by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nature had made Casey Ryan an optimist. The blood of Ireland had madehim pugnacious. And Mack Nolan had a way with him. Wherefore, CaseyRyan once more came larruping down the grade to Camp Cajon and turnedin there with a dogged purpose in his eyes and with his jaw setstubbornly. History has it that whenever Casey Ryan gets that look inhis face, the man underneath might just as well holler and crawl out;because holler he must, before Casey would ever let him up.
Behind him, stowed under the bedding, grub and camp dishes, rode hiseight cases of bootlegger's bait, packed convincingly in the sawdust,straw and cardboard of the wet old days when Uncle Sam himself O. K.'dthe job. A chain of tiny beads at the top of each bottle lied and saidit was good liquor. The boxes themselves said, "This side up"--whenany side up would thrill the soul of the man who owned a wet appetiteand a dry throat.
It was a good job Mack Nolan had made of the bottling. Uncle Samhimself must needs polish his spectacles and take another look todetect the fraud. It was a marvelous job of bottling,--and the prooflay only in the drinking. "Tommy" Pepper rode in pint flasks designedto slip safely into a man's coat pocket. Beside him two cases ofCanadian Club (if you were satisfied with the evidence of your eyes)sat serene in round-shouldered bottles--conventional, secure in itsreputation. Cognac and Garnkirk, a case for each, rode in tall, slimbottles with no shoulders at all. Plumper than they, Three StarHennessey sat smugly waiting until the joke was turned upon its victim.A tempting load it was, to men of certain minds and morals. Caseygrinned sardonically when he thought of it.
Casey drove deep into the grove of sycamores and made camp there, awayfrom the chattering picnic parties at the cement tables. By MackNolan's advice he was adopting a slightly different policy. He nolonger shunned his fellow men or glared suspiciously when strangersapproached. Instead he was very nearly the old Casey Ryan, except thathe failed to state his name and business to all and sundry with the oldCasey Ryan candor, but instead avoided the subject altogether or evadedquestions with vague generalities.
But as an understudy for Ananias, Casey Ryan would have been a failure.In two hours or less he had made easy trail acquaintance with sixdifferent men, and he had unconsciously managed to vary his vagueaccount of himself six different times. Wherefore he was presentlyasked cautiously concerning his thirst.
"They's times," said Casey, hopefully lowering an eyelid, "when afeller dassent take a nip, no matter how thirsty he gits."
The questioner stared at him for a minute and slowly nodded. "You'redarn' right," he assented. "I scursely ever touch anything, myself."And he added vaguely, "Quite a lot of it peddled out here in this camp,I guess. Tourists comin' through are scared to pack it themselves--butthey sure don't overlook any chances to take a snort."
"Yeah?" Casey cocked a knowing eye at the speaker. "They must pay apretty fair price fer it, too. Don't the cops bother folks none?"
"Some--I guess."
Casey filled his pipe and offered his tobacco sack to the man. Thefellow took it, nodding listless thanks, and filled his own pipe. Thetwo sat down together on the knee of a deformed sycamore and smoked incircumspect silence.
"Arizona, I see." The man nodded toward the license plates on Casey'scar.
"Uh-huh." Casey glanced that way. "Know a man name of Kenner?" Heasked abruptly.
The fellow looked at Casey sidelong, without turning his head.
"Some. Do you?"
"Some." Casey felt that he was making headway, though it was a gooddeal like playing checkers with the king row wide open and only twocrowned heads to defend his men.
"Friend uh yours?" The fellow turned his head and looked straight atCasey.
Casey returned him a pale, straight-lidded stare. The man's glanceflickered and swung away.
"Who wants to know?" Casey asked calmly.
"Oh, you can call me Jim Cassidy. I just asked." He removed his pipefrom his mouth and inspected it apathetically. "He's a friend of BillMasters, garage man up at Lund. Know Bill?"
"Any man says I don't, you can call 'im a liar." Casey also inspectedhis pipe. "Bought that car off'n Kenner," Casey added boldly. Gettinginto trouble, he discovered, carried almost the thrill of trying tokeep out of it.
"Yeah?" The self-styled Jim Cassidy looked at the Ford moreattentively. "And contents?"
Casey snorted. "What do you know about goats, if anything?" he askedmysteriously.
Jim Cassidy eyed Casey sidelong through a silence. Then he brought hispalm down flat on his thigh and laughed.
"You pass," he stated, with a relieved sigh. "He's a dinger, ain't he?"
"You know 'im, all right." Casey also laughed and put out his hand. "Ifyou're a friend of Kenner's, shake hands with Casey Ryan! He's damnedglad to meet yuh--an' you can ask anybody if that ain't the truth."
After that the acquaintance progressed more smoothly. By the timeCasey spread his bed close alongside the car--he knew just how muchbooze Jim Cassidy carried, just what Cassidy expected to make off theload, and a good many other bits of information of no particular use toCasey.
A strange, inner excitement held Casey awake long after Jim Cassidy wasasleep snoring. He lay looking up into the leafy branches of thesycamore beside him and watched a star slip slowly across an open spacebetween the branches. Farther up the grove a hilarious group of younghikers sang snatches of songs to the uncertain accompaniment of aukelele. A hundred feet away on his right, occasional cars wentcoasting past on the down grade, coming in off the desert, or climbedmore slowly with motors working, on their way up from the valley below.The shifting brilliance from their headlights flicked the grovecapriciously as they went by. Now and then a car stopped. One, a big,high-powered car with one dazzling spotlight swung into the narrowdriveway and entered the grove.
Casey lifted his head like a desert turtle and blinked curiously at thecar as it eased past him a few feet and stopped. A gloved hand wentout to the spotlight and turned it slowly, lighting the grove foot byfoot and pausing to dwell upon each silent, parked car. Casey sat up inthe blankets and waited.
Luck, he told himself, was grinning at him from ear to ear. For thiswas Smiling Lou himself, and none other. He was alone,--a big, hungry,official fish searching the grove greedily. Casey swallowed a grin andtried to look scared. The light was slowly working around in hisdirection.
I don't suppose Casey Ryan had ever looked really scared in his life.His face simply refused to wear so foreign an expression. Therefore,when the spotlight finally revealed him, Casey blinked against it witha half-hearted grin, as if he had been caught at something foolish.The light remained upon him, and Smiling Lou got out of the car andcame back to him slowly.
Not even Casey thought of calling Smiling Lou a fool. He couldn't beand play the game he was playing. Smiling Lou said nothing whateveruntil he had looked the car over carefully (giving the license number asecond sharp glance) and had regarded Casey fixedly while he made uphis mind.
"Hullo! Where's your pardner?" he demanded then.
"I'm in pardnerships with myself this trip," Casey retorted. He waitedwhile Smiling Lou looked him over again, more carefully this time.
"Where did you get that car?"
"From Kenner--for sixteen-hundred and seventeen dollars and fivecents." Casey fumbled in the blankets--Smiling Lou following hismovements suspiciously--and got out the makings of a cigarette.
"Got any booze in that car?" Smiling Lou might have been a trafficcop, for all the trace of humanity there was in his voice.
Casey cocked an eye up at him, sent a quick glance toward the Ford, andlooked back into Smiling Lou's face. He hunched his shoulders andfinished the making of his cigarette.
"I wisht you wouldn't look," he said glumly. "I got half my outfit inthere an' I hate to have it tore up."
Smiling Lou continued to look at him, seeming slightly puzzled. Butindecision was not one of his characteristics, evidently. He stepped upto the car, pulled a flashligh
t from his pocket and looked in.
Casey was up and into his clothes by the time Smiling Lou had uncovereda box or two. Smiling Lou turned toward him, his lips twitching.
"Lift this stuff out of here and put it in my car," he commanded,elation creeping into his voice in spite of himself. "My Lord! Thechances you fellows take! Think a dab of paint is going to cover up abrand burnt into the wood?"
Casey looked startled, glancing down into the car to where Smiling Loupointed.
"The boards is turned over on all the rest," he mutteredconfidentially. "I dunno how that darned Canadian Club sign got rightside up."
"What all have you got?" Smiling Lou lowered his voice when he askedthe question. Casey tried not to grin when he replied. Smiling Lougasped,
"Well, get it into my car, and make it snappy."
Casey made it as snappy as he could, and kept his face straight untilSmiling Lou spoke to him sharply.
"I won't take you in to-night with me. I want that car. You drive itinto headquarters first thing in the morning. And don't think you canbeat it, either. I'll have the road posted. You can knock a good dealoff your sentence if you crank up and come in right after breakfast.And make it an early breakfast, too."
His manner was stern, his voice perfectly official. But Casey, eyeinghim grimly, saw distinctly the left eyelid lower and lift again.
"All right--I'm the goat," he surrendered and sat down again on hiscanvas-covered bed. He did not immediately crawl between the blankets,however, because interesting things were happening over at JimCassidy's car.
Casey watched Jim Cassidy go picking his way amongst the tree roots andcamp litter, his back straightened under the load of hootch he wascarrying to Smiling Lou's car. With Jim Cassidy also, Smiling Lou wascrisply official. When the last of the hootch had been transferred,Casey heard Smiling Lou tell Jim Cassidy to drive in to headquartersafter breakfast next morning--but he did not see Smiling Lou wink whenhe said it.
After that, Smiling Lou started his motor and drove slowly up throughthe grove, halting to scan each car as he passed. He swung out throughthe upper driveway, turned sharply there and came back down the highwayspeeding up on the downhill grade to San Bernardino.
Jim Cassidy came furtively over and settle down for a whisperedconference on Casey's bed.
"How much did he get off'n YOU?" he asked inquisitively. "Did he cleanyuh out?"
"Clean as a last year's bone in a kioty den," Casey declared, hidinghis satisfaction as best he could. "Never got my roll though."
"He wouldn't--not with you workin' on the inside. Guess it must bekinda touchy around here right now. New officers, mebby. He wouldn'ta' cleaned us out if we'd a' been safe. He never came into campbefore--not when I've been here. Made that same play to you, didn'the--about givin' yourself up in the morning? Uh course yuh know whatthat means--DON'T!"
"He shore is foxy, all right," Casey commented with absolute sincerity."You can ask anybody if he didn't pull it off like the pleasure was allhis'n. No L. A. traffic cop ever pinched me an I looked like heenjoyed it more."
"Oh, Lou's cute, all right. They don't any of 'em put anything over onLou. You must be new at the business, ain't yuh?"
"Second trip," Casey informed him with an air of importance--which hereally felt, by the way. "What Casey's studyin' on now, is the nextmove. No use hangin' around here empty. What do YOU figger on doin'?"
"Well, Lou didn't give no tip--not to me, anyway. So I guess it'll besafe to drive on in to the city and load up again. I got a feller withme--he caught a ride in to San Berdoo; left just before you drove in.Know where to go in the city? 'Cause I can ride in with you, an' lethim foller."
"That'll suit me fine," Casey declared. And so they left it for thetime being, and Cassidy went back to bed.
A great load had dropped from Casey's shoulders, and he was asleepbefore Jim Cassidy had ceased to turn restlessly in his blankets.Getting the White Mule out of his car and into the car of Smiling Louhad been the task which Nolan had set for him. What was to happenthereafter Casey could only guess, for Nolan had not told him. And suchwas the Casey Ryan nature that he made no attempt to solve the problemswhich Mack Nolan had calmly reserved for himself.
He did not dream, for instance, that Mack Nolan had watched him loadthe stuff into Smiling Lou's car. He did know that an unobtrusiveCadillac roadster was parked at the next campfire. It had come in halfan hour behind him, but the driver had not made any move toward campinguntil after dark. Casey had glanced his way when the car was parkedand the driver got out and began fussing around the car, but he had notbeen struck with any sense of familiarity in the figure.
There was no reason why he should. Thousands and thousands of men areof Mack Nolan's height and general build. This man looked like adoctor or a dentist perhaps. Beyond the matter of size, similarity toMack Nolan ceased. The Cadillac man wore a vandyke beard and coloredglasses, and a panama and light gray business suit. Casey set him downin his mental catalog as "some town feller" and assumed that they hadnothing in common.
Yet Mack Nolan heard nearly every word spoken by Smiling Lou, Casey andJim Cassidy. (Readers are so inquisitive about these things that Ifelt I ought to tell you--else you'll be worrying as hard as Casey Ryandid later on. I'm soft-hearted, myself; I never like to worry a readermore than is absolutely necessary. So I'm letting you in, hoping you'llget an added kick out of Casey's further maneuvers).
The Cadillac car, I should explain, was only one of Mack Nolan's littlesecrets. There is a very good garage at Goffs, not many miles fromJuniper Wells. A matter of an hour's driving was sufficient at anytime for Mack Nolan to make the exchange. And no man at Goffs wouldthink it very strange that the owner of a Cadillac should prefer todrive a Ford over rough, desert trails to his prospect in themountains. Mack Nolan, as I have told you before, had a way with him.