gone. And Casey would squint up at them from under the rim of his greasy
old Stetson and grin his Irish grin.

"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come," he would chant, with never a qualm
at the staleness of the slogan. "How yuh fixed for water? Better fill up
your canteens--yuh don't wanta git caught out between here and Ludlow with
a boilin' radiator and not water enough. Got oil enough? Juan, you look
and see. Can't afford to run low on oil, stranger. No, ma'am, there ain't
any other road--and if there was another road it'd be worse than what this
one is. No, ma'am, you ain't liable to git off'n the road. You can't.
You'd git stuck in the sand 'fore you'd went the length of your car."

He would walk around them and look at their tires, his hands on his hips
perhaps and his mouth damped shut in deep cogitation.

"What kinda shape is your extras in?" he would presently inquire. "She's a
tough one, from here on to the next stop. You got a hind tire here that
ain't goin' to last yuh five miles up the road." He would kick the tire
whose character he was blackening. "Better lay in a supply of blow-out
patches, unless you're a mind to invest in a new casing." Very often he
would sell a tire or two, complete with new tubes, before the car moved
on.

Casey never did things halfway, and Bill had impressed certain things deep
on his mind. He was working with Bill's money and he obeyed Bill's
commands. He never took a check or a promise for his pay, and he never
once let his Irish temper get beyond his teeth or his blackened finger
tips. Which is doing remarkably well for Casey Ryan, as you would admit if
you knew him.

At the last moment, when the driver was settling himself behind the wheel,
Casey would square his conscience for whatever strain the demands of
business had put upon it. "Wait and take a good drink uh cold water before
yuh start out," he would say, and disappear. He knew that the car would
wait. The man or woman never lived who refused a drink of cold water on
the desert in summer. Casey would return with a pale green glass water
pitcher and a pale green glass. He would grin at their exclamations, and
pour for them water that was actually cold and came from the coolest water
bag inside. Those of you who have never traveled across the desert will
not really understand the effect this would have. Those who have will know
exactly what was said of Casey as that car moved out once more into the
glaring sun and the hot