Murray cranked—and then something happened. He remembered afterward that he had forgotten to brake the car in neutral. He remembered it after the radiator hit him over the ear and one of the fenders gently pushed him twenty feet distant.
Bill Hobbs sat on top of the load, paralyzed with terror, as the car leaped away. From the watchers on the hotel porch burst yells of grateful delight over this break in the monotony of existence. The flivver plunged at the nearest hitching post, blithely carried it away, and decided to investigate the abandoned print-shop.
When Murray sat up and wiped the sand from his eyes, he ruffled up his red hair and stared amazedly. The flivver was there, to be sure; one wheel had burst in the door of the printing office, the other was wedged about the steps, and the machine was lifeless. But Bill Hobbs had vanished. Unforeseeing the sudden halt of his equipage, he had shot headfirst from his perch, and neatly catapulted into the open doorway.
Murray was the first to reach the spot, while from the hotel porch streamed the others.
"Willyum!"
"Comin' right up," answered the voice of Bill Hobbs, and the latter showed himself in the doorway, grinning. "I've busted up somebody's place and——"
"Don't worry about that, stranger," said Deadoak Stevens, at Murray's elbow. "It ain't been occupied since Jack Haskins cashed in. He left a sister back east, but she ain't seen fit to remove the remains yet. Glad to meet ye, gents! James Cadwallader Stevens is me, but Deadoak Stevens by preference an' example."
"Meet Bill Hobbs, Deadoak." Murray waved his hand toward the rumpled figure in the doorway, and turned as Sandy and the others joined him. "And this gentleman is Sandy Mackintavers, mining expert of parts East, who expects to settle here as Bill Hobbs has settled. I am Douglas Murray, doctor of medicine and surgeon extraordinary——"
Piute Tomkins hastened to rescue matters from the unseemly grasp of Deadoak, and performed the introductions with gusto.
"As mayor of this here municeepality, gents," he concluded, "I welcome you to our midst. Two Palms is on the crescent curve to prosperity an' wealth. The population is increasin' daily——"