up, whereat the others looked astonished. Through his slits
of swollen lids Casey glared toward the voice and recognized Barney
Oakes, grinning at him with what Casey considered a Judas treachery.
He saw two men step away from Joe and the boss, leaving them in
handcuffs.

"Take them irons off'n my friends!" bellowed Casey as he charged.
"Whadda yuh think you're doin', anyway? Take 'em off! It's Casey Ryan
that's tellin' yuh, an' yuh better heed what he says, before you're
tore from limb to limb!"

"B-but, Casey! This 'ere's a shurf's possy!" The voice of Barney rose
in a protesting 'squawk. "I brung 'em all the way over here to your
rescue! They brung a cor'ner to view your remains! Don't you know
your pardner, BARNEY OAKES?

"Ah-h--I know yuh think I don't? I know yuh to a fare-yuh-well! Brung
a cor'ner, did yuh? Tha's all right--goin' t' need a cor'ner-but he
won't set on Casey Ryan's remains--you c'n ask anybody if any cor'ners
ever set on Casey Ryan yit! Naw." Casey snarled as contemptuously as
was possible to a man in his condition. "No cor'ner ever set on Casey
Ryan, an' he ain't goin' to!"

The men glanced questioningly at one another. One laughed. He was a
large, smooth-jowled man inclined to portliness, and his laugh vibrated
his entire front contagiously so that the others grinned and took it
for granted that Casey Ryan was a comedy element introduced
unexpectedly where they had thought to find him a tragedy.

"No, you're a pretty lively man for me to sit on; I admit it," the
portly man remarked. "I'm the coroner, and it looks as if I wouldn't
sit, this trip."

Casey eyed him blearily, not in the least mollified but instead
swinging to a certain degree of lucidity that was nevertheless governed
largely by the hoot he had swallowed in the hootch.

"There's part of a burro 'round here some'er's you c'n set on," Casey
informed him grimly, and fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe. He
drew it out empty, looked at it and returned it to his pocket. One who
knew Casey intimately would have detected a hidden purpose in his
manner. The warning was faint, indefinable at best, and difficult to
picture in words. One might say that an intimate acquaintance would
have detected a false note in Casey's defiance. His manner was
restrained just when violence would have been more natural.

"Damn a pipe," Casey grumbled with drunken petulance. "Anybody got a
cigarette? I'm single-handed an' I ain't