The two in the tonneau muttered something in undertones while the little woman smiled at them contemptuously.  Casey thought that was pretty smart—­ to stall the car so they couldn’t get away with it—­but he did not tell her so.  There was something about the little woman which restrained him from talking freely and speaking his mind bluntly as was his habit.

He cranked the car, waited until she had the adjustment correct, and then went back and stood on the running board, holding with his left hand to a brace of the top and keeping his right free in case he should need it.  The little woman helped the little girl into the front seat, slid her own small person behind the wheel and glanced round inquiringly, with a flattering recognition of his masculine right to command.

“Just head towards town and keep a-going till I say when,” he told her, and she nodded and sent Jawn careening down over the rough tracks which Casey had missed by a quarter of a mile or less.

She could drive, Casey admitted, almost as recklessly as he could.  He had all he wanted to do, hanging on without being snapped off at some of the sharp turns she made.  The road wandered down the valley for ten miles, crept over a ridge, then dove headlong into another wide, shallow valley seamed with washes and deep cuts.  The little woman never eased her pace except when there was imminent danger of turning Jawn bottomside up in a wash.  So in a comparatively short time they were over two summits and facing the distant outline of Crazy Woman Hills.  They had come, Casey judged, about twenty miles, and they had been away from camp less than an hour.

Casey leaned forward and spoke to the woman, and she stopped the car obediently.  Casey pulled open the door and motioned, and the Swede came stumbling out, sullenly followed by Joe, who muttered thickly that he was sick and that the back of his head was caved in.  Casey did not reply, but heaved their bedding out after them.  With the little woman holding her gun at full aim, he untied the two and frugally stowed the rope away in the car.

“Now, you git,” he ordered them sternly.  “There’s four of us camped just acrost the ridge from this lady’s place, and we’ll sure keep plenty of eyes out.  If you got any ideas about taking the back trail, you better think agin, both of yuh.  You’d never git within shootin’ distance of this lady’s camp.  I’m Casey Ryan that’s speakin’ to yuh.  You ask anybody about me.  Git!”

Sourly they shouldered their bed-rolls and went limping down the trail, and when their forms were only blurs beyond the shine of the headlights, the little woman churned Jawn around somehow in the sand and drove back quite as recklessly as she had come.  Casey, bouncing alone in the rear seat, did a great deal of thinking, but I don’t believe he spoke once.

“Casey Ryan, I have never had much reason for feeling gratitude toward a man, but I am truly grateful to you.  You are a man and a gentleman.”  The little woman had driven close to the stone cabin and had turned and rested her arm along the back of the front seat, half supporting the sleeping child while she looked full at Casey.  She had left the engine running, probably for sake of the headlights, and her eyes shone dark and bright in the crisp starlight.