Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/170

156 the melting point. It chugged and puffed and steamed at the radiator inlet, one piston would fail and then another, but never both at the same time, and then the two would become reconciled and try to make up for lost endeavour.

The hands on the wheel, and it took hands that were expert and wrists that were strong to control the car in the sand, were those of a girl. A girl dressed in a khaki skirt, a middy blouse open at a rather thin throat, with a scarlet tie under the wide collar, and a floppy straw hat tied down sunbonnet fashion, over a mop of yellow curly hair. Her small feet on the controls were in canvas sneakers above which showed legs that were symmetrical though somewhat over-slender and, in contrast to the rest of her costume, clad in expensive silk.

Her blue eyes were fixed on the way, and a little pucker between the arching eyebrows showed the stress with which she took her task. So did the rounded chin that had a dimple in it but was sternly thrust forward. A pretty girl, for all the mixture of tan and freckles on sunburnt face and neck and arms.

Beside her sat Diamond Dick Harvey leaning forward, his face still swollen from his waterless fight against the desert, his hands gripping the side and the seat of the vehicle. In the tonneau were demi-johns of water.

"These sure beat burros so long's they keep goin'," said Harvey. "On'y trubble is they're kind of apt to bust down, ain't they?"

"Not this one," said the girl. "Long as I've