Casey left his digging and returned to the Ford, still determined to
carry on the bluff and pretend that much tinkering was necessary before
he could travel further. 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 in deep slumber. Casey
listened suspiciously, knowing too well how misleading a snore could
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.
"Aw, hell!" he muttered disgustedly, and went 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
nothing less than diabolical to Casey.
"Naw." Then Casey added grimly, "I'm stuck. I dunno what ails the
damned thing. Have to send to Vegas fer new parts, I guess. It's only
three miles out here to the road. Mebby you better hike over to the
highway an' ketch a ride with somebody. I might send in for a timer
an' some things, too. No use waitin' fer me, Nolan--can't tell how
long I'll be held up here."
Mack Nolan climbed out of the car. Casey's spirits rose instantly.
Nolan came forward and looked down at the engine as casually as he
would glance at a nickel alarm clock.
"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 them 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, pushing 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 put
away seems to have sharpened my appetite for supper. Tell you what,
Ryan. I'll do a little trouble-shooting here 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, mebby 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 to prospectin'--an' I never could stand around and
let anybody else monkey with my teams. I ain't a doubt in the world,
Mr. Nolan, but what you know as much about Fords as I do. More, mebby.
But Casey Ryan's got 'is little ways, an' he can't seem to ditch 'em.
We'll eat; an' then mebby we'll look 'er over together.
"At the same time," he went on with rising courage, "I'm liable to
stick around here for awhile an' prospect a little. If you wanta find
them mules an' outfit, don't bank too strong on Casey Ryan. He's liable
to change 'is mind any old time. Day or night, you can't tell what
Casey might take a notion to 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 pile driver, the hammer
was driving him deeper and deeper into hopelessness. He would have
given an ear to know for certain whether Mack Nolan were as innocent
and friendly as he seemed. Until he did know, Casey could see nothing
before him but to wait his chance to give Nolan the slip.
Sitting cross-legged in the glow of the campfire after supper, with a
huge pattern of stars drawn over the purple night sky, Casey pulled out
the old pipe with which he had solaced many an evening and stuffed it
thoughtfully with tobacco. Across the campfire, 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 steadily from
under his hat brim.
"What sort of looking fellows were those, Ryan, that left a load of
booze on your hands?" Nolan asked casually when he saw that he was
observed.
Casey burned his fingers with the blazing twig. "Who said anything
about any fellers leavin' me booze?" he evaded sharply. "If it's a
drink you're hintin' for, you won't get it. Casey Ryan ain't no booze
peddler, an' now's as good a time as any to let that soak into your
system."
Mack Nolan's gray eyes were still watching Casey with a steadfastness
that was disconcerting to a man in Casey's dilemma.
"It might help us both considerably," he said quietly, "if you told me
all about it. 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!"
he exploded bitterly. "What kind uh hold-up game 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
holding up bootleggers--and crooked cops. Speaking off-hand (which I
don't often do) I should say you have a fine chance to sit in with me.
I'm just guessing, now," he added dryly, "but I'm tolerably good at
guessing; a man's got to be, these days."
"A man's got to do better than guess--with Casey Ryan," Casey remarked
ominously. "The last man that guessed Casey Ryan, guessed 'im plumb
wrong."
"Meaning that you'd refuse to help me round up bootleggers and the
officers that protect them?" A steel edge crept into Mack Nolan's
voice. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes boring
into Casey's mind.
"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. You gave me three
splendid opportunities to stick a gun in your back--and I could have
made others. And," he added with a smile, "if I had thought that you
were a bootlegger or a crook of any other kind, I'd have had you in Las
Vegas jail by this time. You're no more a crook than I am. You've got
neither the looks nor the actions of a slicker. I may say I know you
pretty well--"
Casey thrust out a pugnacious chin. "Say! D' you know Bill Masters,
too? That's all I wanta know!"
"Bill Masters? Why, is he the fellow who stepped out from under this
load of hootch? If he is, he must have picked himself a new name; I
never heard it."
Casey glared suspiciously for twenty seconds before he settled back
glumly into his mental corner.
"Ryan, I've been all day sizing you up. I'm going to be perfectly
honest with you and tell you why I think you're straight--although you
must admit the evidence is rather against 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. Had
you driven around them instead of stopping this side, you couldn't have
failed to see me.
"You came down here mad at the trick that had been played you. You were
so mad, you started talking to yourself as a safety valve--blowing off
mental steam. You've spent a lot of time in the desert--alone. Men
like that frequently talk aloud their thoughts, just to hear a human
voice. You made matters pretty plain to me before you knew there was
any one within miles of you. For instance, you're not at all sure this
car you've got wasn't stolen. You're inclined to think it was. You're
broke--robbed, I take it, by the men who somehow managed to leave you
with the car and a load of booze on your hands. The trick must have
been turned this morning; down at the railroad, I imagine--because you
hadn't taken time to stop and size up the predicament you were in until
you got here.
"Your main idea was to get off somewhere out of sight. You were
scared. You didn't hear me behind you until I spoke--which proves
you're a green hand at dodging. And that, Ryan, is a very good
recommendation to a man in my line of work. But you're shrewd, and
you're game--dead game. You're a peach at thinking up schemes to get
yourself out of a hole. Of course, being new at it, 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. With almost any other man it would have worked. Once
you got that hootch off your mind, I rather think you'd have been glad
to have me along with you, instead of giving me broad hints to leave.
But you haven't got the booze buried yet, and you've been figuring all
the evening. You don't see how the devil you're going to manage it
with me around.
"I'll do a little more guessing, now: I guess you've doped it out that
you'll pack the bedroll up here, tuck me in and pray to the Lord I'll
sleep sound. You're hoping you can cache the booze and make your
getaway while I've gone bye-low. 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 just as if nothing had happened. How Is that
for guesswork?"
"You go tahell!" growled Casey, swallowing a sickly grin. He pressed
down the tobacco in his pipe, eyeing Nolan queerly. "If them damn'
lizards had uh let yuh alone, I wouldn't have nothin' on m' mind now
but my hat." He looked across the fire and grinned again.
"Keep on; you'll be tellin' me what the missus an' I was arguin' about
last night over long-distance. I've heard tell uh this four-bit mind
reading an' forecastin' your horrorscope fer a dime; but I never met up
with it before. If you're aimin' to take up a collection after the
show, you'll fare slim. I've been what a feller called 'dusted off'."
He added, after a pause that was eloquent, "They done it thorough!"
Mack Nolan laughed. "They usually are thorough, when they're 'dusting
off a chump', as I believe they call it."
Casey grunted. "'Chump' is right, mebby. But anyways, you're too
late, Mr. Nolan. I'm cleaned."
Mack Nolan rolled another cigarette, lighted it and flipped the match
into the campfire. 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 me cautious about trusting 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 against a rock. "Puttin' it
that way, Mr. Nolan, the man's yet to 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' to HEAR yuh
out--and that there's more'n what I'd uh 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.
"I'm going to ask you, Ryan, to tell me the whole story of this car and
its load of whisky. 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 an officer,
and my special work right now is to clean up a gang of bootleggers and
the crooked officers who are protecting them. What I know about your
case leads me to believe that you've run afoul of them and that you're
the man I've been looking for that can help me set a trap for them.
Would you like to do that?"
"If it's that bunch you're after, Mr. Nolan, I'd ruther land 'em in
jail than to find a ledge of solid gold ten feet thick an' a mile long.
One thing I'd like to know first. Are yuh or ain't yuh huntin' mules?"