"Uhuh. That's what I christened her. She's a racer. She's sixty hoss-power, and sometimes I reckon I could handle sixty hosses easier to once than I could her. We was lopin' along out in the desert, 'bout fifty miles an hour by the leetle clock on the dashboard, when all of a sudden she lays back her ears and she bucks. I leans back and keeps her head up, but it ain't no use. She gives a jump or two and says 'Guzzuh!' jest like that, and quits. I climbs out and looked her over. She sure was balky. I was glad she said somethin', if it was only 'Guzzuh,' instead of quittin' on me silent and scornful. Sounded like she was apologizin' for stoppin' up like that. I felt of her chest and she was pretty much het up. When she cooled off, I started her easy—sort of grazin' along pretendin' we wasn't goin' to lope again. When she got her second wind I give her her head, and she let out and loped clean into the desert town, without makin' a stumble or castin' a shoe. Paid three thousand for her in Los. She is guaranteed to do eighty miles on the level, and she does a whole lot of other things that ain't jest on the level. She'd climb a back fence if you spoke right to her. A sand-storm ain't got nothin' on her when she gets her back up."
"Your car must be unique," suggested Walter Stone.
"Nope. She ain't a 'Yew-neck.' I forget her brand. I ain't had her very long. But I can run her now better than that little two-dollar-and-a-half excuse they lent me in Los. He loses his nerve comin' up the cañon there. You see the Guzzuh got to friskin' round the turns on her hind feet. So I gives him a box of candy to keep him quiet and takes the reins myself. I got my foot in the wrong stirrup on the start—was chokin' off her wind instead of feedin' her. Then I got my foot on the giddap-dingus and we come. The speed-clock's limit is ninety miles an hour and we busted the speed clock comin' down that last grade. But we're here."
Dr. Marshall and Walter Stone gazed at each other. They laughed. Overland smiled condescendingly. Anne Marshall had recourse to her handkerchief, but Louise did not smile.
"Does Billy ever drive your car?" asked Anne Marshall presently.
"He drives her in the desert and in the hills some. He drove her into a sand-hill once clean up to her withers. When he came back,—he kind of went ahead a spell to look over the ground, so he says,—he apologizes to her like a gent. Oh, he likes her more 'n I do. Bruck two searchlights at one hundred dollars a glim, but that's nothin'. Oh, yes, Billy's got good nerve."
Overland shifted his foot to his other knee and leaned back luxuriously, puffing fluently at his cigar.
"Billy did get to feelin' kind of down, a spell back. He had a argument with a Gophertown gent about our claim. I wasn't there at the time, but when I come back, I tied up Billy's leg—"
"Goodness! His leg?" exclaimed Anne.
"Yes, ma'am. The Gophertown gent snuck up and tried to stick Billy up when Billy was readin' po'try—some of mine. Billy didn't scare so easy. He reaches for his gun. Anyhow, the Gophertown gent's bullet hit a rock, and shied up and stung Billy in the leg. Billy never misses a tin can now'days, and the gent was bigger than a can. We never seen nothin' of him again."