officers who are protecting them. What I know about your
case leads me to believe that you've run afoul of them and that you're
the man I've been looking for that can help me set a trap for them.
Would you like to do that?"

"If it's that bunch you're after, Mr. Nolan, I'd ruther land 'em in
jail than to find a ledge of solid gold ten feet thick an' a mile long.
One thing I'd like to know first. Are yuh or ain't yuh huntin' mules?"

Mack Nolan laughed. "I am, yes. But the mule I'm hunting is white!"

Casey studied that until he had the fresh pipeful of tobacco going
well. Then he looked up and grinned understandingly.

"So it's White Mule you're trailin'." He kicked a stub of greasewood
branch back into the flames and laughed. "Well, the tracks is deep an'
plenty, and if that's the trail you're takin', I'm with yuh. You ain't
a cop--leastways you don't spread your arms every time you turn around.
Gosh, I hate them wing-floppin' kind! They's one thing an' one only
that I hate worse--an' that's bootleggers an' moonshiners. If you got
a scheme to give them cusses their needin's, you can ask anybody if
Casey Ryan ain't the feller you can bank on."

"Yes. That's what I've been thinking. Now, I wish you'd tell me
exactly what you've been up against. Don't leave out anything, however
trivial it might seem to you."

Wherefore, Casey sat with the firelight flickering across his seamed,
Irish face and told the story of his wrongs. Trivial details Nolan had
asked for--and he got them with the full Casey Ryan flavor. Even the
old woman who rocked, Casey pictured--from his particular angle. Mack
Nolan sat up and listened, his eyes steady and his mouth, that had
curved to laughter many times during the recital, once more firm and
somewhat pitiless when Casey finished.

"This Smiling Lou; you'd know him again, of course?"

"Know him! Say, I'd know him after he'd fried a week in hell!" Casey's
tone left no doubt of his meaning.

"And I suppose you could tell this man Kenner a mile off and around a
corner. Now, I'll tell you what I want you to do, Casey. This may jar
you a little--until I explain. I want you--" Mack Nolan paused, his
lips twitching in a faint smile--"to do a little bootlegging yourself."

"Yuh--WHAT?" In the firelight Casey's eyes were seen to bulge.

"I want you to bootleg this whisky you've got in the car." Nolan's eyes
twinkled. "I want you to go back and peddle this booze, and I want y