Gus ran his eye over the jam.  It would take an hour to make each car back up to a place where they could turn around, so that he could get the tow truck in to the bus.  Price's other buses were out, so without wasting a lot of time, towing was out.  The school bus would have to be started where it stood.

   "Twist her tail, Gus," one of the on-lookers called, "and let's get moving."

   Gus knew that there could be no tail-twisting, as this bus had no crank.  He climbed up behind the wheel, flicked the switch and stepped on the starter.  The cold, stiff motor turned over slowly.

   Gus's eyes went to the ammeter, seeing the make and break of the needle, which told him that the points were juiced and breaking.  He got out and lifted the hood.  But neither the hydrometer nor voltmeter that Gus put on the battery revealed anything wrong.

   The battery was up, but it could be breaking down under load - that motor had turned over awfully slow.

   "Get me that hot battery from my truck, Harry," he said, "while I pull this one."

   It took but a few minutes to put in the new battery.  This turned the motor over a bit livelier, but it still didn't start.  Gus jumped out of the cab, jerked the distributor cap, pulled the high-tension wire from the center socket, held it a quarter inch from the block and snapped the points with his thumb.  A blue flame sprang from the wire to the block, with an audible snapping sound.  Gus replaced the distributor cap, but not the wire.  He again held it a quarter inch from the block, turned to Creel and said, "Step on the starter, Harry."

   Creel turned the motor over with the starter.  Gus rammed the high-tension wire back in its socket in the center of the distributor cap, pulled paper and pencil from his pocket and scribbled rapidly.  He handed the paper to Price.

   "Phone Stan Hicks," he told the bus owner, "and tell him to get out here fast with this part."

   Gus quickly selected tools from his kit, dived headfirst under the hood.  Within a matter of minutes, he emerged greasy-faced but triumphant, with the starter in his hands.  Sid Price rushed up.

   "Stan says he'll be right out," he said breathlessly.  "Hey, what are you doing with that starter?  There's nothing wrong with the starter, Gus.  It turned the motor over didn't it?  Trouble's in the motor - I told Creel to - "

   "We'll see," Gus said grimly.

  Taking a rubber mat from the floor of the bus, he placed it on the road, squatted beside it.  Rapidly he unscrewed the long studs that held the body of the starter together.  He gripped the front plate and body of the starter so that these wouldn't come apart and tapped with a light hammer on the rear casting that held the Bendix drive.  This came free.  He reversed the bell-shaped casting and fitted the end of the armature shaft into the bushing of the casting, feeling it.  Then he laid the casting down, small end up, and with a sharp, narrow chisel and a few blows of the hammer neatly cut the bushing out.  He came to his feet, seeing Stan Hicks working his way toward him.

   "Good boy!" Gus, exclaimed as he took a new bushing and small reamer from his hands.  "Better get back to the shop, Stan."

   Swiftly Gus drove the new rear bushing into the casting with a hammer and piece of bronze, ran the reamer through to remove rough edges, and reassembled the starter.  Soon it was in place again.

   "Try her now, Harry," Gus called.

  Creel stepped on the starter.  The motor whirled, took hold evenly.

   "Back her into the yard until this traffic clears," Gus told Creel.  "Then you're on your way."

   Sid Price stepped forward to raise a protesting hand.  Then he halted uncertainly, looking at Gus.

   "Come on into the office," he said.

"A cup of hot coffee won't do us any harm about now."

   Seated in the office, Gus looked at Price over his steaming cup.  Thinking about Creel being fired, and that baby on the way, brought a look of concern to Gus's weathered features.

   "The way I get it," he said slowly, "is that you have your major work done here and there.  You hire Creel to drive, grease, wash and do a bit of tuning.  The kid never claimed to be a top mechanic, did he?"

   "What of it?" Sid Price demanded.

   "Takes a good mechanic," Gus said, "with a lot of experience, to know when it's a back bushing of a starter, letting the armature rub the field coils to rob the ignition of juice, that prevents cold starting - and not a weak battery or motor tune."

   "I don't know what you're talking about, Gus," Price said wearily, "but maybe I was a bit hasty in firing Creel."

   "Maybe you were," Gus told him, and his eyes twinkled.  "After all, the battery had been charged apparently, and I noticed the points were newly cleaned and set.  Seems like Creel did just what you told him to do.  Well, I'll be shoving.  Thanks for the coffee."

   Gus was halfway across the yard when Price shoved his head out the office door and called to him.

   "You got me curious," he said.  "How did you know it was the worn starter bushing that was causing the trouble?"

   "Easy," Gus told him, smiling.  "You had a spark as blue and strong as a pretty girl's eyes when I snapped the points with my thumb.  When the starter turned the motor it was yellow, and too weak to jump over the back of a narrow flea.  It could have been some other load drag in the starter system, I admit.  Let's say I just made a good guess, Sid."

   Walking toward the road, where traffic was now moving freely.  Gus decided that maybe it hadn't been too much of a guess, at that.  Not after he'd fitted the bushing of that rear casting on the end of the armature shaft and felt its wear.

   I'll bet, Gus told himself, that the starter armature was scraping the field coils when under cold load, with every turn.. I wish I'd had time to look.

END