right. This young
Daggett is a very gentlemanly fellow. I didn't think his
table-manners---- But we'll sit here and regard the flora and fauna till
he comes. He'll see us through."

"Yes! He will! Honestly, dad----" She said it with the first touch of
hero-worship since she had seen an aviator loop loops. "Isn't he, oh,
effective! Aren't you glad he's here to help us, instead of somebody
like Jeff Saxton?"

"We-ul, you must remember that Geoffrey wouldn't have permitted the
brake to burn out. He'd have foreseen it, and have had a branch office,
with special leased wire, located back on that hill, ready to do
business the instant the market broke. Enthusiasm is a nice quality,
dolly, but don't misplace it. This lad, however trustworthy he may be,
would scarcely even be allowed to work for a man like Geoffrey Saxton.
It may be that later, with college----"

"No. He'd work for Jeff two hours. Then Jeff would give him that 'You
poor fish!' look, and Milt would hit him, and stroll out, and go to the
North Pole or some place, and discover an oil-well, and hire Jeff as his
nice, efficient general manager. And---- I do wish Milt would hurry,
though!"

It was dusk before they heard the pit-pit-pit chuckling down the hill.
Milt's casual grin changed to bashfulness as Claire ran into the road,
her arms wide in a lovely gesture of supplication, and cried, "We been
waiting for you so long! One of my brake-bands is burnt out, and the
other is punk."

"Well, well. Let's try to figure out something to do."

She waited reverently while the local prophet sat in his bug, stared at
the wheels of the Gomez, and thought. The level-floored,
sagebrush-sprinkled hollow had filled with mauve twilight and creeping
stilly sounds. The knowable world of yellow lights and security was far
away. Milt was her only means of ever getting back to it.

"Tell you what we might try," he speculated. "I'll hitch on behind you,
and hold back in going down hill."

She did not even try to help him while he again cleaned the spark plugs
and looked over brakes, oil, gas, water. She sat on the running-board,
and it was pleasant to be relieved of responsibility. He said nothing at
all. While he worked he whistled that recent refined ballad:

I wanta go back to Oregon
And sit on the lawn, and look at the dawn.
Oh motheruh dear, don't leavuh me here,
The leaves are so sere, in the fallothe year,
I wanta go back to Oregugon,
To dea