CHAPTER III
Away out on the high mesas that are much like the desert below, exceptthat the nights are cool and the wind is not fanned out of a furnace,Casey fought sand and brush and rocks and found a trail now and then whichhe followed thankfully, and so came at last to a short range of mountainswhose name matched well their inhospitable stare. The Starvation Mountainshad always been reputed rich in mineral and malevolent in their attitudetoward man and beast. Even the Joshua trees stood afar off and liftedgrotesque arms defensively against them. But Casey was not easily daunted,and eerie places held for him no meaning save the purely material one. Ifhe could find water and the rich vein of ore some one had told him wasthere, then Casey would be happy in spite of snakes, tarantulas andsinister stories of the place.
Water he found, not too far up a gulch. So he pitched his tent withincarrying distance from the spring, thanked the god of mechanics that anautomobile neither eats nor drinks when it does not work, and set out tofind his fortune.
Casey knew there was a mining camp on the high slope of Barren Butte. Heknew the name of the camp, which was Lucky Lode, and he knew the foremanthere--knew him from long ago in the days when Casey was what he himselfconfessed to be wild. In reaching Starvation Mountains, Casey had drivenfor fifteen miles within plain sight of Lucky Lode. But gas is preciouswhen you are a hundred miles from a garage, and since business did nottake him there Casey did not drive up the five-mile hill to the Lucky Lodejust to shake hands with the foreman and swap a yarn or two. Instead, heheaded down on to the bleached, bleak oval of Furnace Lake and forgedacross it as straight as he could drive toward Starvation Mountains.
But the next time Casey made the trip--needing supplies, powder, fuse,caps and so on--Fate took him by the ear and led him to a lady. This ishow Fate did it,--and I will say it was an original idea:
Casey had a gallon syrup can in the car which he used for extra oil forthe engine. Having an appetite for sour-dough biscuits and syrup, he hadalso a gallon can of syrup in the car. It was a terrifically hot day, andthe wind that blew full against Casey's left cheek as he drove burned evenhis leather skin where it struck. Casey was afraid he was running short ofwater, and a Ford's comfort comes first,--as every man knows; so thatCasey was parched pretty thoroughly, inside and out. Within a mile ofFurnace Lake he stopped, took an unsatisfying sip from his big canteen andemptied the rest of the water into the radiator. Then he replenished theoil in the motor generously, cranked and went bumping along down the trailworn rough with the trucks from Lucky Lode.
For a little way he jounced along the trail; then the motor began tolabor; and although Casey pulled the gas lever down as far as it would go,the car slowed and stopped dead in the road. After an hour of fruitlessmonkey-wrenching and swearing and sweating, Casey began to suspectsomething. He examined both cans, "hefted" them, smelt and even tasted theone half-empty, and decided that Ford auty-_mo_-biles do not require twoquarts of syrup at one dose. He thought that a little syrup ought not tomake much difference, but half a gallon was probably too much.
He put in more oil on top of the syrup, but he could not even move thecrank, much less "turn 'er over." So long as a man can wind the crank of aFord he seems able to keep alive his hopes. Casey could not crank,wherefore he knew himself beaten even while he heaved and lifted andswore, and strained every muscle in his back lifting again. He got sodesperately wrathful that he lifted the car perceptibly off its rightfront wheel with every heave, but he felt as if he were trying to lift aboulder.
It was past supper time at Lucky Lode when Casey arrived, staggering alittle with exhaustion, both mental and physical. His eyes were bloodshotwith the hot wind, his face was purple from the same wind, his lips weredry and rough. I cannot blame the men at Lucky Lode for a sudden thirstwhen they saw him coming, and a hope that he still had a little left. Andwhen 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, hadLucky Lode not possessed a lady cook who was a lady. She was a widow withtwo children, and she had the children with her and held herself alooffrom the men in a manner befitting a lady. Casey was hungry and thirstyand tired, and, as much as was possible to his nature, disgusted, withlife in general. The widow gave him a smile of sympathy which wentstraight to his heart, and hot biscuits and coffee and beans cooked theway he liked them best. These went straight to ease the gnawing emptinessof 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 himthe glow.
Casey stayed that night and the next day and the next at Lucky Lode. Theforeman helped him tow the syruppy car up the hill to the machine shopwhere he could get at it, and Casey worked until night trying to removethe dingbats from the hootin'annies,--otherwise, the pistons from thecylinders. 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 aFord if applied internally, and the widow had promised to marry him if hewould stop drinking and smoking and swearing. Since Casey had not beendrunk in ten years on account of having seen a big yellow snake with agreen head on the occasion of his last carouse, he took the drinkingpledge quite cheerfully for her sake. He promised to stop smoking, gladthat the widow neglected to mention chewing tobacco, which was hiseveryday comfort. As for the swearing, he told her he would do his bestunder the circumstances, and that he would taste the oil hereafter, andtry 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 thetenth time that he had not been drinking. She did not contradict him. Sheseemed a wise woman, after a fashion.
Casey drove back to his camp at Starvation Mountain happy and a littlescared. Why, after all these years of careless freedom, he shouldprecipitate himself into matrimony with a woman he had known casually fortwo days puzzled him a little.
"Well, a man gits to feelin' like he wants to settle down when he'scrowdin' fifty," he explained his recklessness to the Ford as it hummedaway over Furnace Lake which was flat as a floor and dry as a bleachedbone,--and much the same color. "Any man feels the want of a home as hegits older. And Casey's the man that will try anything once, you askanybody." He took out his pipe, looked at it, bethought himself of hispromise and put it away again, substituting a chew of tobacco as large ashis cheek would hold without prying his mouth open. "G'long, there--can'tyou? 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 widowbetter and better. Especially after dinner, with the delicious flavor ofpie still caressing his palate. Only he wished she would take it forgranted 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, 'Oh, dear!' and let it go at that," he boasted toher on the second Sunday. "I'll bet there ain't another man in the stateof Nevada could do that."
"Yes. But Casey dear, if _only_ you will never touch another drop ofliquor. You'll keep your promise, won't you, dear boy?"
"Hell, yes!" Casey assured her headily. It had been close to twenty yearssince he had been called dear boy, at least to his face. He kissed thewidow full on the lips before he saw that a frown sat upon her foreheadlike a section of that ridgy cardboard they wrap bottles in.
"Casey, you swore!"
"Swore? Me?"
"I only hope," sighed the widow, "that your other promise won't be brokenas easily as that one. Remember, Casey, I cannot and I will not marry adrinking man!"
Casey looked at her dubiously. "If you mean that syrup--"
"Oh, I've heard awful tales of you, Casey dear! The boys talk at thetable, and they seem to think it's awful funny to tell about your fightingand drinking and playing cards for money. But I think it's p
erfectlyawful. You _must_ stop drinking, Casey dear. I could never forgive myselfif I set before my innocent little ones the example of a husband whodrank."
"You won't," said Casey. "Not if you marry me, you won't." Then he changedthe subject, beginning to talk of his prospect over on Starvation. Thewidow liked to hear him tell about finding a pocket of ore that wentseventy ounces in silver and one and seven tenths ounces in gold, and howhe expected any day to get down into the main body of ore and find it a"contact" vein. It all sounded very convincing and as if Casey Ryan werein a fair way to become a rich man.
The next time Casey saw the widow he was on his way to town for morepowder, his whole box of "giant" having gone off with a tremendous bangthe night before in one of those abrupt hailstorms that come sounexpectedly in the mountain country. Casey had worked until dark, and wasdog-tired and had left the box standing uncovered beside the dugout wherehe kept it. He suspected that a hailstone had played a joke on him, buthis chief emotion was one of self-congratulation because he had prudentlystored the dynamite around a shoulder of the canyon from where he camped.
When he told the widow about it as one relates the details of a narrowescape, and pointed out how lucky he was, she looked very grave. It was avery careless thing to do, she said. Casey admitted it was. A man whohandled dynamite ought to shun liquor above all things, she went on; andCasey agreed restively. He had not felt any inclination, to imbibe untilthat minute, when the Irish rose up hotly within him.
"Casey dear, are you _sure_ you have nothing in camp?"
Casey assured her solemnly that he had not and drove off down the hill,vaguely aware that he was not so content with life as he had been.
"Damn that syrup!" he exploded once, quite as abruptly as had the giantpowder. After that he chewed tobacco and drove in broody silence.