That night Casey slept soundly in a bunk built above Joe's bed in the
dugout, with Hank and Paw on the opposite side of the room with their
guns handy. In the morning he thought well enough of his stomach to
get up and start breakfast when Hank had built the fire. He was aware
of Joe's suspicious gaze from the lower bunk, and of the close presence
of Joe's six-shooter eyeing him balefully from underneath the top
blanket. Hank, too, was watchful as a coyote, which he much resembled,
in Casey's opinion. But Casey did not mind trifles of that kind, once
his mind was at ease about the breakfast and he was free to slice bacon
the right thickness, and mix the hot-cake batter himself. For the first
time in many weeks he sang--if you could call it singing--over his work.
When Casey Ryan sings over a breakfast fire, you may expect the bacon
fried exactly right. You may be sure the hot-cakes will be browned
correctly with no uncooked dough inside, and that the coffee will give
you heart for whatever hardship the day may hold.
Even Paw's surliness lightened a bit by the time he had speared his
tenth cake and walloped it in the bacon grease before sprinkling it
thick with sugar and settling the eleventh cake on top. Casey was
eyeing the fourteenth cake on Hank's plate when Joe looked up at him
over a loaded fork.
"Save out enough dough for three good uns," Joe ordered, "an' fill that
little coffee pot an' set it to keep hot, before Hank hogs the hull
thing. Dad, seems like you're, too busy t' think uh some things Mart
wouldn't want forgot." Paw looked quickly at Casey; but Casey Ryan had
played poker all his life, and his weathered face showed no expression
beyond a momentary interest, which was natural.
"Other feller hurt bad?" he inquired carelessly, looking at Joe's
bandaged hand. He almost grinned when he saw the relieved glances
exchanged between Joe and Paw.
"Leg broke," Joe mumbled over a mouthful. "Dad, he set it an' it's
doin' all right. He's up in another cabin." Through Hank's brainless
titter, Joe added carefully, "Bad ground in the first right-hand drift.
We had to abandon it. Rocks big as your head comin' in on yuh
onexpected. None uh them right-hand drifts is safe fer a man t' walk
in, much less work."
Thereupon Casey related a thrilling story of a cave-in, and assured Joe
that he and his partner were lucky to get off with mere broken bones.
Casey, you will observe, was running contrary to his nature and leaning
to diplomacy.
For himself, I am sure he would never have troubled to placate them. He
would have taken the first slim chance that offered--or made one--and
fought the three to a finish.
But there was the old woman in the rock hut above them, rocking back
and forth and staring at a wall that had no visible opening save one
small window to let in the light of outdoors. Prisoner she must
be--though why, Casey could only guess.
Perhaps she was some desert woman, the widow of some miner who had been
shot as these three had tried to shoot him and Barney Oakes. Mean,
malevolent as they were, they would still lack the brutishness
necessary to shoot an old woman. So they had shut her up there in the
rock hut, not daring to take her back to civilization where she would
tell of the crime. It was all plain enough to Casey. The story of the
crippled miner made him curl his lip contemptuously when his back was
safely turned from Joe.
That day Casey thought much of the old woman in the hut, and of Paw's
worse than inferior cooking. Though he did not realize the change in
himself, six months of close companionship with the Little Woman had
changed Casey Ryan considerably. Time was when even his
soft-heartedness would not have impelled him to patient scheming that
he might help an old woman whose sole claim upon his sympathy consisted
of four rock walls and a look of calm despair in her eyes. Now, Casey
was thinking and planning for the old woman more than for himself.
Wherefore, Casey chose the time when he was "putting in an upper"
(which is miner's parlance for drilling a hole in the upper face of the
tunnel). He gritted his teeth when he swung back the single-jack and
landed a glancing blow on the knuckles of his left hand instead of the
drill end. No man save Casey Ryan or a surgeon could have told
positively whether the metacarpal bones were broken or whether the hand
was merely skinned and bruised.
Joe came up, regarded the bleeding hand sourly, led Casey out to the
dugout and bandaged the hand for him. There would be no more tunnel
work for Casey until the hand had healed; that was accepted without
comment.
That night Casey proved to Paw that, with one hand in a sling much
resembling Joe's, he could nevertheless cook a meal that made eating a
pleasure to look forward to. After that the old woman in the little
stone hut had pudding, sometimes, and cake made without eggs, and pie;
and the potatoes were mashed or baked instead of plain boiled. Casey
had the satisfaction of seeing the dishes return empty to the dugout,
and know that he was permitted to add something to her comfort and
well-being. The Little Woman would be glad of that, Casey thought with
a glow. She might never hear of it, but Casey liked to feel that he
was doing something that would please the Little Woman.
For the first few days after Casey was installed as cook, one of the
three remained always with him, making it plain that he was under
guard. Two were always busy elsewhere. Casey saw that he was expected
to believe that they were at work in the tunnel, driving it in to a
certain contact of which they spoke frequently and at length.
At supper they would mention their footage for that day's work, and
Casey would hide a grin of derision. Casey knew rock as he knew bacon
and beans and his sour-dough can. To make the footage they claimed to
be making in that tunnel, they would need to shoot twice a day, with a
round of, say, five holes to a shot.
As a matter of fact, two holes a day, one shot at noon and one at
night, were the most Casey ever heard fired in the tunnel or elsewhere
about the mine. But he did not tell them any of the things he thought;
not even Joe, who had intelligence far above Paw and Hank, ever guessed
that Casey listened every day for their shots and could tell, almost to
an inch what progress they were actually making in the tunnel. Nor did
he guess that Casey Ryan with his mouth shut was more unsafe than
"giant powder" laid out in the sun until it sweated destruction.
Persistent effort, directed by an idea based solely upon an abstract
theory, must be driven by a trained intelligence. In this case the
abstract theory that every prisoner must be watched must support itself
unaided by Casey's behavior. Not even Joe's intelligence was trained
to a degree where the theory in itself was sufficient to hold him to
the continuous effort of watching Casey.
Wherefore Paw, Hank and Joe presently slipped into the habit of leaving
Casey alone for an hour or so; being careful to keep the guns out of
his reach, and returning to the dugout at unexpected intervals to make
sure that all was well.
Casey Ryan knew his pots and pans, and how to make them fill his days
if need be. With savory suppers and his care-free, Casey Ryan grin, he
presently lulled them into accepting him as a handy man around camp,
and into forgetting that he was at least a potential enemy. Afoot and
alone in that unfriendly land, with his left hand smashed and carried
in a sling, and on his tongue an Irish joke that implied content with
his captivity, Casey Ryan would not have looked dangerous to more
intelligent men than these three.
They should have looked one night under the bedding in Casey's bunk.
More important still would have been the safeguarding of their "giant
powder" and caps and fuse. They should not have left it in a gouged,
open hollow under a boulder near the dugout. They were not burdened by
the weight of their brains, I imagine.
Just here I should like to say a few words to those who are wholly
ignorant of the devastating power contained in "giant powder"--which is
dynamite. If you have never had any experience with the stuff, you are
likely to go out with a bang and a puff of bluish-brown smoke when you
go. On the other hand, you may believe the weird tales one reads now
and then, of how whole mountainsides have been thrown down by the
discharge of a few sticks of dynamite. Or of one man striking terror
to the very souls of a group of mutinous miners by threatening to throw
a piece at them. Very well, now this is the truth without any frills
of exaggeration or any belittlement:
Dynamite MAY go off by being thrown so that it lands with a jar, but it
is not likely to be so hasty as all that. Whole boxes of it have been
dropped off wagons traveling over rough trails, with no worse effect
than a nervous chill down the spine of the driver of the wagon. It is
true that old stuff, after lying around for months and months through
varying degrees of temperature, may perform erratically, exploding when
it shouldn't and refusing to explode when it should. The average miner
refuses to take a chance with stale "giant" if he can get hold of fresh.
One stick the size of an ordinary candle, and from that to a maximum
amount of four sticks, may be used to "load" a hole eighteen to
twenty-four inches long, drilled into living rock. The amount of
dynamite used depends upon the quality of rock to be broken and the
skill and good judgment of the miner. In average hard-rock mining,
from three to five of these holes are drilled in a space four-by-six
feet in area.
A stick of dynamite is exploded by inserting in one end of the stick a
high-power detonating cap which will deliver a twenty-pound blow per
X--whatever that means. From three- to six-X caps are used in ordinary
mining. Three-X caps sometimes fail to explode a stick of dynamite. A
six-X cap, delivering a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound blow, may be
counted upon to do the work without fail.
The cap itself is exploded by a spark running through a length of fuse,
the length depending altogether upon the time required to reach a point
of safety after the fuse is lighted. The cap is really more dangerous
to handle than is the dynamite itself. The cap is a tricky thing that
may go off at any jar or scratch or at a spark from pipe or cigarette.
You can, if you are sufficiently careless of possible results, light
the twisted paper end of a stick of dynamite and watch the dynamite
burn like wax in your fingers; it MAY go off and set your friends to
work retrieving portions of your body. More likely, it will do nothing
but burn harmlessly.
Well, then, a piece of fuse is inserted in the open end of the cap, and
the metal pressed tight against the fuse to hold it in place. Pressed
down by the miner's teeth, sometimes, if he has been long in the
business and has grown careless about his head; otherwise he crimps the
cap on with a small pair of pliers or the back of his knife blade--and
feels a bit easier when it is done without losing a hand.
You would think, unless you are accustomed to the stuff, that when five
holes are loaded with, probably, ten or twelve sticks of dynamite to
the lot, each hole containing a six-X exploding cap as well, that the
first shot would likewise be the last shot and that the whole tunnel
would cave in and the mountain behind it would shake. Nothing like that
occurs. If there are five loaded holes in the tunnel face, and you do
not hear, one after the other, five muffled BOOMS, you will know that
one hole failed to go off--and that the miner is worried. It happens
sometimes that four holes loaded with eight sticks of dynamite explode
within a foot or so of the fifth hole and yet the fifth hole remains
"dead" and a menace to the miner until it is discharged.
So please don't swallow those wild tales of a stick of dynamite that
threw down a mountainside. I once read a story--it was not so long
ago--of a Chinaman who wiped out a mine with a little piece of dynamite
which he carried in his pocket. I laughed.
Casey Ryan, on the first day when he was left alone with his crippled
hand and his pots and pans for company, did nothing whatever that he
would not have done had one of the three been present. He was
suspicious of their going and thought it was a trap set to catch him in
an attempted escape.
On the second day when the three went off together and left him alone,
Casey went out gathering wood and discovered just where the "powder,"
fuse and caps were kept under a huge, black boulder between the tunnel
portal and the dugout. On the third day he also gathered wood and
helped himself to two sticks of dynamite, three caps and eighteen
inches of fuse. Not enough to be missed unless they checked their
supply more carefully than Casey believed they did; but enough for
Casey's purpose nevertheless.
That night, while the moon shone in through the dingy window at the
head of his bunk and gave him a little light to work by, Casey sat up
in bed and snored softly and with a soothing rhythm while he cut a
stick of dynamite in two, capped five inches of fuse for each piece
working awkwardly with his one good hand and pinching the caps tight
with his teeth, which might have sent him with a bang into Kingdom
Come--and very carefully worked the caps into the powder until no more
than three inches of fuse protruded from the end of the half stick. It
would have been less dangerous to land with a yell in the middle of the
floor and fight the three men with one bare hand, but Casey's courage
never turned a hair.
Still snoring mildly, he held up to the moonlight two deadly weapons
and surveyed them with much satisfaction. They would not be so quick,
as fiction would have them, but if his aim was accurate in throwing,
they would be deadly enough. Moreover, he could count with a good deal
of certainty upon a certain degree of terror which the sight of them in
his hand would produce.
When Casey Ryan cooked breakfast next morning, he carried two
half-sticks of loaded dynamite under his hand in the sling. Can you
wonder that even he shied at standing over the stove cooking hot cakes
and complained that his broken hand pained him a lot and that the heat
made it worse? But a shrewd observer would have noticed on his face
the expression of a cat that has been shut in the pantry over night.
Joe volunteered to take another look at the hand and see if blood
poison was "setting in"; but Casey said it didn't feel like blood
poison. He had knocked it against the bunk edge in his sleep, he
declared. He'd dose 'er with iodine after a while, and she'd be all
right.
Joe let it go at that, being preoccupied with other matters at which
Casey could only guess. He conferred with Paw outside the dugout after
breakfast, called Hank away from the dish-washing and the three set off
toward the tunnel with a brisker air than usually accompanied them to
work. Casey watched them go and felt reasonably sure of at least two
hours to himself.
The first thing Casey did after he had made sure that he was actually
alone was to remove the deadly stuff from the sling and lay it on a
shadowed shelf where it would be safe but convenient to his hand. Then,
going to his bunk, he reached under the blankets and found the other
stick of dynamite which he had not yet loaded. This he laid on the
kitchen table and cut it in two as he had done last night with the
other stick. With his remaining cap he loaded a half and carried it
back to his bunk. He was debating in his mind whether it was worth
while purloining another cap from a box under the boulder when another
fancy took him and set him grinning.
Four separate charges of dynamite, he reasoned, would not be necessary.
It was an even chance that the sight of a piece with the fuse in his
hand would be sufficient to tame Paw or Hank or Joe--or the three
together, for that matter--without going further than to give them a
sight of it.
With that idea uppermost, Casey split the paper carefully down the side
of the remaining half-stick, took out the contents in a tin plate and
carried it outside where he buried it in the sand beneath a bush.
Returning to the dugout he made a thick dough of leftover pancake
batter and molded it into the dynamite wrapping with a fragment of
harmless fuse protruding from the opened end. When the thing was dry,
Casey thought it would look very deadly and might be useful. After
several days of helplessness for want of a weapon, Casey was in a mood
to supply himself generously.
He finished the dish-washing, working awkwardly with one hand. After
that he put a kettle of beans on to boil, filled the stove with pinon
sticks and closed the drafts. He armed himself with the two loaded
pieces of dynamite from the cupboard, filled his pockets with such
other things as he thought he might need, and went prospecting on his
own account.
At the portal of the tunnel he stopped and listened for the ping-g,
ping-g of a single-jack striking steadily upon steel. But the tunnel
was silent, the ore car uptilted at the end of its track on the dump.
Yet the three men were supposedly at work in the mine, had talked at
breakfast about wanting to show a certain footage when the boss
returned, and of needing to hurry.
Casey went into the tunnel, listening and going silently; sounds travel
far in underground workings. At the mouth of the first right-hand
drift he stopped again and listened. This, if he would believe Joe,
was the drift where the bad ground had caused the accident to Joe and
his partner whose leg had been broken. Casey found the drift as silent
as the main tunnel. He went in ten feet or so and lighted the candle
he had pulled from inside his shirt. With the candle held in the
swollen fingers of his injured hand, and a prospector's pick taken from
the portal in his other, Casey went on cautiously, keeping an eye upon
the roof which, to his wise, squinting eyes, looked perfectly solid and
safe.
If a track had ever been laid in this drift it had long since been
removed. But a well-defined path led along its center with boot tracks
going and coming, blurring one another with much passing. Casey grinned
and went on, his ears cocked for any sound before or behind, his shoes
slung over his arm by their tied laces.
So he came, in the course of a hundred feet or so, to a crude door of
split cedar slabs, the fastening padlocked on his side. Casey had
vaguely expected some such bar to his path, and he merely gave a grunt
of satisfaction that the lock was old and on his side of the door.
With his jackknife Casey speedily took off one side of the lock and
opened it. Making the door appear locked behind him when he had passed
through was a different matter, and Casey did not attempt it. Instead,
he merely closed the door behind him, carrying the padlock in with him.
As Casey reviewed his situation, being on the butte at all was a risk
in itself. One detail more or less could not matter so much. Besides,
he was a bold Casey Ryan with two loaded half-sticks of dynamite in his
sling.
A crude ladder against the wall of a roomy stope beyond the door did
not in the least surprise him. He had expected something of this sort.
When he had topped the ladder and found himself in a chamber that
stretched away into blackness, he grunted again his mental confirmation
of a theory working out beautifully in fact. His candle held close to
the wall, he moved forward along the well-trodden path, looking for a
door. Mechanically he noticed also the formation of the wall and the
vein of ore--probably high-grade in pockets, at least--that had caused
this chamber to be dug. The ore, he judged, had long since been taken
out and down through the stope into the tunnel and so out through the
main portal. These workings were old and for mining purposes abandoned.
But just now Casey was absorbed in solving the one angle of the mystery
which he had stumbled upon at first, and he gave no more than a glance
and a thought to the silent testimony of the rock walls.
He found the door, fastened also on the outside just as he had expected
it would be. Beside it stood a rather clever heating apparatus which
Casey did not examine in detail. His Irish heart was beating rather
fast while he unfastened the door. Beyond that door his thoughts went
questing eagerly but he hesitated nevertheless before he lifted his
knuckles and rapped.
There was no reply. Casey waited a minute, knocked again, then pulled
the door open a crack and looked in. The old woman sat there rocking
back and forth, steadily, quietly. But her thin fingers were rolling a
corner of her apron hem painstakingly, as if she meant to hem it again.
Her eyes were fixed absently upon the futile task. Casey watched her
as long as he dared and cleared his throat twice in the hope that she
would notice him. But the old woman rocked back and forth and rolled
her apron hem; unrolled it and carefully rolled it again.
"Good morning, ma'am," said Casey, clearing his throat for the third
time and coming a step into the room with his candle dripping wax on
the floor.
For just an instant the uneasy fingers paused in their rolling of the
apron hem. For just so long the rockers hesitated in their motion.
But the old woman did not reply nor turn her face toward him; and Casey
pushed the door shut behind him and took two more steps toward her.
"I come to see if yuh needed anything, ma'am; a friend, mebbe." Casey
grinned amiably, wanting to reassure her if it were possible to make
her aware of his presence. "They had yuh locked in, ma'am. That don't
look good to Casey Ryan. If yuh wanta get out--if they got yuh held a
prisoner here, or anything like 'that, you can trust Casey Ryan any old
time. Is--can I do anything for yuh, ma'am?" The old woman dropped her
hands to her lap and held them there, closely clasped. Her head swung
slowly round until she was looking at Casey with that awful, fixed
stare she had heretofore directed at the wall or the floor.
"Tell those hell-hounds they have a thousand years to burn--every one
of them!" she said in a deep, low voice that had in it a singing
resonance like a chant. "Every cat, every rat, every mouse, every
louse, has a thousand year's to burn. Tell Mart the hounds of hell
must burn!" Her voice carried a terrible condemnation far beyond the
meaning of the words themselves. It was as if she were pronouncing the
doom of the whole world. "Every cat, every rat, every mouse, every
louse--"
Casey Ryan's jaw dropped an inch. He backed until he was against the
door. He had to swallow twice before he could find his voice, and
those of you who know Casey Ryan will appreciate that. He waited until
she had finished her declaration.
"No, ma'am, you're wrong. I come up here to see if I could help yuh."
"Hounds of hell--black as the bottomless pit that spewed you forth to
prey upon mankind! The world will have to burn. Tell those hounds of
hell that bay at the gibbous moon the world will have to burn. Every
cat, every rat, every mouse, every louse has a thousand years to burn!"
Casey Ryan, with his mouth half open and his eyes rather wild,
furtively opened the door behind him. Still meeting fixedly the dull
glare of the old woman's eyes, Casey slid out through the door and
fastened it hastily behind him. With an uneasy glance now and then
over his shoulder as if he feared the old woman might be in pursuit of
him, he hurried back down the ladder to the closed door in the drift,
pulled the door shut behind him and put the padlock in place before he
breathed naturally.
He stopped then to put on his shoes, made his way to the drift opening
and listened again for voices or footsteps. When he found the way
clear he hurried out and back to the dugout. The first thing he did
was to fill his pipe and light it. Even then the sonorous voice of the
old woman intoning her dreadful proclamation against the world rang in
his ears and sent occasional ripples of horror down his spine. Seen
through the window, she had looked a sad, lonely old lady who needed
sympathy and help. At closer range she was terrible. Casey was trying
to forget her by busying himself about the stove when Joe walked in
unexpectedly.
Joe stood just inside the door, staring at Casey with a glassy look in
his eyes. Something in Joe's face warned Casey of impending events;
but with that terrible old woman still fresh in his mind, Casey was in
the mood to welcome distraction of any sort. He shifted his hand in
the sling so that his concealed weapons lay more comfortably therein,
secure from detection, and waited.
Joe leaned forward, lifted an arm slowly and aimed a finger at Casey
accusingly.
"Pap says that you're a Federal officer!" he began, waggling his finger
at Casey. "Pap thinks you come here spyin' around t' see what we're up
to on this here butte. Now, you can't pull nothin' like that! You
can't get away with it.
"Hank, he wants t' bump yuh off an' say nothin' to anybody. Now, I
come t' have it out with yuh. If you're a Federal officer we're goin'
t' settle with yuh an' take no chances. Mart, he's more easy-goin' in
some ways, on account of havin' his crazy ol' mother on 'is hands t'
take care of. Mart don't want no killin'--on account of his mother
goin' loony when 'is dad got killed. But Mart ain't here. Pap an'
Hank, they been at me all mornin' t' let 'em bump yuh off.
"But Pap an' Hank, they're drunk, see? I'm the only sober man left on
the job. So I come up here t' settle with yuh myself. Takes a sober
man with a level head t' settle these things. Now, if you come up here
spyin' an' snoopin', you git bumped off an' no argument about it.
Mart's got his mother t' take care of--an' we aim t' pertect Mart. If
you're a Federal officer, I want t' know it here an' now. If yuh
ain't, I want yuh t' sample some uh the out-kickin'est 'White Mule' yuh
ever swallered. Now which are yuh, and what yuh goin' t' do? I want
my answer here an' now, an' no argument an' no foolin'!"
Casey blinked but his mouth widened in a grin. "Me, I never went
lookin' fer nothin, I wouldn't put under my vest, Joe," he declared
convincingly. So that was it! He was thinking against time.
Moonshiners as well as would-be murderers they were--and Joe drunk and
giving them away like a fool. Casey wished that he knew where Hank and
Paw were at this moment. He hoped, too, that Joe was right--that Hank
and Paw were drunk. He'd have the three of them tied in a row before
dark, in any case. The thing to do now was to humor Joe along--leave
it to Casey Ryan!
Joe was uncorking a small, flat bottle of pale liquor. Now he held it
out to Casey. Casey took it, thinking he would pretend to drink, would
urge Joe to take a drink; it would be simple, once he got Joe started.
But Joe had a few ideas of his own concerning the celebration. He
pulled a gun unexpectedly, leaned against the closed door to steady
himself and aimed it full at Casey.
"In just two minutes I'm goin' t' shoot if that there bottle ain't
empty," he stated gravely, nodding his head with intense pride in his
ability to handle the situation. "If you're a Federal officer, yuh
won't dast t' drink. If yuh ain't, you'll be almighty glad to. Anyway,
it'll be settled one way or t'other. Drink 'er down!"
Casey blinked again, but this time he did not grin. He debated swiftly
his chance of scaring Joe with the dynamite before Joe would shoot.
But Joe had his finger crooked with drunken solemnity upon the trigger.
The time for dynamite was not now.
"Pap an' Hank, they lap up anything an' call it good. I claim that's
got a back-action kick to it. Drink 'er down!"
Casey drank 'er down. It was like swallowing flames. It was a
half-pint flask, and it was full when Casey, with Joe's eyes fixed upon
him, tilted it and began to drink. Under Joe's baleful glare Casey
emptied the flask before he stopped.
Joe settled his shoulders comfortably against the doorway and watched
Casey make for the water bucket.
"I claim that's the out-kickin'est stuff that ever was made on Black
Butte. How'd yuh like it?"
"All right," Casey bore witness, keeping his eyes fixed on Joe and the
gun and trying his best to maintain a nonchalant manner. "I'd call it
purty fair hootch."
"It's GOOD hootch!" Joe declared impressively, apparently quite
convinced that Casey was not a Federal officer. "Can yuh feel the
kick'to it?"
Casey backed until he sat on the edge of the table his good right hand
supporting his left elbow outside the sling. He grinned at Joe and
while he still keenly realized that he was playing a part for the sole
purpose of gaining somehow an advantage over Joe, he was conscious of a
slight giddiness. An unprejudiced observer would have noticed that his
grin was not quite the old, Casey Ryan grin. It was a shade foolish.
"Bet your life I can feel the kick!" he agreed, nodding his head. "You
can ask anybody." Then Casey discovered something strange in Joe's
appearance. He lifted his head, held it very still and regarded Joe
attentively.
"Say, Joe, what yuh tryin' to do with that six-gun? Tryin' to write
your name in the air with it?"
Joe looked inquiringly down at the gun, eyeing it as if it were a new
and absolutely unknown object. He satisfied himself apparently beyond
all doubt that the gun was doing nothing it should not do, and finally
turned his attention to Casey sitting on the table and grinning at him
meaninglessly.
"Ain't writin' nothin'," Joe stated solemnly. "It's yore eyes. Gun's
all right--yo'r seein' crooked. It's the hootch. Back-action kick to
it. Ain't that right?"
"That's right," nodded Casey and he added, grinning more foolishly,
"Darn right, that's right! Back-action kick--bet your life."
Joe pushed the gun inside his waistband and crooked his finger at
Casey, beckoning mysteriously. "C'mon an' I'll show yuh how it's
made," he invited with heavy enthusiasm. "Yore a judge uh hootch all
right--I can see that. I'll show yuh how we do it. Best White Mule in
Nevada. Ain't that right? Ain't that the real hootch?"
"'S right, all right," Casey agreed earnestly. "Puttin' the hoot in
hootch--you fellers. You can ask anybody if that ain't right."
Joe laughed hoarsely. "Puttin' the hoot in hootch--that's right. I
knowed you was all right. Didn't I say you was? I told Hank an' Pap
you wasn't no Federal officer. They know it, too. I was foolin' back
there. I knowed you didn't need no gun pulled on yuh t' make yuh put
away the hootch. Lapped it up like a thirsty hound. I knowed yuh
would--I was kiddin' yuh, runnin' that razoo with the gun. Ain't that
right?"
"Darn right, that's right! I knew you was foolin' all along. You knew
Casey Ryan's all right--sure, you knowed it!" Casey laid his good hand
investigatively against his stomach. "Pretty hot hootch--you can ask
anybody if it ain't! Workin' like an air drill a'ready."
He blinked inquisitively at Joe, who stared back inquiringly. "Who's
your friend?" Casey demanded pugnaciously. "He sneaked in on yuh. I
never seen 'im come in."
Joe turned slowly and looked behind him at the blank boards of the
unpainted door. Just as slowly he turned back to Casey. A slow grin
split his leathery face.
"Ain't nobody. It's the hootch. Told yuh, didn't I? Gittin' the best
of yuh, ain't it? C'mon--I'll show yuh how it's made."
"Take a barr'l t' git the besta--Casey Ry'n," Casey boasted, his words
blurring noticeably. "Where's y'r White Mule? Let 'er kick--Casey
Ry'n can lead 'er an' tame 'er--an' make'r eat outa 's hand!"
Following Joe, Casey stepped high over a rock no bigger than his fist.
With a lurch he straightened and tried to pull his muddled wits out of
the fog that was fast enveloping them. Dimly he sensed the importance
of this discovery which Joe had forced upon him. In flashes of normalcy
he knew that he must see all he could of their moonshine operations.
He must let them think he was drunk until he knew all their secrets.
He assured himself vaguely that he must, above all things, keep his
head.
But it was all pretty hazy and rapidly growing hazier. Casey Ryan, you
must know, was not what is informally termed a drinking man. In his
youth he might have been able to handle a sudden half-pint of moonshine
whisky and keep as level a head as he now strove valiantly to retain.
But Casey's later years had been more temperate than most desert men
would believe. Unfortunately virtue is not always it own reward; at
least Casey now found himself the worse for past abstinences.
Joe led him into the tunnel, laughing sardonically because Casey found
it scarcely wide enough for his oscillating progress. They turned into
a drift. Casey did not know which drift it was, though he tried
foggily to remember. He was still, you must know, trying to keep a
level head and gain valuable information for the sheriff who he hoped
would return to the butte with Barney.
Paw and Hank were wrangling somewhere ahead. Casey could hear their
raised voices mingled in a confused rumbling in the pent walls of the
drift. Casey thought they passed through a doorway, and that Joe
closed a heavy door behind them, but he was not sure.
Memory of the old woman intoning her horrible anathema surged back upon
Casey with the closing of the door. The voices of Hank and Paw he now
mistook for the ravings of the woman in the stone hut. Casey balked
there, and would not go on. He did not want to face the old woman
again, and he said so repeatedly--or believed that he did.
Joe caught him by the arm and pulled him forward by main strength. The
voices of Paw and Hank came closer and clarified into words; or did
Casey and Joe walk farther and come into their presence?
They were all standing together somewhere, in a large, underground
chamber with a hole letting in the sunlight high up on one side. Casey
was positive there was a hole up there, because the sun shone in his
eyes and to avoid it he moved aside and fell over a bucket or a keg or
something. Hank laughed loudly at the spectacle, and Paw swore because
the fall startled him; but it was Joe who helped Casey up.
Casey knew that he was sitting on a barrel--or something--and telling a
funny story. He thought it must be very funny indeed, because every
one was laughing and bending double and slapping legs while he talked.
Casey realized that here at last were men who appreciated Casey Ryan as
he deserved to be appreciated. Tears ran down his own weathered
cheeks--tears of mirth. He had never laughed so much before in all his
life, he thought. Every one, even Paw, who was normally a mean,
cantankerous old cuss, was having the time of his life.
They attempted to show Casey certain intricacies of their still, which
made it better than other stills and put a greater kick in the White
Mule it bred. Somewhere back in the dim recesses of Casey's mind, he
felt that he ought to listen and remember what they told him. Vaguely
he knew that he must not take another drink, no matter how insistent
they were. In the brief glow of that resolution Casey protested that
he could hoot without any more hootch. But he hated to hurt Paw's
feelings, or Hank's or Joe's. They had made the hootch with a new and
different twist, and they were honestly anxious for his judgment and
approval. He decided that perhaps he really ought to take a little
more just to please them; not much--a couple of drinks maybe.
Wherefore, he graciously consented to taste the "run" of the day
before. Thereafter Casey Ryan hooted to the satisfaction of everybody,
himself most of all.
After an indeterminate interval the four left the still, taking a
bottle with them so that it might be had without delay, should they
meet a snake or a hydrophobia skunk or some other venomous reptile. It
was Casey who made the suggestion, and he became involved in
difficulties when he attempted the word venomous. Once started Casey
was determined to pronounce the word and pronounce it correctly,
because Casey Ryan never backed up when he once started. The result was
a peculiar humming which accompanied his reeling progress down the
drift (now so narrow that Casey scraped both shoulders frequently) to
the portal.
They stopped on the flat of the dump and argued over the advisability
of taking a drink apiece before going farther, as a sort of preventive.
Joe told them solemnly that they couldn't afford to get drunk on the
darn' stuff. It had too hard a back-action kick, he explained, and
they might forget themselves if they took too much. It was important,
Joe explained at great length, that they should not forget themselves.
The boss had always impressed upon them the grim necessity of remaining
sober whatever happened.
"We never HAVE got drunk," Joe reiterated, "and we can't afford t' git
drunk now. We've got t' keep level heads, snakes or no snakes."
Casey Ryan's head was level. He wabbled up to Joe and told him so to
his face, repeating the statement many times and in many forms. He
declaimed it all the way up the path to the dugout, and when they were
standing outside. Beyond all else, Casey was anxious that Joe should
feel perfectly certain that he, Casey Ryan, knew what he was doing,
knew what he was saying, and that his head was and always had been
perr-rf'c'ly level-l-l.
"Jus' t' prove-it--I c'n kill that jack-over-there--without-no-gun!"
Casey bragged bubblingly, running his words together as if they were
being poured in muddy liquid from his mouth. "B'lieve it?
Think-I-can't?"
The three turned circumspectly and stared solemnly at a gray burro with
a crippled front leg that had limped to the dump heap within easy
throwing distance from the cabin door. Hobbling on three legs it went
nosing painfully amongst a litter of tin cans and bent paper cartons,
hunting garbage. As if conscious that it was being talked about, the
burro lifted its head and eyed the four mournfully, its ears loosely
flopping.
"How?" questioned Paw, waggling his beard disparagingly. "Spit 'n 'is
eye?"
"Talk 'm t' death," Hank guessed with imbecile shrewdness.
"Think-I-can't? What'll--y'bet?"
They disputed the point with drunken insistence and mild imprecations,
Hank and Paw and Joe at various times siding impartially for and
against Casey. Casey gathered the impression that none of them
believed him. They seemed to think he didn't know what he was talking
about. They even questioned the fact that his head was level. He felt
that his honor was at stake and that his reputation as a truthful man
and a level-headed man was threatened.
While they wrangled, the fingers of Casey's right hand fumbled
unobserved in the sling on his left, twisting together the two short
lengths of fuse so that he might light both as one piece. Even in his
drunkenness Casey knew dynamite and how best to handle it. Judgment
might be dethroned, but the mechanical details of his profession were
grooved deep into habit and were observed automatically and without the
aid of conscious thought.
He braced himself against the dugout wall and raised his hand to the
cigarette he had with some trouble rolled and lighted. A spitting
splutter arose, that would have claimed the attention of the three, had
they not been unanimously engaged in trying to out-talk one another
upon the subject of Casey's ability to kill a burro seventy-five feet
away without a gun.
Casey glanced at them cunningly, drew back his right hand and pitched
something at the burro.
"Y' watch 'im!" he barked, and the three turned around to look, with no
clear conception of what it was they were expected to watch.
The burro jerked its head up, then bent to sniff at the thin curl of
powder smoke rising from amongst the cans. Paw and Hank and Joe were
lifted some inches from the ground with the explosion. They came down
in a hail of gravel, tin cans and fragments of burro. Casey, flattened
against the wall in preparation for the blast, laughed exultantly.
Paw and Hank and Joe picked themselves up and clung together for mutual
support and comfort. They craned necks forward, goggling incredulously
at what little was left of the burro and the pile of tin cans.
"'Z that a bumb?" Paw cackled nervously at last, clawing gravel out of
his uncombed beard. "'Z got me all shuck up. Whar's that 'r bottle?"
"'Z goin' t' eat a bumb--ol' fool burro!" Hank chortled weakly,
feeling tenderly certain nicks on his cheeks where gravel had landed.
"Paw, you ol' fool, you, don't hawg the hull thing--gimme a drink!"
"Casey's sure all right," came Joe's official O.K. of the performance.
"Casey said 'e c'd do it--'n' Casey done it!" He turned and slapped
Casey somewhat uncertainly on the back, which toppled him against the
wall again. "Good'n on us, Casey! Darn' good joke on us--'n' on the
burro!"
Whereupon they drank to Casey solemnly, and one and all, they
proclaimed that it was a VERY good joke on the burro. A merciful joke,
certainly; as you would agree had you seen the poor brute hungry and
hobbling painfully, hunting scraps of food amongst the litter of tin
cans.
After that, Casey wanted to sleep. He forced admissions from the three
that he, Casey Ryan, was all right and that he knew exactly what he was
doing and kept a level head. He crawled laboriously into his bunk,
shoes, hat and all; and, convinced that he had defended his honor and
preserved the Casey Ryan reputation untarnished, he blissfully skipped
the next eighteen hours.