played a shabby trick upon an honest man. Here he
stood, a criminal in the eyes of the law, a liar in the eyes of the
missus. An honest man and a truthful, here he was--he, Casey
Ryan--actually afraid to face his fellow men.

"HE wasn't no friend of Bill Masters; the divil himself wouldn'ta owned
him fer a friend!" snarled Casey, thinking of Kenner. "Me--CASEY
RYAN!--with a load uh booze wished onto me--and a car that may have
been stolen fer all I know--an' not a darn' nickel to my name! They can
make a goat uh Casey Ryan once, but watch clost when they try it the
second time! Casey MAY be gittin' old; he might possibly have
softenin' of the brain; but he'll git the skunk that done this, or
you'll find his carcass layin' alongside the trail bleachin' like a
blowed-out tire! I'll trail 'im till my tongue hangs down to my knees!
I'll git 'im an' I'll drown 'im face down in a bucket of his own
booze!" Whipped by emotion, his voice rose stridently until it cracked
just under a shout.

"That sounds pretty businesslike, old man," a strange voice spoke
whimsically behind Casey. "Who's all this you're going to trail till
your tongue hangs down to your knees? Going to need any help?"

Casey whirled belligerently upon the man who had walked quietly up
behind him.

"Where the hell did YOU come from?" he countered roughly.

"Does it matter? I'm here," the other parried blandly. "But by the
way! If you've got the makings of a meal in your car--and you look too
old a hand in the desert to be without grub--I won't refuse to have a
snack with you. I hate to invite myself to breakfast, but it's that or
go hungry--and an empty belly won't stand on ceremony."

The hard-bitten features of Casey Ryan, tanned as they were by wind and
sun to a fair imitation of leather, were never meant to portray mixed
emotions. His face, therefore, remained impassive except for a queer,
cornered look in his eyes. With a sick feeling at the pit of his
stomach he wondered just how much of his impassioned soliloquy the man
had overheard; who and what this man was, and how he had managed to
approach within six feet of Casey without being overheard. With a
sicker feeling, he wondered if there were any grub in the car; and if
so, how he could get at it without revealing his contraband load to
this stranger.

But Casey Ryan was nothing if not game. He reached for his trusty plug
of tobacco and pried off a corner with his teeth. He lifted h