Just as soon as he struck "shipping values" that picture would be real, said Casey to himself; and he opened his tool box and set to work changing the tire.
By the time he had finished it was dark, and Casey had yet a long forty miles between himself and his sour-dough can.

He cranked the engine, switched on the electric headlights, and went tearing down the fifteen-mile incline to the lake.
"She c'n see the lights, and she'll know I ain't hangin' out in town lappin' up whisky," he told himself as he drove.

"She'll know it's Casey Ryan comin' home--know it the way them lights are slippin' over the country.

Ain't another man on the desert can put a car over the trail like this! You ask anybody." Pleased with himself and his reputation, urged by hunger and the desire to make good on his claim so that he might have the little home he instinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down another eighth of an inch--when he was already using more than he should--and nearly bounced his dynamite off the seat when he lurched over a sandy hummock and down on to the smooth floor of the lake.
It was five miles across that lake from rim to rim and taking a straight line, as Casey did, well above the crevice.

In all that distance there is not a stick, or a stone, or a bush to mark the way.