NormalizeHEADmain

8 files changed, 17 insertions, 2634 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4743265
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #67747 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67747)
diff --git a/old/67747-0.txt b/old/67747-0.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index e16273e..0000000
--- a/old/67747-0.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,1264 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg eBook of You Ask Anybody, by B. M. Bower
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: You Ask Anybody
-
-Author: B. M. Bower
-
-Release Date: March 31, 2022 [eBook #67747]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU ASK ANYBODY ***
-
-
-                           YOU ASK ANYBODY
-
-                                  BY
-                             B. M. BOWER
-
-              Author of “Cow Country,” “The Quirt,” Etc.
-
-
-[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 7, 1920 issue
-of The Popular Magazine.]
-
-
-    Tumultuous “Casey” Ryan had driven horses since he could
-    stand on his toes, and as one of Nevada’s last
-    stage-drivers speed was his middle name. Wherefore the
-    ubiquitous Ford finally claimed him for its own—and so did
-    The Widow at Lucky Lode Mine. A combination prolific of
-    complications. You will be glad to continue Casey’s
-    acquaintance in future numbers.
-
-From Denver to Spokane, from El Paso to Butte, men talk of “Casey”
-Ryan and smile as they speak his name. Bearded men with the flat tone
-of age in their voices will suck pipes and cackle reminiscently while
-they tell you of Casey’s tumultuous youth—time when he drove the
-fastest six horses in Colorado to the stage line out from Cripple
-Creek, and whooped past would-be holdups with a grin of derision on
-his lips and bullets whining after him, and his passengers praying and
-clinging white-knuckled to the seats.
-
-Once a flat-chested, lank man climbed out at the stage station below
-the mountain and met Casey coming off the box with whip and six reins
-in his hand.
-
-“Sa-ay! Next time that gang starts in to hold up the stage, by gosh,
-you _stop_! I’d ruther be shot than pitched off into a cañon
-som’eres.”
-
-Casey paused and looked at him, and spat and grinned. “You’re here,
-ain’t yuh?” he retorted finally. “You ain’t shot, and you ain’t laying
-in no cañon. Any time a man gets shot outa Casey’s stage, it’ll be
-because he jumps out and waits for the bullet to ketch up.”
-
-The lank man snorted and reached under his coat tail for the solacing,
-plug of chewing tobacco. “Why, hell, man, you come down around that
-hairpin turn, up there, on two wheels!” he complained.
-
-Casey grunted and turned away uninterested. “I’ve done it on one,” he
-belittled the achievement. “The leaders wasn’t runnin’ good, to-day.
-That nigh one’s tenderfooted. I gotta see about havin’ him shod before
-the next trip.” He started off, then paused to fling reassurance over
-his shoulder. “Don’t you never worry none about Casey’s driving. Casey
-can _drive_. You ask anybody.”
-
-Well, that was Casey’s youth. Part of it. The rest was made up of
-reckless play, fighting for the sheer love of action, love that never
-left a scar across his memory and friendships that laughed at him,
-laughed with him, and endured to the end. Along the years behind him
-he left a straggling procession of men, women, and events, that linked
-themselves reminiscently in the memory of those who knew him.
-“Remember the time Casey licked that Swede foreman up at Gold Gap?”
-one would say. “Remember that little girl Casey sent back to her folks
-in Vermont—and had to borrow the money to pay her fare, and then
-borrow the money to play poker to win the money to pay back what he
-borrowed in the first place? Borrowed a hundred dollars from Ed Blair,
-and then borrowed another hundred off Ed the next day and boned Ed to
-set into a game with him, and won the money off Ed to pay Ed back.
-That’s Casey for yuh!”
-
-As for the events, they were many and they had the Casey flavor, every
-one of them. A few I should like to tell you, and I’m going to begin
-with one which shows how Casey was born an optimist and never let life
-get the better of him, no matter what new wallop it invented.
-
-From the days when his daily drives were apt to be interrupted by
-holdups—and once by a grizzly that rose up in front of his leaders on
-a sharp turn and all but made an end of Casey and his record for
-shaving death close and never drawing blood—Casey drifted from
-mountain to desert, from desert to plain, blithely meeting hard luck
-face to face and giving it good day as if it were a friend. That was
-the remarkable trait which Casey possessed. Nothing downed him,
-because he never seemed to know when he was whipped, but thought it
-merely an incident of the game. Cheerfulness was in the bones of
-him—though he had a temper as Irish as his name.
-
-So, in time, it happened that Casey was driving stage from Pinnacle
-down to Lund and making boast that his four horses could beat any
-automobile that ever infested the trail. Infest was the word Casey
-would have used often had he known the dictionary contained it. Having
-been deprived of much knowledge of books, but having a facile
-imagination and some creative ability, Casey invented words of his own
-and applied them lavishly to all automobiles and, in particular and
-emphatically, he applied the spiciest ones to Fords.
-
-Put yourself in Casey’s place and sympathize with him. Imagine
-yourself with a thirty-mile trip down a twisty, rough mountain road
-built in the days when men hauled ore down the mountain on wagons
-built to bump over rocks without damage to anything but human bones.
-You never stopped for stage robbers or grizzlies in the past, and you
-have your record as the hardest driver in the West to maintain. You
-pop the lash over the heads of your leaders and go whooping down a
-long, straight bit of road where you count on making time. And when
-you are away halfway down and the four horses are at a gallop and you
-are happy, around the turn below comes a Ford, rattling its various
-joints, trying to make the hill in “high.”
-
-More likely than not, the driver honks his horn at you to turn out—and
-you are Casey Ryan, of whom men talk from El Paso to Butte, from
-Denver to Spokane. Wouldn’t you writhe, and wouldn’t you swear, and
-wouldn’t you hate the man who invented Fords? Yet you would turn out.
-You would have to, unless the Ford did—and Fords don’t. A Ford will
-send a twin-six swerving to the rocky rim of a road, and even Casey
-Ryan must swing his leaders to the right in obedience to that raucous
-challenge.
-
-Casey had the patience of all optimists, and for a long while he had
-contented himself with his vocabulary and the record he held of making
-the thirty miles from Pinnacle to Lund in the same time a Ford would
-make it. He did not, by the way, say what his stage cost him in
-repairs, nor did he mention the fact that Lund and Pinnacle citizens
-rode with him once and then never again, and that his passengers were
-mostly strangers picked up at the railroad station at Lund because
-they were tickled with the picturesque four-horses-and-Casey stage. He
-had never killed anybody with his record, but he had almost.
-
-Once Casey did not turn out. That morning he had been compelled to
-stop and whip a heavy man who came up and berated him because the
-heavy man’s wife had ridden from Pinnacle to Lund the day before, and
-had fainted at the last turn, and had not revived in time to catch the
-train for Salt Lake, which she had been anxious to catch; so anxious
-that she had ridden down with Casey rather than take the narrow-gauge
-train which carried ore and passengers and mail to Lund every day,
-arriving when most convenient to the train crew.
-
-Casey had managed to whip the husband, but the difference in weight
-had given him the victory by a narrower margin than Casey liked.
-Besides, the fight delayed him so that he started out ten minutes
-late. He was reflecting upon the injustice of the case, and asking
-himself if he, Casey, were to blame because a woman fainted
-inconveniently and missed her train, and had answered emphatically
-that he was not, and that he would like to have given her husband
-another good punch, and would have given it, if he’d had the time—when
-the Ford came chugging around the turn and honked at him
-impertinently.
-
-Casey popped his whip, yelled and charged straight down the road. He
-would make that Ford turn out, or bust something. He would show them
-that Casey was Casey Ryan. Wherefore Casey was presently extricating
-his leaders from his wheelers, ten feet below the grade. On the road
-above, the Ford stood still with one front fender cocked up rakishly
-and a headlight smashed, mulishly balking while the driver cranked and
-cranked and swore down at Casey, who squinted into the sun that he
-might see the man he likewise cursed.
-
-They were a long while there exchanging disagreeable opinions of one
-another. When the leaders had veered to the edge of the grade at the
-last second before the collision, and the wheelers had responded, the
-left front wheel of the stage did something to the Ford. It would not
-start, and Casey finally freed his four horses, mounted one and led
-the others and so proceeded to Lund, as mad a little Irishman as Lund
-ever beheld.
-
-“That settles it,” he snorted when the town came into view in the flat
-below. “They’ve pushed Casey off’n the grade for the first time and
-the last time! What pushin’ and crowdin’ and squawkin’ is done from
-now on, it’ll be Casey that’s doin’ it—mind what I’m telling yuh, now!
-Faint? I’ll learn ’em what to faint over. They can’t hand it to Casey.
-They never did and they never will. If it’s Fords goin’ to rule the
-country from now on, and take the road away from the horses, you can
-climb a tree if yuh like, and watch how Casey’ll drive the livin’ tar
-outa one! Go ’em one better—that’s Casey Ryan, and you can go tell ’em
-I said so. Hawnk! Wait till yuh hear the hawnkin’ Casey’ll be doin’!”
-
-I tell you his horses knew the mind of Casey and all his fell purpose
-by the time he rode into town and up to one of those ubiquitous “Ford
-Agencies” that write their curly tailed blue lettering in one endless
-chain from the high nose of Maine to the shoulder of Cape Flattery.
-
-“Gimme one of them gol-darned blankety bing-bing Ford autymobils,”
-he commanded the garage owner who came to meet Casey amicably, in his
-shirt sleeves. “Here’s four horses I’ll trade yuh, with what’s left of
-the harness. And up at White Ghost turn you’ll find a good wheel off
-the stage, ’t I’ll make yuh a present of.” He slid down from the
-sweaty back of his horse and stood bow-legged and determined before
-the garage owner.
-
-“Well—there ain’t much sale for horses, Casey, and I ain’t got a place
-to keep ’em, nor anything to feed ’em. I’ll sell yuh a Ford.”
-
-Casey glanced over his shoulder to make sure the horses were standing
-quietly, dropped the bridle rein and advanced a step, his Irish eyes
-fixed upon the face of the other.
-
-“You _trade_,” he stated flatly.
-
-The Ford man backed a little. “Sure, Casey. What yuh want for the
-four, just as they stand?”
-
-Casey did not trouble with triumph. He continued to forge straight at
-his object. “Me? I want a Ford autymobil. I want you to put on the
-biggest horn you got, so I c’n be heard from here to Pinnacle and back
-in one hawnk. And run the damn thing out here and show me how it
-works, and how often yuh gotta wind it and when. I’ve got my stage
-line to take care of, and I’ve missed a run on account of being pushed
-off’n the road. I’ll sign papers tonight when I get in. Show me the
-biggest horn yuh got.”
-
-Thus was the trade effected, with much speed and few preliminaries,
-because the garage man knew Casey well, and had seen him in action
-when his temper was up. He adjusted a secondhand horn he happened to
-have; one of those terrific things warranted to lift a medium-sized
-man off his feet at one hundred yards or money refunded. Casey tried
-it out on himself, walking down the street several doors and standing
-with his back turned while the garage man squawked at him.
-
-“She’ll do,” he approved, coming back. “What’ll kink Casey’s backbone
-oughta be good enough for anybody. Bring her out here and show me how
-you run the darn thing. I’ve got a load of bohunk muckers to take up
-to the Blackbird Mine. Meant to haul ’em up to-morrow morning, but I
-guess I’ll take ’em this afternoon for practice.”
-
-Naturally, the garage man was somewhat perturbed at the thought. The
-road from Pinnacle to Lund was the kind that brings a sigh of relief
-to many a seasoned driver after it has been safely driven. It is
-narrow in spots, has steep pitches both ways, and in the thirty miles
-there are sixteen sharp turns and others not so sharp.
-
-“Better let me write you out some insurance on the car, Casey,” he
-suggested, not half as jokingly as he tried to seem.
-
-Casey turned and looked him in the eye. “Say! Never you mind about
-insuring _this_ car. What you want to do is insure the cars I’m liable
-to meet up with!”
-
-The garage man said no more about insurance, but took Casey down the
-cañon where the road was walled in on both sides by cliffs and was
-fairly straight and level, and proceeded to give him a lesson in
-driving. Casey made two round trips along that half mile of road,
-killed the engine, and figured out for himself how to start it again.
-
-“She’s tender bitted, and I do hate a horse that neckreins in
-harness,” he criticized. “All right, Bill. I’ll put you down at the
-garage and go gather up the bohunks and start. Better phone up to
-Pinnacle that Casey’s on the road and it’s his road so long as he’s on
-it. They’ll know what yuh mean.”
-
-Pinnacle did know, and waited on the sidewalk that afforded a view of
-the long hill where the road swung down around the head of the gulch
-into town.
-
-Much sooner than his most optimistic backers had a right to expect—for
-there were bets laid on the outcome there in Pinnacle—a swirl of red
-dust on the brow of the hill grew rapidly to a cloud. Like a desert
-whirlwind it swept down the road, crossed the narrow bridge over the
-deep cut at the head of the gulch, and rolled on down the steep
-little, narrow street. Out of the whirlwind emerged the pugnacious
-little nose of a new Ford, and behind the windshield Casey Ryan
-grinned widely as he swung up to the post office and stopped with a
-lurch that sent the insecure fourth bohunk in the tonneau hurtling
-forward into the front. Casey threw up an elbow and caught the bohunk
-in the collar button and held him from going through the windshield.
-The others made haste to scramble out, until Casey stopped them with a
-yell that froze them where they were.
-
-“Hey! Stay right where y’are! I gotta deliver yuh up on the hill to
-the Blackbird, in a minute.”
-
-There were chatterings and gesticulation, and one who was not scared
-out of all the English he knew protested that they would “Walk,
-mister, if you _pleese_, mister!” Whereat the crowd slapped thighs and
-laughed long and loud.
-
-Thereafter Pinnacle and Lund had a new standard by which to measure
-the courage of a man. Had he made the trip with Casey?
-
-Casey did not like that. Freely enough he admitted that he was a hard
-driver. He had always had the name of being the hardest driver in the
-country, and he was proud of it. When a man started out to go
-somewhere, he wasn’t much, in Casey’s opinion, if he did not
-immediately proceed to get there. But he was a safe driver, he argued.
-
-Casey had an accident now and then, and his tire expense was such as
-to keep him up nights playing poker for money to support his stage.
-You can’t whirl into town at a thirty-mile pace—which is fast driving
-in Pinnacle, believe me—and stop with a flourish in twice the car’s
-length without scouring more rubber off your tires than a capacity
-load of passengers will pay for. Besides, your passengers generally
-object.
-
-In two weeks—perhaps it was less, though I want to be perfectly just
-and give him a full two weeks if possible—Casey was back, afoot, and
-standing bow-legged and nonchalant in the doorway of the Ford Agency
-at Lund.
-
-“Gimme another Ford autymobil,” he requested, grinning a little. “I
-guess mebby I oughta take two or three, if you’ve got ’em to spare.
-But I’m a little short, right now, Bill. I ain’t been gitting any good
-poker, lately. I’ll make out with one for a while.”
-
-Bill asked a question or two while he led Casey to the last arrival
-from the factory. Casey explained.
-
-“I had a bet on with a fellow up in Pinnacle, y’see. He bet me a
-hundred dollars I couldn’t shave off another ten minutes on my run
-down, and I bet I could. I’d a got his money, too. I had eight minutes
-peeled off, and up here, at this last sharp turn, Jim Black and me
-butted noses together. I pushed him on ahead of me for fifty rods,
-Bill—and him a-yelling at me to quit—but something busted in the
-insides of my car, I guess. She give a grunt and quit. All right, I’ll
-take this one. Grease her up, Bill. I’ll eat a bite before I take her
-out.”
-
-You’ve no doubt suspected before now that not even poker, played
-industriously o’ nights, could keep Casey’s head above the financial
-waters that threatened to drown him and his Ford and his reputation.
-Casey did not mind repair bills, so long as he achieved the speed he
-wanted. But he did mind not being able to pay the repair bills when
-they were presented to him. Whatever else were his faults, Casey Ryan
-had always gone cheerfully into his pocket and paid what he owed. Now
-he was haunted by a growing fear that an unlucky game or two would
-send him under, and that he might not come up again.
-
-He began seriously to think of selling his car and going back to
-horses which, in spite of the high cost of feeding them, had paid
-their way and his, and left him a pleasant jingle in his pockets. And
-then he bumped hard into one of those queer little psychological facts
-which men never take into account until it is too late.
-
-Casey Ryan, who had driven horses since he could stand on his toes and
-fling harness on their backs, could not go back to driving horses. The
-speed fiend of progress had him by the neck. Horses were too slow for
-Casey. Moreover, the thirty-mile stretch between Pinnacle and Lund was
-too tame for him, too monotonous. He knew in the dark every twist in
-the road, every sharp turn, and he could tell you offhand what every
-sharp turn had cost him in the past month, either in repairs to his
-own car or to the car that had unluckily met him without warning. For
-Casey, I must tell you, forgot all about that ear-splitting klaxon at
-his left elbow. He was always in too much of a hurry to blow it,
-anyway, and by the time he reached a turn he was around it, and there
-either was no car in the road or Casey had already scraped paint off
-it or worse. So what was the use?
-
-Far distances called Casey. In one day, he meditated, he could cover
-more desert with his Ford than horses could travel in a week. An old,
-half-buried passion stirred, lifted its head, and smiled at him
-seductively. He would go away into the far distances and look for the
-riches which Nature hides so miserly in her hills. A gold mine, or
-perhaps silver or copper—what matter which mineral he found, so long
-as it spelled wealth for him? Then he would buy a bigger car and a
-faster car, and he would bore farther and farther into yonder. In his
-past were tucked away months on end of tramping across deserts and up
-mountain defiles, with a packed burro nipping patiently along in front
-of him and this same, seductive passion for finding one of Nature’s
-little hoards of mineral beckoning him over the next horizon. Burros
-had been slow. While he hurtled down the road from Pinnacle to Lund
-Casey pictured himself plodding through sand and sage and over malapi
-and up dry cañons, hazing a burro before him.
-
-“No, sir, the time for that is gone by. I could do in a week now what
-it took me a month to do then. I could get into country a man’d hate
-to tackle afoot, not knowing the water holes. I’ll git me a radiator
-that don’t boil a tea kettle over a pitch fire, and load up with water
-and grub and gas, and I’ll find something that’ll put me in the clear
-the rest of my life. Couldn’t before, because I had to travel too
-slow. But shucks! A Ford can go anywhere a mountain goat can go. You
-ask anybody.”
-
-So Casey sold his stage line and the good will that went with it, and
-Pinnacle and Lund breathed long and deep and planned trips they had
-refrained from taking heretofore, and wished Casey luck. Bill, the
-garage man, laid a friendly hand on his shoulder and made a suggestion
-so wise that not even Casey could shut his mind against it.
-
-“You’re starting out where there won’t be no Bill handy to fix what
-you bust,” he pointed out. “You wait over a day or two, Casey, and let
-me show yuh a few things about that car. If you bust down on the
-desert you’ll want to know what’s wrong, and how to fix it. It’s easy,
-but you got to know where to look for the trouble.”
-
-“Me? Say, Bill, I never had to go lookin’ for trouble,” Casey grinned.
-“What do I need to learn how for?”
-
-Nevertheless, he remained all of that day with Bill and crammed on
-mechanics. He was amazed to discover how many and how different were
-the ailments that might afflict an automobile. That he had
-boldly—albeit unconsciously—driven a thing filled with timers,
-high-tension plugs that may become fouled and fail to “spark,”
-carburetors that could get out of adjustment, spark plugs that burned
-out and had to be replaced, a transmission that absolutely _must_ have
-grease or something happened, bearings that were prone to “burn out,”
-if they went dry of oil, and a multitude of other mishaps that could
-happen and did happen, if one did not watch out, would have filled
-Casey with foreboding, if that were possible. Being an optimist to the
-middle of his bones, he merely felt a growing pride in himself. He had
-driven all this aggregation of potential grief, and he had driven with
-impunity. Whenever anything had happened to his Ford autymobil,
-Casey could trace the direct cause, and it had always come from the
-outside instead of the inside, save that time when he had walked in
-and got a new car without probing into the vitals of the other.
-
-“I’d ruther have a horse down with glanders,” he admitted when Bill
-finally washed the grease off his hands and forearms and rolled down
-his sleeves. “But Casey Ryan’s game to try anything once, and most
-things the second and third time. You ask anybody. Gimme all the
-hootin’-annies that’s liable to wear out, Bill, and a load uh tires
-and patches, and Casey’ll come back and hand yuh a diamond big as your
-fist, some day. Casey Ryan’s goin’ out to see what he can see. If he
-meets up with Miss Fortune, he’ll tame her, Bill. And this little Ford
-autymobil is goin’ to eat outa my hand, this summer. I don’t give a
-cuss if she does git sore and ram her spark plugs into her carburetor
-now and ag’in. She’ll know who’s boss, Bill.”
-
-Taking that point of view and keeping it, Casey managed very well.
-Whenever anything went wrong that his vocabulary and a monkey wrench
-could not mend, Casey sat down on the shadiest running board and
-conned the Instruction Book which Bill handed him at the last minute.
-Other times he treated the Ford exactly as he would treat a burro,
-with satisfactory results.
-
-                  *       *       *       *       *
-
-Away out on the high mesas that are much like the desert below, except
-that the nights are cool and the wind is not fanned out of a furnace,
-Casey fought sand and brush and rocks and found a trail now and then
-which he followed thankfully, and so came at last to a short range of
-mountains whose name matched well their sinister stare. The Ghost
-Mountains had always been reputed rich in mineral and malevolent in
-their attitude toward man and beast. Even the Joshua trees stood afar
-off and lifted grotesque arms defensively. But Casey was not easily
-daunted, and eerie places held for him no meaning save the purely
-material one. If he could find water and the rich vein of ore he
-dreamed of, then Casey would be happy in spite of snakes, tarantulas,
-and sinister stories of the place.
-
-Water he found, not too far up a gulch. So he pitched his tent within
-carrying distance from the spring, thanked the god of mechanics that
-an automobile neither eats nor drinks when it does not work, and set
-out to find his fortune.
-
-Now this is not a story of Casey’s quest for gold. It’s a love story,
-if you please. Until the lady entered Casey’s orbit there was no
-logical reason for telling you, nor for stating that the Ford
-autymobil played the part of Fate—and played erratically.
-
-Casey knew there was a mining camp on the high slope of Furnace Butte.
-He knew the name of the camp, which was Lucky Lode, and he knew the
-foreman there—knew him from long ago in the days when Casey was what
-he himself called wild. In reaching Ghost Mountains Casey had driven
-for fifteen miles within plain sight of Lucky Lode. But gas is
-precious when you are a hundred miles from a garage, and since
-business did not take him there Casey did not drive up the five-mile
-slope to the Lucky Lode just to shake hands with the foreman and swap
-a yarn or two. Instead, he headed down on to the bleached, bleak oval
-of Furnace Lake and forged across it straight as he could drive toward
-Ghost Mountain.
-
-But the next time Casey made the trip—needing supplies, powder, fuse,
-caps, and so on—Fate took him by the ear and led him to the lady. This
-is how Fate did it—and I will say it was an original idea.
-
-Casey had a gallon sirup can in the car, which he used for extra oil
-for the engine. Having an appetite for sour-dough biscuits and sirup,
-he had also a gallon can of sirup in the car. It was a terrifically
-hot day, and the wind that blew full against Casey’s left cheek as he
-drove, burned where it struck. Casey was afraid he was running short
-of water, and a Ford comes first, as every man knows, so that Casey
-was parched pretty thoroughly, inside and out. Within a mile of the
-lake he stopped, took an unsatisfying sip from his big canteen and
-emptied the rest of the water into the radiator. Then he replenished
-the oil in the motor generously, cranked and went bumping along down
-the trail worn rough with the trucks from Lucky Lode.
-
-For a little way he bumped along the trail, then the motor began to
-labor and, although Casey pulled the gas lever down as far as it would
-go, the car slowed and stopped dead in the road. It was after an hour
-of fruitless monkey-wrenching and swearing and sweating that Casey
-began to suspect something. He examined both cans, “hefted” them,
-smelled and even tasted the one half empty, and decided that Ford
-autymobils did not require two quarts of sirup at one dose. He
-thought that a little sirup ought not make much difference, but half a
-gallon was probably too much.
-
-He put in more oil on top of the sirup, but he could not even move the
-crank, much less “turn ’er over.” He did not know what to do. So long
-as a man can wind the crank of a Ford he seems able to keep alive his
-hopes. Casey could not crank, wherefore he knew himself beaten even
-while he heaved and lifted and swore, and strained every muscle in his
-back. He got so desperately wrathful that he lifted the car
-perceptibly off its right front wheel with every heave, but he felt as
-if he were trying to lift a bowlder.
-
-It was past supper time at Lucky Lode when Casey arrived, staggering a
-little with exhaustion both mental and physical. His eyes were
-bloodshot with the hot wind, his face was purple from the same wind,
-his lips were dry and rough. I cannot blame the men at Lucky Lode for
-a sudden thirst when they saw him coming, and a hope that he still had
-a little left. And when he told them that he had filled his engine
-with sirup instead of oil, what would any one think?
-
-Their unjust suspicions would not have worried Casey in the least, had
-Lucky Lode not possessed a lady cook who was a lady. She was a widow
-with two children, and she had the children with her and held herself
-aloof from the men in a manner befitting a lady. Casey was hungry and
-thirsty and tired 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 sweetened car up the hill to the
-machine shop where they 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 sirup 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. Casey took the
-drinking pledge quite cheerfully for her sake, since he 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 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, and that he would taste the oil hereafter before he
-fed it to 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 Ghost 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 only
-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
-him of his promise and put it away again, substituting a chew of
-tobacco as large as his cheek would hold without prying his mouth
-open. “G’long, there! You got your belly full of oil—shake your feet
-and show you’re alive!”
-
-After that, Casey spent every Sunday at Lucky Lode. He liked the widow
-better and better. Only he wished she would take it for granted that
-when Casey Ryan made a promise, Casey Ryan would keep it. “I’ve got so
-now I can bark a knuckle with m’single jack when I’m puttin’ down a
-hole, and say, ‘Oh, dear!’ and let it go at that,” he boasted to her
-on the second Sunday. “I’ll bet there ain’t another man in the State
-of Nevada could do that.”
-
-“Yes. But Casey, dear, if _only_ you will never touch another drop of
-liquor. You’ll keep your promise, won’t you, dear boy?”
-
-“Sure as hell I’ll keep my promise!” Casey assured her headily. It had
-been close to twenty years since he had been called dear boy, at least
-to his face. He had kissed the woman full on the lips before he saw
-that a frown sat upon her forehead like a section of that ridgy
-cardboard they wrap bottles in.
-
-“Casey, you swore!”
-
-“Swore? Me?”
-
-“I only hope,” sighed the widow, “that your other promise won’t be
-broken as easily as that one. Remember, Casey, I cannot and I will not
-marry a drinking man!”
-
-Casey looked at her dubiously.
-
-“Oh, I’ve heard awful tales of you, Casey, dear! The boys talk at the
-table, and they seem to think it’s awful funny to tell about your
-fighting and drinking and playing cards for money. But I think it’s
-perfectly awful. You must stop drinking, Casey, dear. I could never
-forgive myself, if I set before my innocent little ones the example of
-a husband who drank.”
-
-“You won’t,” said Casey. “Not if you marry me, you won’t.” Then he
-changed the subject, beginning to talk of his prospect over on Ghost
-Mountain. The widow liked to hear him tell about finding a pocket of
-ore that went seventy ounces in silver and one and seven-tenths ounces
-in gold, and how he expected any day to get down into the main body of
-ore and find it a “contact” vein. It all sounded very convincing and
-as if Casey Ryan were in a fair way to become a rich man.
-
-The next time Casey saw the widow he was on his way to town for more
-powder, his whole box of “giant” having gone off with a tremendous
-bang the night before in one of those abrupt hailstorms that come so
-unexpectedly in the mountain country. Casey had worked until dark, and
-was dog tired and had left the box standing uncovered beside the
-dugout where he kept it. He suspected that a hailstone had played a
-joke on him, but his chief emotion was one of self-congratulation
-because he had prudently stored the dynamite around a shoulder of the
-cañon where he camped.
-
-When he told the widow about it, and pointed out how lucky he was, she
-looked very grave. It was a very careless thing to do, she said. Casey
-admitted that it was. A man who handled dynamite ought to shun liquor
-above all things, she went on; and Casey agreed restively. He had not
-felt any inclination to imbibe until that minute, when the Irish rose
-up hotly within him.
-
-“Casey, dear, are you _sure_ you have nothing in camp?”
-
-Casey assured her solemnly that he had not, and drove off down the
-hill vaguely aware that he was not so content with life as he had
-been. “Damn that sirup!” he exploded once, quite as abruptly as had
-the giant powder. After that he chewed tobacco and drove in broody
-silence.
-
-Being Casey Ryan, tough as hickory and wont to drive headlong to his
-destination, Casey did not remain in town to loiter a half day and
-sleep a night and drive back the next day, as most desert dwellers
-did. He hurried through with his business, filled up with gas and oil,
-loaded on an extra can of each, strapped his box of dynamite upon the
-seat beside him where he could keep an eye on it—just as if that would
-do any good if the tricky stuff meant to blow up!—and started back at
-three in the afternoon. He would be half the night getting to camp,
-even though he was Casey Ryan and drove a wicked Ford. But he would be
-there, ready to start to work at sunrise. A man who is going to marry
-a widow with two children had best hurry up and strike every streak of
-rich ore he has in his claim, thought Casey.
-
-All that afternoon, though the wind blew hot in his face, Casey
-drilled across the desert, meeting never a living thing, overtaking
-none. All that afternoon a yellow dust cloud swirled rapidly along the
-rough desert road, vainly trying to keep up with Casey who made it. In
-Yucca Pass he had to stop and fill motor and radiator with oil and
-water, and just as he topped the summit a front tire popped like a
-pistol.
-
-Casey killed the engine and got out stiffly, bit off a chew of
-tobacco, and gazed pensively at Furnace Mountain that held Lucky Lode,
-where the widow was cooking supper at that moment.
-
-“I sure would like to flop m’ lip over one of her biscuits, right
-now,” he said aloud. “If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too
-high-toned to cook?”
-
-His eyes went to Furnace Lake lying smooth and pale yellow in the
-saucerlike basin between Furnace and Ghost Mountains. In the soft
-light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint of
-malice like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake is
-treacherous. The big earthquake—America knows only one big earthquake,
-that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously—had split Furnace Lake
-halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest
-point and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and the passing storms had
-partly filled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to
-all men to trust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the
-big gash here and there, and the cattle men rode often that way, and
-sometimes not often enough to save their cattle from falling in.
-
-By day the lake shimmered deceptively with mirage that painted it blue
-with the likeness of water. Then a lone clump of greasewood stood up
-tall and proclaimed itself a ship lying idle on a glassy expanse of
-water so blue, so cool, so clear that one cannot wonder that thirsty
-travelers go mad sometimes with the false lure of it.
-
-Just now the lake looked exactly like any lake at dusk, and Casey’s
-thoughts went beyond, to his claim on Ghost Mountain. Being tired and
-hungry, he pictured wistfully a cabin there, and a light in the window
-when he went chucking up the long mesa in the dark, and the widow
-there with hot coffee and supper waiting for him. Just as soon as he
-struck “shipping values,” that picture would be real, said Casey to
-himself, and opened his tool box and set to work changing the tire. By
-the time he had finished it was dark, and Casey had yet a long forty
-miles between himself and his sour-dough can. He cranked the engine,
-switched on the electric headlights, and went tearing down the long
-incline to the lake.
-
-“She c’n see the lights, and she’ll know I ain’t hangin’ out in town
-lappin’ up whisky,” he told himself as he drove. “She’ll know it’s
-Casey Ryan comin’ home—know it the way them lights are slippin’ over
-the country. Ain’t another man on the desert can put a car over the
-trail like this.”
-
-Pleased with himself and the reputation he had made, urged by hunger
-and the desire to make good on his claim, so that he might have the
-little home he instinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down
-another eighth of an inch—when he was already using more than he
-should—and nearly bounced his dynamite off the seat when he lurched
-over a sandy hummock and down onto the smooth floor of the lake.
-
-It was five miles across that lake from rim to rim, taking a straight
-line, as Casey did, well above the crevice. In all that distance there
-is not a stick, nor a stone, nor a bush to mark the way. Not even a
-trail, since Casey was the only man who traveled it, and Casey never
-made tracks twice in the same place, but drove down upon it, picked
-himself a landmark on the opposite side, and steered for it exactly as
-one steers a boat. The marks he left behind him were no more than
-pencil marks drawn upon a sheet of yellow paper. Unless the lake was
-wet with one of those sporadic desert rains, you couldn’t make any
-impression on the cementlike surface. If the lake was wet you stuck
-where you were. Wherefore Casey plunged out upon five miles of blank,
-baked clay with neither road, chart, nor compass to guide him. It was
-the first time he had ever crossed at night, and a blanket of thin,
-high clouds hid the stars.
-
-The little handful of engine roared beautifully and shook the car with
-the vibration. Casey heaved a sigh of weariness mingled with content
-that the way was smooth and he need not look for chuck holes for a few
-minutes, at any rate. He settled back, and his fingers relaxed on the
-wheel.
-
-Suddenly he leaned forward, stared hard, leaned out and stared,
-listened with an ear turned toward the engine. He turned and looked
-behind, then stared ahead again.
-
-“By _gosh_ I bet both hubs is busted,” he said under his
-breath—Furnace Lake impresses one to silence, somehow. “She’s runnin’
-like a wolf—but she ain’t "_goin’_.”
-
-He waited for a minute longer, trifling with the gas, staring and
-listening. The car was shaking with the throb of the motor, but there
-was no forward lunge, nothing whatever but vibration of the engine.
-“Set-tin’ here burnin’ gas like a ’lection bonfire—she sure would
-think I’m drunk if she knew about it,” Casey muttered, and straddled
-over the side of the car to the running board.
-
-“I wish—to—_hell_, I hadn’t promised her not to cuss,” he gritted, and
-with one hand still on the wheel, Casey shut off the gas and stepped
-down. He stepped down upon a surface sliding beneath him at the rate
-of close to forty miles an hour. The Ford went on, spinning away from
-him in a wide circle, since Casey had unconsciously turned the wheel
-to the left as he let go. The impact of meeting that hard clay stunned
-him just at first, and he rolled over a couple of times before he
-began to regain his senses.
-
-He lifted himself groggily to his knees and looked for the car, saw it
-bearing down upon him from the direction whence he had come. Before he
-had time to wonder much at the phenomenon it was upon him, over him
-with a lurch, and gone again.
-
-Casey was tough, and he never knew when he was whipped. He crawled up
-to his knees again, saw the same Ford coming at him with dimming
-headlights from the same direction it had taken before, made a wild
-clutch, was knocked down and run over again. You may not believe that,
-but Casey had the bruises to prove it.
-
-On the third round the Ford had slowed to a walk, figuratively
-speaking. Casey was pretty groggy, and he thought his back was broken,
-but he was mad clear through. He caught the Ford by its fender, hung
-on, clutching frantically for a better hold, was dragged a little
-distance so, and then, its speed slackened to a gentle, forward roll,
-he made shift to get aboard and give it the gas before the engine had
-quite stopped. Which he told himself was lucky, because he couldn’t
-have cranked the thing to save his life.
-
-By sheer doggedness he drove on to camp, drank cold coffee left from
-his early breakfast, and decided that the bite of a Ford, while it is
-poisonous, is not necessarily fatal, unless it attacks one in a vital
-spot.
-
-Casey could not drill a hole, he could not swing a pick. For two days
-he limped painfully and confined his activities to cooking his meals.
-Frequently he would look at the Ford speculatively and shake his head.
-There was something uncanny about it.
-
-“She sure has got it in for me,” he mused. “You can’t blame her for
-runnin’ off when I dropped the reins and stepped out. But that don’t
-account for the way she come _at_ me, and the way she _got_ me every
-circle she made. That’s human. It’s dog-gone human! I’ve cussed her a
-lot, and I’ve done things to her—like that sirup I poured into her—and
-dog-gone her, she’s been layin’ low and watchin’ her chance all this
-while. That there car _knowed_!”
-
-The third day after the attack Casey was still too sore to work, but
-he managed to crank the Ford—eying it curiously the while, and with
-respect, too—and started down the mesa and up over the ridge and on
-down to the lake. He was still studying the matter, still wondering if
-Fords can think. He wanted to tell the widow about it, and get her
-opinion. The widow was a smart woman. A little touchy on the liquor
-question, maybe, but smart. You ask anybody.
-
-Lucky Lode greeted him with dropped jaws and wide-staring eyes, which
-puzzled Casey until the foreman, grasping his shoulder—which made
-Casey wince and break a promise—explained their astonishment.
-
-They had, as Casey expected, seen his lights when he came off the
-summit from Yucca Pass. By the speed they traveled Lucky Lode knew
-that Casey and no other was at the steering wheel, even before he took
-to the lake.
-
-“And then,” said the foreman, “we saw your lights go round and round
-in a circle, and disappear—”
-
-“They didn’t,” Casey cut in trenchantly. “They went dim because I was
-taking her slow, being about all in.”
-
-The foreman grinned. “We thought you’d drove into the crevice, and we
-went down with lanterns and hunted the full length of it. We never
-found a sign of you or the car.”
-
-“’Cause I was over in camp, or thereabout,” supplied Casey dryly. “I
-wish you’d of come on over. I sure needed help.”
-
-“We figured you was pretty well lit up, to circle around like that.
-I’ve been down since, by daylight, and so have some of the boys,
-looking into that crevice. But we gave it up, finally.”
-
-Then Casey, because he liked a joke even when it was on himself, told
-the foreman and his men what had happened to him. He did not
-exaggerate the mishap; the truth was sufficiently wild. They whooped
-with glee. Every one laughs at the unusual misfortunes of others, and
-this was unusual. They stood around the Ford and talked to it, and
-whooped again. “You sure must have had so-ome jag, Casey,” they told
-him exuberantly.
-
-“I was sober,” Casey testified sharply. “I’ll swear I hadn’t had a
-drop of anything worse than lemon soda, and that was before I left
-town.” Whereupon they whooped the louder, bent double, some of them,
-with mirth.
-
-“Say! If I was drunk that night I’d say so,” Casey exploded finally.
-“What the hell—what’s the matter with you rabbits? You think Casey
-Ryan has got to the point where he’s scared to tell what he done and
-all he done? Lemme tell yuh, anything Casey does he ain’t afraid to
-_tell_ about! Lyin’ is something I never was scared bad enough to do.
-You ask anybody.”
-
-“There’s the widow,” said the foreman, wiping his eyes.
-
-Casey turned and looked, but the widow was not in sight. The foreman,
-he judged, was speaking figuratively. He swung back glaring.
-
-“You think I’m scared to tell her what happened? She’ll know I was
-sober, if I say I was sober. She ain’t as big a fool——” He did not
-want to fight, although he was aching to lick every man of them. For
-one thing, he was too sore and lame, and then, the widow would not
-like it.
-
-With his back very straight, Casey walked down to the house and tried
-to tell the widow. But the widow was a woman, and she was hurt because
-Casey, since he was alive and not in the crevice, had not come
-straight to comfort her, but had lingered up there talking and
-laughing with the men. The widow had taken Casey’s part when the
-others said he must have been drunk. She had maintained, red-lidded
-and trembly of voice, that something had gone wrong with Casey’s car,
-so that he couldn’t steer it. Such things happened, she knew.
-
-Well, Casey told the widow the truth, and the widow’s face hardened
-while she listened. She had kissed him when he came in, but now she
-moved away from him. She did not call him dear boy, nor even Casey,
-dear. She waited until he had reached the point that puzzled him, the
-point of a Ford’s degree of intelligence. Then her lips thinned before
-she opened them.
-
-“And what,” she asked coldly, “had you been drinking, Mr. Ryan?”
-
-“Me? One bottle of lemon soda before I left town, and I left town at
-three o’clock in the afternoon. I swear—”
-
-“You need not swear, Mr. Ryan.” The widow folded her hands and
-regarded him sternly, though her voice was still politely soft. “After
-I had told you repeatedly that my little ones should ever be guarded
-from a drinking father; after you had solemnly promised me that you
-would never again put glass to your lips, or swallow a drop of whisky;
-after, that very morning, renewing your promise—”
-
-“I was sober,” Casey said, his face a shade paler than usual, though
-it was still quite frankly red. “I swear to Gawd I was sober.”
-
-“You need not lie,” said the widow, “and add to your misdeeds. You
-were drunk. No man in his senses would imagine what you imagined, or
-do what you did. I wish you to understand, Mr. Ryan, that I shall not
-marry you. I could not trust you out of my sight.”
-
-“I—was—_sober_!” cried Casey, measuring his words. Very nearly
-shouting them, in fact. The widow turned indifferently away and began
-to stir something on the stove, and did not look at him.
-
-Casey went out, climbed the hill to his Ford, cranked it, and went
-larruping down the hill, out on the lake and, when he had traversed
-half its length, turned and steered a straight course across it. Where
-tracings of wheels described a wide circle he stopped and regarded
-them soberly. Then he began to swear, at nothing in particular but
-with a hearty enjoyment worthy a better pastime.
-
-“Casey, you sure as hell have had one close call,” he remarked, when
-he could think of nothing new nor devilish to say. “You mighta run
-along, and run along, till you got _married_ to her. Whadda I want a
-wife for, anyway? Sour-dough biscuits tastes pretty good, and Casey
-sure can make ’em.” He got out his pipe, filled it, and crammed down
-the tobacco, found a match, and leaned back smoking relishfully, one
-leg thrown up over the wheel.
-
-“A man’s best friend is his Ford. You ask anybody,” he grinned, and
-blew a lot of smoke and gave the wheel an affectionate little twist.
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU ASK ANYBODY ***
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
-be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
-United States without permission and without paying copyright
-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
-license, especially commercial redistribution.
-
-START: FULL LICENSE
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
-www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
-person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
-1.E.8.
-
-1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
-Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
-Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
-you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country other than the United States.
-
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
-on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
-
-  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
-  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
-  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
-  you are located before using this eBook.
-
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
-beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
-other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
-Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
-full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-provided that:
-
-* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
-  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
-  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
-  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
-  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
-  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
-  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
-  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
-  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
-  Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
-  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
-  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
-  works.
-
-* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
-  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
-  receipt of the work.
-
-* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
-the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
-forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
-Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
-contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
-cannot be read by your equipment.
-
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.
-
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
-www.gutenberg.org
-
-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
-U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
-widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
-state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
-distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
-volunteer support.
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.
-
-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
-facility: www.gutenberg.org
-
-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/67747-0.zip b/old/67747-0.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index c1241df..0000000
--- a/old/67747-0.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/67747-h.zip b/old/67747-h.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index cea4d61..0000000
--- a/old/67747-h.zip
+++ /dev/null
diff --git a/old/67747-h/67747-h.htm b/old/67747-h/67747-h.htm
deleted file mode 100644
index 495783c..0000000
--- a/old/67747-h/67747-h.htm
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,1370 +0,0 @@
-<!DOCTYPE html>
-<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
-<head>
-  <meta charset="UTF-8" />
-  <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of You Ask Anybody, by By B. M. Bower</title>
-  <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" />
-  <style>
-   body { margin-left:8%; margin-right:8%; }
-   p { text-indent:1.15em; margin-top:0.1em; margin-bottom:0.1em; text-align:justify; }
-   .ce { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; }
-   h1 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.4em; }
-   .tn { background-color:linen; font-size:0.8em; border:1px solid silver; margin-top:1.8em; margin-left:8%; margin-bottom:1em; width:80%; padding:0.4em 2%; }
-  </style>
-</head>
-<body>
-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of You Ask Anybody, by B. M. Bower</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: You Ask Anybody</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: B. M. Bower</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 31, 2022 [eBook #67747]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU ASK ANYBODY ***</div>
-<div class='ce'>
-<h1 style='font-size:1.4em;margin-bottom:2em;'>YOU ASK ANYBODY   </h1>
-<div>BY</div>
-<div style='font-size:1.2em;margin-bottom:0.4em;'>B. M. BOWER </div>
-<div style='font-size:0.9em;margin-bottom:2em;'>Author of “Cow Country,” “The Quirt,” Etc. </div>
-</div>
-<div class='tn'>
-  <p style='text-indent:0'>Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in
-  the December 7, 1920 issue of <i>The Popular Magazine</i>.</p>
-</div>
-<blockquote>
-<p>Tumultuous “Casey” Ryan had driven horses since he could stand on his
-toes, and as one of Nevada’s last stage-drivers speed was his middle
-name. Wherefore the ubiquitous Ford finally claimed him for its
-own—and so did The Widow at Lucky Lode Mine. A combination prolific of
-complications. You will be glad to continue Casey’s acquaintance in
-future numbers.</p>
-
-</blockquote>
-<p>From Denver to Spokane, from El Paso to Butte, men talk of “Casey”
-Ryan and smile as they speak his name. Bearded men with the flat tone
-of age in their voices will suck pipes and cackle reminiscently while
-they tell you of Casey’s tumultuous youth—time when he drove the
-fastest six horses in Colorado to the stage line out from Cripple
-Creek, and whooped past would-be holdups with a grin of derision on
-his lips and bullets whining after him, and his passengers praying and
-clinging white-knuckled to the seats.</p>
-
-<p>Once a flat-chested, lank man climbed out at the stage station below
-the mountain and met Casey coming off the box with whip and six reins
-in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>“Sa-ay! Next time that gang starts in to hold up the stage, by gosh,
-you <i>stop</i>! I’d ruther be shot than pitched off into a cañon
-som’eres.”</p>
-
-<p>Casey paused and looked at him, and spat and grinned. “You’re here,
-ain’t yuh?” he retorted finally. “You ain’t shot, and you ain’t laying
-in no cañon. Any time a man gets shot outa Casey’s stage, it’ll be
-because he jumps out and waits for the bullet to ketch up.”</p>
-
-<p>The lank man snorted and reached under his coat tail for the solacing,
-plug of chewing tobacco. “Why, hell, man, you come down around that
-hairpin turn, up there, on two wheels!” he complained.</p>
-
-<p>Casey grunted and turned away uninterested. “I’ve done it on one,” he
-belittled the achievement. “The leaders wasn’t runnin’ good, to-day.
-That nigh one’s tenderfooted. I gotta see about havin’ him shod before
-the next trip.” He started off, then paused to fling reassurance over
-his shoulder. “Don’t you never worry none about Casey’s driving. Casey
-can <i>drive</i>. You ask anybody.”</p>
-
-<p>Well, that was Casey’s youth. Part of it. The rest was made up of
-reckless play, fighting for the sheer love of action, love that never
-left a scar across his memory and friendships that laughed at him,
-laughed with him, and endured to the end. Along the years behind him
-he left a straggling procession of men, women, and events, that linked
-themselves reminiscently in the memory of those who knew him.
-“Remember the time Casey licked that Swede foreman up at Gold Gap?”
-one would say. “Remember that little girl Casey sent back to her folks
-in Vermont—and had to borrow the money to pay her fare, and then
-borrow the money to play poker to win the money to pay back what he
-borrowed in the first place? Borrowed a hundred dollars from Ed Blair,
-and then borrowed another hundred off Ed the next day and boned Ed to
-set into a game with him, and won the money off Ed to pay Ed back.
-That’s Casey for yuh!”</p>
-
-<p>As for the events, they were many and they had the Casey flavor, every
-one of them. A few I should like to tell you, and I’m going to begin
-with one which shows how Casey was born an optimist and never let life
-get the better of him, no matter what new wallop it invented.</p>
-
-<p>From the days when his daily drives were apt to be interrupted by
-holdups—and once by a grizzly that rose up in front of his leaders on
-a sharp turn and all but made an end of Casey and his record for
-shaving death close and never drawing blood—Casey drifted from
-mountain to desert, from desert to plain, blithely meeting hard luck
-face to face and giving it good day as if it were a friend. That was
-the remarkable trait which Casey possessed. Nothing downed him,
-because he never seemed to know when he was whipped, but thought it
-merely an incident of the game. Cheerfulness was in the bones of
-him—though he had a temper as Irish as his name.</p>
-
-<p>So, in time, it happened that Casey was driving stage from Pinnacle
-down to Lund and making boast that his four horses could beat any
-automobile that ever infested the trail. Infest was the word Casey
-would have used often had he known the dictionary contained it. Having
-been deprived of much knowledge of books, but having a facile
-imagination and some creative ability, Casey invented words of his own
-and applied them lavishly to all automobiles and, in particular and
-emphatically, he applied the spiciest ones to Fords.</p>
-
-<p>Put yourself in Casey’s place and sympathize with him. Imagine
-yourself with a thirty-mile trip down a twisty, rough mountain road
-built in the days when men hauled ore down the mountain on wagons
-built to bump over rocks without damage to anything but human bones.
-You never stopped for stage robbers or grizzlies in the past, and you
-have your record as the hardest driver in the West to maintain. You
-pop the lash over the heads of your leaders and go whooping down a
-long, straight bit of road where you count on making time. And when
-you are away halfway down and the four horses are at a gallop and you
-are happy, around the turn below comes a Ford, rattling its various
-joints, trying to make the hill in “high.”</p>
-
-<p>More likely than not, the driver honks his horn at you to turn out—and
-you are Casey Ryan, of whom men talk from El Paso to Butte, from
-Denver to Spokane. Wouldn’t you writhe, and wouldn’t you swear, and
-wouldn’t you hate the man who invented Fords? Yet you would turn out.
-You would have to, unless the Ford did—and Fords don’t. A Ford will
-send a twin-six swerving to the rocky rim of a road, and even Casey
-Ryan must swing his leaders to the right in obedience to that raucous
-challenge.</p>
-
-<p>Casey had the patience of all optimists, and for a long while he had
-contented himself with his vocabulary and the record he held of making
-the thirty miles from Pinnacle to Lund in the same time a Ford would
-make it. He did not, by the way, say what his stage cost him in
-repairs, nor did he mention the fact that Lund and Pinnacle citizens
-rode with him once and then never again, and that his passengers were
-mostly strangers picked up at the railroad station at Lund because
-they were tickled with the picturesque four-horses-and-Casey stage. He
-had never killed anybody with his record, but he had almost.</p>
-
-<p>Once Casey did not turn out. That morning he had been compelled to
-stop and whip a heavy man who came up and berated him because the
-heavy man’s wife had ridden from Pinnacle to Lund the day before, and
-had fainted at the last turn, and had not revived in time to catch the
-train for Salt Lake, which she had been anxious to catch; so anxious
-that she had ridden down with Casey rather than take the narrow-gauge
-train which carried ore and passengers and mail to Lund every day,
-arriving when most convenient to the train crew.</p>
-
-<p>Casey had managed to whip the husband, but the difference in weight
-had given him the victory by a narrower margin than Casey liked.
-Besides, the fight delayed him so that he started out ten minutes
-late. He was reflecting upon the injustice of the case, and asking
-himself if he, Casey, were to blame because a woman fainted
-inconveniently and missed her train, and had answered emphatically
-that he was not, and that he would like to have given her husband
-another good punch, and would have given it, if he’d had the time—when
-the Ford came chugging around the turn and honked at him
-impertinently.</p>
-
-<p>Casey popped his whip, yelled and charged straight down the road. He
-would make that Ford turn out, or bust something. He would show them
-that Casey was Casey Ryan. Wherefore Casey was presently extricating
-his leaders from his wheelers, ten feet below the grade. On the road
-above, the Ford stood still with one front fender cocked up rakishly
-and a headlight smashed, mulishly balking while the driver cranked and
-cranked and swore down at Casey, who squinted into the sun that he
-might see the man he likewise cursed.</p>
-
-<p>They were a long while there exchanging disagreeable opinions of one
-another. When the leaders had veered to the edge of the grade at the
-last second before the collision, and the wheelers had responded, the
-left front wheel of the stage did something to the Ford. It would not
-start, and Casey finally freed his four horses, mounted one and led
-the others and so proceeded to Lund, as mad a little Irishman as Lund
-ever beheld.</p>
-
-<p>“That settles it,” he snorted when the town came into view in the flat
-below. “They’ve pushed Casey off’n the grade for the first time and
-the last time! What pushin’ and crowdin’ and squawkin’ is done from
-now on, it’ll be Casey that’s doin’ it—mind what I’m telling yuh, now!
-Faint? I’ll learn ’em what to faint over. They can’t hand it to Casey.
-They never did and they never will. If it’s Fords goin’ to rule the
-country from now on, and take the road away from the horses, you can
-climb a tree if yuh like, and watch how Casey’ll drive the livin’ tar
-outa one! Go ’em one better—that’s Casey Ryan, and you can go tell ’em
-I said so. Hawnk! Wait till yuh hear the hawnkin’ Casey’ll be doin’!”</p>
-
-<p>I tell you his horses knew the mind of Casey and all his fell purpose
-by the time he rode into town and up to one of those ubiquitous “Ford
-Agencies” that write their curly tailed blue lettering in one endless
-chain from the high nose of Maine to the shoulder of Cape Flattery.</p>
-
-<p>“Gimme one of them gol-darned blankety bing-bing Ford auty<i>mo</i>bils,”
-he commanded the garage owner who came to meet Casey amicably, in his
-shirt sleeves. “Here’s four horses I’ll trade yuh, with what’s left of
-the harness. And up at White Ghost turn you’ll find a good wheel off
-the stage, ’t I’ll make yuh a present of.” He slid down from the
-sweaty back of his horse and stood bow-legged and determined before
-the garage owner.</p>
-
-<p>“Well—there ain’t much sale for horses, Casey, and I ain’t got a place
-to keep ’em, nor anything to feed ’em. I’ll sell yuh a Ford.”</p>
-
-<p>Casey glanced over his shoulder to make sure the horses were standing
-quietly, dropped the bridle rein and advanced a step, his Irish eyes
-fixed upon the face of the other.</p>
-
-<p>“You <i>trade</i>,” he stated flatly.</p>
-
-<p>The Ford man backed a little. “Sure, Casey. What yuh want for the
-four, just as they stand?”</p>
-
-<p>Casey did not trouble with triumph. He continued to forge straight at
-his object. “Me? I want a Ford auty<i>mo</i>bil. I want you to put on the
-biggest horn you got, so I c’n be heard from here to Pinnacle and back
-in one hawnk. And run the damn thing out here and show me how it
-works, and how often yuh gotta wind it and when. I’ve got my stage
-line to take care of, and I’ve missed a run on account of being pushed
-off’n the road. I’ll sign papers tonight when I get in. Show me the
-biggest horn yuh got.”</p>
-
-<p>Thus was the trade effected, with much speed and few preliminaries,
-because the garage man knew Casey well, and had seen him in action
-when his temper was up. He adjusted a secondhand horn he happened to
-have; one of those terrific things warranted to lift a medium-sized
-man off his feet at one hundred yards or money refunded. Casey tried
-it out on himself, walking down the street several doors and standing
-with his back turned while the garage man squawked at him.</p>
-
-<p>“She’ll do,” he approved, coming back. “What’ll kink Casey’s backbone
-oughta be good enough for anybody. Bring her out here and show me how
-you run the darn thing. I’ve got a load of bohunk muckers to take up
-to the Blackbird Mine. Meant to haul ’em up to-morrow morning, but I
-guess I’ll take ’em this afternoon for practice.”</p>
-
-<p>Naturally, the garage man was somewhat perturbed at the thought. The
-road from Pinnacle to Lund was the kind that brings a sigh of relief
-to many a seasoned driver after it has been safely driven. It is
-narrow in spots, has steep pitches both ways, and in the thirty miles
-there are sixteen sharp turns and others not so sharp.</p>
-
-<p>“Better let me write you out some insurance on the car, Casey,” he
-suggested, not half as jokingly as he tried to seem.</p>
-
-<p>Casey turned and looked him in the eye. “Say! Never you mind about
-insuring <i>this</i> car. What you want to do is insure the cars I’m liable
-to meet up with!”</p>
-
-<p>The garage man said no more about insurance, but took Casey down the
-cañon where the road was walled in on both sides by cliffs and was
-fairly straight and level, and proceeded to give him a lesson in
-driving. Casey made two round trips along that half mile of road,
-killed the engine, and figured out for himself how to start it again.</p>
-
-<p>“She’s tender bitted, and I do hate a horse that neckreins in
-harness,” he criticized. “All right, Bill. I’ll put you down at the
-garage and go gather up the bohunks and start. Better phone up to
-Pinnacle that Casey’s on the road and it’s his road so long as he’s on
-it. They’ll know what yuh mean.”</p>
-
-<p>Pinnacle did know, and waited on the sidewalk that afforded a view of
-the long hill where the road swung down around the head of the gulch
-into town.</p>
-
-<p>Much sooner than his most optimistic backers had a right to expect—for
-there were bets laid on the outcome there in Pinnacle—a swirl of red
-dust on the brow of the hill grew rapidly to a cloud. Like a desert
-whirlwind it swept down the road, crossed the narrow bridge over the
-deep cut at the head of the gulch, and rolled on down the steep
-little, narrow street. Out of the whirlwind emerged the pugnacious
-little nose of a new Ford, and behind the windshield Casey Ryan
-grinned widely as he swung up to the post office and stopped with a
-lurch that sent the insecure fourth bohunk in the tonneau hurtling
-forward into the front. Casey threw up an elbow and caught the bohunk
-in the collar button and held him from going through the windshield.
-The others made haste to scramble out, until Casey stopped them with a
-yell that froze them where they were.</p>
-
-<p>“Hey! Stay right where y’are! I gotta deliver yuh up on the hill to
-the Blackbird, in a minute.”</p>
-
-<p>There were chatterings and gesticulation, and one who was not scared
-out of all the English he knew protested that they would “Walk,
-mister, if you <i>pleese</i>, mister!” Whereat the crowd slapped thighs and
-laughed long and loud.</p>
-
-<p>Thereafter Pinnacle and Lund had a new standard by which to measure
-the courage of a man. Had he made the trip with Casey?</p>
-
-<p>Casey did not like that. Freely enough he admitted that he was a hard
-driver. He had always had the name of being the hardest driver in the
-country, and he was proud of it. When a man started out to go
-somewhere, he wasn’t much, in Casey’s opinion, if he did not
-immediately proceed to get there. But he was a safe driver, he argued.</p>
-
-<p>Casey had an accident now and then, and his tire expense was such as
-to keep him up nights playing poker for money to support his stage.
-You can’t whirl into town at a thirty-mile pace—which is fast driving
-in Pinnacle, believe me—and stop with a flourish in twice the car’s
-length without scouring more rubber off your tires than a capacity
-load of passengers will pay for. Besides, your passengers generally
-object.</p>
-
-<p>In two weeks—perhaps it was less, though I want to be perfectly just
-and give him a full two weeks if possible—Casey was back, afoot, and
-standing bow-legged and nonchalant in the doorway of the Ford Agency
-at Lund.</p>
-
-<p>“Gimme another Ford auty<i>mo</i>bil,” he requested, grinning a little. “I
-guess mebby I oughta take two or three, if you’ve got ’em to spare.
-But I’m a little short, right now, Bill. I ain’t been gitting any good
-poker, lately. I’ll make out with one for a while.”</p>
-
-<p>Bill asked a question or two while he led Casey to the last arrival
-from the factory. Casey explained.</p>
-
-<p>“I had a bet on with a fellow up in Pinnacle, y’see. He bet me a
-hundred dollars I couldn’t shave off another ten minutes on my run
-down, and I bet I could. I’d a got his money, too. I had eight minutes
-peeled off, and up here, at this last sharp turn, Jim Black and me
-butted noses together. I pushed him on ahead of me for fifty rods,
-Bill—and him a-yelling at me to quit—but something busted in the
-insides of my car, I guess. She give a grunt and quit. All right, I’ll
-take this one. Grease her up, Bill. I’ll eat a bite before I take her
-out.”</p>
-
-<p>You’ve no doubt suspected before now that not even poker, played
-industriously o’ nights, could keep Casey’s head above the financial
-waters that threatened to drown him and his Ford and his reputation.
-Casey did not mind repair bills, so long as he achieved the speed he
-wanted. But he did mind not being able to pay the repair bills when
-they were presented to him. Whatever else were his faults, Casey Ryan
-had always gone cheerfully into his pocket and paid what he owed. Now
-he was haunted by a growing fear that an unlucky game or two would
-send him under, and that he might not come up again.</p>
-
-<p>He began seriously to think of selling his car and going back to
-horses which, in spite of the high cost of feeding them, had paid
-their way and his, and left him a pleasant jingle in his pockets. And
-then he bumped hard into one of those queer little psychological facts
-which men never take into account until it is too late.</p>
-
-<p>Casey Ryan, who had driven horses since he could stand on his toes and
-fling harness on their backs, could not go back to driving horses. The
-speed fiend of progress had him by the neck. Horses were too slow for
-Casey. Moreover, the thirty-mile stretch between Pinnacle and Lund was
-too tame for him, too monotonous. He knew in the dark every twist in
-the road, every sharp turn, and he could tell you offhand what every
-sharp turn had cost him in the past month, either in repairs to his
-own car or to the car that had unluckily met him without warning. For
-Casey, I must tell you, forgot all about that ear-splitting klaxon at
-his left elbow. He was always in too much of a hurry to blow it,
-anyway, and by the time he reached a turn he was around it, and there
-either was no car in the road or Casey had already scraped paint off
-it or worse. So what was the use?</p>
-
-<p>Far distances called Casey. In one day, he meditated, he could cover
-more desert with his Ford than horses could travel in a week. An old,
-half-buried passion stirred, lifted its head, and smiled at him
-seductively. He would go away into the far distances and look for the
-riches which Nature hides so miserly in her hills. A gold mine, or
-perhaps silver or copper—what matter which mineral he found, so long
-as it spelled wealth for him? Then he would buy a bigger car and a
-faster car, and he would bore farther and farther into yonder. In his
-past were tucked away months on end of tramping across deserts and up
-mountain defiles, with a packed burro nipping patiently along in front
-of him and this same, seductive passion for finding one of Nature’s
-little hoards of mineral beckoning him over the next horizon. Burros
-had been slow. While he hurtled down the road from Pinnacle to Lund
-Casey pictured himself plodding through sand and sage and over malapi
-and up dry cañons, hazing a burro before him.</p>
-
-<p>“No, sir, the time for that is gone by. I could do in a week now what
-it took me a month to do then. I could get into country a man’d hate
-to tackle afoot, not knowing the water holes. I’ll git me a radiator
-that don’t boil a tea kettle over a pitch fire, and load up with water
-and grub and gas, and I’ll find something that’ll put me in the clear
-the rest of my life. Couldn’t before, because I had to travel too
-slow. But shucks! A Ford can go anywhere a mountain goat can go. You
-ask anybody.”</p>
-
-<p>So Casey sold his stage line and the good will that went with it, and
-Pinnacle and Lund breathed long and deep and planned trips they had
-refrained from taking heretofore, and wished Casey luck. Bill, the
-garage man, laid a friendly hand on his shoulder and made a suggestion
-so wise that not even Casey could shut his mind against it.</p>
-
-<p>“You’re starting out where there won’t be no Bill handy to fix what
-you bust,” he pointed out. “You wait over a day or two, Casey, and let
-me show yuh a few things about that car. If you bust down on the
-desert you’ll want to know what’s wrong, and how to fix it. It’s easy,
-but you got to know where to look for the trouble.”</p>
-
-<p>“Me? Say, Bill, I never had to go lookin’ for trouble,” Casey grinned.
-“What do I need to learn how for?”</p>
-
-<p>Nevertheless, he remained all of that day with Bill and crammed on
-mechanics. He was amazed to discover how many and how different were
-the ailments that might afflict an automobile. That he had
-boldly—albeit unconsciously—driven a thing filled with timers,
-high-tension plugs that may become fouled and fail to “spark,”
-carburetors that could get out of adjustment, spark plugs that burned
-out and had to be replaced, a transmission that absolutely <i>must</i> have
-grease or something happened, bearings that were prone to “burn out,”
-if they went dry of oil, and a multitude of other mishaps that could
-happen and did happen, if one did not watch out, would have filled
-Casey with foreboding, if that were possible. Being an optimist to the
-middle of his bones, he merely felt a growing pride in himself. He had
-driven all this aggregation of potential grief, and he had driven with
-impunity. Whenever anything had happened to his Ford auty<i>mo</i>bil,
-Casey could trace the direct cause, and it had always come from the
-outside instead of the inside, save that time when he had walked in
-and got a new car without probing into the vitals of the other.</p>
-
-<p>“I’d ruther have a horse down with glanders,” he admitted when Bill
-finally washed the grease off his hands and forearms and rolled down
-his sleeves. “But Casey Ryan’s game to try anything once, and most
-things the second and third time. You ask anybody. Gimme all the
-hootin’-annies that’s liable to wear out, Bill, and a load uh tires
-and patches, and Casey’ll come back and hand yuh a diamond big as your
-fist, some day. Casey Ryan’s goin’ out to see what he can see. If he
-meets up with Miss Fortune, he’ll tame her, Bill. And this little Ford
-auty<i>mo</i>bil is goin’ to eat outa my hand, this summer. I don’t give a
-cuss if she does git sore and ram her spark plugs into her carburetor
-now and ag’in. She’ll know who’s boss, Bill.”</p>
-
-<p>Taking that point of view and keeping it, Casey managed very well.
-Whenever anything went wrong that his vocabulary and a monkey wrench
-could not mend, Casey sat down on the shadiest running board and
-conned the Instruction Book which Bill handed him at the last minute.
-Other times he treated the Ford exactly as he would treat a burro,
-with satisfactory results.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Away out on the high mesas that are much like the desert below, except
-that the nights are cool and the wind is not fanned out of a furnace,
-Casey fought sand and brush and rocks and found a trail now and then
-which he followed thankfully, and so came at last to a short range of
-mountains whose name matched well their sinister stare. The Ghost
-Mountains had always been reputed rich in mineral and malevolent in
-their attitude toward man and beast. Even the Joshua trees stood afar
-off and lifted grotesque arms defensively. But Casey was not easily
-daunted, and eerie places held for him no meaning save the purely
-material one. If he could find water and the rich vein of ore he
-dreamed of, then Casey would be happy in spite of snakes, tarantulas,
-and sinister stories of the place.</p>
-
-<p>Water he found, not too far up a gulch. So he pitched his tent within
-carrying distance from the spring, thanked the god of mechanics that
-an automobile neither eats nor drinks when it does not work, and set
-out to find his fortune.</p>
-
-<p>Now this is not a story of Casey’s quest for gold. It’s a love story,
-if you please. Until the lady entered Casey’s orbit there was no
-logical reason for telling you, nor for stating that the Ford
-auty<i>mo</i>bil played the part of Fate—and played erratically.</p>
-
-<p>Casey knew there was a mining camp on the high slope of Furnace Butte.
-He knew the name of the camp, which was Lucky Lode, and he knew the
-foreman there—knew him from long ago in the days when Casey was what
-he himself called wild. In reaching Ghost Mountains Casey had driven
-for fifteen miles within plain sight of Lucky Lode. But gas is
-precious when you are a hundred miles from a garage, and since
-business did not take him there Casey did not drive up the five-mile
-slope to the Lucky Lode just to shake hands with the foreman and swap
-a yarn or two. Instead, he headed down on to the bleached, bleak oval
-of Furnace Lake and forged across it straight as he could drive toward
-Ghost Mountain.</p>
-
-<p>But the next time Casey made the trip—needing supplies, powder, fuse,
-caps, and so on—Fate took him by the ear and led him to the lady. This
-is how Fate did it—and I will say it was an original idea.</p>
-
-<p>Casey had a gallon sirup can in the car, which he used for extra oil
-for the engine. Having an appetite for sour-dough biscuits and sirup,
-he had also a gallon can of sirup in the car. It was a terrifically
-hot day, and the wind that blew full against Casey’s left cheek as he
-drove, burned where it struck. Casey was afraid he was running short
-of water, and a Ford comes first, as every man knows, so that Casey
-was parched pretty thoroughly, inside and out. Within a mile of the
-lake he stopped, took an unsatisfying sip from his big canteen and
-emptied the rest of the water into the radiator. Then he replenished
-the oil in the motor generously, cranked and went bumping along down
-the trail worn rough with the trucks from Lucky Lode.</p>
-
-<p>For a little way he bumped along the trail, then the motor began to
-labor and, although Casey pulled the gas lever down as far as it would
-go, the car slowed and stopped dead in the road. It was after an hour
-of fruitless monkey-wrenching and swearing and sweating that Casey
-began to suspect something. He examined both cans, “hefted” them,
-smelled and even tasted the one half empty, and decided that Ford
-auty<i>mo</i>bils did not require two quarts of sirup at one dose. He
-thought that a little sirup ought not make much difference, but half a
-gallon was probably too much.</p>
-
-<p>He put in more oil on top of the sirup, but he could not even move the
-crank, much less “turn ’er over.” He did not know what to do. So long
-as a man can wind the crank of a Ford he seems able to keep alive his
-hopes. Casey could not crank, wherefore he knew himself beaten even
-while he heaved and lifted and swore, and strained every muscle in his
-back. He got so desperately wrathful that he lifted the car
-perceptibly off its right front wheel with every heave, but he felt as
-if he were trying to lift a bowlder.</p>
-
-<p>It was past supper time at Lucky Lode when Casey arrived, staggering a
-little with exhaustion both mental and physical. His eyes were
-bloodshot with the hot wind, his face was purple from the same wind,
-his lips were dry and rough. I cannot blame the men at Lucky Lode for
-a sudden thirst when they saw him coming, and a hope that he still had
-a little left. And when he told them that he had filled his engine
-with sirup instead of oil, what would any one think?</p>
-
-<p>Their unjust suspicions would not have worried Casey in the least, had
-Lucky Lode not possessed a lady cook who was a lady. She was a widow
-with two children, and she had the children with her and held herself
-aloof from the men in a manner befitting a lady. Casey was hungry and
-thirsty and tired 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.</p>
-
-<p>Casey stayed that night and the next day and the next at Lucky Lode.
-The foreman helped him tow the sweetened car up the hill to the
-machine shop where they 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.</p>
-
-<p>Before he left the Lucky Lode Casey knew exactly what sirup 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. Casey took the
-drinking pledge quite cheerfully for her sake, since he 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 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, and that he would taste the oil hereafter before he
-fed it to the Ford.</p>
-
-<p>“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.</p>
-
-<p>Casey drove back to his camp at Ghost 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 only
-casually for two days, puzzled him a little.</p>
-
-<p>“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
-him of his promise and put it away again, substituting a chew of
-tobacco as large as his cheek would hold without prying his mouth
-open. “G’long, there! You got your belly full of oil—shake your feet
-and show you’re alive!”</p>
-
-<p>After that, Casey spent every Sunday at Lucky Lode. He liked the widow
-better and better. Only he wished she would take it for granted that
-when Casey Ryan made a promise, Casey Ryan would keep it. “I’ve got so
-now I can bark a knuckle with m’single jack when I’m puttin’ down a
-hole, and say, ‘Oh, dear!’ and let it go at that,” he boasted to her
-on the second Sunday. “I’ll bet there ain’t another man in the State
-of Nevada could do that.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes. But Casey, dear, if <i>only</i> you will never touch another drop of
-liquor. You’ll keep your promise, won’t you, dear boy?”</p>
-
-<p>“Sure as hell I’ll keep my promise!” Casey assured her headily. It had
-been close to twenty years since he had been called dear boy, at least
-to his face. He had kissed the woman full on the lips before he saw
-that a frown sat upon her forehead like a section of that ridgy
-cardboard they wrap bottles in.</p>
-
-<p>“Casey, you swore!”</p>
-
-<p>“Swore? Me?”</p>
-
-<p>“I only hope,” sighed the widow, “that your other promise won’t be
-broken as easily as that one. Remember, Casey, I cannot and I will not
-marry a drinking man!”</p>
-
-<p>Casey looked at her dubiously.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I’ve heard awful tales of you, Casey, dear! The boys talk at the
-table, and they seem to think it’s awful funny to tell about your
-fighting and drinking and playing cards for money. But I think it’s
-perfectly awful. You must stop drinking, Casey, dear. I could never
-forgive myself, if I set before my innocent little ones the example of
-a husband who drank.”</p>
-
-<p>“You won’t,” said Casey. “Not if you marry me, you won’t.” Then he
-changed the subject, beginning to talk of his prospect over on Ghost
-Mountain. The widow liked to hear him tell about finding a pocket of
-ore that went seventy ounces in silver and one and seven-tenths ounces
-in gold, and how he expected any day to get down into the main body of
-ore and find it a “contact” vein. It all sounded very convincing and
-as if Casey Ryan were in a fair way to become a rich man.</p>
-
-<p>The next time Casey saw the widow he was on his way to town for more
-powder, his whole box of “giant” having gone off with a tremendous
-bang the night before in one of those abrupt hailstorms that come so
-unexpectedly in the mountain country. Casey had worked until dark, and
-was dog tired and had left the box standing uncovered beside the
-dugout where he kept it. He suspected that a hailstone had played a
-joke on him, but his chief emotion was one of self-congratulation
-because he had prudently stored the dynamite around a shoulder of the
-cañon where he camped.</p>
-
-<p>When he told the widow about it, and pointed out how lucky he was, she
-looked very grave. It was a very careless thing to do, she said. Casey
-admitted that it was. A man who handled dynamite ought to shun liquor
-above all things, she went on; and Casey agreed restively. He had not
-felt any inclination to imbibe until that minute, when the Irish rose
-up hotly within him.</p>
-
-<p>“Casey, dear, are you <i>sure</i> you have nothing in camp?”</p>
-
-<p>Casey assured her solemnly that he had not, and drove off down the
-hill vaguely aware that he was not so content with life as he had
-been. “Damn that sirup!” he exploded once, quite as abruptly as had
-the giant powder. After that he chewed tobacco and drove in broody
-silence.</p>
-
-<p>Being Casey Ryan, tough as hickory and wont to drive headlong to his
-destination, Casey did not remain in town to loiter a half day and
-sleep a night and drive back the next day, as most desert dwellers
-did. He hurried through with his business, filled up with gas and oil,
-loaded on an extra can of each, strapped his box of dynamite upon the
-seat beside him where he could keep an eye on it—just as if that would
-do any good if the tricky stuff meant to blow up!—and started back at
-three in the afternoon. He would be half the night getting to camp,
-even though he was Casey Ryan and drove a wicked Ford. But he would be
-there, ready to start to work at sunrise. A man who is going to marry
-a widow with two children had best hurry up and strike every streak of
-rich ore he has in his claim, thought Casey.</p>
-
-<p>All that afternoon, though the wind blew hot in his face, Casey
-drilled across the desert, meeting never a living thing, overtaking
-none. All that afternoon a yellow dust cloud swirled rapidly along the
-rough desert road, vainly trying to keep up with Casey who made it. In
-Yucca Pass he had to stop and fill motor and radiator with oil and
-water, and just as he topped the summit a front tire popped like a
-pistol.</p>
-
-<p>Casey killed the engine and got out stiffly, bit off a chew of
-tobacco, and gazed pensively at Furnace Mountain that held Lucky Lode,
-where the widow was cooking supper at that moment.</p>
-
-<p>“I sure would like to flop m’ lip over one of her biscuits, right
-now,” he said aloud. “If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too
-high-toned to cook?”</p>
-
-<p>His eyes went to Furnace Lake lying smooth and pale yellow in the
-saucerlike basin between Furnace and Ghost Mountains. In the soft
-light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint of
-malice like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake is
-treacherous. The big earthquake—America knows only one big earthquake,
-that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously—had split Furnace Lake
-halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest
-point and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and the passing storms had
-partly filled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to
-all men to trust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the
-big gash here and there, and the cattle men rode often that way, and
-sometimes not often enough to save their cattle from falling in.</p>
-
-<p>By day the lake shimmered deceptively with mirage that painted it blue
-with the likeness of water. Then a lone clump of greasewood stood up
-tall and proclaimed itself a ship lying idle on a glassy expanse of
-water so blue, so cool, so clear that one cannot wonder that thirsty
-travelers go mad sometimes with the false lure of it.</p>
-
-<p>Just now the lake looked exactly like any lake at dusk, and Casey’s
-thoughts went beyond, to his claim on Ghost Mountain. Being tired and
-hungry, he pictured wistfully a cabin there, and a light in the window
-when he went chucking up the long mesa in the dark, and the widow
-there with hot coffee and supper waiting for him. Just as soon as he
-struck “shipping values,” that picture would be real, said Casey to
-himself, and opened his tool box and set to work changing the tire. By
-the time he had finished it was dark, and Casey had yet a long forty
-miles between himself and his sour-dough can. He cranked the engine,
-switched on the electric headlights, and went tearing down the long
-incline to the lake.</p>
-
-<p>“She c’n see the lights, and she’ll know I ain’t hangin’ out in town
-lappin’ up whisky,” he told himself as he drove. “She’ll know it’s
-Casey Ryan comin’ home—know it the way them lights are slippin’ over
-the country. Ain’t another man on the desert can put a car over the
-trail like this.”</p>
-
-<p>Pleased with himself and the reputation he had made, urged by hunger
-and the desire to make good on his claim, so that he might have the
-little home he instinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down
-another eighth of an inch—when he was already using more than he
-should—and nearly bounced his dynamite off the seat when he lurched
-over a sandy hummock and down onto the smooth floor of the lake.</p>
-
-<p>It was five miles across that lake from rim to rim, taking a straight
-line, as Casey did, well above the crevice. In all that distance there
-is not a stick, nor a stone, nor a bush to mark the way. Not even a
-trail, since Casey was the only man who traveled it, and Casey never
-made tracks twice in the same place, but drove down upon it, picked
-himself a landmark on the opposite side, and steered for it exactly as
-one steers a boat. The marks he left behind him were no more than
-pencil marks drawn upon a sheet of yellow paper. Unless the lake was
-wet with one of those sporadic desert rains, you couldn’t make any
-impression on the cementlike surface. If the lake was wet you stuck
-where you were. Wherefore Casey plunged out upon five miles of blank,
-baked clay with neither road, chart, nor compass to guide him. It was
-the first time he had ever crossed at night, and a blanket of thin,
-high clouds hid the stars.</p>
-
-<p>The little handful of engine roared beautifully and shook the car with
-the vibration. Casey heaved a sigh of weariness mingled with content
-that the way was smooth and he need not look for chuck holes for a few
-minutes, at any rate. He settled back, and his fingers relaxed on the
-wheel.</p>
-
-<p>Suddenly he leaned forward, stared hard, leaned out and stared,
-listened with an ear turned toward the engine. He turned and looked
-behind, then stared ahead again.</p>
-
-<p>“By <i>gosh</i> I bet both hubs is busted,” he said under his
-breath—Furnace Lake impresses one to silence, somehow. “She’s runnin’
-like a wolf—but she ain’t "<i>goin’</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>He waited for a minute longer, trifling with the gas, staring and
-listening. The car was shaking with the throb of the motor, but there
-was no forward lunge, nothing whatever but vibration of the engine.
-“Set-tin’ here burnin’ gas like a ’lection bonfire—she sure would
-think I’m drunk if she knew about it,” Casey muttered, and straddled
-over the side of the car to the running board.</p>
-
-<p>“I wish—to—<i>hell</i>, I hadn’t promised her not to cuss,” he gritted, and
-with one hand still on the wheel, Casey shut off the gas and stepped
-down. He stepped down upon a surface sliding beneath him at the rate
-of close to forty miles an hour. The Ford went on, spinning away from
-him in a wide circle, since Casey had unconsciously turned the wheel
-to the left as he let go. The impact of meeting that hard clay stunned
-him just at first, and he rolled over a couple of times before he
-began to regain his senses.</p>
-
-<p>He lifted himself groggily to his knees and looked for the car, saw it
-bearing down upon him from the direction whence he had come. Before he
-had time to wonder much at the phenomenon it was upon him, over him
-with a lurch, and gone again.</p>
-
-<p>Casey was tough, and he never knew when he was whipped. He crawled up
-to his knees again, saw the same Ford coming at him with dimming
-headlights from the same direction it had taken before, made a wild
-clutch, was knocked down and run over again. You may not believe that,
-but Casey had the bruises to prove it.</p>
-
-<p>On the third round the Ford had slowed to a walk, figuratively
-speaking. Casey was pretty groggy, and he thought his back was broken,
-but he was mad clear through. He caught the Ford by its fender, hung
-on, clutching frantically for a better hold, was dragged a little
-distance so, and then, its speed slackened to a gentle, forward roll,
-he made shift to get aboard and give it the gas before the engine had
-quite stopped. Which he told himself was lucky, because he couldn’t
-have cranked the thing to save his life.</p>
-
-<p>By sheer doggedness he drove on to camp, drank cold coffee left from
-his early breakfast, and decided that the bite of a Ford, while it is
-poisonous, is not necessarily fatal, unless it attacks one in a vital
-spot.</p>
-
-<p>Casey could not drill a hole, he could not swing a pick. For two days
-he limped painfully and confined his activities to cooking his meals.
-Frequently he would look at the Ford speculatively and shake his head.
-There was something uncanny about it.</p>
-
-<p>“She sure has got it in for me,” he mused. “You can’t blame her for
-runnin’ off when I dropped the reins and stepped out. But that don’t
-account for the way she come <i>at</i> me, and the way she <i>got</i> me every
-circle she made. That’s human. It’s dog-gone human! I’ve cussed her a
-lot, and I’ve done things to her—like that sirup I poured into her—and
-dog-gone her, she’s been layin’ low and watchin’ her chance all this
-while. That there car <i>knowed</i>!”</p>
-
-<p>The third day after the attack Casey was still too sore to work, but
-he managed to crank the Ford—eying it curiously the while, and with
-respect, too—and started down the mesa and up over the ridge and on
-down to the lake. He was still studying the matter, still wondering if
-Fords can think. He wanted to tell the widow about it, and get her
-opinion. The widow was a smart woman. A little touchy on the liquor
-question, maybe, but smart. You ask anybody.</p>
-
-<p>Lucky Lode greeted him with dropped jaws and wide-staring eyes, which
-puzzled Casey until the foreman, grasping his shoulder—which made
-Casey wince and break a promise—explained their astonishment.</p>
-
-<p>They had, as Casey expected, seen his lights when he came off the
-summit from Yucca Pass. By the speed they traveled Lucky Lode knew
-that Casey and no other was at the steering wheel, even before he took
-to the lake.</p>
-
-<p>“And then,” said the foreman, “we saw your lights go round and round
-in a circle, and disappear—”</p>
-
-<p>“They didn’t,” Casey cut in trenchantly. “They went dim because I was
-taking her slow, being about all in.”</p>
-
-<p>The foreman grinned. “We thought you’d drove into the crevice, and we
-went down with lanterns and hunted the full length of it. We never
-found a sign of you or the car.”</p>
-
-<p>“’Cause I was over in camp, or thereabout,” supplied Casey dryly. “I
-wish you’d of come on over. I sure needed help.”</p>
-
-<p>“We figured you was pretty well lit up, to circle around like that.
-I’ve been down since, by daylight, and so have some of the boys,
-looking into that crevice. But we gave it up, finally.”</p>
-
-<p>Then Casey, because he liked a joke even when it was on himself, told
-the foreman and his men what had happened to him. He did not
-exaggerate the mishap; the truth was sufficiently wild. They whooped
-with glee. Every one laughs at the unusual misfortunes of others, and
-this was unusual. They stood around the Ford and talked to it, and
-whooped again. “You sure must have had so-ome jag, Casey,” they told
-him exuberantly.</p>
-
-<p>“I was sober,” Casey testified sharply. “I’ll swear I hadn’t had a
-drop of anything worse than lemon soda, and that was before I left
-town.” Whereupon they whooped the louder, bent double, some of them,
-with mirth.</p>
-
-<p>“Say! If I was drunk that night I’d say so,” Casey exploded finally.
-“What the hell—what’s the matter with you rabbits? You think Casey
-Ryan has got to the point where he’s scared to tell what he done and
-all he done? Lemme tell yuh, anything Casey does he ain’t afraid to
-<i>tell</i> about! Lyin’ is something I never was scared bad enough to do.
-You ask anybody.”</p>
-
-<p>“There’s the widow,” said the foreman, wiping his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Casey turned and looked, but the widow was not in sight. The foreman,
-he judged, was speaking figuratively. He swung back glaring.</p>
-
-<p>“You think I’m scared to tell her what happened? She’ll know I was
-sober, if I say I was sober. She ain’t as big a fool——” He did not
-want to fight, although he was aching to lick every man of them. For
-one thing, he was too sore and lame, and then, the widow would not
-like it.</p>
-
-<p>With his back very straight, Casey walked down to the house and tried
-to tell the widow. But the widow was a woman, and she was hurt because
-Casey, since he was alive and not in the crevice, had not come
-straight to comfort her, but had lingered up there talking and
-laughing with the men. The widow had taken Casey’s part when the
-others said he must have been drunk. She had maintained, red-lidded
-and trembly of voice, that something had gone wrong with Casey’s car,
-so that he couldn’t steer it. Such things happened, she knew.</p>
-
-<p>Well, Casey told the widow the truth, and the widow’s face hardened
-while she listened. She had kissed him when he came in, but now she
-moved away from him. She did not call him dear boy, nor even Casey,
-dear. She waited until he had reached the point that puzzled him, the
-point of a Ford’s degree of intelligence. Then her lips thinned before
-she opened them.</p>
-
-<p>“And what,” she asked coldly, “had you been drinking, Mr. Ryan?”</p>
-
-<p>“Me? One bottle of lemon soda before I left town, and I left town at
-three o’clock in the afternoon. I swear—”</p>
-
-<p>“You need not swear, Mr. Ryan.” The widow folded her hands and
-regarded him sternly, though her voice was still politely soft. “After
-I had told you repeatedly that my little ones should ever be guarded
-from a drinking father; after you had solemnly promised me that you
-would never again put glass to your lips, or swallow a drop of whisky;
-after, that very morning, renewing your promise—”</p>
-
-<p>“I was sober,” Casey said, his face a shade paler than usual, though
-it was still quite frankly red. “I swear to Gawd I was sober.”</p>
-
-<p>“You need not lie,” said the widow, “and add to your misdeeds. You
-were drunk. No man in his senses would imagine what you imagined, or
-do what you did. I wish you to understand, Mr. Ryan, that I shall not
-marry you. I could not trust you out of my sight.”</p>
-
-<p>“I—was—<i>sober</i>!” cried Casey, measuring his words. Very nearly
-shouting them, in fact. The widow turned indifferently away and began
-to stir something on the stove, and did not look at him.</p>
-
-<p>Casey went out, climbed the hill to his Ford, cranked it, and went
-larruping down the hill, out on the lake and, when he had traversed
-half its length, turned and steered a straight course across it. Where
-tracings of wheels described a wide circle he stopped and regarded
-them soberly. Then he began to swear, at nothing in particular but
-with a hearty enjoyment worthy a better pastime.</p>
-
-<p>“Casey, you sure as hell have had one close call,” he remarked, when
-he could think of nothing new nor devilish to say. “You mighta run
-along, and run along, till you got <i>married</i> to her. Whadda I want a
-wife for, anyway? Sour-dough biscuits tastes pretty good, and Casey
-sure can make ’em.” He got out his pipe, filled it, and crammed down
-the tobacco, found a match, and leaned back smoking relishfully, one
-leg thrown up over the wheel.</p>
-
-<p>“A man’s best friend is his Ford. You ask anybody,” he grinned, and
-blew a lot of smoke and gave the wheel an affectionate little twist.</p>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU ASK ANYBODY ***</div>
-<div style='text-align:left'>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Updated editions will replace the previous one&#8212;the old editions will
-be renamed.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
-States without permission and without paying copyright
-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG&#8482;
-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away&#8212;you may
-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
-license, especially commercial redistribution.
-</div>
-
-<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br />
-<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br />
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span>
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-To protect the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &#8220;Project
-Gutenberg&#8221;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; License available with this file or online at
-www.gutenberg.org/license.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.B. &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works if you follow the terms of this
-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&#8220;the
-Foundation&#8221; or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting
-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; name associated with the work. You can easily
-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License when
-you share it without charge with others.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg&#8482; work. The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country other than the United States.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work (any work
-on which the phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; appears, or with which the
-phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
-</div>
-
-<blockquote>
-  <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-    at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
-    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
-  </div>
-</blockquote>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is
-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase &#8220;Project
-Gutenberg&#8221; associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg&#8482; License for all works
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
-beginning of this work.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg&#8482;.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; License.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work in a format
-other than &#8220;Plain Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg&#8482; website
-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original &#8220;Plain
-Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other form. Any alternate format must include the
-full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg&#8482; works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-provided that:
-</div>
-
-<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'>
-    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
-        &#8226; You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-        the use of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works calculated using the method
-        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
-        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, but he has
-        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
-        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
-        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
-        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
-        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
-        Section 4, &#8220;Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
-        Literary Archive Foundation.&#8221;
-    </div>
-
-    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
-        &#8226; You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
-        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
-        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-        works.
-    </div>
-
-    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
-        &#8226; You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
-        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
-        receipt of the work.
-    </div>
-
-    <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
-        &#8226; You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-        distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works.
-    </div>
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
-the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
-forth in Section 3 below.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
-contain &#8220;Defects,&#8221; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
-cannot be read by your equipment.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &#8220;Right
-of Replacement or Refund&#8221; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &#8216;AS-IS&#8217;, WITH NO
-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in
-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg&#8482;&#8217;s
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg&#8482; collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg&#8482; and future
-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation&#8217;s EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
-U.S. federal laws and your state&#8217;s laws.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-The Foundation&#8217;s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation&#8217;s website
-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
-public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
-visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; concept of a library of electronic works that could be
-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
-distributed Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks with only a loose network of
-volunteer support.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
-facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg&#8482;,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-</div>
-
-</div>
-</body>
-<!-- created with ppr.py 2022.03.31 on 2022-04-01 02:46:23 GMT -->
-</html>
diff --git a/old/67747-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/67747-h/images/cover.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 5675f9d..0000000
--- a/old/67747-h/images/cover.jpg
+++ /dev/null