of a man who had
urgent business elsewhere. The men from Tonopah were not yet out of sight
around the butte scarred with rhyolite ledges before Casey was under way,
rattling down the rough trail from Starvation Mountain and bouncing clear
of the seat as the car lurched over certain rough spots.

Pinned with a safety pin to the inside pocket of the vest he wore only
when he felt need of a safe and secret pocket, Casey Ryan carried a check
for twenty-five thousand dollars, made payable to himself. A check for
twenty-five thousand dollars in Casey's pocket was like a wildcat clawing
at his imagination and spitting at every moment's delay. Casey had endured
solitude and some hardship while he coaxed Starvation Mountain to reveal a
little of its secret treasure. Now he wanted action, light, life and
plenty of it. While he drove he dreamed, and his dreams beckoned, urged
him faster and faster.

Up over the summit of the ridge that lay between Starvation and Furnace
Lake he surged, with radiator bubbling. Down the long slope to the lake,
lying there smiling sardonically at a world it loved to trick with its
moods, Casey drove as if he were winning a bet. Across that five miles of
baked, yellow-white clay he raced, his Ford a-creak in every joint.

"Go it, you tin lizard!" chortled Casey. "I'll have me a real wagon when I
git to Los. She'll be white, with red stripes along her sides and red
wheels, and she'll lay 'er belly to the ground and eat up the road and
lick her chops for more. Sixty miles under her belt every time the clock
strikes, or she ain't good enough fer Casey! Mebby they think they got
some drivers in Californy. Mebby they _think_ they have. They ain't,
though, because Casey Ryan ain't there yet. I'll catch that night train.
Oughta be in by morning, and then you keep your eye on Casey. There's
goin' to be a stir around Los, about to-morrow noon. I'll have to buy some
clothes, I guess. And I'll git acquainted with some nice girl with yella
hair that likes pleasure, and take her out ridin'. Yeah, I'll have to git
me a swell outfit uh clothes. I'll look the part, all right---"

Up a long, winding trail and over another summit to Yucca Pass Casey
dreamed, while the stark, scarred buttes on either side regarded him with
enigmatic calm. Since the first wagon train had worried over the rough
deserts on their way to California, the bleak hills of Nevada had listened
while prospectors dreamed aloud and cackled over the