sip of Indians.
Killings had been monotonously frequent, but they usually had daylight and
an audience to rob them of mystery. A murder done on a dark night, in the
black shadow of an empty dance hall, and accompanied by a piercing scream
and the sound of running feet was vastly different.

Casey lingered half a day, bought a few more pounds of bacon and some
matches and ten yards of satin ribbon in assorted colors and went his way.

I mention his stop at Searchlight so that those who demand exact geography
will understand why Casey journeyed on to Vegas, tramped its hot sidewalks
for half a day and then went on by way of Indian Spring to the Tippipah
country and his destination. He was following the beaten trail of miners,
now that he was in Jim's country, and he was gleaning a little information
from every man he met. Not altogether concerning Injun Jim, understand,--
but local tidbits that might make him a welcome companion to the old buck
when he met him. Casey says you are not to believe story-writers who
assume that an Indian is wrapped always in a blanket and inscrutable
dignity. He says an Indian is as great a gossip as any old woman, once you
get him thawed to the talking point. So he was filling his bag of tricks
as he went along.

From Vegas there is what purports to be an automobile road across the
desert to Round Butte, and Casey as he walked cursed his burros and
William and sighed for his Ford. He was four days traveling to Furnace
Lake, which he had made in a matter of hours with his Ford when he first
came to Starvation.

He struck Furnace Lake just before dusk one night and pushed the burros
out upon it, thinking he would have cool crossing and would start in the
morning with the lake behind him, which would be something of a load off
his mind. In his heart Casey hated Furnace Lake, and he had good reason.
It was a place of ill fortune for him, especially after the sun had left
it. He wanted it behind him where he need think no more about it and the
grewsome crevice that cut a deep, wide gash two thirds of the way across
it through the middle. Casey is not a coward, and he takes most things as
a matter of course, but he admits that he has always hated and distrusted
Furnace Lake beyond all the dry lakes in Nevada,--and there are many.

He yelled to William, and William nipped the nearest burro into a
shambling half trot, and then went out upon the lake, Casey heading across
at the widest part so th