, 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