Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/171

Rh got water and gas, and believe me, I'm always sure about that end of it, I can fix anything that goes wrong with a hairpin and a package of chewing gum. A wrench comes in handy once in a while," she laughed, "but, take it from me, you can't kill one of these li'l old runalongs. I've run on rope instead of inner tubes when I couldn't patch the punctures, and I can fix a spark-plug, clean it, and put it back in the dark. I know the whole inside of the bag of tricks under the hood and I never drove one of them before I came up to Sunshine. Straight ahead?"

"Yes, Miss. I hardly figger they've got as fur as this. It 'ud be hell ter miss 'em in the cactus an' not find 'em in time. But I don't b'lieve they'd got this fur. It's sure wonderful the way you handle thet machine, an' you not techin' one of 'em 'fore you come up here. Don't seem possible."

"Any woman who can run a sewing machine could handle one of these," she said. "Doctor Seward, that's the superintendent of the sanitarium, has a daughter twelve years old who runs the new car down to Camp Verde and back for groceries and the mail and meeting the trains. She taught me how, and, since they got the new car, he lets me use this whenever I want, so long as the tires hold out and I pay for the oil and gas. That's how I happened to run across you. You were just crossing a clearing in the cactus when I first saw you. It isn't often any one comes in from the desert, I can tell you, so I drove over toward you to see if I could give you a lift.

"You needed one all right. You must have fallen