The Popular Magazine/Volume 65/Number 5/Bootlegger's Luck

by B. M. Bower

 

Bootlegger's Luck

By B. M. Bower
Author of “Goat Pro Tem., “The Joshua Palm,” Etc.

Casey Ryan's wife didn't know what he was doing out there on the desert and for a long time Casey wasn't so very sure about it himself—you can ask anybody if he was!

(A Novelette)

Chapter I.

The highway north from the Santa Fe railroad climbs an imperceptible grade across barren land to where the mesa changes and becomes potentially fertile. Up this road, going north, a cloud of yellow dust rolled swiftly. Had you stood at the first signpost and waited, you would have seen the nose of a dingy Ford emerge presently from the enveloping cloud, and a moment later you would have seen Casey Ryan, hard-eyed and with his jaw set to the fighting mood, sitting behind the wheel and driving as if he had a grudge against the road or the Ford—or both, more likely.

At the first signpost, Casey canted a malevolent eye toward it and went lurching by at top speed. The car bulked black for a moment, dimmed and merged into the fleeing cloud that presently seemed no more than a dust devil whirling across the mesa. At the second signpost Casey slowed, his eyes dwelling speculatively upon the legend: “Juniper Wells 3 m.” A narrow, little-used trail angled crookedly away through the greasewood to the northeast. Casey gave a deciding twist to the steering wheel and turned into the trail.

Juniper Wells is not nearly so nice a place as it sounds. But it is the first water north of the Santa Fe, and more than one wayfarer of the desert has turned from the main highway and approached it, driven by necessity. Such a wayfarer was Casey Ryan.

When a man has driven a Ford fifteen hours without once leaving the wheel for a drink of water or a bite to eat, however great his trouble or his haste his first thought will be of water, food and rest. Even Casey hunted the first water hole and thought longingly of bacon and coffee and a bit of sleep afterward.

Juniper Wells offered water—such as it was. The immediate surroundings offered seclusion, as precious now to Casey as the well itself. Seclusion and Casey Ryan had never before been close companions; now, however, while the soul of him had turned to bitterness and brotherly love had turned to gall, the one thing Casey was not prepared to meet was a man.

Wind and water and more wind, buffeting that trail since the last car had passed, made heavy going. The Ford labored up small hills and into shallow gullies, dipping downward at last to Juniper Wells where Casey stopped close beside the blackened embers left by some forgotten traveler of the wild. He slid stiffly from behind the wheel to the vacant seat beside him and climbed out like the old man he had determined he would never become. He walked away a few paces, turned and stood glaring back at the Ford as if familiarizing himself with an object little known and hated much.

Fate, he felt, had played a shabby trick upon an honest man. Through all the pugnacious years of his life, Casey Ryan had never broken the law deliberately and with full foreknowledge of the consequences. When Casey fought, he fought because his Irish rights had been threatened. When Casey gambled, he played where gambling found full favor among his fellows. When Casey drank, it was his custom to drink openly with a friend or two at his elbow and his money on the bar to pay. The traffic rules of the cities Casey did not consider legitimate laws, but rather a bullying attempt to force Casey Ryan into changing his manner of driving a car. For these he felt contempt. But when the stern finger at Washington pointed and said, “Thou shalt not,” Casey tipped his hat and obeyed.

Yet here he stood, a criminal in the eyes of the law, and a liar in the eyes of the Little Woman. An honest man and truthful, he had been forced into a position where he, Casey Ryan, was actually afraid to face his fellow man.

“He wasn't no friend of Bill Masters—the divil himself wouldn't of owned him fer a friend!” snarled Casey, thinking of the man who had robbed him and tricked him in the guise of friendship, and had brought him to this pass.

“Me—Casey Ryan—with a load of booze wished onto me and a car that may have been stole fer all I know, and not a darned cent to my name! They can make a goat of Casey once, but watch close when they try it the second time! Casey may be gittin' old—he might possibly have softenin' of the brain—but he'll git the skunks that done this or you'll find his carcass layin' alongside their trail bleachin' like a blowed-out tire! I'll trail 'em till my tongue hangs down t my knees! I'll git 'em an' I'll drown 'em face down in a bucket uh their own booze! They can't do dirt t' Casey Ryan an' git away with it—an' you can ask anybody if that ain't straight goods!” Whipped by emotion, his voice rose stridently until it cracked just under a shout.

“I surely will, if I can only find somebody to ask,” a strange voice spoke whimsically behind Casey. “Who is it you're going to trail till your tongue hangs down to your knees? That sounds pretty warlike, old man. Going to need any help?”

Casey whirled belligerently and faced the man who had quietly walked up behind him. For the first time in his life, Casey's eyes held a furtive gleam in their unwinking stare. He was too tired, too hungry, too full of his futile rage to dissemble.

“Where'd you come from?” he demanded truculently.

“Why does it matter, so long as I'm here?” the other parried blandly. “If you've got the makings of a meal in your car—and you look too old a hand in the desert to be without—I don't mind having a snack with you. I hate to invite myself to breakfast, but it's that or go hungry.”

The hard-bitten features of Casey Ryan, tanned by wind and sun to a fair imitation of leather, were never meant to portray mixed emotions. Wherefore, he eyed the stranger impassively except for a queer, cornered look in his eyes. He would like to know just how much of his impassioned soliloquy the man had overheard, and just what effect it would have in his mind. He would like to know who and what this man was, and how he had managed to approach within six feet without being overheard. Above and beyond all this, he would like to know whether there was any grub in the car; and, if so, how he could get at it without revealing his contraband load to the stranger. But Casey Ryan was nothing if not game. He lifted his black felt hat from his perspiring forehead and pulled it down over his right eyebrow at a devil-may-care angle which in itself gave him assurance.

“All right; if you rustle the wood and start a fire I'll see if I can dig up something,” he volunteered carelessly, and cocked an eye up at the sun. “It's early t' make a noon camp, but if you ain't et to-day it's all right with me. I can take on grub any time yuh say.” And to prepare the way for possible surprises, he added carpingly, “Feller I had along with me I ditched back there at the railroad. He done the packin' up when we broke camp—and I'd hate t' swear t' what he put in an' what he forgot. But mebbe we can make out a meal.”

The stranger seemed perfectly satisfied with this arrangement and preamble. He started off to gather dead branches of sage, and Casey turned with a deep sigh of temporary relief to the car.

Last night he had been merely a passenger in this particular Ford, driving into the desert for pastime and meaning to take the first train back home. For pastime also he had been driving the car himself and had never questioned the stranger, with whom he had made easy acquaintance, about the load he carried. When the time for questions had arrived it was too late to inquire into the business of his new friend. They had been held up by an officer of the law and, so far as Casey's ears informed him, half of the load of whisky had been deposited beside the road at the officer's command. Casey had not seen the whisky—a very large deputy sheriff with a very large automatic had compelled him to gaze straight out through the wind shield. By the conversation, brief but pungent, held between the officer and the owner of the car, Casey had learned that he had been unwittingly driving sixty gallons of bootleg whisky into the desert—though Casey himself was guiltless of conscious bootlegging. Afterward, when he had hotly refused to become a partner in the unlawful business, the heavy hand of misfortune had fallen heavier upon Casey Ryan.

Not only had he been forced at the point of a gun to drive all night-across the Mojave Desert; he had been forced that very morning to take the car and the load of whisky and to give up more than sixteen hundred dollars—which was every cent he had—to the bootlegger. It 'was what one might call literally a forced sale. The bootlegger had caught a train east; and Casey Ryan, turning instinctively to burrow deeper into the wilds with his load of guilt and his righteous rage at being trapped, had driven north.

Here at Juniper Wells he had hoped to bury the unlawful portion of his load. Not until that was safely accomplished could Casey Ryan eat or sleep in peace, or meditate upon his next move. When bootleg whisky is to be buried, custom and the law of self-preservation demand that the interment should be private even to the point of secrecy.

Fear and Casey Ryan had ever been strangers; yet he was conscious of a distinct prickly chill down his spine when he approached the car. The glance he cast over his shoulder at the stranger betrayed uneasiness, best he could do. He grinned in sickly fashion as he turned over the roll of bedding and cautiously began a superficial search which he hoped would reveal grub in plenty—without revealing anything else. He was wholly inexperienced in the fine art of bootlegging; but common sense told him that the whisky should be stowed away at the very bottom of the load. He remembered that the bootlegger had piled a good deal of stuff upon the ground before Casey first heard the clink of bottles.

A grunt of relief signaled his location of a box containing grub. A moment later he lifted out a gunny sack bulging unevenly with cooking utensils. He fished a little deeper, turned over a folded tarp and laid naked to his eyes the top of a whisky keg which he hastily recovered, his heart flopping guiltily in his chest like a fresh-landed fish.

The stranger was kneeling beside a faintly crackling little pile of twigs, his face turned inquiringly toward Casey. The guilty knowledge of that bootleg whisky laid chill hands upon the soul of Casey Ryan. It was as if a dead man was hidden away under that tarp. It seemed to him that the eyes of the stranger were suspicious and dwelt upon him altogether too frequently for a casual interest, even though Casey was carrying a box of grub to the camp fire.

Black coffee, drunk hot and strong, gave the world a brighter aspect. Casey decided that the situation was not so desperate after all. Easy enough to bluff it out—easiest thing in the world. He would just go along as if there wasn't a thing on his mind heavier than his black felt hat. No man had any right snooping around in his car, unless he carried a badge of an officer of the law. Even then, Casey reminded himself sternly, he had a perfect right to resist a search until he was shown a badge and a warrant.

This man did not look like an officer. He was not big and burly, with arrogant eyes and the hint of leashed authority in his tone. He was of medium height, owned an easy drawl and was dressed in that half-military style so popular with mining men, surveyors and others who can afford to choose what garb they will adopt for the big outdoors.

He had shown a perfect familiarity with cooking over a camp fire, and he told Casey that his name, to his friends, was Mack Nolan. Immediately afterward he grinned and added that he was Irish and didn't care who knew it. Two cups of coffee and that statement eased perceptibly the tension of Casey Ryan's nerves.

“Weill, I'm Irish meself,” Casey returned approvingly. “An' you can ask anybody if Casey Ryan has ever showed shame fer the blood that's in 'im.” He poured another cup of coffee into a chipped enameled cup and took his courage in his two hands. Mack Nolan, he told himself hearteningly, couldn't possibly know what lay hidden under the camp outfit in the Ford. And until he did know, he was harmless as anybody—so long as Casey kept an eye on him.

During breakfast and the companionable smoke that followed, Casey learned that Mack Nolan had spent some time in Nevada, ambling through the hills with a couple of mules, examining the geologic formation of the country with a view to future prospecting in districts yet undeveloped.

“The mineral possibilities of Nevada haven't been much more than scratched,” Mack Nolan observed, lying back with one arm thrown up under his head as a makeshift pillow and the other negligently attending to the cigarette he was smoking. His brown army hat was tilted over his eyes, shielding them from the sun while they dwelt rather studiously upon the face of Casey Ryan.

“Every spring I like to get out and poke around through these hills where folks as a rule don't go. Never did much prospecting—as such. Don't take kindly enough to a pick and shovel for that. What I like best is what you might call field work. If I run across a rich enough prospect, time enough then to locate a claim or two and hire a couple of strong backs to do the digging.

“I've been out now for about three weeks, and night before last, just as I had stopped to make camp and before Pd started to unpack, those two dog-goned jacks got scared at a rattler and quit the country. Left me flat, without a thing but my clothes and my six-shooter and what tobacco and matches I carried in my pocket—oh, and my field notes, of course.” He lifted the cigarette from between his lips—thin, they were, and curved and rather pitiless, one could guess, if the man were sufficiently roused.

“I wasted yesterday trying to trail 'em. But you can't do much in these rocks back here toward the river. I was hitting for the highway to catch a ride if I could, when I saw you topping this last ridge over here. Don't blame me much for bumming a breakfast, do you?” And he added with a sigh of deep physical content, “It sure-lee was some feed.” His lids drooped lower as if sleep were overtaking him. “I'd ask yuh if you'd seen anything of them mules—only I don't give a darn now. I wish this was night instead of noon. I could sleep the clock around after that bacon and bannock of yours. Haven't a care in the world,” he murmured drowsily. “Happy as a toad in the sun first warm day of spring. How soon you going to crank up?”

Casey stared at him unwinkingly through narrowed lids. He lifted his hat and resettled it with a sharp tilt over his right eyebrow—which meant always that Casey Ryan had just O. K.'d an idea.

“Go on an' take a nap if you want to,” he urged good-naturedly. “I got some tinkerin' t' do on the Ford an' I was aimin' t' lay over here an' do it. I'm kinda lookin' around, myself, fer a likely prospect, an' I guess I got all the time there is. I'll back the car down there in the hollow where she'll set level, an' clean 'er dingbats while you take a sleep.”

Casey left the breakfast things where they were, as a silent reassurance to the drowsy Mack Nolan that the car would not go off without him. Casey was rather good at observing these little psychological details. A smoked coffeepot and an unwashed frying pan, together with soiled cups and plates stacked beside a dead camp fire, establishes evidence, admissible before any jury, that the owner means to return.

Casey went over and cranked the Ford, grimly determined to make his coffeepot and frying pan lie for him if necessary. He backed the Ford down the draw a good seventy-five yards, to where a wrinkle in the bank hid him from the breakfast camp. He stopped there, and left the engine running while he straddled out over the side and went forward to the dip of the front fender to see if the Ford was still visible to Mack Nolan. He was glad to find that by crouching and sighting across the fender he could see the camp fire and the top of Nolan's hat just beyond. The man need only lift his head off his arm to see that the Ford was standing just around the turn of the draw.

For fifteen minutes the mind of Casey Ryan was at ease. He had found a shovel in the car, placed conveniently at the side where it could be used for just such an emergency as this. For fifteen minutes he had been using that shovel in what had appeared to be loose gravel just under an outcropping of rhyolite a rod or so behind the car and well out of sight of Nolan.

The shadow of a head and shoulders fell across the hole which Casey was beginning to consider almost deep enough to bury two ten-gallon kegs and forty bottles of whisky. Casey did not lift the dirt and rocks he had on his shovel. He froze to a tense quiet, goggling at the shadow.

“What are you doing, Casey? Trying to outdig a badger?” Mack Nolan's chuckle was friendliness itself.

Casey's head snapped around so that he could cock an eye up at Nolan. He grinned mechanically. “Naw. Picked up a likely lookin' piece uh float. Thought I'd just see if it didn't maybe come from this ledge.”

Mack Nolan stepped forward interestedly and looked at the ledge. “Where's the piece you found?” he very naturally inquired. “The formation just here wouldn't lead me to expect gold-bearing rock—but of course, anything is possible with gold. Let's have a look at the specimen.”

Casey had once tried to bluff a stranger with two deuces and a pair of fives, and two full stacks of blue chips pushed to the center to back the bluff. The stranger had called him, with three queens and a pair of jacks. Casey felt like that now.

He had laughed over his loss then, and he grinned now and reached carelessly to the bank beside him as if he fully expected to lay his hand on a specimen of gold-bearing rock. He went so far as to utter a surprised oath when he failed to find it. He felt in his pockets. He went forward and scanned the top of the ledge. He turned and stood astraddle, his hands on his hips, and gazed at the pile of dirt he had thrown out of the hole. “Now if that there lump uh high grade has went and slid down the bank an' got covered up with the muck,” he remarked disgustedly, “I'm a son of a gun if Fate ain't playin' agin' Casey Ryan with a flock uh aces under its vest!”

Mack Nolan laughed, and Casey slanted a look his way. “Thought I left you takin' a nap,” he said brazenly. “What's the matter? Didn't yer breakfast set good?”

Mack Nolan laughed again. It was evident that he found Casey Ryan amusing.

“The breakfast was fine,” he replied easily. “A couple of lizards got to playing tag over me. That woke me up, and the sun was so hot I just thought I'd come down and crawl into the car and go to sleep there. Go ahead with your digging, Casey—I won't bother you.”

Casey went on with his digging, but his heart was not in it. With every laggard shovelful of dirt, he glanced over his shoulder, watching Mack Nolan crawl into the back of the car and settle himself with an audible sigh of satisfaction on top of the load. He had a wild, wicked impulse to lengthen the hole and make it serve as a grave for more than bootleg whisky; but it was an impulse born of desperation and it died almost before it had lived.

Chapter II.

Casey left his digging and returned to the Ford, still determined to carry on the bluff that much tinkering was necessary before he could go on. With a great show of industry he rummaged for pliers and wrenches, removed the hood from the motor and squinted down at the little engine,

By that time Mack Nolan was snoring softly but with much convincingness in the car. Casey listened suspiciously, knowing too well how misleading a snore may be. But his own eyelids were growing exceeding heavy and the soporific sound acted hypnotically upon his sleep-hungry brain. He caught himself yawning and suddenly threw down the wrench and crawled under the back of the car, where it was shady.

The sun was nearly down when Casey awoke and crawled out. Mack Nolan was still curled comfortably in the car, his back against the bed roll. He opened his eyes and yawned when Casey leaned and looked in upon him.

“By Jove, that was a fine sleep I had,” he announced cheerfully, lifting himself up and dangling his legs outside the car. “Strike anything yet?”

“Naw.” Casey's grunt was eloquent of the mood he was in.

“Get the car fixed all right?” Mack Nolan's cheerfulness seemed diabolical to Casey.

“Naw.” Then Casey added grimly, “I'm stuck. I dunno what ails the damn thing. It's only three miles out here t' the road. Mebby you better hike over t' the highway an' ketch a ride with somebody. No use waiting fer me—can't tell how long I'll be held up here.”

Mack Nolan climbed out of the car, and Casey's spirits rose instantly.

“She was hitting all right when you backed down here,” Nolan remarked easily. “I'll just take a look at her myself. Fords are cranky sometimes. But I've assembled too many of 'em in the factory to let one get the best of me in the desert.”

Casey could almost hear his heart when it slumped down into his boots. But he wasn't licked yet.

“Aw, let the darned thing alone till we eat,” he said and pushed his hat forward to hurry his wits.

“Well, I can throw a Ford together in the dark if necessary,” smiled Mack Nolan. “Eat it is, if you want it that way. That breakfast I had seems to have sharpened my appetite for supper. Tell you what I'll do, Ryan. I'll look the Ford over while you cook supper. How'll that be?”

That wouldn't be, if Casey could prevent it. His pale, narrow-lidded eyes dwelt upon Nolan unwinkingly.

“Well, mebbe I'm kind of a crank about my car,” he hedged with a praiseworthy calmness. “Fords is like horses to me. I drove stage all m' life till I took t' prospectin'—an' I never could stand around and let anybody else monkey with my horses. Ii ain't a doubt in the world, Mr. Nolan, but what you know as much about Fords as what I do. More, mebbe. But Casey Ryan's got 'is little ways an' he can't seem t? ditch 'em. Well eat—an' then mebbe we'll look 'er over together.

“At the same time,” he went on with rising courage, “I'm liable t' stick around here fer a while an' prospect a little. If you want t' find them mules and outfit, don't bank too strong on Casey Ryan. He's liable t' change 'is mind any old time. Day er night, yuh can't tell what Casey might take a notion t' do. That there's a fact. You can ask anybody if it ain't.”

Mack Nolan laughed and slapped Casey unexpectedly on the shoulder. “You're a man after my own heart, Casey Ryan,” he declared enigmatically. “I'll stick to you and take a chance. Darn the mules. Somebody will find them and look after them until I show up.”

Casey's spirits, as he admitted to himself, were rising and falling like the hammer of a pile driver; and like the hapless pile, the hammer was driving him deeper and deeper into hopelessness. He would have given an ear to know for certain whether Mack Nolan was as innocent and friendly as he seemed. Until he did know, Casey could see nothing before him but to wait and watch his chance to give Nolan the slip.

Sitting cross-legged in the glow of the camp fire after supper, with the huge pattern of stars drawn over the purple night sky, Casey pulled out the old pipe with which he solaced his evenings and stuffed it thoughtfully with tobacco. Across the camp fire Mack Nolan sat with his hat tilted down over his eyes, smoking a cigarette and seeming at peace with all the world. Casey hoped that Nolan would forget about fixing the Ford. He hoped that Nolan would sleep well to-night. Casey was perfectly willing to sacrifice a good roll of bedding and the cooking outfit, for the privilege of traveling alone. No man, he told himself savagely, could ask a better deal than he was prepared to give Nolan. He bent to reach a burning twig for his pipe, and found Nolan watching him curiously from under his hat brim.

“What sort of looking fellows were those, Ryan, that left a load of booze on your hands?” Nolan asked matter-of-factly.

Casey burned his fingers with the blazing twig. “Who said anything about any fellers leavin' me booze?” he countered sharply. “If it's a drink you're hintin' fer, you won't get it. Casey Ryan ain't no booze peddler, an' now's as good a time as any t' let that soak into your system.”

Mack Nolan's gray eyes were still watching Casey from under his hat brim.

“It might help us both considerably,” he said quietly, “if you told me all about it, Casey. You can't cache that booze you've got in the car—I won't let you, for one thing; for another, that would be merely dodging the issue. And if you'll forgive my frankness, dodging doesn't seem to be quite in your line.”

Casey puffed hard on his pipe. “The world's gittin' so darned full uh crooks a man can't turn around now'days, without bumpin' into a few!” Casey declared bitterly. “What kinda holdup game are you playin', Mr. Nolan?—if that's your name,” he added fiercely.

Mack Nolan laughed to himself and rubbed the ash from his cigarette against the sole of his shoe. “Why,” he answered genially, “my game is to hold up the crooks. You've got a fine chance, I should say offhand, to sit in with me. Of course I'm just guessing,” he added dryly, “but I'm tolerably good at that. A man's got to be, these days.”

“A man's got to do better'n guess with Casey Ryan,” Casey stated flatly. “The last man that guessed Casey Ryan, guessed 'im plumb wrong.”

“Meaning that you don't want to come in with me and help round up a few bootleggers and crooked officers?” A steel edge had crept into Mack Nolan's voice. He leaned forward a little, his elbows on his knees, and his eyes trying to read Casey's thoughts. “Man, don't stall with me. You've got brains enough to know that if I were a crook I'd have held you up long before now. I've had three splendid opportunities to stick a gun in your back. And,” he added with a little smile, “if I had thought that you were a bootlegger or a crook I'd have had you in Las Vegas jail before now. You're no more a crook than I am. You've got neither the looks nor the actions of a slicker.

“I've been all day sizing you up. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, and tell you all I knew about you. I happened to be right close when you drove down in here and stopped. As a matter of fact, I was behind that little clump of junipers within fifteen feet of you. You came down here mad. You were so mad you started talking to yourself—and you made matters pretty plain, right then. For instance, you're not at all certain that this car isn't stolen. You're broke—robbed, I take it, by the men who somehow managed to leave you with a carload of booze on your hands. You told all of that, right out loud, while you stood looking at the car. The deal must have been pulled on you this morning—down at the railroad, I imagine; because you hadn't taken time to size up the predicament you were in until you got here.

“Your main idea had been to get off somewhere out of sight. You were scared, for fear some one would come along and find out what you had in the car. You didn't hear me behind you until I spoke. You're a green hand at dodging, which is a very good recommendation to a man in my line of work. But you're shrewd, Ryan and you're game—dead game. You're a peach at thinking up schemes to get yourself out of a hole. You don't think quite far enough—for instance, because you found me afoot it never occurred to you that I might know something about a car—but the rest of your plan was a dandy.

“Your idea of backing down there around the turn and burying the booze was all right. Once you got that off your mind, I rather think you'd be glad to have me along with you, instead of giving me broad hints to leave. But you haven't got your booze buried, and you've been wondering all evening how the devil you're going to manage it with me around. I'll do some guessing, now: I guess you've doped it out that you'll bring the bed roll up here, tuck me in and pray that I'll sleep sound—at least until you've cached the booze and made your getaway. Or possibly, if you got the booze put away safe from my prying eyes, you might come back to bed and I'd find you here in the morning. Isn't that about right?”

“Aw, go t' hell!” said Casey, swallowing a sickly grin. “If them darn' lizards had let yuh alone, I wouldn't have nothin' on my mind now but my hat.” He looked across the fire at Mack Nolan, a queer expression in his eyes. “Keep on, you'll tell me what the missus and I was arguin' about last night over long distance. I've heard tell uh mind readin'—but I never met up with it before. If you're aimin' t' take up a collection after the show, you won't make much. I been what a feller called dusted off.” He added after a pause that was eloquent, “They done it thoroughly.”

Mack Nolan laughed. “They usually are thorough, when they're 'dusting off a clown,' as I believe they call it.”

“You've got the lingo, all right. I'm kinda hopin' you ain't got the disposition. But anyways, you're too late. I'm cleaned.”

Mack Nolan rolled another cigarette, lighted it and flipped the match into the camp fire. He smoked it down to the last inch, staring into the fire and saying nothing the while. When the cigarette stub followed the match he leaned back upon one elbow and began tracing a geometrical figure in the sand with a stick.

“Ryan,” he said abruptly, “you're square and I know it. The very nature of my business makes it impossible for me to trust many men, but I'm going to trust you.” He stopped again, taking great pains with the point of a triangle he was drawing.

Casey knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel. “Puttin' it that way, Mr. Nolan, the man's yet t' live that Casey Ryan ever double crossed. Cops I got no use for; nor yet bootleggers. Whether I got any use for you, Mr. Nolan, I can say better when I've heard yuh out. A goat I've been for the last time. But I'm willin' t' hear yuh out, mind reader though yuh be. That there's more'n what Casey Ryan woulda said this morning.”

“And that's fair enough, Ryan. If you jumped into things with your eyes shut, I don't think I'd want you with me.”

Casey squirmed, remembering certain times when he had gone too headlong into things. His respect for Mack Nolan was increasing noticeably. The Little Woman would have been surprised to see how subdued he was this evening.

Chapter III.

“I'm going to ask you, Ryan, to tell me the whole story of this car and its load of whisky. But before you do that, I'll tell you this much to show good faith and prove to you how much I trust you: I'm a Federal officer, working direct from Washington. I'm after bootleggers, it is true. But they're small game. My real work for the government—and you'll see at once that secrecy is absolutely essential to success—is to find out who is making bootlegging possible. I think you can help me in that. I wish you would tell me exactly what you've been up against. Don't leave out anything, however trivial it may seem to you.”

“One thing I'd like to know first, Mr. Nolan.” Casey's face had lost the look of a man ready to fight and waiting for the first blow. “Are yuh or ain't yuh huntin' mules?”

Mack Nolan laughed. “I am, yes. You may understand me better, Casey, when I tell you that the mule I'm hunting is white.”

Casey studied that until he had the pipe going well. Then he cocked an eye at Nolan and grinned understandingly.

“So it's 'White Mule' you're trailin', is it?” Casey kicked the stub of a greasewood branch back into the flames and laughed. “Well, I can say this much—they's tracks deep an' plenty uh that same White Mule all over the country. An' if it's true you're trailin' 'im fer the gove'ment in Washin'ton, I'm with yuh. Now I'll tell yuh the whole works from the first run-in I had with a bunch of moonshiners over at Black Butte in the Panamints, down to where I drove in here this morning.”

Mack Nolan enjoyed the telling of the story of Casey Ryan's wrongs, quite apart from the information he gleaned. When Casey had once more stopped and killed his engine at Juniper Wells, Mack Nolan sat up and leaned forward a little, his eyes steady and his mouth, that had curved to laughter many times during the tale, once more firm and somewhat pitiless.

“This Smiling Lou—you'd know him again, of course?”

“Know him? Say! Id know him after he'd fried a week in Hades!” Casey's tone left no doubt whatever of his sincerity.

“And I suppose you could tell the bootlegger a mile off and around a corner. Now I'll tell you what I want you to do, Casey. This may jar you a little—until I explain. I want you”—Mack Nolan paused, his lips twitching in a faint smile at the shock to come—“to do a little bootlegging yourself.”

“Yuh—what?” In the firelight Casey's eyes were seen to bulge.

“Bootleg,” Nolan smiled. “I want you to go back and peddle this booze Kenner worked off on you. I want you to do it so that Smiling Lou or one of his bunch will hold you up. Do you see what I mean? We'll put it in marked bottles. I have the bottles and the seals and labels—I can forge anything that's to be had in the country. With marked money and marked bottles, and something to use in case you get pinched by an honest officer, we ought to be able to get the goods on that gang.”

Casey thought of something quite suddenly and held out an imperative, pointing finger.

“There's somethin' else that feller told me was in the car,” he cried agitatedly. “He said he had forty pints of French champagne cached in a false bottom under the front seat. And he said the front cushion had a blind pocket all the way around it and was full uh dope uh some kind. Hop, he called it.”

Mack Nolan whistled under his breath. “And he turned the outfit over to you for sixteen hundred dollars or so?” His eyes turned to stare thoughtfully into the firelight. Abruptly he looked up at Casey. “What the deuce had you done to him, Ryan?” he asked with a quizzical intentness. “He must have been badly scared to let go of all that for sixteen hundred. Why, the 'junk' alone—that's what they call dope—must have been worth a great deal more than that. And the champagne, if he's got that much, would bring six or eight hundred, the prices they're getting for a good grade, these days. I hope,” he added seriously, “the fellow wasn't too scared to come back.”

“Well,” Casey said grimly, “I dunno how scart he is—but he knows darn' well I'll kill im. I told 'im I would.”

Again Mack Nolan laughed. “Catching's much better than killing. It hurts a man worse, and it lasts a heap longer. What do you say to turning in? To-morrow we'll have a full day at my private bottling works.”

They moved their cooking outfit down near the Ford for safety's sake. There was little fear that the car would be robbed in the night, but Mack Nolan was a man who took as few chances as possible. They pulled the roll of bedding from the Ford, spread it out and went to bed, talking in low tones of their plans until they fell asleep.

Dawn was just thinning the curtain of darkness when Nolan woke Casey with a shake of the shoulder.

“I think we'd better be moving from here before the world's astir. You can back on down this draw, Ryan, and strike an old trail that cuts over the ridge and up the next draw to a deserted old mine where I have my stuff cached. It isn't far, and we can have our breakfast at my camp.”

Casey swallowed his astonishment, and for once in his life he did as he was told without argument. The stern finger at Washington had pointed, and even a disputatious Casey Ryan away out in Nevada was constrained to unquestioning obedience.

Mack Nolan's camp was fairly accessible by a roundabout trail with a single set of tire tracks to point the way for Casey. Straight across the ridges, it could not have been more than two miles to Juniper Wells. Nevertheless not one man in a year would be tempted to come this way.

As the camp of a man who was prospecting as a pastime rather than for a grubstake, the place was perfect. Mack Nolan had taken possession of a cabin dug into the hill at the head of a long draw and walled with rocks. A brush-covered shed of makeshift construction sheltered a Ford car. Fifty yards away and in full sight of the cabin the mouth of a tunnel yawned blackly under a rhyolite ledge.

Casey swept the camp with an observant glance as he drove up and stopped before the cabin.

“As a prospector, Mr. Nolan, I'll say 'tis a fine layout yuh got here. 'Tain't the first time an honest-lookin' mine has been made t' cover things far off from minin'. But if any one was t' ride up on yuh onexpected here, I'll say yuh could meet 'em with a grin an' feel easy about your secrets.”

“That's praise, indeed, coming from an old hand like you,” Mack Nolan declared. “Now I'll tell you something else. With Casey Ryan in the camp the whole thing's twice as convincing. Come in, old man—I want to show you what I call an artistic interior.”

Grinning, Casey followed him inside and exclaimed profanely in admiration of Mack Nolan's genius. The cabin showed every mark of the owner's interest in the geologic formation of that immediate district. On the floor along the wall lay specimens of mineralized rock, a couple of prospector's picks, a single jack whose edges betrayed hard usage on the end of a drill, and a sample sack grimed and with a hole in the corner mended by the simple process of gathering the whole cloth together around it and tying it tightly with a string. On the window sill were specimens of ore; two or three of the pieces showed a richness that lighted Casey's eyes with true prospector's enthusiasm. Mining journals covered a box table at the foot of the bunk. For the rest, the cabin looked exactly. what it was—the orderly home of a man quite accustomed to primitive living far off from his fellows.

They had a very satisfactory breakfast cooked by Mack Nolan from his own supplies and eaten in a leisurely manner while Nolan talked of primary formation and secondary, and of mineral intrusions and breaks. Casey listened and learned a few things he had not known, for all his years of prospecting. Mack Nolan, he decided, could pass anywhere as a mining expert.

“And now,” said Nolan briskly, when he had hung up the dish pan and draped the dishcloth over it to dry, “I'll show you the bottling works. We'll have to do the work underground. There's not one chance in fifty that any one would come—but you never can tell. We could get the stuff out of sight easily enough while a car was coming up the draw. But the smell is a different matter. We'll take no chances.”

At the head of the bunk a curtained space beneath a high shelf very obviously did duty as a wardrobe. A leather motor coat hung there, one sleeve protruding beyond the curtain of flowered calico. Other garments bulged the cloth here and there. Nolan, smiling over his shoulder at Casey, nodded and stepped behind the curtain. A door pushed inward, admitting the two into a small recess from which another door opened to an underground room.

Undoubtedly this had once been used as a frost-proof cellar and storeroom. A small ventilator pipe opened—so Nolan told Casey—in the middle of a clump of junipers. Nolan lighted a gasoline lantern that shed a white brilliance upon the long table which extended down one side of the room. Casey saw boxes of bottles and other supplies which he did not at the moment recognize.

“We'll have to rebottle all the whisky,” said Nolan. “You'll see a certain mark blown into the bottom of each one of these. The champagne, I'm afraid, I must either confiscate or run the risk of marking the labels. The 'junk' we'll lay aside for further consideration.”

Casey grinned, thinking of the speedy downfall of his enemies, Smiling Lou and young Kenner—and other crooks of their type.

“So now we'll unload the stuff, old man, and get to work here.” Nolan adjusted the white flame in the mantle of the gasoline lantern, and led the way outside. “Take in the seat cushion, Casey. I don't fancy opening it outside, even in this howling wilderness.”

“I think I'll just pack in the kags first, Mr. Nolan.” For the first time since the shock of Nolan's “mind readin'” the night before, Casey ventured a suggestion. “Anybody comes along, it's the kags they'd look at cross-eyed. Cushions is expected—if I ain't buttin' in,” he added meekly.

“Which you're not. You're acting as my agent now, Ryan, and it will take two heads to put this over without a hitch. Sure, put the kegs out of sight first. The bottles next—and then we'll make short work of the dope in the seat cushion.”

Wherefore, Casey carried in the kegs, while Mack Nolan kept watch for inopportune visitors. It was thought inadvisable to unload more than was absolutely necessary from the car. They were taking no chances. One yank at the bed roll would conceal everything below. They both breathed freer when the two kegs were in the cellar. Nolan was pleased, too, when Casey came out with the sample bag and announced that he would carry in the bottles in the bag.

Mack Nolan thought that he heard a car coming up the draw, and walked away up a sharp ridge where he would have a better view. He would whistle, he said, and warn Casey if some one was coming.

He was gone five minutes perhaps when Casey yelled and brought him back at a run. Casey was swearing and rummaging in the car, and throwing things about with a recklessness which ill became an agent of the government.

“There ain't a darn' bottle here!” he shouted indignantly. “Them crooks gyped me outa ten gallons uh bottled hooch! That feller said it was high-grade stuff he had packed away at the bottom. He lied. There ain't a drop in the car—except them two kegs I just packed in. An' the champagne, mebbe, under the front seat!”

Mack Nolan's eyes narrowed a bit. His voice was very quiet when he spoke.

“I think, Ryan, I'll have a look under that front seat.”

He had a look—several looks, in fact. He took his pocketknife, opened the small blade and skillfully slit the edge of the seat cushion at the bottom. He inserted a finger and thumb in the opening and drew out a bit of matted hair. He stood up and eyed Casey sharply for a space. Casey stared back, but his pale, straight-lidded eyes held an anxious gleam.

“I hope yuh don't think, Mr. Nolan, that I knowed anything about this,” he said, when Nolan's silence became unbearable.

“I beg your pardon, Ryan,” said Nolan. “I was thinking of something else. No, I merely think we'd better take a look at those kegs.”

They went in and took a look at the kegs. Both kegs. Afterward they stood and looked at each other.

Casey's hands went to his hips, and the muscles along his jaw hardened into lumps. He spat into the dirt of the cellar floor.

“Watter!” he snorted disgustedly. “Casey Ryan with the divil an' all scart outa him thinkin' he had ownership in a load uh booze an' hop sufficient t' hang him, was he caught with it!” His hand slid into his trouser pocket, reaching for the solacing plug of tobacco. “Robbed me broke is what they done—an' left me with a rotton camp outfit and two kags uh water—and the fear t' look any man in the eye!”

Nolan stopped whistling under his breath. “There's the Ford,” he reminded Casey comfortingly.

“Which I wisht it wasn't!” snarled Casey. “An' yuh know yourself, Mr. Nolan, it's likely stole, 'nd the first man I meet in the trail'll likely take it off me, claimin' it's hisn!”

Mack Nolan started whistling again and checked himself abruptly. “Well, our trap's wanting bait, I see. Looks as if we'll have to get out on the trail of that White Mule, Casey. Buck up, old man—it's bootlegger's luck——”

“It's Casey Ryan's luck!” snarled Casey, kicking the nearest keg viciously as he passed it on his way to the door. “Ta hell with your White Mule! Ta hell with everything!” He went out into the sunshine swearing to himself.

Chapter IV.

In the shade of a juniper that grew on the highest point of the gulch's rim, Mack Nolan lay sprawled on the flat of his back, one arm for a pillow, and stared up into the serene blue of the sky with cottony flakes of cloud. swimming steadily to the north-east. Three feet away, Casey Ryan rested on left hip and elbow and stared glumly down upon the cabin directly beneath them. Whenever his pale, straight-lidded eyes focused upon the dusty top of the Ford car standing in front of the cabin, Casey said something under his breath.

Miles away to the south, pale violet, dreamlike in the distance, the jagged outline of a small mountain range stood as if painted upon the horizon. A wavy ribbon of smudgy brown was drawn uncertainly across the base of the mountains. This, Casey knew when his eyes lifted to look that way, marked the line of the Santa Fe and a train moving heavily up grade to the west.

Toward it dipped the smooth stretch of barren mesa cut straight down the middle with a yellow line that was the highway up which Casey had driven the morning before. The inimitable magic of distance and high desert air veiled greasewood, sage and sand with the glamour of unreality. The mountains beyond, unspeakably desolate and forbidding at close range, and the little black buttes standing afar off—small spewings of age-old volcanoes dead before man was born—seemed fascinating, unknown islets anchored in a sea of enchantment. Across the valley to the west, nearer mountains, all amethyst and opal tinted, stood bold and inscrutable, with jagged peaks thrust into the blue to pierce and hold the little clouds that came floating by.

When first Casey saw the smoke smudge against the mountains to the south, he remembered his misadventure of the lower desert and swore. When he looked again, the majestic sweep of distance gave him a satisfied feeling of freedom from the crowded pettinesses of the city. For the first time since trouble met him in the trail between Victorville and Barstow, Casey heaved a sigh of content because he was once more out in the big land he loved. Those distant, painted mountains, looking as impossible as the back drop of a stage, held gulches and deep cañons he knew. The closer hills he had prospected. The mesa, spread all around him, seemed more familiar than the white apartment house in Los Angeles which Casey had lately called home. And though the thought of the Little Woman brought with it the vague discomfort of a schoolboy playing hooky, Casey could not have regretted being here with Mack Nolan if he had tried.

They were lying up here in the shade—following the instinct of other creatures of the wild to guard against surprises—while they worked out a nice problem in moonshine. And since the desert had never meant a monotonously placid life to Casey—who carried his problems philosophically, as a dog bears patiently with fleas—he had every reason now for feeling very much at home.

Mack Nolan raised his head off his arm and glanced at Casey quizzically.

“Well, we can't catch fish if we won't cut bait,” he volunteered sententiously. “Ive a nice little job staked out for you, Casey.

“I've been thinking over the deal those fellows pulled on you. If the man Kenner had left you the booze and dope he told you was in the car, I'd say it was a straight case of a sticky~fingered officer letting a bootlegger by with part of his load, and a later attack of cold feet on the part of the bootlegger. But they didn't leave you any booze. So I have doped it this way, Ryan:

“The thing's deeper than it looked yesterday. Those two were working together; part of a gang, I should say, with a fairly well organized system. By accident—and probably for a greater degree of safety in getting out of the city—Kenner invited you to ride with him. He wanted no argument with that traffic cop—no record made of his name and license number. So he took you in. When he found out who you were, he knew you were at outs with the law. He knew you as an experienced desert man. He had you placed as a valuable member of their gang, if you could be won over and persuaded to join them.

“As soon as possible he got you behind the wheel—further protection to himself if he should meet an officer who was straight. He felt you out on the subject of a partnership. And when you met Smiling Lou—well, this Kenner had decided to take no chance with you. He still had hopes of pulling you in with them, but he was far from feeling sure of you. He undoubtedly gave Smiling Lou the cue to make the thing appear an ordinary case of highjacking while he ditched his whole load so that there would be no evidence against him if he lost out and you turned nasty.

“I'm absolutely certain, Casey, that if you had not been along, Smiling Lou would not have touched that load. They'd probably have stopped there for a talk, exchanged news and perhaps perfected future plans, and parted like two old cronies. It's possible, of course, that Smiling Lou might have taken some whisky back with him—if he had needed it. Otherwise, I think they split more cash than booze, as a rule.”

Casey sat up. “Well, they coulda played me for a sucker easy enough,” he admitted reluctantly. “An' if it'll be any help to yuh, Mr. Nolan, I'll say that I never seen the money passed from Kenner t' Smilin' Lou, an' I never seen a bottle unloaded from the car. I heard 'em, yes. An' I'll say there was a bunch of 'em, all right. But what I seen was the road ahead of me and that car of Smilin' Lou's standin' in the middle of it. He had a gun pulled on me, mind you—and you can ask anybody if a feller feels like rubberin' much when there's only the click of a trigger between him an' a six-foot hole in the ground.”

“All the more reason,” said Nolan, also sitting up with his hands clasped around his knees, “why it's important to catch them with the goods. You'll have to peddle hooch, Casey, until we get Smiling Lou and his outfit.”

“And where, Mr. Nolan, do I git the booze t' peddle?” asked Casey practically.

Nolan laughed to himself. “It can be bought,” he said, “but I'd rather not. Since you've never monkeyed with the stuff it might make you conspicuous if you went around buying up a load of hooch. And of course I can't appear in this thing at all. But I have what I think is a very good plan.”

Casey looked at him inquiringly, and again Nolan laughed.

“Nothing for it, Casey—we'll have to locate a still and rob it. That, or make some of our own, which takes time. And it's an unpleasant, messy job anyway.”

Casey stared dubiously down into the gulch. “That'd be fine, Mr. Nolan, if we knew where was the still. Or mebby yuh do know.”

Mack Nolan shook his head. “No, I don't, worse luck. I haven't been long enough in the district to know as much about it as I hope to know later on. Prospecting for this headquarters took a little time; and getting my stuff moved in here secretly took more time. A week ago, Casey, I shouldn't have been quite ready to use you. But you came when you were needed. and so—I feel sure that White Mule will presently show up.”

Casey lifted his head and stared meditatively out across the immensity of the empty land around them.

“She's a darn' big country, Mr. Nolan. I dunno,” he remarked doubtfully. “But Casey Ryan has yet to go after a thing an' fail to git it. I guess if it's hooch we want, it ought to be easy enough to find; it shore has been hard to dodge it lately! If yuh want White Mule, Mr. Nolan, you send Casey out travelin' peaceful an' meanin' harm to nobody. Foller Casey, and you'll find 'im tangled up with a mess uh hooch b'fore he gits ten miles from camp.”

“You could go out and highjack some one,” Nolan agreed, taking him seriously—which Casey had not intended. “I think we'll go down and load the camp outfit into my car, Ryan, and I'll start you out. Go up into your old stamping ground where people know you. If you're careful in picking your men, you could locate some hooch, couldn't you, without attracting attention?”

Casey studied the matter. “Bill Masters could mebby help me out,” he said finally. “Only I don't like the friends Bill's been wishin' on to me lately. This man Kenner, that held me up, knowed Bill Masters intimate. I'm kinda losin' my taste fer Bill lately.”

Mack Nolan seized upon the clew avidly. Before Casey quite realized what he had done, he found himself hustled away from camp in Mack Nolan's car, headed for Lund in the service of his government. Since young Kenner had been able to talk so intimately of Bill Masters, Mack Nolan argued that Bill Masters should likewise be able to give some useful information concerning young Kenner. Moreover, a man in Bill Masters' position would probably know at least a few of the hidden trails of the White Mule near Lund.

“If you can bring back a load of moonshine, Ryan, by all means do so,” Nolan instructed Casey at the last moment. “Here's money to buy it with. We should have enough to make a good haul for Smiling Lou. Twenty gallons at least—forty if you can get them. Keep your weather eye open, and whatever happens don't mention my name or say that you are working with the law. In five days if you are not here I shall drive to Las Vegas. Get word to me there if anything goes wrong. Just write or wire to general delivery. But I look for you back, Ryan, not later than Friday midnight. Take no unnecessary risk—this is more important than you know.”

Nolan's crisp tone of authority remained with Casey mile upon mile. And such was the Casey Ryan driving that midnight found him coasting into Bill Masters' garage in Lund with the motor shut off and a grin on the Casey Ryan face.

Chapter V.

Mack Nolan had just crawled into his bunk on Wednesday night when he thought he heard a car laboring up the gulch. He sat up in bed to listen and then got hurriedly into his clothes. He was standing just around the corner of the dugout where the headlights could not reach him, when Casey killed the engine and stopped before the door. Steam was rising in a small cloud from the radiator cap, and the sound of boiling water was distinctly audible some distance away.

Mack Nolan waited until Casey had climbed out from behind the wheel and headed for the door. Then he stepped out and hailed him. Casey started preceptibly, whirling as if to face an enemy. When he saw that it was Nolan he apparently lost his desire to enter the cabin. Instead he came close to Nolan and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“We better run 'er under the shed, Mr. Nolan, and drain the darned radiator. I dunno am I follered or not, but I was a while back. But the man that catches Casey Ryan when he's on the trail an' travelin' has yet to be born. An' you can ask anybody if that ain't so.”

Mack Nolan's eyes narrowed. “And who followed you, then?” he asked quietly. “Did you bring any hooch?”

“Did yuh send Casey Ryan after hooch, or was it mebby spuds or somethin'?” Casey retorted with heavy dignity. “Will yuh pack it in, Mr. Nolan, while I back the car in the shed, or shall I bring it when I come? It ain't so much,” he added dryly, “but it cost the trouble of a trainload.”

“I'll take it in,” said Nolan. “If any one does come we want no evidence in reach,”

Casey turned to the car, clawed at his camp outfit and lifted out a demijohn which he grimly handed to Nolan. “Fer many a mile it rode on the seat with me so I could drink 'er down if they got me cornered,” he grinned. “One good swaller is about the size of it, Mr. Nolan.”

Nolan grinned in sympathy and turned into the cabin, bearing the three-gallon, wicker-covered glass bottle in his arms. Presently he returned to the doorway and stood there listening until Casey came up, walking from the shed.

“'Tis a good thing yuh left this other car standin' here cold an' peaceful, Mr. Nolan,” Casey observed, after he also had stood for a minute listening. “If they're follerin' they'll be here darn' soon. If they ain't I've ditched 'em. Let's git to bed an' I'll tell yuh my tale uh woe.”

Without a word Nolan led the way into the cabin. In the dark they undressed and got into the bed which was luckily wide enough for two.

“Had your supper?” Nolan asked belatedly when they were settled.

“I did not,” Casey grunted. “I will say, Mr. Nolan, there's few times in my life when you'd see Casey Ryan missin' 'is supper while layin' tracks away from a fight. But if it was light enough you could gaze upon 'im now. And I must hand it to the gallopin' Gussie yuh give me the loan of fer the trip. She brung me home ahead of the sheriff—and you can ask anybody if Casey Ryan himself can't be proud uh that.”

“The sheriff?” Nolan's voice was puzzled. He seemed to be considering something for a minute, before he spoke again. “You could have explained to the sheriff, couldn't you, your reason for having booze in the car?”

Casey raised to one elbow. “When yuh told Casey Ryan 'twas not many men you'd trust, and that you trusted me an' the business was to be secret—Mr. Nolan, you was talkin' to Casey Ryan!” He lay down again as if that precluded further argument.

“Good! I thought I hadn't made a mistake in my man,” Nolan approved, in a tone that gave Casey an inner glow of pride in himself. “Let's have the story, old man. Did you see Bill Masters?”

“Bill Masters,” said Casey grimly, “was not in Lund. His garage is sold an' Bill's in Denver—which is a long drive for a Ford to git there an' back before Friday midnight. Yuh put a time limit on me, Mr. Nolan, an' nobody had Bill's address. I didn't foller Bill to Denver. I asked some others in Lund if they knowed a man named Kenner, and they did not. So then I went huntin' booze that I could git without the hull of Nevada knowin' it in fifteen minutes. An' Casey's got this to say: When yuh want hooch, it's hard to find as free gold in granite. When yuh don't want it, it's forced on yuh at the point of a gun. This jug I stole—seein' your business is private, Mr. Nolan.

“I grabbed it off some fellers I knowed in Lund an' never had no use for anyway. They're mean enough when they're sober, an' when they're jagged they're not to be mentioned on a Sunday. I mighta paid 'em for it, but money's no good to them fellers an' there's no call to waste it. So they made a holler and I sets the jug down an' licks them both, an' comes along home mindin' my own business.

“So I guess they phoned the sheriff in Vegas that 'here comes a bootlegger and land 'im quick.' Anyway I was goin' to stop there an' take on a beefsteak an' a few cups uh coffee, but I never done it. I was slowin' down in front uh Sam's Place when a friend uh mine gives me the high sign to put 'er in high an' keep 'er goin'. Which I done.

“Down by Ladd's, Casey looks back an' here comes the sheriff's car hell-bent-fer-'lection—anyway it looked like the sheriff's car. An' I wanta say right here, Mr. Nolan, that's a darn' good Ford yuh got! I was follered, and I was follered hard. But I'm here an' they ain't—an' you can ask anybody if that didn't take some goin'!”

In the darkness of the cabin Casey turned over and heaved a great sigh. On the heels of that came a chuckle.

“I got to hand it to the L. A. traffic cops, Mr. Nolan. They shore learned me a lot about dodgin'. So now yuh got the hull story. If it was the sheriff behind me an' if he trails me here, they got no evidence an' you can mebby square it with 'im. You'd know what to tell 'im—which is more'n what Casey Ryan can say.”

Casey fell asleep immediately afterward, but Mack Nolan lay for a long while with his eyes wide open and his ears alert for strange sounds in the gulch. He was a new man in this district, working independently of sheriffs' offices. Casey Ryan was the first man he had confided in; all others were fair game, for Nolan to prove honest or dishonest. When whisky runners drove openly in broad daylight through the country with their unlawful loads, somewhere along the line officers of the law were sharing the profits.

At daylight he was up and abroad. Two hours after sunrise, Casey awoke with the smell of breakfast in his nostrils. He rolled over and blinked at Mack Nolan standing with his hat on the back of his head and a cigarette between his lips, calmly turning three hot cakes with a kitchen knife. Casey grinned condescendingly. He himself turned his cakes by the simple process of tossing them in the air with a certain kind of flip, and catching them dexterously as they came down. Right there he decided that Mack Nolan was not after all a real outdoors man.

“Well, the sheriff didn't arrive last night,” Nolan observed cheerfully when he saw that Casey was awake. “I don't much look for him, either. Your driving on past the turn to Juniper Wells and coming up that other old road very likely threw him off the track. You must have been close to the State line then, and he gave you up as a bad job.”

“It was a good job!” Casey maintained, reaching for his clothes. “I made 'em think I was headed clean outa the country. If they knowed who it was at all, they'd know I belong in L. A., and I figured they'd guess I was headed there. They stopped for something this side of Searchlight an' so I pulls away from 'em a couple of miles. They never seen where I went to.”

While he washed for breakfast, Casey began to take stock of certain minor injuries.

“That darned Pete Gibson has got tushes in his mouth like a wild hawg; the kind that sticks out,” he grumbled, touching certain skinned places on his knuckles. “Every time I landed on 'im yesterday I run against them tushes uh hisn.” But he added with a grin, “They ain't so solid as they was when I met up with 'im. I felt one of 'em give, 'fore I got through.”

“Brings the price of moonshine up a bit, doesn't it?” Nolan suggested dryly. “I rather think you might better have paid the men their price. A fight is well enough in its way—I'm Irish myself. But as my agent, Ryan, the main idea is to let the law fight for you. I like your not wanting to explain to the sheriff. Prohibition officers do not explain, as a rule. The law behind them does that.

“And since the price seems to be rather hard on the knuckles'”—he glanced down at Casey's hands and grinned—“I think it may come cheaper to make the stuff ourselves. Licking two men for three gallons, and getting the officers at your tail light into the bargain, is all right as an experiment; but I don't believe, Ryan, we ought to adopt that as a habit.”

Casey cocked an eye up at him. “Did yuh ever make White Mule, Mr. Nolan?” he asked grimly.

Nolan laughed his easy little chuckle. “Why no, Ryan, I never did. Did you?”

“Naw. I seen some made, once, but I had too much of it inside me at the time to learn the receipt for it. I'd rather lay off, if it's all the same to you, Mr. Nolan.” His hand went up to the back of his head and moved forward, although there was no hat to push. “I've lived honest all these years—an' darn it, it's kinda tough to break out with stealin' what yuh don't want! Couldn't we fill them bottles with somethin' that looks like hooch? Cold tea should get by, Mr. Nolan. It'd be a fine joke on Smilin' Lou.”

“A good joke, maybe—but no evidence. It isn't against the law, Ryan, to have cold tea in your possession. No, it's got to be whisky, and there's got to be a load of it. Enough to look like business and tempt him or any other member of the gang you happen to meet. If they caught you with three gallons, Casey, they'd probably run you in and feel very virtuous about it. Nothing for it, I'm afraid. We'll have to become real moonshiners ourselves for a while.”

Casey ate with less appetite after that. Making moonshine did not appeal to him at all. Given his choice, I think he would even prefer drinking it, unhappy as the effect had been on him.

“We'll need a still, and we'll need the stuff. I'm going to leave you in charge of the camp, Ryan, while I make a trip to Needles. I'll deputize you to assist me in cleaning up this district. And this district, Ryan, touches salt water. So if revenge looks good to you, you'll have a fine chance to get even with the bootleggers. And in the meantime, just kill time around camp here while I'm gone. If any one shows up, you're prospecting.”

That day, doubt devils took hold of Casey Ryan and plucked at his belief. How did he know that Mack Nolan wasn't another bootlegger, wanting to rope Casey in on a job for some fell purpose of his own? He had Mack Nolan's word, and nothing more. For that matter, he had also had young Kenner's word. Kenner had fooled him completely. Mack Nolan could also fool him—perhaps.

Chapter VI.

It was noon the next day when Nolan returned, and he did not explain why he was eighteen hours overdue. Casey eyed him expectantly, but Nolan's manner was brisk and preoccupied.

“Help me unload this stuff, Ryan,” he said, “and put it out of sight in the cellar. We won't have to go through the process of making moonshine, after all.”

Casey looked into the car, pulling aside the tarp. Four kegs he counted, and lifted out one.

“An' how many did you lick, Mr. Nolan?” he grinned over his shoulder as he started for the door.

Nolan laughed noncommittally.

“Perhaps I'm luckier at picking my bootleggers,” he retorted. “If you carry the right brand of bluff you can keep the skin on your knuckles, Ryan. This beats making it, at any rate.”

That afternoon and the next day, Casey Ryan did what he never dreamed was possible. With Mack Nolan to show him how, Casey performed miracles. While he did not literally change water into wine, he did give forty-three gallons of White Mule a most imposing pedigree.

He turned kegs of crude, moonshine whisky into Canadian Club, Garnkirk, Tom Pepper, Three-Star Hennessy and cognac—if you were to believe the bottles, labels and government seals. Under Mack Nolan's instruction and with his expert assistance the forgery was perfect. While the cellar reeked with the odor of White Mule when they had finished, the bottled array on the table whispered of Sybaritic revelings to glisten the eyes of the most dissipated man about town.

“When it's as easy done as that, Mr. Nolan, the feller's a fool that drinks it. You've learned Casey Ryan somethin' that mighta done 'im some good a few years back.” He picked up a flat, pint bottle and caressed its label with reminiscent finger tips.

“Many's the time me an' old Tommy Pepper drove stage together,” he mused. “Throwed 'im at a bear once that I met in the trail over in Colorado when I hadn't no gun on me. Busted a pint on his nose—an' then I never waited to see what happened. I was a wild divil them days when me an' Tommy Pepper was side pardners. But a yaller snake with a green head crawled out of a bottle of 'im once—and that there was where Casey Ryan says good-by to booze. If I hadn't quit 'im then, I'd sure quit 'im now. After this performance, Mr. Nolan, Casey Ryan's goin' to look twice into his coffeepot. I wouldn't believe in cow's milk, if I done the milkin' myself!”

“Most of the stuff that's peddled nowadays is doctored,” Nolan replied with the air of one who knows. “When it isn't White Mule it's likely to be something worse. That's one of the chief reasons why I'm fighting it. If they only peddled decent whisky, it wouldn't be so bad, Ryan. But it's rank poison. I've seen so many go stone blind—or die—that it makes me pretty savage sometimes. So now I'll coach you in the part you're to play as hooch runner; and to-morrow you can start for Los Angeles.”

Casey did not answer. He felt absently for his pipe, filled and lighted it and went out to sit on the doorstep in gloomy meditation while he smoked.

Returning to Los Angeles, even without a bootlegger's load, was not a matter which Casey liked to contemplate. He would have to face the Little Woman if he went back, either as a deliberate liar, who lied to his wife to gain the freedom he might have had without resorting to deceit, or as the victim once more of crooks. Casey thought he would prefer the accusation of lying deliberately to the Little Woman—though it made him squirm to think of it. He wished she had not openly taunted him with getting into trouble and needing her always to get him out.

He would like to tell her that he was now working for the government. The secrecy of his mission, the danger it involved, would impress even her amused cynicism. But the very secrecy of his mission in itself made it impossible for him to tell her anything about it. Casey would not admit it, but it was a real disappointment to him that he could not wear a star on his coat.

All that day and evening he was glum—a strange mood for Casey Ryan. But if Mack Nolan noticed his silence he gave no sign. Nolan himself was wholly absorbed by the business in hand. The success of this plan meant a good deal to him, and he told Casey so very frankly; which lightened Casey's gloom perceptibly.

Casey was to drive to Los Angeles, even to San Diego if necessary, and return within a week, unless Nolan's hopes were fulfilled and Casey was held up and highjacked. If he were apprehended by officers who were honestly discharging their duty, Casey was to do thus and so, and presently. be free to drive on with his load. If he were highjacked—Casey gritted his teeth and said he hoped the highjacker would be Smiling Lou—he was to permit himself to be robbed, worm himself as far as possible into their confidence and return for further orders.

If Mack Nolan should chance to be absent from the cabin, then Casey was to wait until he returned. And Nolan intimated that hereafter the making of moonshine might be a part of Casey's duties. Then, without warning, Mack Nolan struck at the heart of Casey's worry.

“I don't want to dictate to any man in family affairs, Ryan. But I've got to speak of one other matter,” he said diffidently. “I suppose naturally you'll want to go home and let your wife know you're still alive, anyway. But if you can manage to keep your present business a secret for the time being, I think you'd better do it. You said you were planning to be away on a trip for some time, I remember. If you can just let it go that way, or say that you are prospecting over here, I wish you would. Think you can manage that all right?”

“I'd ruther manage a six-horse team of bronk mules,” Casey admitted. “But after the way the missus thinks I lied to 'er about takin' the next train home from Barstow, anything I say'll be used agin' me. My wife's got brains. She ain't put it down that the trains have quit runnin'. Accordin' to her figures, Casey's lied and he's in a hole again. Don't matter what I say, she won't believe me anyhow—so Casey won't say nothin'. Can't lie with your mouth shut, can yuh?”

“Oh, yes, it's been done,” Mack Nolan chuckled. “Now we'll set down the serial numbers and the bank name of this 'jack'—and here's your expense money separate. And if there's anything that isn't clear to you, Ryan, speak up. You won't hear from me again, probably, until you're back from this fishing trip.”

Casey thought that everything was perfectly clear, and rashly he said so.

Chapter VII.

From Barstow to Victorville, from Victorville to Camp Cajon, Casey drove expectantly, hoping to meet Smiling Lou. He scanned each car that approached, and slowed for every meeting like a searching party or a man who is lost and wishes to inquire the way. Goggled women tourists eyed him curiously, and one car stopped full to see what he wanted. But his “Tom Pepper” rode safe under the tarp behind him, and the “Three-Star Hennessy” beaded daintily with the joggling it got, and Casey was neither halted nor questioned as he passed.

At Camp Cajon Casey stopped and cooked an early supper, because the summer crowd was there and a real bootlegger would have found stopping rather unsafe. Casey boiled coffee over one of the camp fireplaces, and watched furtively the sunburned, holiday group nearest. He placed his supper on one of the round, cement tables near the car, and every man who passed that way Casey watched unblinkingly while he ate.

He succeeded in making three different parties swallow their supper in a hurry and pack up and leave, glancing back uneasily at Casey as they drove away. But Casey himself was unmolested, and no one asked about his load.

From Camp Cajon to San Bernardino Casey drove furiously, remembering young Kenner's desire for speed. He stopped there for the night, and nearly had a fight with the garage man where he put up, because he showed undue caution concerning the safety of his car.

He left the car there that day and returned furtively after dark, asking the night man if he had seen any saps around his car. The night man looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“I dunno—nothin's been picked up since I come on at six. We ain't responsible for lost articles anyway. See that sign?”

Casey grunted, cranked up and drove away, wondering whether the night man was as innocent as he tried to act.

From San Bernardino to Los Angeles Casey drove placidly as a load of oranges in February. He put up at a cheap place on San Pedro Street, with his car in the garage next door and a five-dollar tip in the palm of a rat-faced mechanic, with Casey's injunction to clean 'er dingbats and keep other people away.

He did not go out to see the Little Woman, after all. He had sent her a wire from Goffs the day before, saying that he was prospecting with a fellow and he hoped she was well. This, after long pondering, had seemed to him the easiest way out of an argument with the Little Woman. The wire had given no address whereby she might reach him, but the omission was not the oversight Casey hoped she would consider it. He wanted to be reassuring without starting anything.

Los Angeles with no Little Woman at his elbow was a dismal hole, and Casey got out of it as soon as possible. As per instructions, he drove down to San Diego, ventured perilously close to the Mexico line, fooled around there for a day looking for trouble, failed to find so much as a frown, and drove back.

He headed straight for San Bernardino, which was Smiling Lou's headquarters. He killed time there and met the sheriff on the street the day he arrived. The sheriff had a memory trained to hold faces indefinitely. He smiled a little, made a polite gesture in the general direction of his hat and passed on. Casey swore to himself, and resolved to duck guiltily around the nearest corner if he saw the sheriff coming his way again.

On the day when his time limit expired, Casey drove up the gulch to Nolan's camp. In the car behind him rode undisturbed his Canadian Club, Garnkirk, Three-Star Hennessy, cognac and Tom Pepper; bottles, labels, government seals and all. Nolan was walking over from the tunnel when Casey arrived. He smiled inquiringly as he shook hands—a ceremony to which Casey was plainly unaccustomed.

“What luck, Ryan? I beat you back by about two hours. Getting things ready to begin making it. Did they catch you, all right?”

“Naw!” Casey spat disgustedly. “Never seen a booze peddler, never seen a cop look my way. I went around actin' like I just killed a man an' stole a lady's diamonds, and the sheriff at San Berdoo tips 'is hat to me, by golly! Drove through L. A. hellawhoopin'—an' not a darned traffic cop knowed it was Casey Ryan. You can ask anybody if I didn't do everything possible to git in bad or give bootleggers a tip I was one of 'em.

“You can't git Casey Ryan up agin' the gang you're after, Mr. Nolan. Only way Casey Ryan can git up agin' the law is to go along peaceable tryin' to please the missus an' mindin' his own business. I coulda peddled that darn' hooch on a hangin' tray like circus lemonade. I coulda stood on the corner in any uh them dinged towns with the hull works piled out on a table in front of me, an' I coulda hollered my darn head off; an' Smilin' Lou woulda passed me by like I 'was sellin' chewin' gum and shoe strings.”

Mack Nolan looked at Casey, turned and went into the cabin, sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until the tears dripped over his lashes. Casey Ryan followed him, and sat on the edge of the table with his arms folded. Whenever Mack Nolan lifted his face from his palms and looked at Casey, Casey swore. Whereat Mack Nolan would give another whoop.

Relations were somewhat strained between them for the rest of that day.

Chapter VIII.

Mack Nolan had a way with him. Wherefore, Casey Ryan once more came larruping down the grade to Camp Cajon, and turned in there with a dogged purpose in his eyes and with his jaw set stubbornly.

Behind him, stowed under the bedding, grub and camp dishes, rode his eight cases of bootlegger's bait, packed convincingly in the sawdust, straw and cardboard of the wet old days when Uncle Sam himself O. K.'d the job. A chain of tiny beads at the top of each bottle lied and said it was good liquor.

It was a good job Mack Nolan had made of the bottling. Uncle Sam himself must needs polish his spectacles and take another look, to detect the fraud. It was a marvelous job of bottling, and the proof lay only in the drinking. A tempting load it was, to men of certain minds and morals. Casey grinned sardonically when he thought of it.

Casey drove deep into the grove of sycamores and made camp there, away from the chattering picnic parties at the cement tables. By Mack Nolan's advice he was adopting a slightly different policy. He no longer shunned his fellow men nor glared suspiciously when strangers approached. Instead he was very nearly the old Casey Ryan, except that he failed to state his name and business to all and sundry with the old Casey Ryan candor, but instead either avoided the subject altogether or evaded questions with vague generalities.

But as an understudy for Ananias, Casey Ryan would have been a failure. In two hours or less he had made easy trail acquaintance with six different men, and he had unconsciously managed to vary his vague account of himself six different times. Wherefore he was presently asked cautiously concerning his thirst.

“They's times,” said Casey, hopefully lowering an eyelid, “when a feller dassent take a nip, no matter how thirsty he gits.”

The questioner stared at him for a minute and slowly nodded. “You're darn' right,” he assented. “I scursely ever touch anything, myself.” And he added vaguely, “Quite a lot of it peddled out here in this camp, I guess. Tourists comin' through are scared to pack it themselves—but they sure don't overlook any chances to take a snort.”

“Yeah?” Casey cocked a knowing eye at the speaker. “They must pay a pretty fair price fer it, too. Don't the cops bother folks none?”

“Some—I guess.”

Casey filled his pipe and offered his tobacco sack to the man. The fellow took it, nodding listless thanks, and filled his own pipe. The two sat down together on the knee of a deformed sycamore, and smoked in circumspect silence.

“Arizona, I see.” The man nodded toward the license plates on Casey's car.

“Uh-huh.” Casey glanced that way. “Know a man name of Kenner?” he asked abruptly.

The fellow looked at Casey sidelong without turning his head.

“Some. Do you?”

“Some.” Casey felt that he was making headway.

“Friend uh yours?” The fellow turned his head and looked straight at Casey.

Casey returned him a pale, straight-lidded stare. The man's glance flickered and swung away.

“Who wants to know?” Casey asked calmly.

“Oh, you can call me Jim Cassidy. I just asked.” He removed his pipe from his mouth and inspected it apathetically. “He's a friend of Bill Masters, garage man up at Lund. Know Bill?”

“Any man says I don't, you can call 'im a liar.” Casey also inspected his pipe. “Bought that car off'n Kenner,” Casey added boldly. Getting into trouble, he discovered, carried almost the thrill of trying to keep out of it.

“Yeah?” The self-styled Jim Cassidy looked at the Ford more attentively. “And contents?”

Casey snorted. “What do you know about goats, if anything?” he asked mysteriously.

Jim Cassidy eyed Casey sidelong through a silence. Then he brought his palm down flat on his thigh and laughed.

“You pass,” he stated with a relieved sigh. “He's a dinger, ain't he?”

“You know 'im, all right.” Casey also laughed, and put out his hand. “If you're a friend of Kenner's, shake hands with Casey Ryan! He's darned glad to meet yuh—an' you can ask anybody if that ain't the truth.”

After that the acquaintance progressed more smoothly. By the time Casey spread his bed—close alongside the car—he knew just how much booze Jim Cassidy carried, just what Cassidy expected to make off the load, and a good many other bits of information of no particular use to Casey.

A strange, inner excitement held Casey awake long after Jim Cassidy was asleep and snoring. He lay looking up into the leafy branches of the sycamore beside him and watched a star slip slowly across an open space between the branches. Farther up the grove a hilarious group of young hikers sang snatches of songs to the uncertain accompaniment of a ukulele. A hundred feet away on his right, occasional cars went coasting past on the down grade, coming in off the desert—or climbed more slowly with motors working, on their way up from the valley below. The shifting brilliance from their headlights flicked the grove capriciously as they went by. Now and then a car stopped. One, a big, high-powered car with one dazzling spotlight, swung into the narrow driveway and entered the grove.

Casey lifted his head like a desert turtle, and blinked curiously at the car as it eased past him a few feet and stopped. A gloved hand went out to the spotlight and turned it slowly, lighting the grove foot by foot and pausing to dwell upon each silent, parked car. Casey sat up in the blankets and waited.

Luck, he told himself, was grinning at him from ear to ear. For this was Smiling Lou himself, and none other. He was alone—a big, hungry, official fish searching the grove greedily. Casey swallowed a grin and tried to look scared. The light was slowly working around in his direction. When the spotlight finally revealed him, Casey blinked against it with a half-hearted grin, as if he had been caught at something foolish. The light remained upon him, and Smiling Lou got out of the car and came back to him slowly.

Not even Casey thought of calling Smiling Lou a fool. He couldn't be, and play the game he was playing. Smiling Lou said nothing whatever until he had looked the car over carefully, giving the license number a second sharp glance, and had regarded Casey fixedly while he made up his mind.

“Hullo! Where's your pardner?” he demanded then.

“I'm in pardnerships with myself this trip,” Casey retorted. He waited while Smiling Lou looked him over again, more carefully this time.

“Where did you get that car?”

“From Kenner—for sixteen hundred and seventeen dollars and five cents.” Casey fumbled in the blankets—Smiling Lou following his movements suspiciously—and got out the makings of a cigarette.

“Got any booze in that car?” Smiling Lou might have been a traffic cop, for all the trace of humanity there was in his voice.

Casey cocked an eye up at him, sent a quick glance toward the Ford, and looked back into Smiling Lou's face. He hunched his shoulders and finished the making of his cigarette.

“I wisht you wouldn't look,” he said glumly. “I got half my outfit in there an' I hate to have it tore up.”

Smiling Lou continued to look at him, seeming slightly puzzled. But indecision was not one of his characteristics, evidently. He stepped up to the car, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and looked in.

Casey was up and into his clothes by the time Smiling Lou had uncovered a box or two. Smiling Lou turned toward him, his lips twitching.

“Lift this stuff out of here and put it in my car,” he commanded, elation creeping into his voice in spite of himself. “My Lord! The chances you fellows take! Think a dab of paint is going to cover up a brand burned into the wood?”

Casey looked startled, glancing down into the car to where Smiling Lou pointed.

“The boards is turned over on all the rest,” he muttered confidentially. “I dunno how that darned Canadian Club sign got right side up.”

“What all have you got?” Smiling Lou lowered his voice when he asked the question. Casey tried not to grin when he replied. Smiling Lou gasped.

“Well, get it into my car, and make it snappy.”

Casey made it as snappy as he could, and kept his face straight until Smiling Lou spoke to him sharply.

“I won't take you in to-night with me. I want that car. You drive it into headquarters first thing in the morning. And don't think you can beat it, either. I'll have the road posted. You can knock a good deal off your sentence if you crank up and come in right after breakfast. And make it an early breakfast, too.”

His manner was stern, his voice perfectly official. But Casey, eying him grimly, saw distinctly the left eyelid lower and lift again.

“All right—I'm the goat,” he surrendered, and sat down again on his canvas-covered bed. He did not immediately crawl between the blankets, however, because interesting things were happening over at Jim Cassidy's car.

Casey watched Jim Cassidy go picking his way among the tree roots and camp litter, his back straightened under the load of hooch he was carrying to Smiling Lou's car, With Jim Cassidy also, Smiling Lou was crisply official. When the last of the hooch had been transferred, Casey heard Smiling Lou tell Jim Cassidy to drive in to headquarters after breakfast next morning—but he did not see Smiling Lou wink when he said it.

After that, Smiling Lou started his motor and drove slowly up through the grove, halting to scan each car as he passed. He swung out through the upper driveway, turned sharply there and came back down the highway speeding up on the downhill grade to San Bernardino.

Chapter IX.

Jim Cassidy came furtively over and settled down for a whispered conference on Casey's bed.

“How much did he git off'n you?” he asked inquisitively. “Did he clean yuh out?”

“Clean as a last year's bone in a kioty den,” Casey declared, hiding his satisfaction as best he could. “Never got my roll though.”

“He wouldn't—not with you workin' on the inside. Guess it must be kinda touchy around here right now. New officers, mebby. He wouldn't 'a' cleaned us out if we'd 'a' been safe. He never came into camp before—not when I've been here. Made that same play to you, didn't he—about givin' yourself up in the morning? Uh course yuh know what that means—don't!”

“He shore is foxy, all right,” Casey commented with absolute sincerity. “You can ask anybody if he didn't pull it off like the pleasure was all hisn. No L. A. traffic cop ever pinched me an' looked like he enjoyed it more.”

“Oh, Lou's cute all right. They don't any of 'em put anything over on Lou. You must be new at the business, ain't yuh?”

“Second trip,” Casey informed him with an air of importance—which he really felt, by the way. “What Casey's studyin' on now, is the next move. No use hangin' around here empty. What do you figger on doin'?”

“Weill, Lou didn't give no tip—not to me, anyway. So I guess it'll be safe to drive on in to the city and load up again. I got a feller with me—he caught a ride in to San Berdoo; left just before you drove in. Know where to go in the city? 'Cause I can ride in with you, an' let him foller.”

“That'll suit me fine,” Casey declared. And so they left it for the time being, and Cassidy went back to bed.

A great load had dropped from Casey's shoulders, and he was asleep before Jim Cassidy had ceased to turn restlessly in his blankets. Getting the White Mule out of his car and into the car of Smiling Lou had been the task which Nolan had set for him. What was to happen thereafter Casey could only guess, for Nolan had not told him. And such was the Casey Ryan nature that he made no attempt to solve the problems which Mack Nolan had calmly reserved for himself.

He did not dream, for instance, that Mack Nolan had watched him load the stuff into Smiling Lou's car. He did know that an unobtrusive Cadillac roadster was parked at the next camp fire. It had come in half an hour behind him, but the driver had not made any move toward camping until after dark. Casey had glanced his way when the car was parked and the driver got out and began fussing around the car, but he had not been struck with any sense of familiarity in the figure.

There was no reason why he should. Thousands and thousands of men are of Mack Nolan's height and general build. This man looked like a doctor or a dentist perhaps. Beyond the matter of size, similarity to Mack Nolan ceased. The Cadillac man wore a Vandyke beard and colored glasses, and a Panama and light gray business suit. Casey set him down in his mental catalogue as “some town feller” and assumed that they had nothing in common.

Yet Mack Nolan heard nearly every word spoken by Smiling Lou, Casey and Jim Cassidy. The Cadillac car was one of Mack Nolan's little secrets. There is a very good garage at Goffs, not many miles from Juniper Wells. A matter of an hour' s driving was sufficient at any time for Mack Nolan to make the exchange. And no man at Goffs would think it very strange that the owner of a Cadillac should prefer to drive a Ford over rough, desert trails to his prospect in the mountains.

Chapter X.

With a load of booze in the car and Jim Cassidy by his side, Casey Ryan drove down the long, eucalyptus-shaded avenue that runs past the balloon school at Arcadia, and turned into the Foothill Boulevard. Half a mile farther on a Cadillac roadster honked and slid past them, speeding away toward Monrovia. But Casey Ryan was busy talking chummily with Jim Cassidy, and he scarcely knew that a car had passed.

The money he had been given for Smiling Lou had been used to pay for this new load of whisky, and) Casey found himself wishing that he could get word of it to Mack Nolan. Still, Nolan's oversight in the matter of arranging for communication between them did not bother Casey much. He was doing his part; if Mack Nolan failed to do his, that was no fault of Casey Ryan's.

At Fontana, where young Kenner had stopped for gas on that eventful first trip of Casey's, Casey slowed down also, for the same purpose, half tempted to call up the Little Woman on long distance while the gas tank was being filled. But presently the matter went clean from his mind—and this was the reason:

A speed cop whose motor cycle stood inconspicuously around the corner of the garage, came forward and eyed the Ford sharply. He drew his little book from his pocket, turned a few leaves, found what he was looking for and eyed again the car. The garage man, slowly turning the crank of the gasoline pump, looked at him inquiringly; but the speed cop ignored the look and turned to Casey.

“Where'd you get this car?” he demanded, in much the same tone which Smiling Lou had used the night before.

“Bought it,” Casey told him gruffly.

“Where did you buy it?”

“Over at Goffs, just this side of Needles.”

“Got a bill of sale?”

“You got Casey Ryan's word fer it,” Casey retorted with a growing heat inside where he kept his temper when he wasn't using it.

“Are you Casey Ryan?” The speed cop's eyes hardened just a bit.

“Anybody says I ain't, you send 'em to me—an' then come around in about ten minutes an' look 'em over.”

“What's your name?” The officer turned to Jim Cassidy.

“Tom Smith. I was just ketchin' a ride with this feller. Don't go an' mix me in—I ain't no ways concerned; just ketchin' a ride is all. If I'd 'a' knowed——”

“You can explain that to the judge. Get in there, you, and drive in to San Berdoo. I'll be right with you, so you needn't forget the road!” He stepped back to his motor cycle and pushed it forward.

“Hey! Don't I git paid fer my gas?” the garage man wailed, pulling a dripping nozzle from Casey's gas tank.

“Aw, go to hell!” Casey grunted, and threw a wadded bank note in his direction. “Take that an' shut up. What yuh cryin' around about a gallon uh gas, fer? You ain't pinched!”

The money landed near the motor cycle and the officer picked it up, smoothed out the bill, glanced at it and looked through tightened lids at Casey.

“Throwin' money around like a hooch runner!” he sneered. “I guess you birds need lookin' after, all right. Git goin'!”

Casey “got going.” Twice on the way in the officer spurted up alongside and waved him down for speeding. Casey had not intended to speed, either. He was merely keeping pace unconsciously with his thoughts.

He had been told just what he must do if he were arrested for bootlegging, but he was not at all certain that his instructions would cover an arrest for stealing an automobile. Nolan had forgotten about that, he guessed. But Casey's optimism carried him jauntily to jail in San Bernardino; and while he was secretly a bit uneasy, he was not half so worried as Jim Cassidy appeared to be.

Casey was booked—along with “Tom Smith”—on two charges: Theft of one Ford car, and unlawful transportation of spirituous liquor. He tried to give the judge the wink, but without any happy result. So he eventually found himself locked in a cell with Jim Cassidy.

Just at first, Casey Ryan was proud of the part he was playing. He could look with righteous toleration upon the limpness of his fellow prisoner. He could feel secure in the knowledge that he, Casey Ryan, was an agent of the government engaged in helping to uphold the laws of his country.

He waited for an hour or two, listening with a superior kind of patience to Jim Cassidy's panicky upbraidings of his luck. At first Jim was inclined to blame Casey rather bitterly for the plight he was in. But Casey soon stopped that. Young Kenner was the responsible party in this mishap, as Casey very soon made plain to Jim.

“Well, I dunno but what you're right. It was kind of a dirty trick—workin' a stole car off on to you. Why didn't he pick some sucker on the outside? Don't line up with Kenner, somehow. Well, I guess mebby Smilin' Lou can see us out uh this hole all right—only I don't like that car-stealin' charge. Mebby Kenner an' Lou can straighten it up, though.”

Casey wondered if they could. He wondered, too, how Nolan was going to find out about Smiling Lou getting the camouflaged White Mule. Nolan had not explained that to Casey—but Casey was not worrying yet. His faith in Mack Nolan was firm,

Chapter XI.

At noon the next day Casey was still waiting—but not hopefully. “Patience on a monument” couldn't have resembled Casey Ryan in any particular whatever. He was mad. By midnight he had begun to wonder if he was not going to be made a goat again. By daylight he was positive that he was already a goat. By the time the trusty brought his breakfast, Casey was applying to Mack Nolan the identical words and phrases which he had applied to young Kenner when he was the maddest.

Jim Cassidy still clung desperately to his faith in Smiling Lou; but Casey's faith hadn't so much as a finger hold on anything. What kind of a government was it, he asked himself bitterly, that would leave a trusted agent twenty-four hours shut up in a cell with a whining crook like Jim Cassidy? If, he added pessimistically, he were an agent of the government. Casey doubted it. So far as he could see, Casey Ryan wasn't anything but the goat.

His chief desire now was to get out of there as soon as possible so that he could hunt up Mack Nolan and lick the livin' tar out of him. He wanted bail, and he wanted it immediately. Not a soul had come near him, save the trusty, in spite of certain mysterious messages which Casey had sent to the office, asking for an interview with the judge or somebody—Casey didn't care who. Locked in a cell, how was he going to do any of the things Nolan had told him to do if he happened to find himself arrested by an honest officer?

When they hauled him before the police judge, Casey hadn't been given the chance to explain anything to anybody. Unless, of course, he wanted to bellow out his business before everybody; and that, he told himself fiercely, was not Casey Ryan's idea of the way to keep a secret. Moreover, that darned speed cop was standing right there just waiting for a chance to wind his fingers in Casey's collar and choke him off if he tried to say a word.

So Casey wanted bail. There were just two ways of getting it, and it went against the grain of his pride to take either one. That is why Casey waited until noon before his Irish stubbornness yielded a bit and he decided to wire to a good friend of his to come. He had to slip the wire out by the underground method—meaning the good will of the trusty. It cost Casey ten dollars, but he didn't grudge that.

He spent that afternoon and most of the night mentally calling the trusty a liar and a thief because there was no reply to the message. As a matter of fact, the trusty sent the wire through as quickly as possible. Instead of answering the wire the good friend telephoned to the Little Woman that Casey was in jail again. Not knowing just what he was in for this time, it seemed well to her to be prepared for a good, stiff bail. It took a little time for her to get her hands on the cash but when at last she reached “San Berdoo” she had ten thousand dollars with her.

At that it was a fool's errand. Casey was out of jail and gone before she arrived. So there she was, holding the bag as you might say—and her ten thousand dollars bail money.

While she was eating her dinner the Little Woman thought over the events of the day. Asking questions had gotten her nowhere—she had questioned every official in town. from the district judge down to the courthouse janitor. All she had been able to learn was that Casey had been booked the previous day for having a stolen car and a load of booze in his possession. It had been hinted in the police court that he had been dismissed for want of evidence; but even on this point she had been able to obtain no definite information.

“I believe Casey has put this town on the run,” she told herself. “They can't tell me!—something's happened, over around the courthouse. At lot of the men I talked with had a scared look in their eyes and they were nervous when doors opened, and looked around when people came walking along. I don't know what he's been doing, but Casey Ryan's been up to something. I know how our laundry boy looks when Casey's home.”

But where was Casey now? The Little Woman had but one thing to go on—the telegram he had sent her from Goffs ten days before. She had been getting ready ever since it had arrived. Babe had been sent to a boarding school, and the apartment house leased. She had risked ruining the eyes of three dressmakers with night work, making up some nifty sports clothes. If Casey was bound to stay in the desert—well, she was his wife—and Casey did kind of like to have her around.

She had the twin-six packed with the niftiest camp outfit you ever saw. It included a yellow and red beach umbrella, and two reclining chairs. If the Little Woman had to rough it again, she was going to rough it de luxe. She didn't expect to keep Casey in hand—but it was just possible that she could keep him in sight!

When she had finished her meal she started out to drive across the Mojave Desert alone. A Cadillac roadster came up behind her and honked for clear passing as she swung into the long, straight stretch that leads up the Cajon. The Little Woman peered into the rear-vision mirror and pressed the toe of her white pump upon the accelerator.

“There's only one man in the world that can pass me on the road,” she said to herself, “and he doesn't wear a Panama!”

As she snapped around the turns of Cajon Grade she looked back once or twice. The Cadillac roadster was still following pertinaciously, but it was too far back to honk at her. When she slid down to the Victorville garage and stopped for gas, the Cadillac slid by. The driver in the Panama gave her one glance through his colored glasses—but she felt somehow that the glance was sufficiently comprehensive to fix her firmly in his memory. She inquired at the garage concerning Casey Ryan, taking it for granted he would be driving a Ford. A man of that description had stopped at the garage for gas at nine o'clock that forenoon, the boy told her.

“That gives him five hours' start,” the Little Woman remarked, to herself as she eased in the clutch and slid around the corner into the highway to Barstow. “But you can't tell me I can't run down a Ford with this car. I know to the last inch what a Jawn Henry is good for. Now we'll see.”

Chapter XII.

At Dagget the big, blue car with a lady driver sounded the warning signal and passed Mack Nolan and the Cadillac roadster. Like Casey Ryan, Nolan was rather proud of his driving—and with sufficient reason. He was already hurrying, not to overhaul Casey, but to arrive soon after him.

Women drivers loved to pass other cars with a sudden spurt of speed, he had found by experience. They were not, however, consistently fast drivers. Mack Nolan was conscious of a slight irritation when the twin-six took the lead.

So Mack Nolan drove a bit harder—and succeeded in getting most of the dust kicked up by the big, blue car. He counted on passing it before they reached Ludlow, but he could never quite make it. In that ungodly stretch of sand and rocks and chuck holes that lies between Ludlow and Amboy, Nolan was sure that the woman driver would have to slow down—but she didn't.

Five miles east of Amboy, when a red sunset was darkening to starlight, the blue car, fifty yards in the lead, overhauled a Ford in trouble. In the loose, sandy trail the big car slowed and stopped abreast of the Ford. There was no passing now, unless Mack Nolan wanted to risk smashing his crank case on a lava rock, millions of which peppered that particular portion of the Mojave Desert. He stopped perforce.

A pair of feet, with legs attached to them, protruded from, beneath the running board of the Ford. The Little Woman in the big car leaned over the side and studied the feet critically.

“Casey Ryan, are those the best pair of shoes you own?” she drawled at last. “If you wouldn't wear such run-down heels, you know, you wouldn't look so bow-legged. I've told you and told you that your legs aren't so bad when you wear straight heels.”

Casey Ryan crawled out and looked up at her, grinning sheepishly.

“They was all right when I left home, ma'am,” he defended his shoes mildly. “Desert plays the devil with shoe leather—you can ask anybody.”

“Hello, Ryan!” Mack Nolan greeted, coming up from the Cadillac. “Having trouble with your car?” Casey whirled.

“Naw. This ain't no trouble,” he grunted. “I only been here four hours or so—this is pastime!”

There was an awkward silence. The Little Woman wanted to know who was the man in the Cadillac roadster, and how he happened to know Casey so well. Nolan, no doubt, wanted to know who she was. And there was so much that Casey wanted to know and needed to know, that he couldn't seem to think of anything. However, Casey came up to the side of the blue car, reached in with his hands all greasy black, and took the Little Woman's hand from the wheel and kissed it. The Little Woman made a caressing sound and leaned out to him—and Nolan felt that he mustn't look. So he walked away and spent a minute or two fussing around his car. Then he walked back to the blue car.

“I'm pretty good at guessing,” he said, and smiled at the Little Woman. “I guess you're Mrs. Casey Ryan. Casey has talked of you to me. I'm right glad to meet you, too. My name is Mack Nolan, and I'm Irish. I'm Casey Ryan's partner. We have a good—prospect.”

Casey looked past the Little Woman, straight into Mack Nolan's eyes. There was an electric quality in the air while their gaze held.

“I'm just getting back from a trip down in the valley,” Nolan observed easily. “You never did see me in town duds, did you, Casey?” His eyes turned to the Little Woman's face. “I suppose you know what this wild Irishman has just pulled off—back there,” he said, tilting his head toward San Bernardino many a mile away to the south-west. “You wouldn't think it to look at him, but he surely has thrown a monkey wrench into as pretty a bootlegging machine as there is in the country. It's such confidential stuff, of course, that you may call it absolutely secret. But for once I'm telling the truth about it.

“Your husband, Mrs. Casey Ryan, holds a commission from headquarters as a prohibition officer. A deputy, it is true—but commissioned nevertheless. He's just getting back from a very pretty piece of work. A crooked officer named Smiling Lou was arrested last night. He had all kinds of liquor cached away in his house. Casey can tell you some time how he trapped him.

“Of course, I'm just an amateur mining expert on a vacation, myself.” His eyes met Casey's straight. “I wasn't with him when he pulled the deal, but I heard about it afterward, and I knew he was planning something of the sort when he left camp. How I happened to know about the commission,” he added, reaching into his pocket, “is because he left it with me for safe-keeping. I'm going to let you look at it—just in case he's too proud to let it out of his hands once I give it back.

“Now, of course, I'm talking like an old woman and telling all Casey's secrets—and you'll probably see a real Irish fight when he gets in reach of me. But I knew he hadn't told you exactly what he's doing, and—I personally feel that his wife is entitled to know as much as his partner knows about him.”

The Little Woman nodded absently her thanks. She was holding Casey's commission under the dash light to read it.

Casey gulped once or twice while he stared across the car at Mack Nolan. He pushed his dusty, black hat forward over one eyebrow, and reached into his pocket.

“Aw hell!” he grunted, grinning queerly. “You come around here wunst, Mr. Nolan, where I can git my hands on yuh!”