Until inky dark it rained like the deluge. Casey remained
perched in his one-man ark and tried hard to enjoy himself and
his hard-won freedom. He stabbed open a can of condensed milk,
poured it into a cup, and drank it and ate what was left of his
breakfast bannock, which he had fortunately put away in the car
out of the reach of a hill of industrious red ants.

He thought vaguely of cranking the car and going on, but gave up
the notion. One sidehill, he decided, was as good as another
sidehill for the present.

That night Casey slept fitfully in the car and discovered that
even a wall bed in a despised apartment house may be more
comfortable than the front seat of a Ford. His bones ached by
morning, and he was hungry enough to eat raw bacon and relish it.
But the sun was fighting through the piled clouds and shone
cheerfully upon the draggled pass, and Casey boiled coffee and
fried bacon and bannock beside the trail, and for a little while
was happy again.

From breakfast until noon he was busy as a beaver repairing the
washout beneath the car and on to the top of the hill. She was
going to have to get down and dig in her toes to make it, he told
the Ford, when at last he heaved pick and shovel into the
tonneau, packed in his cooking outfit and made ready to crank up.

From then until supper time he wore a trail around the car,
looking to see what was wrong and why he could not crank. He
removed hootin'-annies and dingbats (using Casey's mechanical
terms) looked them over dissatisfiedly, and put them back without