at Barren Butte that held Lucky Lode, where
the widow was cooking supper at that moment. Casey wished practically that
he was there and could sit down to some of her culinary achievements.

"I sure would like to flop m'lip over one of her biscuits right now," he
said aloud. "If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too high-toned to
cook?"

His eyes went to Furnace Lake, lying smooth and pale yellow in the
saucerlike basin between Barren Butte and the foothills of Starvation. In
the soft light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint of
malice, like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake is
treacherous. The Big Earthquake (America knows only one Big Earthquake,
that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously) had split Furnace Lake
halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest
point and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and passing storms had partly
filled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to all men to
trust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the big gash here
and there, and the cattle men rode often that way, though not often enough
to save their cattle from falling in.

By day the lake shimmered deceptively with mirages that painted it blue
with the likeness of water, Then a lone clump of greasewood stood up tall
and proclaimed itself a ship lying idle on a glassy expanse of water so
blue, so cool, so clear, one could not wonder that thirsty travelers went
mad sometimes with the false lure of it.

Just now the lake looked exactly like any lake at dusk, with the far shore
line reflected along its edge; and Casey's thought went beyond, to his
claim on Starvation. Being tired and hungry, he pictured wistfully a cabin
there, and a light in the window when he went chuckling up the long mesa
in the dark, and the widow inside with hot coffee and supper waiting for
him. Just as soon as he struck "shipping values" that picture would be
real, said Casey to himself; and he opened his tool box and set to work
changing the tire.

By the time he had finished it was dark, and Casey had yet a long forty
miles between himself and his sour-dough can. He cranked the engine,
switched on the electric headlights, and went tearing down the
fifteen-mile incline to the lake.

"She c'n see the lights, and she'll know I ain't hangin' out in town
lappin' up whisky," he told himself as he drove. "She'll know it's Casey
Ryan comin' home--know it the way them lig