"Wanta drive?"-Casey's friend was rolling a smoke before he cranked up.-"They tell me up in Lund that no man livin' ever got the chance to look back and see Casey Ryan swallowing dust.-I've heard of some that's tried.-But I reckon," he added pensively, while he rubbed the damp edge of the paper down carefully with a yellowed thumb, "Fords is out of your line, now.-Maybe you don't toy with nothin' cheaper than a twin-six."
"Well, you can ask anybody if Casey Ryan's the man to git big-headed! Money don't spoil ME none.-There ain't anybody c'n say it does. Casey Ryan is Casey Ryan wherever an' whenever yuh meet up with him. Yuh might mebby see me next, hazin' a burro over a ridge.-Or yuh might see me with ten pounds uh flour, a quart uh beans an' a sour-dough bucket on my back.-Whichever way the game breaks--you'll be seein' Casey Ryan; an' you'll see 'im settin' in the game an' ready t' push his last white chip to the center."
"I believe it, Casey.-Darned if I don't.-Well, you drive 'er awhile; till yuh get tired, anyway."-He bent to the crank, gave a heave and climbed in, with Casey behind the wheel, looking pleased to be there and quite ready to show the world he could drive.
"Say, if I drive till I'm TIRED," he retorted, "I'm liable to soak 'er hubs in the Atlantic Ocean before I quit.-And then, mebby I'll back 'er out an' drive 'er to the end of Venice Pier just for pastime."
"Up in Lund they're talkin' yet about your drivin'," his new friend flattered him.-"They say there's no stops when you get the wheel cuddled up to your chest.-No quittin' an' no passin' yuh by with a merry laugh an' a cloud of alkali dust.-I guess it's right. I've been wantin' to meet yuh."
"That there last remark sounds like a traffic cop I had a run-in with once!"-Casey snorted--merely to hide his gratification.
"You sound good, just to listen to, but you ain't altogether believable.-There's men in Lund that'd give an ear to meet me in a narrow trail with a hairpin turn an' me on the outside an' drunk.
"They'd like it to be about a four-thousand-foot drop, straight down. Lund as a town ain't so crazy about me that they'd close up whilst I was bein' planted, an' stop all traffic for five minutes.-A show benefit was sprung on Lund once, to help Casey Ryan that was supposed to be crippled.-An' I had to give a good Ford--a DARN' good Ford! --to the benefitters, so is they could git outa town ahead uh the howlin' mob.-That's how I know the way Lund loves Casey Ryan. Yuh can't kid ME, young feller."
Meanwhile, Casey swung north into Cajon Pass; up that long, straight, cement-paved highway to the hills he showed his new friend how a Ford could travel when Casey Ryan juggled the wheel.
The full moon was pushing up into a cloud bank over a high peak beyond the Pass. The few cars they met were gone with a whistle of wind as Casey shot by.
He raced a passenger train from the mile whistling-post to the crossing, made the turn and crossed the track with the white finger of the headlight bathing the Ford blindingly.-He completed that S turn and beat the train to the next crossing half a mile farther on; where he "spiked 'er tail", as he called it, stopping dead still and waiting jeeringly for the train to pass.-The engineer leaned far out of the cab window to bellow his opinion of such driving; which was unfavorable to the full extent of his vocabulary.
"Nothin' the matter with a Ford, as I can see," Casey observed carelessly, when he was under way again.
"You sure are some driver," his new friend praised him, letting go the edge of the car and easing down again into the seat.
"Give yuh a Ford and all the gas yuh can burn and I can't see that you'd need to worry none about any of them saps that makes it their business to interfere with travelin'.-I'm glad that moon's quit the job. Gives the headlights a show.-Hit 'er up now, fast as yuh like. After that crossin' back there I ain't expectin' to tremble on no curves.-I see you're qualified to spin 'er on a plate if need be.-And for a Ford, she sure can travel."
Casey therefore "let 'er out", and the Ford went like a scared lizard up the winding highway through the Pass.-At Cajon Camp he slowed, thinking they would need to fill the radiator before attempting to climb the steep grade to the summit.-But the young man shook his head and gave the "highball."-(Which, if you don't already know it, is the signal for full speed ahead.)
Full speed ahead Casey gave him, and they roared on up the steep, twisting grade to the summit of the Pass.-Casey began to feel a distinct admiration for this particular Ford.-The car was heavily loaded--he could gauge the weight by the "feel" of the car as he drove yet it made the grade at twenty-five miles an hour and reached the top without boiling the radiator; which is better than many a more pretentious car could do.
"Too bad you've made your pile already," the young man broke a long silence.-"I'd like to have a guy like you for my pardner.
The desert ain't talkative none when you're out in the middle of it, and you know there ain't another human in a day's drive.
I've been going it alone.-Nine-tenths of these birds that are eager to throw in with yuh thinks that fifty-fifty means you do the work and they take the jack.-I'm plumb fed upon them pardnerships.-But if you didn't have your jack stored away--a hull mountain of it, I reckon --I'd invite yuh to set into the game with me; I sure would."
Casey spat into the dark beside the car.-"They's never a pile so big a feller ain't willin' to make it bigger," he replied sententiously.-"Fer, as I'm concerned, Casey's never backed up from a dollar yet.-But I ain't no wild colt no more, runnin' loose an' never a halter mark on me.-I'm bein' broke to harness, and it's stable an' corral from now on, an' no more open range fer Casey.-The missus hopes to high-school me in time.-She's a good hand--gentle but firm, as the preacher says.-And I guess it's time fer Casey Ryan to quit hellin' around the country an' settle down an' behave himself."