ad.

Casey blinked and looked again. The woman who appeared from the farther
side of the car might have been the creature of his dream, so far as her
face, her hair and her voice went. Her hair was yellow, unmistakably
yellow. Her eyes were bluer than Casey's own, and she had nice teeth and
showed them in a red-lipped smile. A more sophisticated man would have
known that the powder on her nose was freshly applied, and that her reason
for remaining so long hidden from his sight while she talked to him was
revealed in the moist color on her lips and the fresh bloom on her cheeks.
Casey was not sophisticated. He thought she was a beautiful woman and
asked no questions of her make-up box.

"Mister, you certainly are a godsend!" she gushed again when she faced
him. "I'd call you a direct answer to prayer, only I haven't been praying.
I've been trying to tell Jack that the shovel is not packed under the
banjos, as he thinks it was, but was left back at our last camp where he
was trying to dig water out of a wet spot. Jack, dear, perhaps the
gentleman has got a shovel in his car. Ain't it a real gag, Mister, us
being stuck out here in a dry lake?"

Casey touched his hat and grinned and tried not to look at her too long.
Husbands of beautiful young women are frequently jealous, and Casey knew
his place and meant to keep it.

All the way back to his car Casey studied the peculiar features of the
meeting. He had been thinking about yellow-haired women--well! But of
course, she was married, and therefore not to be thought of save as a
coincidence; still, Casey rather regretted the existence of Jack dear, and
began to wonder why good-looking women always picked such dried-up little
runts for husbands. "Show actors by the talk," he mused. "I wonder now if
she don't sing, mebby?"

He started the car and forged out to them, making the last few rods in low
gear and knowing how risky it was to stop. They were rather helpless, he
had to admit, and did all the standing around while Casey did all the
work. But he shoveled the rear wheels out, waded back to the tiny island
of solid ground and gathered an armful of brush, which he crowded in front
of the wheels, covering himself with mud thereby; then he tied the tow
rope he carried for emergencies like this, waded to the Ford, cranked and
trusted the rest to luck. The Ford moved slowly ahead until the rope
between the two cars tightened, then spun her wheels and proceeded to dig
hersel