The Trail of the White Mule Read online

  CHAPTER NINE

  At the corner of the Plaza where traffic is heaviest, a dingy Fordloaded with camp outfit stalled on the street-car track just as thetraffic officer spread-eagled his arms and turned with majesticdeliberation to let the East-and-West traffic through. The motormanslid open his window and shouted insults at the driver, and the trafficcop left his little platform and strode heavily toward the Ford,pulling his book out of his pocket with the mechanical motion born ofthe grief of many drivers.

  Casey Ryan, clinging to the front step of the street car on his way tothe apartment house he once more called home, swung off and beat thetraffic officer to the Ford. He stooped and gave a heave on the crank,obeyed a motion of the driver's head when the car started, and steppedupon the running board. The traffic officer paused, waved his bookwarningly and said something. The motorman drew in his head, clangedthe bell, and the afternoon traffic proceeded to untangle.

  "Get in, old-timer," invited the driver whom Casey had assisted. Caseydid not ask whether the driver was going in his direction, but got inchuckling at the small triumph over his enemies, the police.

  "Fords are mean cusses," he observed sympathetically. "They likenothing better than to get a feller in bad. But they can't pullnothin' on me. I know 'em to a fare-you-well. Notice how this onechanged 'er mind about gettin' you tagged, soon as Casey Ryan took 'erby the nose?"

  "Are you Casey Ryan?" The driver took his eyes off the traffic longenough to give Casey an appraising look that measured him mentally andphysically. "Say, I've heard quite a lot about you. Bill Masters, upat Lund, has spoke of you often. He knows you, don't he?"

  "Bill Masters sure had ought t' know me," Casey grinned. In a big,roaring, unfriendly city, here sounded a friendly, familiar tone; avoice straight from the desert, as it were. Casey forgot what hadhappened when Barney Oakes crossed his path claiming acquaintance withBill Masters, of Lund. He bit off a chew of tobacco, hunched downlower in the seat, and prepared himself for a real conflab with the manwho spoke the language of his tribe.

  He forgot that he had just bought tickets to that evening's performanceat the Orpheum, as a sort of farewell offering to his domestic goddessbefore once more going into voluntary exile as advised by the judge.Pasadena Avenue heard conversational fragments such as, "Say! Do youknow--? Was you in Lund when--?"

  Casey's new friend drove as fast as the law permitted. He talked ofmany places and men familiar to Casey, who was in a mood that hungeredfor those places and men in a spiritual revulsion against the city andall its ways.

  Pasadena, Lamanda Park, Monrovia--it was not until the car slowed forthe Glendora speed-limit sign that Casey lifted himself off hisshoulder blades, and awoke to the fact that he was some distance fromhome and that the shadows were growing rather long.

  "Say! I better get out here and 'phone to the missus," he exclaimedsuddenly. "Pull up at a drug store or some place, will yuh? I got totalkin' an' forgot I was on my way home when I throwed in with yuh."

  "Aw, you can 'phone any time. There is street cars running back totown all the time I or you can catch a bus anywhere's along here. I gotpinched once for drivin' through here without a tail-light; and twiceI've had blowouts right along here. This town's a jinx for me and Iwant to slip it behind me."

  Casey nodded appreciatively. "Every darn' town's a jinx for me," heconfided resentfully. "Towns an' Casey Ryan don't agree. Towns isharder on me than sour beans."

  "Yeah--I guess L. A.'s a jinx for you all right. I heard about yourlatest run-in with the cops. I wish t' heck you'd of cleaned up a fewfor me. I love them saps the way I like rat poison. I've got no usefor the clowns nor for towns that actually hands 'em good jack fordealin' misery to us guys. The bird never lived that got a square dealfrom 'em. They grab yuh and dust yuh off--"

  "They won't grab Casey Ryan no more. Why, lemme tell yuh what theydone!"

  Glendora slipped behind and was forgotten while Casey told the story ofhis wrongs. In no particular, according to his version, had he beenother than law-abiding. Nobody, he declaimed heatedly, had ever takenHIM by the scruff of the neck and shaken him like a pup, and got awaywith it, and nobody ever would. Casey was Irish and his father had beenIrish, and the Ryan never lived that took sass and said thank-yuh.

  His new friend listened with just that degree of sympathy whichencourages the unburdening of the soul. When Casey next awoke to thefact that he was getting farther and farther away from home, they wereaway past Claremont and still going to the full extent of the speedlimit. His friend had switched on the lights.

  "I GOT to telephone my wife!" Casey exclaimed uneasily. "I'll gambleshe's down to the police station right now, lookin' for me. An' I wantthe cops t' kinda forgit about me. I got to talkin' along an' plumbforgot I wasn't headed home."

  "Aw, you can 'phone from Fontana. I'll have to stop there anyway forgas. Say, why don't yuh stall 'er off till morning? You couldn't gethome for supper now if yuh went by wireless. I guess yuh wouldn't hatea mouthful of desert air after swallowing smoke and insults, like yuhdone in L. A. Tell her you're takin' a ride to Barstow. You can catcha train out of there and be home to breakfast, easy. If you ain't gotthe change in your clothes for carfare," he added generously, "Why,I'll stake yuh just for your company on the trip. Whadda yuh say?"

  Casey looked at the orange and the grapefruit and lemon orchards thatwalled the Foothill Boulevard. All trees looked alike to Casey, andthese reminded him disagreeably of the fruit stalls in Los Angeles.

  "Well, mebby I might go on to Barstow. Too late now to take the missusto the show, anyway. I guess I can dig up the price uh carfare fromBarstow back." He chuckled with a sinful pride in his prosperity,which was still new enough to be novel. "Yuh don't catch Casey Ryangoin' around no more without a dime in his hind pocket. I've felt thelack of 'em too many times when they was needed. Casey Ryan's going tocarry a jingle louder'n a lead burro from now on. You can ask anybody."

  "You bet it's wise for a feller to go heeled," the friend of BillMasters responded easily. "You never know when yuh might need it.Well, there's a Bell sign over there. You can be askin' your wife'sconsent while I gas up."

  Innocent pleasure; the blameless joy of riding in a Ford toward thedesert, with a prince of a fellow for company, was not so easily madeto sound logical and a perfectly commonplace incident over along-distance telephone. The Little Woman seemed struck with a senseof the unusual; her voice betrayed trepidation and she asked questionswhich Casey found it difficult to answer. That he was merely riding asfar as Barstow with a desert acquaintance and would catch the firsttrain back, she apparently failed to find convincing.

  "Casey Ryan, tell me the truth. If you're in a scrape again, you knowperfectly well that Jack and I will have to come and get you out of it.San Bernardino sounds bad to me, Casey, and you're pretty close to theplace. Do you really want me to believe that you're coming back on thenext train?"

  "Sure as I'm standin' here! What makes yuh think I'm in a scrape?Didn't I tell yuh I'm goin' to walk around trouble from now on? WhenCasey tells you a thing like that, yuh got a right to put it down forthe truth. I'm going to Barstow for a breath uh fresh air. This is afeller that knows Bill Masters. I'll be home to breakfast. I ain't inno trouble an' I ain't goin' to be. You can believe that or you can setthere callin' Casey Ryan a liar till I git back. G'by."

  Whatever the Little Woman thought of it, Casey really meant to doexactly what he said he would do. And he really did not believe thattrouble was within a hundred miles of him.