The Trail of the White Mule

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  During the companionable smoke that followed breakfast, Casey learnedthat Mack Nolan had spent some time in Nevada, ambling through thehills, examining the geologic formation of the country with a view topossible future prospecting in districts yet undeveloped.

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

  "Every spring I like to get out and poke around through these hillswhere 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 likebest is general field work. If I run across something rich, timeenough then to locate a claim or two and hire a couple of strong backsto do the digging.

  "I've been out now for about three weeks; and night before last, justas I stopped to make camp and before I'd started to unpack, my twomules got scared at a rattler and quit the country. Left me flat,without a thing but my clothes and six-shooter, and what I had in mypockets." He lifted the cigarette from between his lips--thin, theywere, and curved and rather pitiless, one could guess, if the man weresufficiently roused.

  "I wasted all yesterday trying to trail 'em. But you can't do muchtracking in these rocks back here toward the river. I was hitting forthe highway to catch a ride if I could, when I saw you topping thislast ridge over here. Don't blame me much for bumming a breakfast, doyou?" And he added, with a sigh of deep physical content, "It sure-leewas some feed!"

  His lids drooped lower as if sleep were overtaking him in spite ofhimself. "I'd ask yuh if you'd seen anything of those mules--only Idon't give a damn now. I wish this was night instead of noon; I couldsleep the clock around after that bacon and bannock of yours. Haven'ta care in the world," he murmured drowsily. "Happy as a toad in thesun, first warm day of spring. How soon you going to crank up?"

  Casey stared at him unwinkingly through narrowed lids. He pushed hishat forward with a sharp tilt over his eyebrow--which meant always thatCasey Ryan had just O. K.'d an idea--and reached for his chewingtobacco.

  "Go ahead an' take a nap if yuh want to," he urged. "I got sometinkerin' to do on the Ford, an' I was aimin' to lay over here an' doit. I'm kinda lookin' around, myself, for a likely prospect; I got allthe time there is. I guess I'll back the car down the draw a piecewhere she'll set level, an' clean up 'er dingbats whilst you take asleep."

  Casey left the breakfast things where they were, as a silentreassurance to Mack Nolan that the car would not go off without him. Itwas a fine, psychological detail of which Casey was secretly ratherproud. A box of grub, a smoked coffee pot and dirty breakfast dishesleft beside a dead campfire establishes evidence, admissible before anyjury, that the owner means to return.

  Casey went over and cranked the Ford, grimly determined to make thecoffee pot lie for him if necessary. He backed the car down the draw agood seventy-five yards, to where a wrinkle in the bank hid him fromthe breakfast camp. He stopped there and left the engine running whilehe straddled out over the side and went forward to the dip of the frontfender to see if the Ford were still visible to Mack Nolan. He wasglad to find that by crouching and sighting across the fender he couldjust see the campfire and the top of Nolan's hat beyond it. The manneed only lift his head off his arm to see that the Ford was standingjust around the turn of the draw.

  "The corner was never yet so tight that Casey Ryan couldn't find acrack somewhere to crawl through," he told himself vaingloriously. "An'I hope to thunder the feller sleeps long an' sleeps solid!"

  For fifteen minutes the mind of Casey Ryan was at ease. He had found ashovel in the car, placed conveniently at the side where it could beused for just such an emergency as this. For fifteen minutes he hadbeen using that shovel in a shelving bank of loose gravel just under anoutcropping of rhyolite a rod or so behind the car and well out ofsight of Nolan.

  He was beginning to consider his excavation almost deep enough to burytwo ten-gallon kegs and forty bottles of whisky, when the shadow of ahead and shoulders fell across the hole. Casey did not lift the dirtand rocks he had on his shovel. He froze to a tense quiet, goggling atthe shadow.

  "What are yuh doing, Casey? Trying to outdig a badger?" Mack Nolan'schuckle 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 rich-lookin' piece uhfloat. Thought I'd just see if it didn't mebby come from this ledge."

  Mack Nolan stepped forward interestedly and looked at the ledge.

  "Where's the piece you found?" he very naturally inquired. "Theformation just here wouldn't lead me to expect gold-bearing rock; butof course, anything is possible with gold. Let's have a look at thespecimen."

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

  He had laughed over his loss then, and he grinned now and reachedcarelessly to the bank beside him as if he fully expected to lay hishand on the specimen of gold-bearing rock. He went so far as to uttera surprised oath when he failed to find it. He felt in his pockets.He went forward and scanned the top of the ledge almost convincingly.He turned and stood a-straddle, his hands on his hips, and gazed on thepile of dirt he had thrown out of the hole. Last, he pushed his hatback so that with the next movement he could push it forward again overhis eyebrow.

  "Now if that there lump uh high-grade ain't went an' slid down the bankan' got covered up with the muck!" he exclaimed disgustedly. "I'm a sonof a gun if Fate ain't playin' agin' Casey Ryan with a flock uh acesunder its vest!"

  Mack Nolan laughed, and Casey slanted a look his way. "Thought I leftyou takin, a nap," he said brazenly. "What's the matter? Didn't yourbreakfast set good?"

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

  "The breakfast was fine," he replied easily. "A couple of lizards gotto playing tag over me. That woke me up, and the sun was so hot I justthought I'd come down and crawl into the car and go to sleep there. Goahead with your prospecting, Casey--I won't bother you."

  Casey went on with his digging, but his heart was not in it. With everylaggard shovelful of dirt, he glanced over his shoulder apprehensively,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 onewild, wicked impulse to lengthen the hole and make it serve as a gravefor more than bootleg whisky; but it was an impulse born ofdesperation, and it died almost before it had lived.