to muck out the hole he was drilling.

I saw him larruping in his Ford along a sandy, winding trail it
would break a snake's back to follow, hot on the heels of his
next adventure, dreaming of the fortune that finally came. . . .

The Little Woman came in looking as if she had been talking with
Destiny and was still dazed and unsteady from the meeting.

"Well-sir, he's gone!" she announced, and stopped and tried to
smile. But her eyes looked hurt and sorry. "He has bought a Ford
and a tent and outfit since he left us down on Seventh and
Broadway, and he just called me up on long-distance from San
Bernardino. He's going out on a prospecting trip, he says. I'll
say he's been going some! A speed cop overhauled him just the
other side of Claremont, he told me, and he was delayed for a few
minutes while he licked the cop and kicked him and his motorcycle
into a ditch. He says he's sorry he sassed me, and if I can
drive a car in this darned town and not spend all my loose change
paying fines, I'm a better man than he is. He doesn't know when
he'll be back--and there you are."

She sat down wearily on the arm of an over-stuffed armchair and
looked up at the gilt-and-onyx clock which I suspected Casey of
having bought. "If he isn't lynched before morning," she sighed
whimsically, "he'll probably make it to the Nevada line all
right."

I rose, also glancing at the clock. But the Little Woman put up
a hand to forbid the plan she read in my mind.