you can 'phone from Fontana. I'll have to stop there anyway for
gas. Say, why don't yuh stall 'er off till morning? You couldn't get
home for supper now if yuh went by wireless. I guess yuh wouldn't hate
a mouthful of desert air after swallowing smoke and insults, like yuh
done in L. A. Tell her you're takin' a ride to Barstow. You can catch
a train out of there and be home to breakfast, easy. If you ain't got
the change in your clothes for carfare," he added generously, "Why,
I'll stake yuh just for your company on the trip. Whadda yuh say?"

Casey looked at the orange and the grapefruit and lemon orchards that
walled the Foothill Boulevard. All trees looked alike to Casey, and
these reminded him disagreeably of the fruit stalls in Los Angeles.

"Well, mebby I might go on to Barstow. Too late now to take the missus
to the show, anyway. I guess I can dig up the price uh carfare from
Barstow back." He chuckled with a sinful pride in his prosperity,
which was still new enough to be novel. "Yuh don't catch Casey Ryan
goin' around no more without a dime in his hind pocket. I've felt the
lack of 'em too many times when they was needed. Casey Ryan's going to
carry a jingle louder'n a lead burro from now on. You can ask anybody."

"You bet it's wise for a feller to go heeled," the friend of Bill
Masters responded easily. "You never know when yuh might need it.
Well, there's a Bell sign over there. You can be askin' your wife's
consent while I gas up."

Innocent pleasure; the blameless joy of riding in a Ford toward the
desert, with a prince of a fellow for company, was not so easily made
to sound logical and a perfectly commonplace incident over a
long-distance telephone. The Little Woman seemed struck with a sense
of the unusual; her voice betrayed trepidation and she asked questions
which Casey found it difficult to answer. That he was merely riding as
far as Barstow with a desert acquaintance and would catch the first
train back, she apparently failed to find convincing.

"Casey Ryan, tell me the truth. If you're in a scrape again, you know
perfectly well that Jack and I will have to come and get you out of it.
San Bernardino sounds bad to me, Casey, and you're pretty close to the
place. Do you really want me to believe that you're coming back on the
next train?"

"Sure as I'm standin' here! What makes yuh think I'm in a scrape?
Didn't I tell yuh I'm goin' to walk around trouble from now on? When
C