hand blower much
against his will. Joe remained always on guard, eyeing Casey
suspiciously. When at last he was permitted to pick up his coat and
leave the tunnel, night had fallen so that the gulch was dim and
shadowy. Casey was conducted to a dugout cabin where bacon was frying
too fast and smoking suffocatingly. Paw was there, in a vile temper
which seemed to be directed toward the three impartially and to have
been caused chiefly by his temporary occupation as camp cook.

Casey watched the old man place food for one person in little dishes
which he set in a bake pan for want of a tray. He added a small tin
teapot of tea and disappeared from the dugout.

"Two of us waitin' to see your boss, huh?" Casey inquired boldly of
Joe. "Can't we eat together?"

"You can call yourself lucky if you eat at all," Joe retorted glumly.
"The old man's pretty sore at the way you handled him. He's runnin'
this camp; I ain't."

Casey let it go at that, chiefly because he was hungry and tired and
did not want to risk losing his supper altogether. Hounds like these,
he told himself bitterly, were capable of any crime--from smashing a
man's skull and throwing him off the rim-rock to starving him to death.
He was Casey Ryan, ready always to fight whether his chance of winning
was even or merely microscopical; but even so, Casey was not inclined
toward suicide.

When the old man presently returned and the three sat down to the
table, Casey obeyed a gesture and sat down with them. In spite of
Joe's six-shooter laid handily upon the table beside his plate, Casey
ate heartily, though the food was neither well cooked nor over
plentiful.

After supper he rose and filled his pipe which they had permitted him
to keep. A stranger coming into the cabin might not have guessed that
Casey was a prisoner. When the table was cleared and Hank set about
washing the dishes, Casey picked up a grimy dish towel branded black in
places where it had rubbed sooty kettles, and grinned cheerfully at Paw
while he dried a tin plate. Paw eyed him dubiously over a stinking
pipe, spat reflectively into the woodbox and crossed his legs the other
way, loosely swinging an ill-shod foot.

"Y'ain't told us yet what brung yuh up on the butte," Paw observed
suddenly. "Yuh wa'n't lost--yuh ain't got the mark uh no tenderfoot.
What was yuh doin' up in that tree?"

"Mebbe I mighta been huntin' mountain sheep," Casey retorted calmly.

"Huntin' mountain she