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 Ford.  You simply can’t whirl into town at a thirty-mile gait—­I am speaking now of Pinnacle, whose street was a gravelly creek bed quite dry and ridgy between rains—­and stop in twice the car’s length without scouring more rubber off your tires than a capacity load of passengers will pay for.  Besides, you run short of passengers if you persist in doing it.  Even the strangers who came in on the Salt Lake line were quite likely to look once at the cute little narrow-gauge train with its cunning little day coach hitched behind a string of ore cars, glance at Casey’s Ford stage with indifference and climb into the cunning day coach for the trip to Pinnacle.  The psychology of it passed quite over Casey’s head, but his pocket felt the change.

In two weeks—­perhaps it was less, though I want to be perfectly just—­ Casey was back, afoot and standing bow-legged in the doorway of Bill Master’s garage at Lund.

“Gimme another one of them Ford auty-mo-biles,” he requested, grinning a little.  “I guess mebby I oughta take two or three—­but I’m a little short right now, Bill.  I ain’t been gitting any good luck at poker, lately.”

Bill asked a question or two while he led Casey to the latest model of Fords, just in from the factory.

Casey took a chew of tobacco and explained.  “Well, I had a bet up, y’see.  That red-headed bartender in Pinnacle bet me a hundred dollars I couldn’t beat my own record ten minutes on the trip down.  I knowed I could, so I took him up on it.  A man would be a fool if he didn’t grab any easy money like that.  And so I pounded ’er on the tail, coming down.  And I had eight minutes peeled off my best time, and then Jim Black he had to go git in the road on that last turn up there.  We rammed our noses together and I pushed him on ahead of me for fifty rods, Bill—­and him 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 up.”

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.