drunken orgy still
pervaded the dugout and made it a nightmare hole to Casey. Hank came
tittering to the bunk and offered him a cup of coffee, muddy from too
long boiling, and Joe grinned over his pipe at the colorful language
with which Casey refused the offering.

"Better take a brace uh hootch," Joe suggested with no more than his
normal ill nature. "I got some over at the still we made awhile back
that, ain't quite so kicky. Been agin' it in wood an' charcoal. That
tones 'er down. I'll go git yuh some after we eat. Kinda want a
brace, myself. That new hootch shore is a kickin' fool."

Paw accepted this remark, as high praise, and let three hot cakes burn
until their edges curled while he bragged of his skill as a maker of
moonshine. Paw himself was red-eyed and loose-lipped from yesterday's
debauch. Hank's whole face, especially in the region of his eyes, was
puffed unbecomingly. Casey, squinting an angry eye at Hank and the cup
of coffee, spared a thought from his own misery to acknowledge surprise
that anything on earth could make Hank more unpleasant to look upon.
Joe had a sickly pallor to prove the potency of the brew.

For such is the way of moonshine when fusel oil abounds, as it does
invariably in new whisky distilled by furtive amateurs working in
secret and with neither the facilities nor the knowledge for its
scientific manufacture. There is grim significance in the sardonic
humor of the man who first named it White Mule. The kick is certain
and terrific; frequently it is fatal as well. The worst of it is, you
never know what the effect will be until you have drunk the stuff; and
after you have drunk it, you are in no condition to resist the effect
or to refrain from courting further disaster.

That is what happened to Casey. The poison in the first half-pint,
swallowed under the eye of Joe's six-shooter, upset his judgment. The
poison in his further potations made a wholly different man of Casey
Ryan; and the after effect was so terrific that he would have swallowed
cyanide if it promised relief.

He gritted his teeth and suffered tortures until Joe returned and gave
him a drink of whisky in a chipped granite cup. Almost immediately he
felt better. The pounding agony in his head eased perceptibly and his
nerves ceased to quiver. After a while he sat up, gazed longingly at
the water bucket and crawled down from the bunk. He drank largely in
great gulps. His bloodshot eyes strayed med