Not even Casey thought of calling Smiling Lou a fool. He couldn't be and play the game he was playing. Smiling Lou said nothing whatever until he had looked the car over carefully (giving the license number a second sharp glance) and had regarded Casey fixedly while he made up his mind.
"Hullo! Where's your pardner?" he demanded then.
"I'm in pardnerships with myself this trip," Casey retorted. He waited while Smiling Lou looked him over again, more carefully this time.
"Where did you get that car?"
"From Kenner—for sixteen-hundred and seventeen dollars and five cents." Casey fumbled in the blankets—Smiling Lou following his movements suspiciously—and got out the makings of a cigarette.
"Got any booze in that car?" Smiling Lou might have been a traffic cop, for all the trace of humanity there was in his voice.
Casey cocked an eye up at him, sent a quick glance toward the Ford, and looked back into Smiling Lou's face. He hunched his shoulders and finished the making of his cigarette.
"I wisht you wouldn't look," he said glumly. "I got half my outfit in there an' I hate to have it tore up."
Smiling Lou continued to look at him, seeming slightly puzzled. But indecision was not one of his characteristics, evidently. He stepped up to the car, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and looked in.
Casey was up and into his clothes by the time Smiling Lou had uncovered a box or two. Smiling Lou turned toward him, his lips twitching.