On a certain Saturday, months before the traffic cops grew tired of blowing whistles and took to revolving silently at stated intervals with outspread wings after the manner of certain mechanical toys, Mary V Selmer came from the Western Union’s main office, and thanked heaven silently that her new roadster of the type called the Bear Cat was still standing at the curb where she had left it.  Just beyond it on the left a stream of automobiles grazed by—­but none so new and shiny, so altogether elegantly “sassy” as the Bear Cat.  Mary V, when she stepped in and settled herself behind the steering wheel, matched the car, completed its elegant “sassiness,” its general air of getting where it wanted to go, let the traffic be what it might and devil-take-the-fenders.

Mary V was unhappy, but her unhappiness was somewhat mitigated by the Bear Cat and her new mole collar that made a soft, fur wall about her slim throat to her very ears and the tip of her saucy chin, and the perky hat—­also elegantly “sassy”—­turned up in front and down behind, and the new driving gauntlets, and the new coat that had made dad groan until he had seen Mary V inside it and changed the groan to a proud little chuckle of admiration.

Mary V was terribly worried about Johnny Jewel.  She had been sure that he had come to Los Angeles, and she had pestered her dad into bringing her here in the firm belief that she would find him at once and “have it out with him” once and for all. (Just as though Mary V could ever settle a quarrel once and for all!) But though she had haunted all the known and some of the unknown flying fields, she had found no trace of Johnny.  That messenger boy in Tucson had insisted that the plane climbed high and then flew toward the Coast.  And at Yuma she had learned that the Thunder Bird had alighted there for gas and oil and had flown toward Los Angeles.  But so far as Mary V could discover, it was still flying.

Hoping to wean her from worrying about Johnny, dad had bought the Bear Cat.  Mary V had owned it for ten days now, and its mileage stood at 1400 and was just about ready to slide another “1” into sight.  The Bear Cat had proven itself a useful little Cat.

Now she shifted from neutral to second, disdaining low speed altogether, and swung boldly out into the stream of traffic.  A Ford shied off with a startled squawk to let the Bear Cat by.  A hurrying truck that was thinking of cutting in to get first chance within the safety zone passage thought better of it when Mary V honked her big Klaxon at him, and stopped with a jolt that nearly brought the Ford to grief behind it.

But Mary V ignored these trifles.  She was busy wondering where she should go next, and she was scanning swiftly the faces of the passers-by in the hope of glimpsing the one face she wished most of all to see.