they went by. Now and then a car stopped. One, a big,
high-powered car with one dazzling spotlight swung into the narrow
driveway and entered the grove.

Casey lifted his head like a desert turtle and blinked curiously at the
car as it eased past him a few feet and stopped. A gloved hand went
out to the spotlight and turned it slowly, lighting the grove foot by
foot and pausing to dwell upon each silent, parked car. Casey sat up in
the blankets and waited.

Luck, he told himself, was grinning at him from ear to ear. For this
was Smiling Lou himself, and none other. He was alone,--a big, hungry,
official fish searching the grove greedily. Casey swallowed a grin and
tried to look scared. The light was slowly working around in his
direction.

I don't suppose Casey Ryan had ever looked really scared in his life.
His face simply refused to wear so foreign an expression. Therefore,
when the spotlight finally revealed him, Casey blinked against it with
a half-hearted grin, as if he had been caught at something foolish.
The light remained upon him, and Smiling Lou got out of the car and
came back to him slowly.

Not even Casey thought of calling Smiling Lou a fool. He couldn't be
and play the game he was playing. Smiling Lou said nothing whatever
until he had looked the car over carefully (giving the license number a
second sharp glance) and had regarded Casey fixedly while he made up
his mind.

"Hullo! Where's your pardner?" he demanded then.

"I'm in pardnerships with myself this trip," Casey retorted. He waited
while Smiling Lou looked him over again, more carefully this time.

"Where did you get that car?"

"From Kenner--for sixteen-hundred and seventeen dollars and five
cents." Casey fumbled in the blankets--Smiling Lou following his
movements suspiciously--and got out the makings of a cigarette.

"Got any booze in that car?" Smiling Lou might have been a traffic
cop, for all the trace of humanity there was in his voice.

Casey cocked an eye up at him, sent a quick glance toward the Ford, and
looked back into Smiling Lou's face. He hunched his shoulders and
finished the making of his cigarette.

"I wisht you wouldn't look," he said glumly. "I got half my outfit in
there an' I hate to have it tore up."

Smiling Lou continued to look at him, seeming slightly puzzled. But
indecision was not one of his characteristics, evidently. He stepped up
to the car, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and look