Casey Ryan

rage garage-man. What ain't reformed livery-stable men are second-hand b

d then four in Yellowstone, and I was up in Montana for over five years,

r more, "knows as much as a man that has kept

had a better chance of makin' us both a piece uh money. There's a lost gold mine I been wantin' fer years to get out and look for. I believe I know now about where to hit for. It ain't lost, exactly. There's

n' through like ants on movin' day. And here's this garage that I can get at Patmos for about half what the buildin's worth. You ain't got any competition, none whatever. You've

omewheres and holler myself to death. Casey's off

to it that the money's good. Don't you take no checks. Don't trust nobody for anything whatever. That's your weakness, Casey, and you know it. You're too dog-gone trusting. You promise me you'll put a bell on your tire tester and a log chain and drag on your pump and jack-say, yo

over, they wanta try somebody besides Casey Ryan. You ask anybody if

tourist travel is the heaviest that ever was known, and this is early May and it's only beginning. And lemme tell yuh something, Casey. I'd ruther

o ever blew out a tire there with the sun at a hundred and twenty and run

s and chucks-say, don't talk to me about any Injun packin' gold in a lard bucket. Why, lemme tell yuh, Casey, if you work it right and don't be so dog-gone kind-hearted, you'll want a five-ton truck to haul

rage, Bill. And if there's anything gits my goat, it's patchin' up old tires. I'll run 'em flat long as they'll

way they're goin', tell 'em the road's a heap worse from there on than what it was behind 'em. They'll buy new tires-you take it from me they will. And," he add

rute of a car-36-6 tires. He'd had a blow-out down the other side of Patmos and he was sore because they didn't have no tires he could use down there. He bought three tires-

he wheel and set your boot on a button and holler giddap and she'll start off in a lope, I don't know about it. A Ford's like a mule or a burro. Yo

yuh. It'll take time for the stuff to be delivered, and you can learn a lot in two

linging pensively to the barren hills behind Lund. He hunc

r more, or minin', or something that's got action. Stakin' Casey Ryan to a garage business looks kinda

soft heart and his happy-go-lucky ways; famous too as the man who invented ungodly predicaments from which he could extricate himself and be pleased if he kept his shirt on his back; Casey Ryan as the owner of a garage might justly be considered

nto a two-thousand dollar car or over," was one valuable bit of information supplied by Bill. Also: "Never

d make a fortune in the garage busi

orgot to mention three trees which stand beside the water tank and try to grow enough at night to make up for the blistering they get during the day. The highway (Coast to Coast and signed at every crossroads in red letters on white metal boards with red arrows pointing to the far skyline) shie

and it has a sparkle that lures the unwary, but it is common knowledge that no man ever drank two swallows of it if he could help himself. So the water supply of Patmos lies twelve mil

a shack with a sign straddling out over the hot porch to insult the credulity of the passers-by. The sign says that this

waking hours sitting on the front porch and following the strip of shade from the west end to the east end, a

mewhere,-perhaps to put fresh soap in the tents to melt. Toward evening the cars are very likely to slow down and stop reluctantly; sunburned, goggled women and men looking the place over without e

l came down from Lund and helped him to arrange and mark prices on his stock of tires and "parts" and accessorie

appeared to be the thing that went wrong, while the dingbat was the thing the hootin'-annie was attached to. It was perfectly simple, to Casey and his Ford, but Bill thought it was a trifle limited and was apt to confuse customers.