or a minute longer, trifling with the gas, staring and
listening. The car was shaking with the throb of the motor, but Casey
could feel no forward motion. "Settin' here burnin' gas like a 'lection
bonfire--she sure _would_ think I'm drunk if she knowed it," Casey
muttered, and straddled over the side of the car to the running board.

"I wish--to--_hell_ I hadn't promised her not to cuss!" he gritted, and
with one hand still on the wheel, Casey shut off the gas and stepped down.

He stepped down upon a surface sliding beneath him at the rate of close to
forty miles an hour. The Ford went on, spinning away from him in a wide
circle, since Casey had unconsciously turned the wheel to the left as he
let go. The blow of meeting the hard clay stunned him just at first, and
he had rolled over a couple of times before he began to regain his senses.

He lifted himself groggily to his knees and looked for the car, saw it
bearing down upon him from the direction whence he had come. Before he had
time to wonder much at the phenomenon, it was upon him, over with a lurch,
and gone again.

Casey was tough, and he never knew when he was whipped. He crawled up to
his knees again, saw the same Ford coming at him with dimming headlights
from the same direction it had taken before, made a wild grab for it, was
knocked down and run over again. You may not believe that, but Casey had
the bruises to prove it.

On the third round the Ford had slowed to a walk, figuratively speaking.
Casey was pretty dizzy, and he thought his back was broken, but he was mad
clear through. He caught the Ford by its fender, hung on, clutching
frantically for a better hold, was dragged a little distance so and then,
as its speed slackened to a gentle forward roll, he made shift to get
aboard and give the engine gas before it had quite stopped. Which he told
himself was lucky, because he couldn't have cranked the thing to save his
life.

By sheer dogged nerve he drove to camp, drank cold coffee left from his
early breakfast, and decided that the bite of a Ford, while it is
poisonous, is not necessarily fatal unless it attacks one in a vital spot.

Casey could not drill a hole, he could not swing a pick; for two days he
limped groaning around camp and confined his activities to cooking his
meals. Frequently he would look at the Ford and shake his head. There was
something uncanny about it.

"She sure has got it in for me," he mused. "You can't blame her for
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