifth was perhaps fifteen, but she had apparently reached her full growth, which was v

a rule. Still, he had his little whims, and he failed to react to the young lady's smile. His pale blue e

p and was left in the truck. Casey went to work on the wheel again, after directing mother an

Casey was humanly anxious to be remembered pleasantly when they drove on. He asked them to wait and have a drink of cold water, and was deeply humiliated to find that both water bags were empty,-the overgrown

n them and that they must be left alone in the meantime. He did not look at the girl, but from the t

of them, so full of aimless talk that he mislaid tools in his distraction. Juan was a pest and Casey thought malevolently how he would kill him when the job was finished. Juan went around like one in a trance, his heavy-lidded, opaque eyes following every movement of the girl, which kept her younger sisters giggl

of the flock asked dolefully, when Casey called h

, just because he hated to see men walk around loose in their pants, with their

bber that's goin' to be chewed off on t

rom one of the girls. "I wisht it was all profit," he said. "Or even a quarter

that." Men usually are, you notice, when they want cred

e day before, thinking that it would save both himself and his customers some

SHED BY THE ONER O

yuh what I'll do; I'm goin' on up to my brother-he's got a prune orchard a little ways out from San Jose, an' he's well fixed. Now I'll write out an order on my broth

front axle. "That ain't the first good prospect I ever had pinch out on me," he observe

t hardly refuse to t

. "You stand there and watch me." He spun the wheel free and reached for his socket wr

pay my debts? An' ain't my brother Joe honest, an' don't he pay his debts? Would you think

ve him time to think wha

ot a h

d then, and Casey's hea

Bill and stiffened

rt. You ask anybody if Casey's got

'man enough to trust us, if

. It ain't a case uh not trustin'; it's a case of git the money or keep the tires

e rubber trust; merely a business office that employs very efficient bookkeepers, who are paid to see that others pay. He removed the new tir

hem from their rims. "Come on here and help, and I'll patch up your old tires so you c'n go on," he offered good-naturedly

The goats, held in spasmodic restraint by Humbolt and Greeley and a little spotted dog which Casey had overlooked in his first inventory, were blatting inconsequently in the sage behind the garage. Casey cooked a belate

shrill voice of Portia sounded unexpectedly at his elbow. Ca

wisdom, he closed the doors of the garage and locked them from the inside. Ca

over his ears, hot as it was, to shut out the sound. After a long while he heard the stutter of the truck motor gettin

ered Casey, and we