's a year, almost, since I was here," Casey admitted; "I been out
prospecting."

"Well, we can just work it fine! Can't we go somewhere and talk it over?
I've got a swell idea, Mister, if you'll just listen to it a minute, and
it'll certainly be a godsend to us to be able to give our show. We've got
some crutches amongst our stage props, and some scar patches, Mister, that
would certainly make you up fine as a cripple. Wouldn't they believe it,
Mister, if it was told that you had been in an accident and got crippled
for life?"

In spite of his embarrassment, Casey grinned. "Yeah, I guess they'd
believe it, all right," he admitted. "They'd likely be tickled to death to
see me goin' around on crutches." He cast a hasty thought back into his
past, when he had driven a careening stage between Pinnacle and Lund,
strewing the steep trail with wreckage not his own. "Yeah, it'd tickle 'em
to death. Them that's rode with me," he concluded.

"Oh, you certainly are a godsend! Duck outa sight somewhere while I go
tell Jack dear that we've found a way open for us to show, after all!"
While Casey was pulling the sag out of his jaw so that he could protest,
could offer her money, do anything save what she wanted, the show lady
disappeared. Casey turned and went back into The Club, remained five
minutes perhaps and then walked very circumspectly across the street to
Bill's garage. It was there that the Barrymores found him when they came
seeking with their dilapidated old car, their crutches, their grease paint
and scar patches, to make a cripple of Casey whether he would or no.

Bill fell uproariously in with the plan, and Dwyer, stopping at the garage
on his way home to dinner, thought it a great joke on Lund and promised to
help the benefit along. Casey, with three drinks under his belt and his
stomach otherwise empty, wanted to sing,

"Hey, ok Bill! Can-n yuh play the fiddle-o?
Yes, by--"

and stuck there because of the show lady. Casey wouldn't have recognized
Trouble if it had walked up and banged him in the eye. He said sure, he'd
be a cripple for the lady. He'd be anything once, and some things several
times if they asked him in the right way. And then he gave himself into
the hands of Jack dear.

CHAPTER VIII

Casey looked battered and sad when the show people were through with him.
He had expected bandages wound picturesquely around his person, but the
Barrymores were more artistic than that. Casey's righ