when yuh strike good roads again, but they shore
won't go far in these rocks. You ask anybody."

"We-ell--I guess mebby I better--I don't see how I'm goin' to git along
any other way, but--"

Casey had gone to find where Juan had cached himself and to pluck that
apathetic youth from slumber and set him to work. Four casings and tubes
for a two-ton truck run into money, as Casey was telling himself
complacently. He had not yet sold any tires for a two-ton truck, and he
had just two fabrics and two cords, in trade vernacular. He paid no
further attention to the man, since there would be no bickering. When a
man has only two badly chewed tires, and four wheels, argument is
superfluous.

So Casey mildly kicked Juan awake and after the garage jack, and himself
wheeled out his four great pneumatic tires, and with his jackknife slit
the wound paper covering, and wondered what it was that smelled so
unpleasant. A goat bleated plaintively to remind him of their presence.
Another goat carried on the theme, and the chorus swelled quaveringly and
held to certain minor notes. Within the closed truck a small child
whimpered and then began to cry definitely at the top of its voice.

Casey looked up from bending over the fourth tire wrapping. "Better let
your folks git out and rest awhile," he invited hospitably. "It's goin' to
take a little time to put these tires on. I got some cold water back
there--help yourself."

"Well, I'd kinda like to water them goats," the man observed diffidently.
"They ain't had a drop sence early yest-day mornin'. You got water here,
ain't yuh? An' they might graze around a mite whilst we're here. Travelin'
like this, I try to kinda give 'em a chanct when we stop along the road.
It's been an awful trip. We come clear from Wyoming. How far is it from
here to San Jose, Californy?"

Casey had in the first week learned that it is not wise for a garage man
to confess that he does not know distances. People always asked him how
far it was to some place of which he had never heard, and he had learned
to name figures at random very convincingly. He named now what seemed to
him a sufficient number, and the man said "Gosh!" and went back to let
down the end gate of the trailer and release the goats. "You said you got
water for 'em?" he asked, his tone putting the question in the form of
both statement and request.

When you are selling four thirty-six-sixes, two of them cords, to a man,
you can't be stingy w