when you look at
them hills. They look close enough to walk over to 'em in half or three
quarters of an hour. _Don't_ they? An' didn't I take yuh in my Ford
auto-_mo_-bile, an' wasn't it twelve? An' d'yuh trust your eyes when yuh
look up, an' it looks like you could knock stars down with a tent pole,
like yuh knock apples off'n trees? Sure, you can't trust your eyes! When
yuh hit the desert, oletimer, yuh pack two of the biggest liars on earth
right under your eyebrows." He chuckled at that. "An' most folks pack
another one under their noses, fer luck. Now lookit over there! Prospector
nothin'. It's the devil out walkin' an' packin' a lantern. He's mebby
found some shin bones an' a rib or two an' mebby a chewed boot, an' he
stopped there to have his little laugh. Lemme tell yuh. You mark where
that fire is. An' t'-morra, if yuh like, I'll take yuh over there. If you
c'n find a track er embers on that slope--Gawsh!"

We both stood staring; while he talked, the light had blinked out like
snapping an electric switch. And that was strange because camp fires take
a little time in the dying. I stepped inside the tent, fumbled for the
field glasses and came out, adjusting the night focus. Casey's squat,
powerful form stood perfectly still where I had left him, his face turned
toward the mountain. There was no fire on the slope. Beyond, hanging black
in the sky, a thunder cloud pillowed up toward the peak of the mountain,
pushing out now and then to blot a star from the purple. Now and then a
white, ragged gash cut through, but no sound reached up to where we were
camped on the high mesa that was the lap of Starvation Mountain. I will
explain that Casey had come back to Starvation to see if there were not
another good silver claim lying loose and needing a location monument. We
faced Tippipah Range twelve miles away,--and to-night the fire on its
slope.

"Lightning struck a yucca over there and burned it, probably," I hazarded,
seeking the spot through the glasses.

"Yeah--only there ain't no yuccas on that slope. That's a limestone ledge
formation an' there ain't enough soil to cover up a t'rantler. And the
storm's over back of the Tippipahs anyhow. It ain't on 'em."

"It's burning up again--"

"Hit another yucca, mebby!"

"It looks--" I adjusted the lenses carefully "--like a fire, all right.
There's a reddish cast. I can't see any flames, exactly, but--" I suppose
I gave a gasp, for Casey laughed outright.

"No, I gu