The Trail of the White Mule

thought well enough of his stomach to get up and start breakfast when Hank had built the fire. He was aware of Joe's suspicious gaze from the lower bunk, and of the clo

st and he was free to slice bacon the right thickness, and mix the hot-cake batter himse

ight. You may be sure the hot-cakes will be browned correctly with no uncooked dough

n the bacon grease before sprinkling it thick with sugar and settling the eleventh cake on top.

he hull thing. Dad, seems like you're, too busy t' think uh some things Mart wouldn't want forgot." Paw looked quickly at Casey; but

ng at Joe's bandaged hand. He almost grinned when he s

Hank's brainless titter, Joe added carefully, "Bad ground in the first right-hand drift. We had to abandon it. Rocks bi

t he and his partner were lucky to get off with mere broken bones. Casey, y

lacate them. He would have taken the first slim chance t

nd staring at a wall that had no visible opening save one small window to let in

would still lack the brutishness necessary to shoot an old woman. So they had shut her up there in the rock hut, not daring to take her back to civilization where she

p with the Little Woman had changed Casey Ryan considerably. Time was when even his soft-heartedness would not have impelled him to patient scheming that he might help an old woman

e gritted his teeth when he swung back the single-jack and landed a glancing blow on the knuckles of his left hand instead of the drill end. No man

gout and bandaged the hand for him. There would be no more tunnel work

ng, sometimes, and cake made without eggs, and pie; and the potatoes were mashed or baked instead of plain boiled. Casey had the satisfaction of seeing the dishes return empty to the dugout, and know that he was permitted to

plain that he was under guard. Two were always busy elsewhere. Casey saw that he was expected to believe that t

Casey knew rock as he knew bacon and beans and his sour-dough can. To make the footage they claimed to be

the things he thought; not even Joe, who had intelligence far above Paw and Hank, ever guessed that Casey listened every day for their shots and could tell, almost to an inch what pro

ase the abstract theory that every prisoner must be watched must support itself unaided by Casey's behavior. Not even Joe's inte

alone for an hour or so; being careful to keep the guns out of his reach, and

ting him as a handy man around camp, and into forgetting that he was at least a potential enemy. Afoot and alone in that unfriendly land, with his left hand smashed and carr

the safeguarding of their "giant powder" and caps and fuse. They should not have left it in a gouged, op

o out with a bang and a puff of bluish-brown smoke when you go. On the other hand, you may believe the weird tales one reads now and then, of how whole mountainsides have been thrown down by the discharge of a few sticks

, with no worse effect than a nervous chill down the spine of the driver of the wagon. It is true that old stuff, after lying around for months and months through varying degrees of temper

y-four inches long, drilled into living rock. The amount of dynamite used depends upon the quality of rock to be broken and the skill and

d blow per X-whatever that means. From three- to six-X caps are used in ordinary mining. Three-X caps sometimes fail to explode a

handle than is the dynamite itself. The cap is a tricky thing that may go off at any jar or scratch or at a spark from pipe or cigarette. You can, if you are sufficiently careless of possible results, light the twiste

ressed down by the miner's teeth, sometimes, if he has been long in the business and has grown careless about his head; otherwise he cr

t and that the whole tunnel would cave in and the mountain behind it would shake. Nothing like that occurs. If there are five loaded holes in the tunnel face, and you do not hear, one after the other, five muffled BOOMS, you will know that one hole fai

mountainside. I once read a story-it was not so long ago-of a Chinaman who wiped o

for company, did nothing whatever that he would not have done had one of the three been present.

er a huge, black boulder between the tunnel portal and the dugout. On the third day he also gathered wood and helped himself to two sticks of dynamite, three caps and e

five inches of fuse for each piece working awkwardly with his one good hand and pinching the caps tight with his teeth, which might have sent him with a bang into Kingdom Come-and very carefully worked the caps into the powder until no

t be so quick, as fiction would have them, but if his aim was accurate in throwing, they would be deadly enough. Moreover, h

that even he shied at standing over the stove cooking hot cakes and complained that his broken hand pained him a lot and that the heat

but Casey said it didn't feel like blood poison. He had knocked it against the bunk edge

the dugout after breakfast, called Hank away from the dish-washing and the three set off toward the tunnel with a brisker

his bunk, he reached under the blankets and found the other stick of dynamite which he had not yet loaded. This he laid on the kitchen table and cut it in two as he had done last night with the other stick. With his r

hat the sight of a piece with the fuse in his hand would be sufficient to tame Paw or Hank or J

beneath a bush. Returning to the dugout he made a thick dough of leftover pancake batter and molded it into the dynamite wrapping with a fragment of harmless fuse protruding from the opened en

the stove with pinon sticks and closed the drafts. He armed himself with the two loaded pieces of dynamite from the cu

t the tunnel was silent, the ore car uptilted at the end of its track on the dump. Yet the three men were supposedly at work

ground had caused the accident to Joe and his partner whose leg had been broken. Casey found the drift as silent as the main tunnel. He went in ten feet or so and lighted the candle he had pulled from inside his shirt. With the cand

ong its center with boot tracks going and coming, blurring one another with much passing. Casey grinned an

e fastening padlocked on his side. Casey had vaguely expected some such bar to his path, an

r appear locked behind him when he had passed through was a different matter, and Casey did n

itself. One detail more or less could not matter so much. Besides, he w

His candle held close to the wall, he moved forward along the well-trodden path, looking for a door. Mechanically he noticed also the formation of the wall and the vein of ore-probably high-grade in pockets, at least-that had caused this chamber to be dug. The ore, he judged, had long since been taken out and down throu

ng apparatus which Casey did not examine in detail. His Irish heart was beating rather fast while he unfastened the door.

thin fingers were rolling a corner of her apron hem painstakingly, as if she meant to hem it again. Her eyes were fixed absently upon the futile task. Casey watched her as long as he

hroat for the third time and coming a step into t

long the rockers hesitated in their motion. But the old woman did not reply nor turn her fa

n't look good to Casey Ryan. If yuh wanta get out-if they got yuh held a prisoner here, or anything like 'that, you can trust Casey Ryan any old time. Is-can I do anything for yuh, ma'am?" The old woman dr

very cat, every rat, every mouse, every louse, has a thousand year's to burn. Tell Mart the hounds of hell must burn!" Her voice carried a terrible condemnation

ad to swallow twice before he could find his voice, and those of you who know C

g. I come up here to se

world will have to burn. Tell those hounds of hell that bay at the gibbous moon the world wi

sey slid out through the door and fastened it hastily behind him. With an uneasy glance now and then over his shoulder as if he feared the old woman might be in purs

fill his pipe and light it. Even then the sonorous voice of the old woman intoning her dreadful proclamation against the world rang in his ears and sent occasional ripples of horror down his spine. Seen through

ing events; but with that terrible old woman still fresh in his mind, Casey was in the mood to welcome distraction of any sort.

an arm slowly and aimed a

sey. "Pap thinks you come here spyin' around t' see what we're up to on this

an' take no chances. Mart, he's more easy-goin' in some ways, on account of havin' his crazy ol' mother on 'is hands t' take care of. Mart don't want no k

up here spyin' an' snoopin', you git bumped off an' no argument about it. Mart's got his mother t' take care of-an' we aim t' pertect Mart. If you're a Federal officer, I want t' know it here an' now.

t time. Moonshiners as well as would-be murderers they were-and Joe drunk and giving them away like a fool. Casey wished that he knew where Hank and Paw were at this moment. He hoped, t

drink, would urge Joe to take a drink; it would be simple, once he got Joe started. But Joe had a few ideas of his own concern

d with intense pride in his ability to handle the situation. "If you're a Federal officer, yuh won't dast t'

of scaring Joe with the dynamite before Joe would shoot. But Joe had his finger

' call it good. I claim that's got a b

and it was full when Casey, with Joe's eyes fixed upon him, tilted it and began

bly against the doorway and watche

est stuff that ever was made on

ed on Joe and the gun and trying his best to maintain

apparently quite convinced that Casey was not a

ile he still keenly realized that he was playing a part for the sole purpose of gaining somehow an advantage over Joe, he was conscious of a

an ask anybody." Then Casey discovered something strange in Joe's appear

with that six-gun? Tryin' to wr

t. He satisfied himself apparently beyond all doubt that the gun was doing nothing it should not d

ore eyes. Gun's all right-yo'r seein' crooked. It's t

grinning more foolishly, "Darn right, tha

I'll show yuh how it's made," he invited with heavy enthusiasm. "Yore a judge uh hootch all right-I can se

ly. "Puttin' the hoot in hootch-you fellers

wasn't no Federal officer. They know it, too. I was foolin' back there. I knowed you didn't need no gun pulled on yuh t' make yuh put aw

ight-sure, you knowed it!" Casey laid his good hand investigatively against his stomach.

iringly. "Who's your friend?" Casey demanded pugnacio

boards of the unpainted door. Just as slowly he turne

, didn't I? Gittin' the best of yuh, ain

y. "Where's y'r White Mule? Let 'er kick-Casey Ry'n can lead 'er an' tame 'er-an' make'r

of this discovery which Joe had forced upon him. In flashes of normalcy he knew that he must see all he could of their moonshine operations.

been able to handle a sudden half-pint of moonshine whisky and keep as level a head as he now strove valiantly to retain. But Casey's later years had been more

ey turned into a drift. Casey did not know which drift it was, though he tried foggily to remember. He was still, you must know

gled in a confused rumbling in the pent walls of the drift. Casey thought they passed

voices of Hank and Paw he now mistook for the ravings of the woman in the stone hut. Casey balked there, and w

. The voices of Paw and Hank came closer and clarified into words

ey was positive there was a hole up there, because the sun shone in his eyes and to avoid it he moved aside and fell over a bucket or a

slapping legs while he talked. Casey realized that here at last were men who appreciated Casey Ryan as he deserved to be appreciated. Tears ran down his own weathered cheeks-tear

t take another drink, no matter how insistent they were. In the brief glow of that resolution Casey protested that he could hoot without any more hootch. But he hated to hurt Paw's feelings, or Hank's or Joe's. They had made the hootch with a new and different twist, and they were honestly anxious for

as Casey who made the suggestion, and he became involved in difficulties when he attempted the word venomous. Once started Casey was determined to pronounce the word and pronounce it correctly, because Case

hey couldn't afford to get drunk on the darn' stuff. It had too hard a back-action kick, he explained, and they might forget themselves if they took too much. It was impor

and we can't afford t' git drunk now. We've

d it all the way up the path to the dugout, and when they were standing outside. Beyond all else, Casey was anxious that Joe should feel perfect

sey bragged bubblingly, running his words together as if they were be

owing distance from the cabin door. Hobbling on three legs it went nosing painfully amongst a litter of tin cans and bent paper cartons, hunt

ggling his beard disparag

Hank guessed with

an't? What

. Casey gathered the impression that none of them believed him. They seemed to think he didn't know what he was talking about. They even questioned t

se so that he might light both as one piece. Even in his drunkenness Casey knew dynamite and how best to handle it. Judgment might be dethroned,

d. A spitting splutter arose, that would have claimed the attention of the three, had they not been unanimously engaged i

, drew back his right hand and

ned around to look, with no clear conception

and Hank and Joe were lifted some inches from the ground with the explosion. They came down in a hail of gravel, t

ual support and comfort. They craned necks forward, goggling incredu

t, clawing gravel out of his uncombed beard. "

ling tenderly certain nicks on his cheeks where gravel had landed.

t-'n' Casey done it!" He turned and slapped Casey somewhat uncertainly on the back, which topp

good joke on the burro. A merciful joke, certainly; as you would agree had you seen the poor

actly what he was doing and kept a level head. He crawled laboriously into his bunk, shoes, hat and all; and, convinced that