expensive pair of field glasses, and
watched her when she stopped by the road. Once, when both her right rear
tire and the spare were punctured before she could make a town, Milt
from afar saw her patch a tube, pump up the tire in the dust. He ached
to go to her aid--though it cannot be said that hand-pumping was his
favorite July afternoon sport.

Lest he encounter her in the streets, he always camped to the eastward
of the town at which she spent the night. After dusk, when she was
likely to end the day's drive in the first sizable place, he hid his bug
in an alley and, like a spy after the papers, sneaked into each garage
to see if her car was there.

He would stroll in, look about vacuously, and pipe to the suspicious
night attendant, "Seen a traveling man named Smith?" Usually the garage
man snarled, "No, I ain't seen nobody named Smith. An'thing else I can
do for you?" But once he was so unlucky as to find the long-missing Mr.
Smith!

Mr. Smith was surprised and insistent. Milt had to do some quick lying.
During that interview the cement floor felt very hard under his
fidgeting feet, and he thought he heard the garage man in the office
telephoning, "Don't think he knows Smith at all. I got a hunch he's that
auto thief that was through here last summer."

When Claire did not stop in the first town she reached after twilight,
but drove on by dark, he had to do some perilous galloping to catch up.
The lights of a Teal are excellent for adornment, but they have no
relation to illumination. They are dependent upon a magneto which is
dependent only upon faith.

Once, skittering along by dark, he realized that the halted car which he
had just passed was the Gomez. He thought he heard a shout behind him,
but in a panic he kept going.

To the burring motor he groaned, "Now I probably never will see her
again. Except that she thinks I'm such a pest that I dassn't let her
know I'm in the same state, I sure am one successful lover. As a Prince
Charming I win the Vanderbilt Cup. I'm going ahead backwards so fast
I'll probably drop off into the Atlantic over the next hill!"

CHAPTER IX

THE MAN WITH AGATE EYES

When her car had crossed the Missouri River on the swing-ferry between
Bismarck and Mandan, Claire had passed from Middle West to Far West. She
came out on an upland of virgin prairie, so treeless and houseless, so
divinely dipping, so rough of grass, that she could imagine buffaloes
still roving. In