"Sure. You get ten--years! And you get out!"
From thirty yards up the road, Zolzac flung back, "You t'ink you're
pretty damn smart!" That was his last serious reprisal.
Clumsily, as one not used to it, the young man lifted his cap to Claire,
showing straight, wiry, rope-colored hair, brushed straight back from a
rather fine forehead. "Gee, I was sorry to have to swear and holler like
that, but it's all Adolph understands. Please don't think there's many
of the folks around here like him. They say he's the meanest man in the
county."
"I'm immensely grateful to you, but--do you know much about motors? How
can I get out of this mud?"
She was surprised to see the youngster blush. His clear skin flooded.
His engaging smile came again, and he hesitated, "Let me pull you out."
She looked from her hulking car to his mechanical flea.
He answered the look: "I can do it all right. I'm used to the
gumbo--regular mud-hen. Just add my power to yours. Have you a
tow-rope?"
"No. I never thought of bringing one."
"I'll get mine."
She walked with him back toward his bug. It lacked not only top and
side-curtains, but even windshield and running-board. It was a toy--a
card-board box on toothpick axles. Strapped to the bulging back was a
wicker suitcase partly covered by tarpaulin. From the seat peered a
little furry face.
"A cat?" she exclaimed, as he came up with a wire rope, extracted from
the tin back.
"Yes. She's the captain of the boat. I'm just the engineer."
"What is her name?"
Before he answered the young man strode ahead to the front of her car,
Claire obediently trotting after him. He stooped to look at her front
axle. He raised his head, glanced at her, and he was blushing again.
"Her name is Vere de Vere!" he confessed. Then he fled back to his bug.
He drove it in front of the Gomez-Dep. The hole in the road itself was
as deep as the one on the edge of the cornfield, where she was stuck,
but he charged it. She was fascinated by his skill. Where she would for
a tenth of a second have hesitated while choosing the best course, he
hurled the bug straight at the hole, plunged through with sheets of
glassy black water arching on either side, then viciously twisted the
car to the right, to the left, and straight again, as he followed the
tracks with the solidest bottoms.
Strapped above the tiny angle-iron step which replaced his running-board
was an old spade. He dug channels in front of the four wheels of her
car, so that they might go up inclines, instead of pushing against the
straight walls of mud they had thrown up. On these inclines he strewed
the brush she had brought, halting to ask, with head alertly lifted from
his stooped huddle in the mud, "Did you have to get this brush
yourself?"