CHAPTER XIX
I don't suppose Casey Ryan ever started out to do something for himself--something he considered important to his own personal welfare andhappiness--without running straight into some other fellow's business andstopping to lend a hand. He says he can't remember being left alone at anytime in his life to follow the beckoning finger of his own particulardestiny.
Casey had made camp that night in one of several deep gulches that ridgedthe butte with two peaks. We had been lucky in our burro buying, and hehad two of the fastest walking jacks in the country, so that he was ableto give them a good long nooning and still reach the foot of the butte andmake camp well before sundown. For the first time since he first heard ofthe Injun Jim gold mine, Casey felt that he was really "squared away" tothe search. As he sat there blowing his unhurried breath upon a bluegranite cup of coffee to cool it, his memory slanted back along the yearswhen he had said that some day he would go and hunt for the Injun Jim minethat was so rich a ten-pound lard bucket full of the ore had been known toyield five hundred dollars' worth of gold. Well, it had been a long timesince he first said that to himself, but here he was, and to-morrow hewould begin his search with daylight, starting with this gulch he was inand working methodically over every foot of Two Peak.
He took two long, satisfying swallows of coffee and poised the cup andlistened. After a minute had gone in that way, he finished the coffee ingulps and stood up, dangling the empty cup with a finger crooked in thehandle. From somewhere not more than a long rifle-shot away, a Ford wascoughing under full pressure of gas and with at least one dirty spark plugto give it a spasmodic stutter. While Casey stood there listening, thestutter slowed and stopped with one wheezy cough. That was all.
"They'll have to clean up her hootin'-annies before they git outa here,"Casey observed shrewdly, having intimate and sometimes unpleasantknowledge of Fords and their peculiar ailments. "And I wonder what thesufferin' Chris'mas they're doin' here, anyway. If it's huntin' the InjunJim they're after, the quicker they scrape the sut off them dingbats andgit outa here, the healthier they'll ride. You ask anybody if Casey Ryan'sliable to back up now he's on the ground and squared away!"
He stood there uneasily for a minute or two longer, caught a whiff of hisbacon scorching and stooped to its rescue. Then he fried a bannock hastilyin the bacon grease, folded two slices of bacon within it and ate in ahurry, keeping an ear cocked for any further sounds from the concealedcar.
He finished eating without having heard more and piled his dishes withoutwashing them. I don't suppose he had used more than ten minutes at thelongest in eating his supper. That was about the limit of Casey's inactionwhen he smelled a mystery or a scrap. This had the elements of both, andhe started out forthwith to trail down the Ford, wiping crumbs from hismouth and getting out his plug of tobacco as he went.
In broken country sounds are deceptive as to direction, but Casey waslucky enough to walk straight toward the spot, which was over a hump inthe gulch, a sort of backbone dividing it in two narrow branches there atits mouth. He had noticed when he rode toward it that it was ridged in themiddle, and had chosen the left-hand branch for no reason at all exceptthat it happened to be a little smoother traveling for his animals.
He topped the ridge and came full upon a camp below, almost within callingdistance from where he first sighted it. There was a stone hut that couldnot possibly contain more than two small rooms, and there was a tentpitched not far away. There seemed to be a spring just beyond the cabin.Casey saw the silver gleam of water there, and a strip of green grass, anda juniper bush or two.
But these details were not important at the moment. What sent him down thehill in an uneven trot was a group of three that stood beside a car. Fromtheir voices, and the gestures that were being made, here was a quarrelbuilding rapidly into a fight. To prove it the smallest person in thegroup suddenly whipped out a revolver and pointed it at the two. Casey sawthe reddening sunlight strike upon the barrel with a brief shine,instantly quenched when the gun was thrust forward toward the other twowhom it threatened.
"You get out of my camp and out of my sight just as fast as your legs cantake you. This car belongs to me, and you're not going to touch it. You'vegot your wages--more than your wages, you great hulking shirks! A fineexhibition you're making of yourselves, I must say! You thought you couldbluff me--that I'd stand meekly by and let you two bullies have your ownway about it, did you? You even waited until you had gorged yourselves onfood you've never earned, before you started your highwaymen performance.You made sure of one more good meal, you--you _hogs._ Now go, before Iempty this gun into the two of you!"
Casey stopped, puffing a little, I suppose. He is not so young as whenthey called him the Fightin' Stagedriver, and he had done his long day oftravel. The three did not know that he was there, they were so busy withtheir quarrel. The woman's voice was sharp with contempt, but it was notloud and there was not a tremble in any tone of it. The gun she held wassteady in her hand, but one man snarled at her and one man laughed. It wasthe kind of laugh a woman would hate to hear from a man she was defying.
"Aw, puddown the popgun! Nobody's scared of it--er you. It ain't loaded,and if it was loaded you couldn't hit nothin'. No need to be scared'long's a woman's pointing a gun at yuh. Crank 'er up, agin, Ole. Don'tworry none about _her._ She can't stop nothin', not even her jawin'. Goawn, start the damn Lizzie an' let's go."
Ole bent to the cranking, then complained that the switch must be off. Hiscompanion growled that it was nothing of the kind and kept his narrowedgaze fixed upon the woman.
She spied Casey standing there, a few rods beyond the car. The gun droppedin her hand so that its aim was no longer direct. The man who faced herjumped and caught her wrist, and the gun went off, the bullet singing tenfeet above Casey's head.
A little girl with flaxen curls and patched overalls on screamed andrushed up to the man, gripping him furiously around the legs just abovethe knees and trying her little best to shake him. "You leave my mammaalone!" she cried shrilly.
Casey took a hand then,--a hand with a rock in it, I must explain. Hemanaged to kick Ole harshly in the ribs, sending him doubled sidewise andyelping, as he passed him. He laid the other man out senseless with therock which landed precisely on the back of the head just under his hat.
The woman--Casey had mistaken her for a man at first, because she wore biboveralls and had her hair bobbed and a man's hat on--dropped the gun andheld her wrist that showed angry red finger prints. She smiled at Caseyexactly as if nothing much had happened.
"Thank you very much indeed. I was beginning to wonder how I was going tomanage the situation. It was growing rather awkward, because I should havebeen compelled to shoot them both, I expect, before I was through. And Idreaded a mess. Wounded, I should have had them on my hands to take careof--their great hulks!--and dead I should have had to bury them, and Idetest digging in this rocky soil. You really did me a very great--"
Her eyes ranged to something behind Casey and widened at what they saw.Casey whirled about, ducked a hurtling monkey wrench and rushed Ole, whowas getting up awkwardly, his eyes malevolent. He made a very thorough jobof thrashing Ole, and finished by knocking him belly down over theun-hooded engine of the Ford.
"I hope Jawn doesn't suffer from that," the little woman commentedwhimsically. "Babe, run and get that rope over there and take it to thegentleman so he can tie Ole's hands together. Then he can't be naughty anymore. Hurry, Baby Girl."
Baby Girl hurried, her curls whipping around her face as she ran. Shebrought a coil of cotton clothesline to Casey, looking up at him withwide, measuring eyes of a tawny shade like sunlight shining through thinbrown silk. "I wish you'd give Joe a beating too," she said with graveearnestness. "He's a badder man than Ole. He hurt my mamma. Will you giveJoe a beating and tie his naughty hands jus' like that when he wakes up?"She lifted her plump little body on her scuffed toes, her brown, dimpledfingers clutching the radiator to hold her steady while she watched Caseytie Ole's naugh
ty hands behind his back.
"Now will you tie Joe's naughty hands jus' like that? Don't use up all therope! My mamma hasn't got any more rope, and you have to tie--"
"Babe! Come over here and don't bother the gentleman. Stand away overthere so you can't hear the naughty words Ole is saying." The little womansmiled, but not much. Casey, glancing up from the last efficient knot,felt suddenly sorry that he had not first gagged Ole. Casey had notthought of it before; mere cussing was natural to him as breathing, and hehad scarcely been aware of the fact that Ole was speaking. Now he cuffedthe Swede soundly and told him to shut up, and yanked him off the car.
"Joe is regaining consciousness. He'll be nasty to handle as a rabidcoyote if you wait much longer. Just cut the rope. It's my clothesline,but we must not balk at trifles in a crisis like this." The little womanhad recovered her gun and was holding it ready for Joe in case thepredicted rabidness became manifest.
Casey tied Joe very thoroughly while consciousness was slowly returning.The situation ceased to be menacing; it became safe and puzzling and evena bit mysterious. Casey reached for his plug, remembered his manners andtook away his hand. Robbed of his customary inspiration he stoodundecided, scowling at the feebly blinking ruffian called Joe.
"It's very good of you not to ask what it's all about," said the littlewoman, taking off the man's hat and shaking back her hair like aschoolgirl. "I have some mining claims here--four of them. My husband leftthem to me, and since that's all he did leave I have been keeping up theassessment work every year. Last year I had enough money to buy Jawn." Shenodded toward the Ford. "I outfitted and came out here with an old fellowI'd known for years, kept camp until he'd done the assessment work, andpaid him off and that was all there was to it.
"This summer the old man is prospecting the New Jerusalem, I expect. Hedied in April. I hired these two scoundrels. I was foolish enough to payhalf their wages in advance, because they told me a tale of owing money toa widow for board and wanting to pay her. I have," she observed, "aweakness for widows. And they have just pretended to be working theclaims. I hurt my ankle so that I haven't been able to walk far for amonth, and they took advantage of it and have been prospecting around ontheir own account, at my expense, while I religiously marked down theirtime and fed them. They have located four claims adjoining mine, and putup their monuments and done their location work in the past month, if youplease, while I supposed they were working for me."
"D'they locate you in on 'em?"
"Locate me--in? You mean, as a partner? They emphatically did not! I wentup to the claims to-day, saw that they had not done a thing since the lasttime I was there; they had even taken away my tools. So we tracked them,Baby and I, and found their location monuments just over the hill, and sawwhere they had been working. So to-night I asked them about it, and theywere very defiant and very cool and decided that they were through outhere and would go to town. They were _borrowing_ Jawn--so they said. I wasobjecting, naturally. I was quite against being left alone out here,afoot, with Babe on my hands. It will soon be coming on cold," she said."I'd have been in a fine predicament, with supplies for only about a monthlonger. And I must get the assessment work done, too, you know."
"D'you want 'em to stay and finish your work?" Casey reached out with hisfoot and pushed Joe down upon his back again.
The little woman looked down at Joe and across at Ole by the car. "No,thank you. I should undoubtedly put strychnine in their coffee if theystayed, I should hate the sight of them so. I have some that I brought forthe pack rats. No, I don't want them--"
She had sounded very cool and calm, and she had impressed Casey as beingquite as fearless as himself. But now he caught a trembling in her voice,and he distinctly saw her lip quiver. He was so disturbed that he wentover and slapped Ole again and told him to shut up, though Ole was notsaying a word.
"Where's their bed-rolls?" Casey asked, when he turned toward her again.She pointed to the tent, and Casey went and dragged forth the packedbelongings of the two. It was perfectly plain that they had deliberatelyplanned their desertion, for everything was ready to load into the car.
Casey went staggering to the Ford, dumped the canvas rolls in and yankedOle up by the collar, propelling him into the tonneau. Then he came afterJoe.
"If you can drive, you'll mebby feel better if yuh go along," he said tothe woman. "I'm goin' to haul 'em far enough sos't they won't feel likewalkin' back to bother yuh, and seein' you don't know me, mebby you betterdo the drivin'. Then you'll know I ain't figurin' on stealin' your car andmakin' a getaway."
"I can drive, of course," she acquiesced. "Not that I'd be afraid to trustJawn with you, but they're treacherous devils, those two, and they mightmanage somehow to make you trouble if you go alone. Jawn is atemperamental car, and he demands all of one's attention at times."
She walked over to the car, reached out in the gathering dusk and fingeredthe carburetor adjustment. "When they first revealed their plan of makingaway with Jawn," she drawled, "I came up like this and remonstrated. Andwhile I did so I reached over and turned the screw and shut off the gasfeed. Jawn balked with them, of course--but they never guessed why!"
The two in the tonneau muttered something in undertones while the littlewoman smiled at them contemptuously. Casey thought that was pretty smart--to stall the car so they couldn't get away with it--but he did not tellher so. There was something about the little woman which restrained himfrom talking freely and speaking his mind bluntly as was his habit.
He cranked the car, waited until she had the adjustment correct, and thenwent back and stood on the running board, holding with his left hand to abrace of the top and keeping his right free in case he should need it. Thelittle woman helped the little girl into the front seat, slid her ownsmall person behind the wheel and glanced round inquiringly, with aflattering recognition of his masculine right to command.
"Just head towards town and keep a-going till I say when," he told her,and she nodded and sent Jawn careening down over the rough tracks whichCasey had missed by a quarter of a mile or less.
She could drive, Casey admitted, almost as recklessly as he could. He hadall he wanted to do, hanging on without being snapped off at some of thesharp turns she made. The road wandered down the valley for ten miles,crept over a ridge, then dove headlong into another wide, shallow valleyseamed with washes and deep cuts. The little woman never eased her paceexcept when there was imminent danger of turning Jawn bottomside up in awash. So in a comparatively short time they were over two summits andfacing the distant outline of Crazy Woman Hills. They had come, Caseyjudged, about twenty miles, and they had been away from camp less than anhour.
Casey leaned forward and spoke to the woman, and she stopped the carobediently. Casey pulled open the door and motioned, and the Swede camestumbling out, sullenly followed by Joe, who muttered thickly that he wassick and that the back of his head was caved in. Casey did not reply, butheaved their bedding out after them. With the little woman holding her gunat full aim, he untied the two and frugally stowed the rope away in thecar.
"Now, you git," he ordered them sternly. "There's four of us camped justacrost the ridge from this lady's place, and we'll sure keep plenty ofeyes out. If you got any ideas about taking the back trail, you betterthink agin, both of yuh. You'd never git within shootin' distance of thislady's camp. I'm Casey Ryan that's speakin' to yuh. You ask anybody aboutme. Git!"
Sourly they shouldered their bed-rolls and went limping down the trail,and when their forms were only blurs beyond the shine of the headlights,the little woman churned Jawn around somehow in the sand and drove backquite as recklessly as she had come. Casey, bouncing alone in the rearseat, did a great deal of thinking, but I don't believe he spoke once.
"Casey Ryan, I have never had much reason for feeling gratitude toward aman, but I am truly grateful to you. You are a man and a gentleman." Thelittle woman had driven close to the stone cabin and had turned and restedher arm along the back of the front seat, half supporting the sle
epingchild while she looked full at Casey. She had left the engine running,probably for sake of the headlights, and her eyes shone dark and bright inthe crisp starlight.
"'Tain't worth mentionin'," Casey protested awkwardly, and got out.
"I've been wondering if I could get a couple of you men to do the work onmy claims," she went on. "I'm paying four dollars and board, and it wouldbe a great nuisance to make the long trip to town and find a couple of menI would dare trust. In fact, it's going to be pretty hard for me to trustany one, after this experience. If you men can take the time from your ownbusiness--"
"I don't know about the rest," Casey hedged uncomfortably. "They wasfigurin' on doing something else. But I guess I could finish up the workfor yuh, all right. How deep is your shaft?"
"It's a tunnel," she corrected. "My husband started four years ago todrift in to the contact. He'd gone fifty feet when he died. I don't knowthat I'll strike the body of ore when I do reach the contact, but it's theonly hope. I'm working the four claims as a group, and the tunnel is noweighty feet. Those two brigands have wasted a month for me, or it would bea hundred. One man can manage, though of course it's slower and harder. Ihave powder enough, unless they stole it from me. They did about five feetall told, and tore down part of my wall, I discovered to-day, chasing astringer of fairly rich ore, thinking, I suppose, that it would lead to apocket. The old man I had last year found a pocket of high grade thatnetted me a thousand dollars."
Casey threw up his head. "Gold?" he asked.
"Mostly silver. I sent a truck out from town after the ore, shipped it byexpress and still made a thousand dollars clear. There wasn't quite a tonand a half of it, though. You'll come, then, and work for me? I wish youcould persuade one of your partners to help. It's getting well intoSeptember already."
"I wouldn't depend on 'em," Casey demurred uncomfortably. "I can do italone. And I'll board m'self, if you'd ruther. I've got grub enough. Iguess I better be gittin' along back to camp--if you ain't afraid to stayalone. Them two couldn't git back much b'fore daylight, if they run allthe way; and by that time I'll be up and on the lookout," and Casey swungoff without waiting for an answer.