Casey Ryan | Page 8

on top of the syrup, but he could not even move the
crank, much less "turn 'er over." So long as a man can wind the crank
of a Ford he seems able to keep alive his hopes. Casey could not crank,
wherefore he knew himself beaten even while he heaved and lifted and
swore, and strained every muscle in his back lifting again. He got so
desperately wrathful that he lifted the car perceptibly off its right front
wheel with every heave, but he felt as if he were trying to lift a boulder.
It was past supper time at Lucky Lode when Casey arrived, staggering
a little with exhaustion, both mental and physical. His eyes were
bloodshot with the hot wind, his face was purple from the same wind,
his lips were dry and rough. I cannot blame the men at Lucky Lode for
a sudden thirst when they saw him coming, and a hope that he still had
a little left. And when he told them that he had filled his engine with
syrup instead of oil, what would any one think?
Their unjust suspicions would not have worried Casey in the least, had
Lucky Lode not possessed a lady cook who was a lady. She was a
widow with two children, and she had the children with her and held
herself aloof from the men in a manner befitting a lady. Casey was
hungry and thirsty and tired, and, as much as was possible to his nature,
disgusted, with life in general. The widow gave him a smile of
sympathy which went straight to his heart, and hot biscuits and coffee
and beans cooked the way he liked them best. These went straight to
ease the gnawing emptiness of his stomach, and being a man who took
his emotions at their face value, he jumped to the conclusion that it was
the lady whose presence gave him the glow.
Casey stayed that night and the next day and the next at Lucky Lode.
The foreman helped him tow the syruppy car up the hill to the machine
shop where he could get at it, and Casey worked until night trying to
remove the dingbats from the hootin'annies,--otherwise, the pistons

from the cylinders. The foreman showed him what to do, and Casey did
it, using a "double-jack" and a lot of energy.
Before he left the Lucky Lode, Casey knew exactly what syrup will do
to a Ford if applied internally, and the widow had promised to marry
him if he would stop drinking and smoking and swearing. Since Casey
had not been drunk in ten years on account of having seen a big yellow
snake with a green head on the occasion of his last carouse, he took the
drinking pledge quite cheerfully for her sake. He promised to stop
smoking, glad that the widow neglected to mention chewing tobacco,
which was his everyday comfort. As for the swearing, he told her he
would do his best under the circumstances, and that he would taste the
oil hereafter, and try and think up some new names for the Ford.
"But Casey, if you leave whisky alone, you won't need to taste the oil,"
the widow told him. Whereat Casey grinned feebly and explained for
the tenth time that he had not been drinking. She did not contradict him.
She seemed a wise woman, after a fashion.
Casey drove back to his camp at Starvation Mountain happy and a little
scared. Why, after all these years of careless freedom, he should
precipitate himself into matrimony with a woman he had known
casually for two days puzzled him a little.
"Well, a man gits to feelin' like he wants to settle down when he's
crowdin' fifty," he explained his recklessness to the Ford as it hummed
away over Furnace Lake which was flat as a floor and dry as a bleached
bone,--and much the same color. "Any man feels the want of a home as
he gits older. And Casey's the man that will try anything once, you ask
anybody." He took out his pipe, looked at it, bethought himself of his
promise and put it away again, substituting a chew of tobacco as large
as his cheek would hold without prying his mouth open. "G'long,
there--can't you? You got your belly full of oil--shake a wheel and
show you're alive."
After that, Casey spent every Sunday at Lucky Lode. He liked the
widow better and better. Especially after dinner, with the delicious
flavor of pie still caressing his palate. Only he wished she would take it

for granted that when Casey Ryan made a promise, Casey Ryan would
keep it.
"I've got so now I can bark a knuckle with m'single-jack when I'm
puttin' down a hole, and say,