Lucky Lode greeted him with dropped jaws and wide-staring eyes, which puzzled Casey until the foreman, grasping his shoulder—which made Casey wince and break a promise—explained their astonishment.
They had, as Casey expected, seen his lights when he came off the summit from Yucca Pass. By the speed they traveled Lucky Lode knew that Casey and no other was at the steering wheel, even before he took to the lake.
“And then,” said the foreman, “we saw your lights go round and round in a circle, and disappear—”
“They didn’t,” Casey cut in trenchantly. “They went dim because I was taking her slow, being about all in.”
The foreman grinned. “We thought you’d drove into the crevice, and we went down with lanterns and hunted the full length of it. We never found a sign of you or the car.”
“’Cause I was over in camp, or thereabout,” supplied Casey dryly. “I wish you’d of come on over. I sure needed help.”
“We figured you was pretty well lit up, to circle around like that. I’ve been down since, by daylight, and so have some of the boys, looking into that crevice. But we gave it up, finally.”
Then Casey, because he liked a joke even when it was on himself, told the foreman and his men what had happened to him. He did not exaggerate the mishap; the truth was sufficiently wild. They whooped with glee. Every one laughs at the unusual misfortunes of others, and this was unusual. They stood around the Ford and talked to it, and whooped again. “You sure must have had so-ome jag, Casey,” they told him exuberantly.
“I was sober,” Casey testified sharply. “I’ll swear I hadn’t had a drop of anything worse than lemon soda, and that was before I left town.” Whereupon they whooped the louder, bent double, some of them, with mirth.
“Say! If I was drunk that night I’d say so,” Casey exploded finally. “What the hell—what’s the matter with you rabbits? You think Casey Ryan has got to the point where he’s scared to tell what he done and all he done? Lemme tell yuh, anything Casey does he ain’t afraid to tell about! Lyin’ is something I never was scared bad enough to do. You ask anybody.”