smoking. His gray army hat was tilted over his eyes,
shielding them from the sun while they dwelt rather studiously upon the
face of Casey Ryan.

"Every spring I like to get out and poke around through these hills
where 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 like
best is general field work. If I run across something rich, time
enough then to locate a claim or two and hire a couple of strong backs
to do the digging.

"I've been out now for about three weeks; and night before last, just
as I stopped to make camp and before I'd started to unpack, my two
mules 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 my
pockets." He lifted the cigarette from between his lips--thin, they
were, and curved and rather pitiless, one could guess, if the man were
sufficiently roused.

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

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

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

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

Casey left the breakfast things where they were, as a silent
reassurance to Mack Nolan that the car would not go off without him. It
was a fine, psychological