Casey Ryan | Page 5

West. But he argued that he was also a safe driver, and that they had no
business to make such a fuss over riding with him. Didn't he ride after
his own driving every day of his life? Had he ever got killed? Had he
ever killed anybody else? Well! What were they all yawping about,
then? Pinnacle and Lund made him tired.
"If you fellers think I can't bounce that there tin can down the road fast
as any man in the country, why don't yuh pass me on the road? You're
welcome. Just try it."
No one cared to try, however. Meeting him was sufficiently hazardous.
There were those who secretly timed their traveling so that they would
not see Casey Ryan at all, and I don't think you can really call them
cowards, either. A good many had families, you know.
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 Ford.
You simply can't whirl into town at a thirty-mile gait--I am speaking
now of Pinnacle, whose street was a gravelly creek bed quite dry and
ridgy between rains--and stop in twice the car's length without scouring
more rubber off your tires than a capacity load of passengers will pay
for. Besides, you run short of passengers if you persist in doing it. Even
the strangers who came in on the Salt Lake line were quite likely to
look once at the cute little narrow-gauge train with its cunning little day
coach hitched behind a string of ore cars, glance at Casey's Ford stage
with indifference and climb into the cunning day coach for the trip to
Pinnacle. The psychology of it passed quite over Casey's head, but his

pocket felt the change.
In two weeks--perhaps it was less, though I want to be perfectly just--
Casey was back, afoot and standing bow-legged in the doorway of Bill
Master's garage at Lund.
"Gimme another one of them Ford auty-_mo_-biles," he requested,
grinning a little. "I guess mebby I oughta take two or three--but I'm a
little short right now, Bill. I ain't been gitting any good luck at poker,
lately."
Bill asked a question or two while he led Casey to the latest model of
Fords, just in from the factory.
Casey took a chew of tobacco and explained. "Well, I had a bet up,
y'see. That red-headed bartender in Pinnacle bet me a hundred dollars I
couldn't beat my own record ten minutes on the trip down. I knowed I
could, so I took him up on it. A man would be a fool if he didn't grab
any easy money like that. And so I pounded 'er on the tail, coming
down. And I had eight minutes peeled off my best time, and then Jim
Black he had to go git in the road on that last turn up there. We rammed
our noses together and I pushed him on ahead of me for fifty rods,
Bill--and him 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 up."
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.
He began to think seriously of selling his car and going back to horses
which, in spite of the high cost of feeding them, had paid their way and

his, and left him a pleasant jingle in his pockets. But then he bumped
hard into one of those queer little psychological facts which men never
take into account until it is too late. Casey Ryan, who had driven horses
since he could stand on his toes and fling harness on their backs, could
not go back to driving horses. The speed fiend of progress had him by
the neck. Horses were too slow for Casey. Moreover, when he began to
think about it, he knew that the thirty-mile stretch between Pinnacle
and Lund had become too tame for him, too monotonous. He knew in
the dark every twist in the road,