Cal Monroid considered for half a minute, noting the orderly lay-out of tools, inwards, greases and oils, and how carefully Elbert had numbered the parts. Cal began to fancy a vague purpose underneath it all and casually remarked: ‘I’ll just take you on, Slim, for half a month’s pay.’
Elbert toiled through the hours. By sundown when he took his place at the wheel, all Heaslep’s was taut with strain. The works purred, the car moved. ‘It’s down-grade, she’s just rollin’!’ breathed Slim. But Elbert reversed; old Fortitude backed and curved, did a figure eight to new music without hitting post or wall.
‘I win,’ said Cal.
‘She ain’t belched yet,’ said Slim.
The two moved off to settle the technicality.
Dreary months of trucking. Elbert’s insatiable interest in horsemanship had been little encouraged at Heaslep’s. He was permitted to learn the bad ones by experience, and was rapidly disconnected several times, discovering his audience when it was too late, as on the day of ‘poking’ gopher holes. Though it was generally allowed things looked up a little when the range grass began to grow, Elbert lost heart before the winter was over. It seemed a long time to him since he had left home, but it wasn’t so by the calendar. To judge by letters, the family had its hands out beckoning, but Elbert felt neither his father nor sisters would miss having the laugh at his expense.
Hard to leave Cal and Slim. This pair had warmed up a trifle toward the last. It was Cal Monroid who helped Elbert up from the turf the last time he was spurned by an HCO untameable, and Cal’s easy tones had a soothing effect:
‘It’s about time you were sitting a real horse, Kid. Give me your shoe—’
And Elbert was lifted up on old Chester, who had his ‘stuff’ down so fine, you wouldn’t believe he knew anything. Chester was the morning-star of Cal’s string, and right then Elbert began to know the difference between an outlaw and a real man-horse. That one brief word ‘Kid,’ still sounded in his ears. It seemed to have let him into a new world, the world of Cal Monroid and Slim Gannon, the latter said to have taken the Tucson Bronk Cup two years straight; both men being held as cool and fast in a pinch. This episode held the faintest possible answer to what he had come West for, but Elbert had already decided to depart, his plan being to go on to the coast, before starting back East.