“Hey! Stay right where y’are! I gotta deliver yuh up on the hill to the Blackbird, in a minute.”
There were chatterings and gesticulation, and one who was not scared out of all the English he knew protested that they would “Walk, mister, if you pleese, mister!” Whereat the crowd slapped thighs and laughed long and loud.
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.
Casey had an accident now and then, and his tire expense was such as to keep him up nights playing poker for money to support his stage. You can’t whirl into town at a thirty-mile pace—which is fast driving in Pinnacle, believe me—and stop with a flourish in twice the car’s length without scouring more rubber off your tires than a capacity load of passengers will pay for. Besides, your passengers generally object.
In two weeks—perhaps it was less, though I want to be perfectly just and give him a full two weeks if possible—Casey was back, afoot, and standing bow-legged and nonchalant in the doorway of the Ford Agency at Lund.
“Gimme another Ford autymobil,” he requested, grinning a little. “I guess mebby I oughta take two or three, if you’ve got ’em to spare. But I’m a little short, right now, Bill. I ain’t been gitting any good poker, lately. I’ll make out with one for a while.”
Bill asked a question or two while he led Casey to the last arrival from the factory. Casey explained.
“I had a bet on with a fellow up in Pinnacle, y’see. He bet me a hundred dollars I couldn’t shave off another ten minutes on my run down, and I bet I could. I’d a got his money, too. I had eight minutes peeled off, and up here, at this last sharp turn, Jim Black and me butted noses together. I pushed him on ahead of me for fifty rods, Bill—and him a-yelling at me to quit—but something busted in the insides of my car, I guess. She give a grunt and quit. All right, I’ll take this one. Grease her up, Bill. I’ll eat a bite before I take her out.”
You’ve no doubt suspected before now that not even poker, played industriously o’ nights, could keep Casey’s head above the financial waters that threatened to drown him and his Ford and his reputation. Casey did not mind repair bills, so long as he achieved the speed he wanted. But he did mind not being able to pay the repair bills when they were presented to him. Whatever else were his faults, Casey Ryan had always gone cheerfully into his pocket and paid what he owed. Now he was haunted by a growing fear that an unlucky game or two would send him under, and that he might not come up again.