s car--as a living----"

"Correct."

"I should think you'd get cramped!" I burst out.

"Me? I'm used to it. I bet I ain't missed three days since I got
her--and that's about a year ago."

He answered my questions briefly, volunteering nothing. He had never had
any trouble with the car; he had never broken a spring; he'd overhauled
her once or twice; he averaged sixteen actual miles to the gallon. If I
were to name the car I should have to write advt. after this article to
keep within the law. I resolved to get one. We chugged persistently
along on high gear; though I believe second would have been better.

Presently we stopped and gave her a drink. She was boiling like a little
tea kettle, and she was pretty thirsty.

"They all do it," said Bill. Of course his name was Bill. "Especially
the big he-ones. High altitude. Going slow with your throttle wide open.
You're all right if you got plenty water. If not, why then ketch a cow
and use the milk. Only go slow or you'll git all clogged up with
butter."

We clambered aboard and proceeded. That distant dreamful _mesa_ had
drawn very near. It was scandalous. The aloof desert whose terror, whose
beauty, whose wonder, whose allure was the awe of infinite space that
could be traversed only in toil and humbleness, had been contracted by a
thing that now said 29,265.

"At this rate we'll get there before six o'clock," I remarked,
hopefully.

"Oh, this is County Highway!" said Bill.

As we crawled along, still on high gear--that tin car certainly pulled
strongly--a horseman emerged from a fold in the hills. He was riding a
sweat-covered, mettlesome black with a rolling eye. His own eye was
bitter, and likewise the other features of his face. After trying in
vain to get the frantic animal within twenty feet of our _mitrailleuse,_
he gave it up.

"Got anything for me?" he shrieked at Bill.

Bill leisurely turned off the switch, draped his long legs over the side
of the car, and produced his makings.

"Nothing, Jim. Expaicting of anything?"

"Sent for a new grass rope. How's feed down Mogallon way?"

"Fair. That a bronco you're riding?"

"Just backed him three days ago."

"Amount to anything?"

"That," said Jim, with an extraordinary bitterness, "is already a gaited
hoss. He has fo' gaits now."

"Four gaits," repeated Bill, incredulously. "I'm in the stink wagon
business. I ain't aiming to buy no hosses. What four gaits you claim
he's got?"

"Start, stumbl