Milt did not reflect that if the poet had watched the Teal bug go by, he
would not have recorded a scare-horn, a dare-horn, or anything mightier
than a yip-horn. Milt saw himself a cross-continent racer, with the
envious poet, left behind as a dot on the hill, celebrating his passing.
"Lord!" he cried. "I didn't know there were books like these! Thought
poetry was all like Longfellow and Byron. Old boys. Europe. And rhymed
bellyachin' about hard luck. But these books--they're me." Very
carefully: "No; they're I! And she gave 'em to me! I will see her again!
But she won't know it. Now be sensible, son! What do you expect?
Oh--nothing. I'll just go on, and sneak in one more glimpse of her to
take back with me where I belong."
Half an hour after Claire had innocently passed his ambush, he began to
follow her. But not for days was he careless. If he saw her on the
horizon he paused until she was out of sight. That he might not fail her
in need, he bought a ridiculously expensive pair of field glasses, and
watched her when she stopped by the road. Once, when both her right rear
tire and the spare were punctured before she could make a town, Milt
from afar saw her patch a tube, pump up the tire in the dust. He ached
to go to her aid--though it cannot be said that hand-pumping was his
favorite July afternoon sport.
Lest he encounter her in the streets, he always camped to the eastward
of the town at which she spent the night. After dusk, when she was
likely to end the day's drive in the first sizable place, he hid his bug
in an alley and, like a spy after the papers, sneaked into each garage
to see if her car was there.
He would stroll in, look about vacuously, and pipe to the suspicious
night attendant, "Seen a traveling man named Smith?" Usually the garage
man snarled, "No, I ain't seen nobody named Smith. An'thing else I can
do for you?" But once he was so unlucky as to find the long-missing Mr.
Smith!
Mr. Smith was surprised and insistent. Milt had to do some quick lying.
During that interview the cement floor felt very hard under his
fidgeting feet, and he thought he heard the garage man in the office
telephoning, "Don't think he knows Smith at all. I got a hunch he's that
auto thief that was through here last summer."
When Claire did not stop in the first town she reached after twilight,
but drove on by dark, he had to do some perilous galloping to catch up.
The lights of a Teal are excellent for adornment, but they have no
relation to illumination. They are dependent upon a magneto which is
dependent only upon faith.