uld send the Little Woman on a four-mile walk with a heavy child
like Babe to carry, and Casey was as white as he'll ever get when he met
her halfway to the bottom of the canyon.

"Take Babe and let's get back to the claim," she panted. "I came to tell
you that squaw is on your trail with a white man in tow, and it'll be a
case of claim-jumping if they can see their way tolerably clear. He's a
mate for the two you helped me haul out of camp, and I think, Casey Ryan,
the squaw would kill you in a minute if she gets the chance."

Casey did rather a funny thing, considering how scared he was usually of
the Little Woman. "You pack that kid all the way over here?" he grunted,
and picked up the Little Woman and carried her, and left Babe to walk. Of
course he helped Babe, holding her hand over the roughest spots, but it
was the Little Woman whom he carried the rest of the way. And Babe, if you
please, was quite calm about it and never once became "sad" so that she
must sit down and cry.

"All the claim-jumpin' they'll do won't hurt nobody," Casey observed
unexcitedly, when he had set the Little Woman down on a rock beside his
location "cut" in the canyon's side. "She likely picked on a white man
so's he could locate under the law, but this claim's located a'ready." He
waved a hand toward the monument, a few rods up the canyon. "And Casey
Ryan ain't spreadin' no rich gold vein wide open for every prowlin' desert
rat to pack off all he kin stagger under. I'm callin' it the Devil's
Lantern. You c'n call a mine any name yuh darn want to. And if it wasn't
fer the Devil's Lantern, I wouldn't be here. That name won't mean nothin'
to 'em. Let 'em come." His eyes turned toward the hidden richness and
dwelt there, studying the tracks, big and little, that led up to it, and
deciding that tracks do not necessarily mean a gold mine, and that it
would be better to leave them as they were and not attempt to cover them.

"You just say it's your claim, if they come snoopin' around here. I'm
supposed to be workin' for yuh," he said abruptly, giving her one of his
quick, steady glances.

"They can go and read the location notice," the Little Woman pointed out.
Casey did not make any reply to that, but picked up his shovel and went to
work again, mucking out the dirt and broken rocks which the dynamite had
loosened in the cut.

"She's a bird, ain't she?" he grinned over his shoulder, his mind
reverting to Lucy Lily. "Did she have on her war