"I'm sorry I've got no shofer. There was a run on the livery business this morning for some reason. That's why I'm office-boy here now, 'stead of runnin' the office next door," Ponk explained, as blandly and conclusively as possible. "I don't want a chauffeur at all. I drive myself," Jerry declared. "You say you do?" Ponk stared at her little hands in their close-fitting white gauntlets. "Now I'd never thought that. Yes," weakly, "I've got a dandy car for them that can use it, which is mostly me. It's the little gray gadabout we come up from the station in the other evening. There ain't another one like it this side of the Mississippi River--S'liny, Kansas, anyhow. You see, I have to be awful particular. I don't want it smashed against a stone wall or run off of some bridge." "I've never done that with a car yet. And I used to drive our big eight-cylinder machine over all kinds of Pennsylvania roads." The blue eyes were full of pathos as the memory of her home and all its luxuries swept over Jerry. And Ponk understood. "We don't have no stone walls out here, and there ain't no bridges, either, except across the Sage Brush in a few places, because there ain't never water enough out here to bridge over. Yes, you may take the gadabout. I just know you'll be careful. That little car's just like a colt, and noways bridle-wise under a woman's hand." "Thank you. I'll take no risks." When Jerry was seated in the shining gray car, with her hand on the wheel, she turned to Mr. Ponk. "By the way, do you know who owns any of the claims, as you call them, in this valley?" she asked. "I was going to speak to Mr. Macpherson, but you say he has gone out of town." "Yes'm." Ponk fairly swelled with importance. "I know every claim, and who owns it, from the hills up yonder clear to the mouth of that stream. My hotel an' livery business together keeps me as well posted as the Macpherson Mortgage Company that holds a mortgage on most of them." "Can you tell me where to find the one belonging to the estate of the late Jeremiah Swaim, of Philadelphia?" Jerry asked, in a low voice. The short little man beside the car looked away in pity and surprise as he said: