ou
to do it so that Smiling Lou or one of his bunch will hold you up and
highjack you. Do you see what I mean? You don't--so I'll tell you.
We'll put it in marked bottles. I have the bottles and the seals and
labels for every brand of liquor to be had in the country to-day. With
marked money and marked bottles, we ought to be able to get the goods
on that gang."

Casey thought of something quite suddenly and held out an imperative,
pointing finger.

"There's something else that feller told me was in the car!" he cried
agitatedly. "He said he had forty pints of French champagne cached in
a false bottom under the front seat. And he said the front cushion had
a blind pocket around the edges that was full uh dope. Hop, he called
it."

Mack Nolan whistled under his breath.

"And he turned the whole outfit over to you for sixteen hundred dollars
or so?" He stared thoughtfully into the fire. Abruptly he looked at
Casey.

"What the deuce had you done to him, Ryan?" he asked, with a quizzical
intentness. "He must have been scared stiff, to let go of all that
stuff for sixteen hundred. Why, man, the 'junk'--that's dope--alone
must be worth more than that. And the champagne--forty pints, you say?
He ought to get twenty dollars a pint for that. Figure it yourself. I
hope," he added seriously, "the fellow wasn't too scared to show up
again."

"Well," Casey said grimly, "I dunno how scart he is--but he knows darn'
well I'll kill 'im. I told im I would."

Again Mack Nolan laughed. "Catching's much better than killing, Ryan.
It hurts a man worse, and it lasts a heap longer. What do you say to
turning in? To-morrow we'll have a full day at my private bottling
works."

They moved their cooking outfit down near the Ford for safety's sake.
While it was wholly improbable that the car would be robbed in the
night, Mack Nolan was a man who took as few chances as possible. It
happened that the excavation Casey had so hopefully made that morning
formed a convenient level for their bed; wherefore they spread it
there, talking in low tones of their plans until they went to sleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dawn was just thinning the curtain of darkness when Nolan woke Casey
with a shake of the shoulder.

"I think we'd better be moving from here before the world's astir. You
can back on down this draw, Ryan, and strike an old trail that cuts
over the ridge and up the next gulch to an old, deserted mine where
I've made h