Bud was a good driver, and he had a friendly pair of eyes--dark blue and with a humorous little twinkle deep down in them somewhere--and a human little smiley quirk at the corners of his lips.

He did not know it, but these things helped to fill his car.
Until gasoline married into the skylark family, Bud did well enough to keep him contented out of a stock saddle.

(You may not know it, but it is harder for an old cow-puncher to find content, now that the free range is gone into history, than it is for a labor agitator to be happy in a municipal boarding house.) Bud did well enough, which was very well indeed.

Before the second season closed with the first fall rains, he had paid for his big car and got the insurance policy transferred to his name.

He walked up First Street with his hat pushed back and a cigarette dangling from the quirkiest corner of his mouth, and his hands in his pockets.