t right
for distance. And it's dead in line--them old bucks don't waggle their
hands permiskus when they talk. Old Jim woulda laid on his hands if he'd
knovved what they was tellin' me; but even an ornery old devil like him
gits careless when they git old. Casey hits straight fer Two Peak."

That's the way he got his bearings; just remembering the unguarded motion
of Injun Jim's grimy hand and adding thereto his superficial knowledge of
the country and his own estimate of what an old fellow like Jim could call
a long journey. With this and the unquestioning faith in his dream that
was a part of him, Casey threw his favorite "packer's hitch" across the
packed burros at dawn next morning, boarded his buckskin mule and set off
hopefully across the barren valley, heading straight for the distant butte
he called Two Peak.

CHAPTER XIX

I don't suppose Casey Ryan ever started out to do something for himself--
something he considered important to his own personal welfare and
happiness--without running straight into some other fellow's business and
stopping to lend a hand. He says he can't remember being left alone at any
time in his life to follow the beckoning finger of his own particular
destiny.

Casey had made camp that night in one of several deep gulches that ridged
the butte with two peaks. We had been lucky in our burro buying, and he
had two of the fastest walking jacks in the country, so that he was able
to give them a good long nooning and still reach the foot of the butte and
make camp well before sundown. For the first time since he first heard of
the Injun Jim gold mine, Casey felt that he was really "squared away" to
the search. As he sat there blowing his unhurried breath upon a blue
granite cup of coffee to cool it, his memory slanted back along the years
when he had said that some day he would go and hunt for the Injun Jim mine
that was so rich a ten-pound lard bucket full of the ore had been known to
yield five hundred dollars' worth of gold. Well, it had been a long time
since he first said that to himself, but here he was, and to-morrow he
would begin his search with daylight, starting with this gulch he was in
and working methodically over every foot of Two Peak.

He took two long, satisfying swallows of coffee and poised the cup and
listened. After a minute had gone in that way, he finished the coffee in
gulps and stood up, dangling the empty cup with a finger crooked in the
handle. From som