The Trail of the White Mule Read online

  CHAPTER FIVE

  That night Casey slept soundly in a bunk built above Joe's bed in thedugout, with Hank and Paw on the opposite side of the room with theirguns handy. In the morning he thought well enough of his stomach toget up and start breakfast when Hank had built the fire. He was awareof Joe's suspicious gaze from the lower bunk, and of the close presenceof Joe's six-shooter eyeing him balefully from underneath the topblanket. Hank, too, was watchful as a coyote, which he much resembled,in Casey's opinion. But Casey did not mind trifles of that kind, oncehis mind was at ease about the breakfast and he was free to slice baconthe right thickness, and mix the hot-cake batter himself. For the firsttime in many weeks he sang--if you could call it singing--over his work.

  When Casey Ryan sings over a breakfast fire, you may expect the baconfried exactly right. You may be sure the hot-cakes will be brownedcorrectly with no uncooked dough inside, and that the coffee will giveyou heart for whatever hardship the day may hold.

  Even Paw's surliness lightened a bit by the time he had speared histenth cake and walloped it in the bacon grease before sprinkling itthick with sugar and settling the eleventh cake on top. Casey waseyeing the fourteenth cake on Hank's plate when Joe looked up at himover a loaded fork.

  "Save out enough dough for three good uns," Joe ordered, "an' fill thatlittle coffee pot an' set it to keep hot, before Hank hogs the hullthing. Dad, seems like you're, too busy t' think uh some things Martwouldn't want forgot." Paw looked quickly at Casey; but Casey Ryan hadplayed poker all his life, and his weathered face showed no expressionbeyond a momentary interest, which was natural.

  "Other feller hurt bad?" he inquired carelessly, looking at Joe'sbandaged hand. He almost grinned when he saw the relieved glancesexchanged between Joe and Paw.

  "Leg broke," Joe mumbled over a mouthful. "Dad, he set it an' it'sdoin' all right. He's up in another cabin." Through Hank's brainlesstitter, Joe added carefully, "Bad ground in the first right-hand drift.We had to abandon it. Rocks big as your head comin' in on yuhonexpected. None uh them right-hand drifts is safe fer a man t' walkin, much less work."

  Thereupon Casey related a thrilling story of a cave-in, and assured Joethat he and his partner were lucky to get off with mere broken bones.Casey, you will observe, was running contrary to his nature and leaningto diplomacy.

  For himself, I am sure he would never have troubled to placate them. Hewould have taken the first slim chance that offered--or made one--andfought the three to a finish.

  But there was the old woman in the rock hut above them, rocking backand forth and staring at a wall that had no visible opening save onesmall window to let in the light of outdoors. Prisoner she mustbe--though why, Casey could only guess.

  Perhaps she was some desert woman, the widow of some miner who had beenshot as these three had tried to shoot him and Barney Oakes. Mean,malevolent as they were, they would still lack the brutishnessnecessary to shoot an old woman. So they had shut her up there in therock hut, not daring to take her back to civilization where she wouldtell of the crime. It was all plain enough to Casey. The story of thecrippled miner made him curl his lip contemptuously when his back wassafely turned from Joe.

  That day Casey thought much of the old woman in the hut, and of Paw'sworse than inferior cooking. Though he did not realize the change inhimself, six months of close companionship with the Little Woman hadchanged Casey Ryan considerably. Time was when even hissoft-heartedness would not have impelled him to patient scheming thathe might help an old woman whose sole claim upon his sympathy consistedof four rock walls and a look of calm despair in her eyes. Now, Caseywas thinking and planning for the old woman more than for himself.

  Wherefore, Casey chose the time when he was "putting in an upper"(which is miner's parlance for drilling a hole in the upper face of thetunnel). He gritted his teeth when he swung back the single-jack andlanded a glancing blow on the knuckles of his left hand instead of thedrill end. No man save Casey Ryan or a surgeon could have toldpositively whether the metacarpal bones were broken or whether the handwas merely skinned and bruised.

  Joe came up, regarded the bleeding hand sourly, led Casey out to thedugout and bandaged the hand for him. There would be no more tunnelwork for Casey until the hand had healed; that was accepted withoutcomment.

  That night Casey proved to Paw that, with one hand in a sling muchresembling Joe's, he could nevertheless cook a meal that made eating apleasure to look forward to. After that the old woman in the littlestone hut had pudding, sometimes, and cake made without eggs, and pie;and the potatoes were mashed or baked instead of plain boiled. Caseyhad the satisfaction of seeing the dishes return empty to the dugout,and know that he was permitted to add something to her comfort andwell-being. The Little Woman would be glad of that, Casey thought witha glow. She might never hear of it, but Casey liked to feel that hewas doing something that would please the Little Woman.

  For the first few days after Casey was installed as cook, one of thethree remained always with him, making it plain that he was underguard. Two were always busy elsewhere. Casey saw that he was expectedto believe that they were at work in the tunnel, driving it in to acertain contact of which they spoke frequently and at length.

  At supper they would mention their footage for that day's work, andCasey would hide a grin of derision. Casey knew rock as he knew baconand beans and his sour-dough can. To make the footage they claimed tobe making in that tunnel, they would need to shoot twice a day, with around of, say, five holes to a shot.

  As a matter of fact, two holes a day, one shot at noon and one atnight, were the most Casey ever heard fired in the tunnel or elsewhereabout the mine. But he did not tell them any of the things he thought;not even Joe, who had intelligence far above Paw and Hank, ever guessedthat Casey listened every day for their shots and could tell, almost toan inch what progress they were actually making in the tunnel. Nor didhe guess that Casey Ryan with his mouth shut was more unsafe than"giant powder" laid out in the sun until it sweated destruction.

  Persistent effort, directed by an idea based solely upon an abstracttheory, must be driven by a trained intelligence. In this case theabstract theory that every prisoner must be watched must support itselfunaided by Casey's behavior. Not even Joe's intelligence was trainedto a degree where the theory in itself was sufficient to hold him tothe continuous effort of watching Casey.

  Wherefore Paw, Hank and Joe presently slipped into the habit of leavingCasey alone for an hour or so; being careful to keep the guns out ofhis reach, and returning to the dugout at unexpected intervals to makesure that all was well.

  Casey Ryan knew his pots and pans, and how to make them fill his daysif need be. With savory suppers and his care-free, Casey Ryan grin, hepresently lulled them into accepting him as a handy man around camp,and into forgetting that he was at least a potential enemy. Afoot andalone in that unfriendly land, with his left hand smashed and carriedin a sling, and on his tongue an Irish joke that implied content withhis captivity, Casey Ryan would not have looked dangerous to moreintelligent men than these three.

  They should have looked one night under the bedding in Casey's bunk.More important still would have been the safeguarding of their "giantpowder" and caps and fuse. They should not have left it in a gouged,open hollow under a boulder near the dugout. They were not burdened bythe weight of their brains, I imagine.

  Just here I should like to say a few words to those who are whollyignorant of the devastating power contained in "giant powder"--which isdynamite. If you have never had any experience with the stuff, you arelikely to go out with a bang and a puff of bluish-brown smoke when yougo. On the other hand, you may believe the weird tales one reads nowand then, of how whole mountainsides have been thrown down by thedischarge of a few sticks of dynamite. Or of one man striking terrorto the very souls of a group of mutinous miners by threatening to throwa piece at them. Very well, now this is the truth without any frillsof exaggeration or any belittlement:

 
Dynamite MAY go off by being thrown so that it lands with a jar, but itis not likely to be so hasty as all that. Whole boxes of it have beendropped off wagons traveling over rough trails, with no worse effectthan a nervous chill down the spine of the driver of the wagon. It istrue that old stuff, after lying around for months and months throughvarying degrees of temperature, may perform erratically, exploding whenit shouldn't and refusing to explode when it should. The average minerrefuses to take a chance with stale "giant" if he can get hold of fresh.

  One stick the size of an ordinary candle, and from that to a maximumamount of four sticks, may be used to "load" a hole eighteen totwenty-four inches long, drilled into living rock. The amount ofdynamite used depends upon the quality of rock to be broken and theskill and good judgment of the miner. In average hard-rock mining,from three to five of these holes are drilled in a space four-by-sixfeet in area.

  A stick of dynamite is exploded by inserting in one end of the stick ahigh-power detonating cap which will deliver a twenty-pound blow perX--whatever that means. From three- to six-X caps are used in ordinarymining. Three-X caps sometimes fail to explode a stick of dynamite. Asix-X cap, delivering a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound blow, may becounted upon to do the work without fail.

  The cap itself is exploded by a spark running through a length of fuse,the length depending altogether upon the time required to reach a pointof safety after the fuse is lighted. The cap is really more dangerousto handle than is the dynamite itself. The cap is a tricky thing thatmay go off at any jar or scratch or at a spark from pipe or cigarette.You can, if you are sufficiently careless of possible results, lightthe twisted paper end of a stick of dynamite and watch the dynamiteburn like wax in your fingers; it MAY go off and set your friends towork retrieving portions of your body. More likely, it will do nothingbut burn harmlessly.

  Well, then, a piece of fuse is inserted in the open end of the cap, andthe metal pressed tight against the fuse to hold it in place. Presseddown by the miner's teeth, sometimes, if he has been long in thebusiness and has grown careless about his head; otherwise he crimps thecap on with a small pair of pliers or the back of his knife blade--andfeels a bit easier when it is done without losing a hand.

  You would think, unless you are accustomed to the stuff, that when fiveholes are loaded with, probably, ten or twelve sticks of dynamite tothe lot, each hole containing a six-X exploding cap as well, that thefirst shot would likewise be the last shot and that the whole tunnelwould cave in and the mountain behind it would shake. Nothing like thatoccurs. If there are five loaded holes in the tunnel face, and you donot hear, one after the other, five muffled BOOMS, you will know thatone hole failed to go off--and that the miner is worried. It happenssometimes that four holes loaded with eight sticks of dynamite explodewithin a foot or so of the fifth hole and yet the fifth hole remains"dead" and a menace to the miner until it is discharged.

  So please don't swallow those wild tales of a stick of dynamite thatthrew down a mountainside. I once read a story--it was not so longago--of a Chinaman who wiped out a mine with a little piece of dynamitewhich he carried in his pocket. I laughed.

  Casey Ryan, on the first day when he was left alone with his crippledhand and his pots and pans for company, did nothing whatever that hewould not have done had one of the three been present. He wassuspicious of their going and thought it was a trap set to catch him inan attempted escape.

  On the second day when the three went off together and left him alone,Casey went out gathering wood and discovered just where the "powder,"fuse and caps were kept under a huge, black boulder between the tunnelportal and the dugout. On the third day he also gathered wood andhelped himself to two sticks of dynamite, three caps and eighteeninches of fuse. Not enough to be missed unless they checked theirsupply more carefully than Casey believed they did; but enough forCasey's purpose nevertheless.

  That night, while the moon shone in through the dingy window at thehead of his bunk and gave him a little light to work by, Casey sat upin bed and snored softly and with a soothing rhythm while he cut astick of dynamite in two, capped five inches of fuse for each pieceworking awkwardly with his one good hand and pinching the caps tightwith his teeth, which might have sent him with a bang into KingdomCome--and very carefully worked the caps into the powder until no morethan three inches of fuse protruded from the end of the half stick. Itwould have been less dangerous to land with a yell in the middle of thefloor and fight the three men with one bare hand, but Casey's couragenever turned a hair.

  Still snoring mildly, he held up to the moonlight two deadly weaponsand surveyed them with much satisfaction. They would not be so quick,as fiction would have them, but if his aim was accurate in throwing,they would be deadly enough. Moreover, he could count with a good dealof certainty upon a certain degree of terror which the sight of them inhis hand would produce.

  When Casey Ryan cooked breakfast next morning, he carried twohalf-sticks of loaded dynamite under his hand in the sling. Can youwonder that even he shied at standing over the stove cooking hot cakesand complained that his broken hand pained him a lot and that the heatmade it worse? But a shrewd observer would have noticed on his facethe expression of a cat that has been shut in the pantry over night.

  Joe volunteered to take another look at the hand and see if bloodpoison was "setting in"; but Casey said it didn't feel like bloodpoison. He had knocked it against the bunk edge in his sleep, hedeclared. He'd dose 'er with iodine after a while, and she'd be allright.

  Joe let it go at that, being preoccupied with other matters at whichCasey could only guess. He conferred with Paw outside the dugout afterbreakfast, called Hank away from the dish-washing and the three set offtoward the tunnel with a brisker air than usually accompanied them towork. Casey watched them go and felt reasonably sure of at least twohours to himself.

  The first thing Casey did after he had made sure that he was actuallyalone was to remove the deadly stuff from the sling and lay it on ashadowed shelf where it would be safe but convenient to his hand. Then,going to his bunk, he reached under the blankets and found the otherstick of dynamite which he had not yet loaded. This he laid on thekitchen table and cut it in two as he had done last night with theother stick. With his remaining cap he loaded a half and carried itback to his bunk. He was debating in his mind whether it was worthwhile purloining another cap from a box under the boulder when anotherfancy took him and set him grinning.

  Four separate charges of dynamite, he reasoned, would not be necessary.It was an even chance that the sight of a piece with the fuse in hishand would be sufficient to tame Paw or Hank or Joe--or the threetogether, for that matter--without going further than to give them asight of it.

  With that idea uppermost, Casey split the paper carefully down the sideof the remaining half-stick, took out the contents in a tin plate andcarried it outside where he buried it in the sand beneath a bush.Returning to the dugout he made a thick dough of leftover pancakebatter and molded it into the dynamite wrapping with a fragment ofharmless fuse protruding from the opened end. When the thing was dry,Casey thought it would look very deadly and might be useful. Afterseveral days of helplessness for want of a weapon, Casey was in a moodto supply himself generously.

  He finished the dish-washing, working awkwardly with one hand. Afterthat he put a kettle of beans on to boil, filled the stove with pinonsticks and closed the drafts. He armed himself with the two loadedpieces of dynamite from the cupboard, filled his pockets with suchother things as he thought he might need, and went prospecting on hisown account.

  At the portal of the tunnel he stopped and listened for the ping-g,ping-g of a single-jack striking steadily upon steel. But the tunnelwas silent, the ore car uptilted at the end of its track on the dump.Yet the three men were supposedly at work in the mine, had talked atbreakfast about wanting to show a certain footage when the bossreturned, and of needing to hurry.

  Casey went into the tunnel, listening and going silently; sounds travelfar in undergroun
d workings. At the mouth of the first right-handdrift he stopped again and listened. This, if he would believe Joe,was the drift where the bad ground had caused the accident to Joe andhis partner whose leg had been broken. Casey found the drift as silentas the main tunnel. He went in ten feet or so and lighted the candlehe had pulled from inside his shirt. With the candle held in theswollen fingers of his injured hand, and a prospector's pick taken fromthe portal in his other, Casey went on cautiously, keeping an eye uponthe roof which, to his wise, squinting eyes, looked perfectly solid andsafe.

  If a track had ever been laid in this drift it had long since beenremoved. But a well-defined path led along its center with boot tracksgoing and coming, blurring one another with much passing. Casey grinnedand went on, his ears cocked for any sound before or behind, his shoesslung over his arm by their tied laces.

  So he came, in the course of a hundred feet or so, to a crude door ofsplit cedar slabs, the fastening padlocked on his side. Casey hadvaguely expected some such bar to his path, and he merely gave a gruntof satisfaction that the lock was old and on his side of the door.

  With his jackknife Casey speedily took off one side of the lock andopened it. Making the door appear locked behind him when he had passedthrough was a different matter, and Casey did not attempt it. Instead,he merely closed the door behind him, carrying the padlock in with him.

  As Casey reviewed his situation, being on the butte at all was a riskin itself. One detail more or less could not matter so much. Besides,he was a bold Casey Ryan with two loaded half-sticks of dynamite in hissling.

  A crude ladder against the wall of a roomy stope beyond the door didnot in the least surprise him. He had expected something of this sort.When he had topped the ladder and found himself in a chamber thatstretched away into blackness, he grunted again his mental confirmationof a theory working out beautifully in fact. His candle held close tothe wall, he moved forward along the well-trodden path, looking for adoor. Mechanically he noticed also the formation of the wall and thevein of ore--probably high-grade in pockets, at least--that had causedthis chamber to be dug. The ore, he judged, had long since been takenout and down through the stope into the tunnel and so out through themain portal. These workings were old and for mining purposes abandoned.But just now Casey was absorbed in solving the one angle of the mysterywhich he had stumbled upon at first, and he gave no more than a glanceand a thought to the silent testimony of the rock walls.

  He found the door, fastened also on the outside just as he had expectedit would be. Beside it stood a rather clever heating apparatus whichCasey did not examine in detail. His Irish heart was beating ratherfast while he unfastened the door. Beyond that door his thoughts wentquesting eagerly but he hesitated nevertheless before he lifted hisknuckles and rapped.

  There was no reply. Casey waited a minute, knocked again, then pulledthe door open a crack and looked in. The old woman sat there rockingback and forth, steadily, quietly. But her thin fingers were rolling acorner of her apron hem painstakingly, as if she meant to hem it again.Her eyes were fixed absently upon the futile task. Casey watched heras long as he dared and cleared his throat twice in the hope that shewould notice him. But the old woman rocked back and forth and rolledher apron hem; unrolled it and carefully rolled it again.

  "Good morning, ma'am," said Casey, clearing his throat for the thirdtime and coming a step into the room with his candle dripping wax onthe floor.

  For just an instant the uneasy fingers paused in their rolling of theapron hem. For just so long the rockers hesitated in their motion.But the old woman did not reply nor turn her face toward him; and Caseypushed the door shut behind him and took two more steps toward her.

  "I come to see if yuh needed anything, ma'am; a friend, mebbe." Caseygrinned amiably, wanting to reassure her if it were possible to makeher aware of his presence. "They had yuh locked in, ma'am. That don'tlook good to Casey Ryan. If yuh wanta get out--if they got yuh held aprisoner here, or anything like 'that, you can trust Casey Ryan any oldtime. Is--can I do anything for yuh, ma'am?" The old woman dropped herhands to her lap and held them there, closely clasped. Her head swungslowly round until she was looking at Casey with that awful, fixedstare she had heretofore directed at the wall or the floor.

  "Tell those hell-hounds they have a thousand years to burn--every oneof them!" she said in a deep, low voice that had in it a singingresonance like a chant. "Every cat, every rat, every mouse, everylouse, has a thousand year's to burn. Tell Mart the hounds of hellmust burn!" Her voice carried a terrible condemnation far beyond themeaning of the words themselves. It was as if she were pronouncing thedoom of the whole world. "Every cat, every rat, every mouse, everylouse--"

  Casey Ryan's jaw dropped an inch. He backed until he was against thedoor. He had to swallow twice before he could find his voice, andthose of you who know Casey Ryan will appreciate that. He waited untilshe had finished her declaration.

  "No, ma'am, you're wrong. I come up here to see if I could help yuh."

  "Hounds of hell--black as the bottomless pit that spewed you forth toprey upon mankind! The world will have to burn. Tell those hounds ofhell that bay at the gibbous moon the world will have to burn. Everycat, every rat, every mouse, every louse has a thousand years to burn!"

  Casey Ryan, with his mouth half open and his eyes rather wild,furtively opened the door behind him. Still meeting fixedly the dullglare of the old woman's eyes, Casey slid out through the door andfastened it hastily behind him. With an uneasy glance now and thenover his shoulder as if he feared the old woman might be in pursuit ofhim, he hurried back down the ladder to the closed door in the drift,pulled the door shut behind him and put the padlock in place before hebreathed naturally.

  He stopped then to put on his shoes, made his way to the drift openingand listened again for voices or footsteps. When he found the wayclear he hurried out and back to the dugout. The first thing he didwas to fill his pipe and light it. Even then the sonorous voice of theold woman intoning her dreadful proclamation against the world rang inhis ears and sent occasional ripples of horror down his spine. Seenthrough the window, she had looked a sad, lonely old lady who neededsympathy and help. At closer range she was terrible. Casey was tryingto forget her by busying himself about the stove when Joe walked inunexpectedly.

  Joe stood just inside the door, staring at Casey with a glassy look inhis eyes. Something in Joe's face warned Casey of impending events;but with that terrible old woman still fresh in his mind, Casey was inthe mood to welcome distraction of any sort. He shifted his hand inthe sling so that his concealed weapons lay more comfortably therein,secure from detection, and waited.

  Joe leaned forward, lifted an arm slowly and aimed a finger at Caseyaccusingly.

  "Pap says that you're a Federal officer!" he began, waggling his fingerat Casey. "Pap thinks you come here spyin' around t' see what we're upto on this here butte. Now, you can't pull nothin' like that! Youcan't get away with it.

  "Hank, he wants t' bump yuh off an' say nothin' to anybody. Now, Icome t' have it out with yuh. If you're a Federal officer we're goin't' settle with yuh an' take no chances. Mart, he's more easy-goin' insome ways, on account of havin' his crazy ol' mother on 'is hands t'take care of. Mart don't want no killin'--on account of his mothergoin' loony when 'is dad got killed. But Mart ain't here. Pap an'Hank, they been at me all mornin' t' let 'em bump yuh off.

  "But Pap an' Hank, they're drunk, see? I'm the only sober man left onthe job. So I come up here t' settle with yuh myself. Takes a soberman with a level head t' settle these things. Now, if you come up herespyin' an' snoopin', you git bumped off an' no argument about it.Mart's got his mother t' take care of--an' we aim t' pertect Mart. Ifyou're a Federal officer, I want t' know it here an' now. If yuhain't, I want yuh t' sample some uh the out-kickin'est 'White Mule' yuhever swallered. Now which are yuh, and what yuh goin' t' do? I wantmy answer here an' now, an' no argument an' no foolin'!"

  Casey blinked but
his mouth widened in a grin. "Me, I never wentlookin' fer nothin, I wouldn't put under my vest, Joe," he declaredconvincingly. So that was it! He was thinking against time.Moonshiners as well as would-be murderers they were--and Joe drunk andgiving them away like a fool. Casey wished that he knew where Hank andPaw were at this moment. He hoped, too, that Joe was right--that Hankand Paw were drunk. He'd have the three of them tied in a row beforedark, in any case. The thing to do now was to humor Joe along--leaveit to Casey Ryan!

  Joe was uncorking a small, flat bottle of pale liquor. Now he held itout to Casey. Casey took it, thinking he would pretend to drink, wouldurge Joe to take a drink; it would be simple, once he got Joe started.But Joe had a few ideas of his own concerning the celebration. Hepulled a gun unexpectedly, leaned against the closed door to steadyhimself and aimed it full at Casey.

  "In just two minutes I'm goin' t' shoot if that there bottle ain'tempty," he stated gravely, nodding his head with intense pride in hisability to handle the situation. "If you're a Federal officer, yuhwon't dast t' drink. If yuh ain't, you'll be almighty glad to. Anyway,it'll be settled one way or t'other. Drink 'er down!"

  Casey blinked again, but this time he did not grin. He debated swiftlyhis chance of scaring Joe with the dynamite before Joe would shoot.But Joe had his finger crooked with drunken solemnity upon the trigger.The time for dynamite was not now.

  "Pap an' Hank, they lap up anything an' call it good. I claim that'sgot a back-action kick to it. Drink 'er down!"

  Casey drank 'er down. It was like swallowing flames. It was ahalf-pint flask, and it was full when Casey, with Joe's eyes fixed uponhim, tilted it and began to drink. Under Joe's baleful glare Caseyemptied the flask before he stopped.

  Joe settled his shoulders comfortably against the doorway and watchedCasey make for the water bucket.

  "I claim that's the out-kickin'est stuff that ever was made on BlackButte. How'd yuh like it?"

  "All right," Casey bore witness, keeping his eyes fixed on Joe and thegun and trying his best to maintain a nonchalant manner. "I'd call itpurty fair hootch."

  "It's GOOD hootch!" Joe declared impressively, apparently quiteconvinced that Casey was not a Federal officer. "Can yuh feel thekick'to it?"

  Casey backed until he sat on the edge of the table his good right handsupporting his left elbow outside the sling. He grinned at Joe andwhile he still keenly realized that he was playing a part for the solepurpose of gaining somehow an advantage over Joe, he was conscious of aslight giddiness. An unprejudiced observer would have noticed that hisgrin was not quite the old, Casey Ryan grin. It was a shade foolish.

  "Bet your life I can feel the kick!" he agreed, nodding his head. "Youcan ask anybody." Then Casey discovered something strange in Joe'sappearance. He lifted his head, held it very still and regarded Joeattentively.

  "Say, Joe, what yuh tryin' to do with that six-gun? Tryin' to writeyour name in the air with it?"

  Joe looked inquiringly down at the gun, eyeing it as if it were a newand absolutely unknown object. He satisfied himself apparently beyondall doubt that the gun was doing nothing it should not do, and finallyturned his attention to Casey sitting on the table and grinning at himmeaninglessly.

  "Ain't writin' nothin'," Joe stated solemnly. "It's yore eyes. Gun'sall right--yo'r seein' crooked. It's the hootch. Back-action kick toit. Ain't that right?"

  "That's right," nodded Casey and he added, grinning more foolishly,"Darn right, that's right! Back-action kick--bet your life."

  Joe pushed the gun inside his waistband and crooked his finger atCasey, beckoning mysteriously. "C'mon an' I'll show yuh how it'smade," he invited with heavy enthusiasm. "Yore a judge uh hootch allright--I can see that. I'll show yuh how we do it. Best White Mule inNevada. Ain't that right? Ain't that the real hootch?"

  "'S right, all right," Casey agreed earnestly. "Puttin' the hoot inhootch--you fellers. You can ask anybody if that ain't right."

  Joe laughed hoarsely. "Puttin' the hoot in hootch--that's right. Iknowed you was all right. Didn't I say you was? I told Hank an' Papyou wasn't no Federal officer. They know it, too. I was foolin' backthere. I knowed you didn't need no gun pulled on yuh t' make yuh putaway the hootch. Lapped it up like a thirsty hound. I knowed yuhwould--I was kiddin' yuh, runnin' that razoo with the gun. Ain't thatright?"

  "Darn right, that's right! I knew you was foolin' all along. You knewCasey Ryan's all right--sure, you knowed it!" Casey laid his good handinvestigatively against his stomach. "Pretty hot hootch--you can askanybody if it ain't! Workin' like an air drill a'ready."

  He blinked inquisitively at Joe, who stared back inquiringly. "Who'syour friend?" Casey demanded pugnaciously. "He sneaked in on yuh. Inever seen 'im come in."

  Joe turned slowly and looked behind him at the blank boards of theunpainted door. Just as slowly he turned back to Casey. A slow grinsplit his leathery face.

  "Ain't nobody. It's the hootch. Told yuh, didn't I? Gittin' the bestof yuh, ain't it? C'mon--I'll show yuh how it's made."

  "Take a barr'l t' git the besta--Casey Ry'n," Casey boasted, his wordsblurring noticeably. "Where's y'r White Mule? Let 'er kick--CaseyRy'n can lead 'er an' tame 'er--an' make'r eat outa 's hand!"Following Joe, Casey stepped high over a rock no bigger than his fist.

  With a lurch he straightened and tried to pull his muddled wits out ofthe fog that was fast enveloping them. Dimly he sensed the importanceof this discovery which Joe had forced upon him. In flashes of normalcyhe knew that he must see all he could of their moonshine operations.He must let them think he was drunk until he knew all their secrets.He assured himself vaguely that he must, above all things, keep hishead.

  But it was all pretty hazy and rapidly growing hazier. Casey Ryan, youmust know, was not what is informally termed a drinking man. In hisyouth he might have been able to handle a sudden half-pint of moonshinewhisky and keep as level a head as he now strove valiantly to retain.But Casey's later years had been more temperate than most desert menwould believe. Unfortunately virtue is not always it own reward; atleast Casey now found himself the worse for past abstinences.

  Joe led him into the tunnel, laughing sardonically because Casey foundit scarcely wide enough for his oscillating progress. They turned intoa drift. Casey did not know which drift it was, though he triedfoggily to remember. He was still, you must know, trying to keep alevel head and gain valuable information for the sheriff who he hopedwould return to the butte with Barney.

  Paw and Hank were wrangling somewhere ahead. Casey could hear theirraised voices mingled in a confused rumbling in the pent walls of thedrift. Casey thought they passed through a doorway, and that Joeclosed a heavy door behind them, but he was not sure.

  Memory of the old woman intoning her horrible anathema surged back uponCasey with the closing of the door. The voices of Hank and Paw he nowmistook for the ravings of the woman in the stone hut. Casey balkedthere, and would not go on. He did not want to face the old womanagain, and he said so repeatedly--or believed that he did.

  Joe caught him by the arm and pulled him forward by main strength. Thevoices of Paw and Hank came closer and clarified into words; or didCasey and Joe walk farther and come into their presence?

  They were all standing together somewhere, in a large, undergroundchamber with a hole letting in the sunlight high up on one side. Caseywas positive there was a hole up there, because the sun shone in hiseyes and to avoid it he moved aside and fell over a bucket or a keg orsomething. Hank laughed loudly at the spectacle, and Paw swore becausethe fall startled him; but it was Joe who helped Casey up.

  Casey knew that he was sitting on a barrel--or something--and telling afunny story. He thought it must be very funny indeed, because everyone was laughing and bending double and slapping legs while he talked.Casey realized that here at last were men who appreciated Casey Ryan ashe deserved to be appreciated. Tears ran down his own weatheredcheeks--tears of mirth. He had never laughed so much before in all hislife, he
thought. Every one, even Paw, who was normally a mean,cantankerous old cuss, was having the time of his life.

  They attempted to show Casey certain intricacies of their still, whichmade it better than other stills and put a greater kick in the WhiteMule it bred. Somewhere back in the dim recesses of Casey's mind, hefelt that he ought to listen and remember what they told him. Vaguelyhe knew that he must not take another drink, no matter how insistentthey were. In the brief glow of that resolution Casey protested thathe could hoot without any more hootch. But he hated to hurt Paw'sfeelings, or Hank's or Joe's. They had made the hootch with a new anddifferent twist, and they were honestly anxious for his judgment andapproval. He decided that perhaps he really ought to take a littlemore just to please them; not much--a couple of drinks maybe.Wherefore, he graciously consented to taste the "run" of the daybefore. Thereafter Casey Ryan hooted to the satisfaction of everybody,himself most of all.

  After an indeterminate interval the four left the still, taking abottle with them so that it might be had without delay, should theymeet a snake or a hydrophobia skunk or some other venomous reptile. Itwas Casey who made the suggestion, and he became involved indifficulties when he attempted the word venomous. Once started Caseywas determined to pronounce the word and pronounce it correctly,because Casey Ryan never backed up when he once started. The result wasa peculiar humming which accompanied his reeling progress down thedrift (now so narrow that Casey scraped both shoulders frequently) tothe portal.

  They stopped on the flat of the dump and argued over the advisabilityof taking a drink apiece before going farther, as a sort of preventive.Joe told them solemnly that they couldn't afford to get drunk on thedarn' stuff. It had too hard a back-action kick, he explained, andthey might forget themselves if they took too much. It was important,Joe explained at great length, that they should not forget themselves.The boss had always impressed upon them the grim necessity of remainingsober whatever happened.

  "We never HAVE got drunk," Joe reiterated, "and we can't afford t' gitdrunk now. We've got t' keep level heads, snakes or no snakes."

  Casey Ryan's head was level. He wabbled up to Joe and told him so tohis face, repeating the statement many times and in many forms. Hedeclaimed it all the way up the path to the dugout, and when they werestanding outside. Beyond all else, Casey was anxious that Joe shouldfeel perfectly certain that he, Casey Ryan, knew what he was doing,knew what he was saying, and that his head was and always had beenperr-rf'c'ly level-l-l.

  "Jus' t' prove-it--I c'n kill that jack-over-there--without-no-gun!"Casey bragged bubblingly, running his words together as if they werebeing poured in muddy liquid from his mouth. "B'lieve it?Think-I-can't?"

  The three turned circumspectly and stared solemnly at a gray burro witha crippled front leg that had limped to the dump heap within easythrowing distance from the cabin door. Hobbling on three legs it wentnosing painfully amongst a litter of tin cans and bent paper cartons,hunting garbage. As if conscious that it was being talked about, theburro lifted its head and eyed the four mournfully, its ears looselyflopping.

  "How?" questioned Paw, waggling his beard disparagingly. "Spit 'n 'iseye?"

  "Talk 'm t' death," Hank guessed with imbecile shrewdness.

  "Think-I-can't? What'll--y'bet?"

  They disputed the point with drunken insistence and mild imprecations,Hank and Paw and Joe at various times siding impartially for andagainst Casey. Casey gathered the impression that none of thembelieved him. They seemed to think he didn't know what he was talkingabout. They even questioned the fact that his head was level. He feltthat his honor was at stake and that his reputation as a truthful manand a level-headed man was threatened.

  While they wrangled, the fingers of Casey's right hand fumbledunobserved in the sling on his left, twisting together the two shortlengths of fuse so that he might light both as one piece. Even in hisdrunkenness Casey knew dynamite and how best to handle it. Judgmentmight be dethroned, but the mechanical details of his profession weregrooved deep into habit and were observed automatically and without theaid of conscious thought.

  He braced himself against the dugout wall and raised his hand to thecigarette he had with some trouble rolled and lighted. A spittingsplutter arose, that would have claimed the attention of the three, hadthey not been unanimously engaged in trying to out-talk one anotherupon the subject of Casey's ability to kill a burro seventy-five feetaway without a gun.

  Casey glanced at them cunningly, drew back his right hand and pitchedsomething at the burro.

  "Y' watch 'im!" he barked, and the three turned around to look, with noclear conception of what it was they were expected to watch.

  The burro jerked its head up, then bent to sniff at the thin curl ofpowder smoke rising from amongst the cans. Paw and Hank and Joe werelifted some inches from the ground with the explosion. They came downin a hail of gravel, tin cans and fragments of burro. Casey, flattenedagainst the wall in preparation for the blast, laughed exultantly.

  Paw and Hank and Joe picked themselves up and clung together for mutualsupport and comfort. They craned necks forward, goggling incredulouslyat what little was left of the burro and the pile of tin cans.

  "'Z that a bumb?" Paw cackled nervously at last, clawing gravel out ofhis uncombed beard. "'Z got me all shuck up. Whar's that 'r bottle?"

  "'Z goin' t' eat a bumb--ol' fool burro!" Hank chortled weakly,feeling tenderly certain nicks on his cheeks where gravel had landed."Paw, you ol' fool, you, don't hawg the hull thing--gimme a drink!"

  "Casey's sure all right," came Joe's official O.K. of the performance."Casey said 'e c'd do it--'n' Casey done it!" He turned and slappedCasey somewhat uncertainly on the back, which toppled him against thewall again. "Good'n on us, Casey! Darn' good joke on us--'n' on theburro!"

  Whereupon they drank to Casey solemnly, and one and all, theyproclaimed that it was a VERY good joke on the burro. A merciful joke,certainly; as you would agree had you seen the poor brute hungry andhobbling painfully, hunting scraps of food amongst the litter of tincans.

  After that, Casey wanted to sleep. He forced admissions from the threethat he, Casey Ryan, was all right and that he knew exactly what he wasdoing and kept a level head. He crawled laboriously into his bunk,shoes, hat and all; and, convinced that he had defended his honor andpreserved the Casey Ryan reputation untarnished, he blissfully skippedthe next eighteen hours.