“But Casey, if you leave whisky alone, you won’t need to taste the oil,” the widow told him.  Whereat Casey grinned feebly and explained for the tenth time that he had not been drinking.  She did not contradict him.  She seemed a wise woman, after a fashion.

Casey drove back to his camp at Starvation Mountain happy and a little scared.  Why, after all these years of careless freedom, he should precipitate himself into matrimony with a woman he had known casually for two days puzzled him a little.

“Well, a man gits to feelin’ like he wants to settle down when he’s crowdin’ fifty,” he explained his recklessness to the Ford as it hummed away over Furnace Lake which was flat as a floor and dry as a bleached bone,—­and much the same color.  “Any man feels the want of a home as he gits older.  And Casey’s the man that will try anything once, you ask anybody.”  He took out his pipe, looked at it, bethought himself of his promise and put it away again, substituting a chew of tobacco as large as his cheek would hold without prying his mouth open.  “G’long, there—­can’t you?  You got your belly full of oil—­shake a wheel and show you’re alive.”

After that, Casey spent every Sunday at Lucky Lode.  He liked the widow better and better.  Especially after dinner, with the delicious flavor of pie still caressing his palate.  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?”

“Hell, yes!” Casey assured her headily.  It had been close to twenty years since he had been called dear boy, at least to his face.  He kissed the widow 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.  “If you mean that syrup—­”

“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 Starvation.  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.