rew back his right hand and pitched
something at the burro.

"Y' watch 'im!" he barked, and the three turned around to look, with no
clear conception of what it was they were expected to watch.

The burro jerked its head up, then bent to sniff at the thin curl of
powder smoke rising from amongst the cans. Paw and Hank and Joe were
lifted some inches from the ground with the explosion. They came down
in a hail of gravel, tin cans and fragments of burro. Casey, flattened
against the wall in preparation for the blast, laughed exultantly.

Paw and Hank and Joe picked themselves up and clung together for mutual
support and comfort. They craned necks forward, goggling incredulously
at what little was left of the burro and the pile of tin cans.

"'Z that a bumb?" Paw cackled nervously at last, clawing gravel out of
his uncombed beard. "'Z got me all shuck up. Whar's that 'r bottle?"

"'Z goin' t' eat a bumb--ol' fool burro!" Hank chortled weakly,
feeling tenderly certain nicks on his cheeks where gravel had landed.
"Paw, you ol' fool, you, don't hawg the hull thing--gimme a drink!"

"Casey's sure all right," came Joe's official O.K. of the performance.
"Casey said 'e c'd do it--'n' Casey done it!" He turned and slapped
Casey somewhat uncertainly on the back, which toppled him against the
wall again. "Good'n on us, Casey! Darn' good joke on us--'n' on the
burro!"

Whereupon they drank to Casey solemnly, and one and all, they
proclaimed that it was a VERY good joke on the burro. A merciful joke,
certainly; as you would agree had you seen the poor brute hungry and
hobbling painfully, hunting scraps of food amongst the litter of tin
cans.

After that, Casey wanted to sleep. He forced admissions from the three
that he, Casey Ryan, was all right and that he knew exactly what he was
doing and kept a level head. He crawled laboriously into his bunk,
shoes, hat and all; and, convinced that he had defended his honor and
preserved the Casey Ryan reputation untarnished, he blissfully skipped
the next eighteen hours.

CHAPTER SIX

Casey awoke under the vivid impression that some one was driving a
gadget into his skull with a "double-jack." The smell of bacon
scorching filled his very soul with the loathing of food. The sight of
Joe calmly filling his pipe roused Casey to the fighting mood--with no
power to fight. He was a sick man; and to remain alive was agony.

The squalid disorder and the stale aroma of a