little, secret cabin.

Casey sat down on a rock, took a restrained drink from his canteen, and
said everything he knew or could invent that was profane and
condemnatory of his luck, of the unseen assassin, of the country and
his present predicament. He got up, looked all around him, sniffed
unavailingly for some tang of smoke in the thin, crisp air, reseated
himself and said everything all over again.

Presently he rose and made his way straight across the butte, going
slowly to lessen his chance of making a noise for unfriendly ears to
hear, and with the stars for guidance.

CHAPTER FOUR

The night was growing cold, and Casey had no coat. At least he could
go down and tell Barney what he had discovered and had failed to
discover, and get something to eat. Barney would probably be worrying
about him, though there was a chance that a bullet had found Barney
before dark. Casey was uneasy, and once he was down the fissure again,
he hurried as much as possible.

He managed to reach the camp by the little spring without being shot at
and without breaking a leg. But Barney was not there. Just at first
Casey believed he was dead; but a brief search told Casey that two of
the largest canteens were gone, together with a side of bacon, some
flour and all of the tobacco. White assassins would have made a more
thorough job of robbing the camp. Barney, it was evident, had fled the
fate of the burros.

Casey told the stars what he thought of a partner like Barney.
Afterward he ate what was easiest to swallow without cooking,
overhauled what was left of their outfit, cached the remainder in a
clump of bushes, and wearily climbed the bluff again under a capacity
load. He concealed himself in the bottom of the fissure to sleep,
since he could search no farther.

If he thought wistfully of the palled comfort of his apartment in Los
Angeles, and of the Little Woman there, he still did not think strongly
enough to send him back to them. For with a canteen or two of water,
some food and his two capable legs to carry him, Casey Ryan could have
made it to Barstow easily enough. But because he was Casey Ryan, and
Irish, and because he was always on the hunt for trouble without
recognizing it when he met it in the trail, it never occurred to him to
follow Barney down to safer country.

"That there Joshuay tree meant a lot more'n what it let on, pointin' up
this way!" Casey muttered, staring down upon a somnolent wildern