"I kinda thought it was you, Kenner," he drawled.-"How much liquor you got aboard to-night?"
Casey, slanting a glance downward, glimpsed the barrel of a big automatic looking toward them.
"What if I ain't got any?" the young man parried glumly.-"You're taking a lot for granted."
The big man chuckled.-"If you ain't loaded with hootch, it's because one of the boys met up with yuh before I did.-Open 'er up.-Lemme see what you got."
The young fellow scowled, swore under his breath and climbed out, turning toward the loaded tonneau with reluctant obedience.
"I can't argue with the law," he said, as he began to pull out a roll of bedding wedged in tightly.-"But, for cripes sake, go as easy as you can.-I'm plumb lame from my last fall!"
The big man chuckled again.-"The law's merciful as, it can afford to be, and I've got a heart like an ox.-Got any jack on yuh?"
"I'm just about cleaned, and that's the Gawd's truth.-Have a heart, can't yuh?-A man's got t' live."
"Slip me five hundred, anyway.-How much is your load?"
"Sixty gallons--bottled, most of it.-Two kegs in bulk."-Young Kenner was proceeding stoically with the unloading.-Casey, his mouth clamped tight shut, was glaring stupifiedly straight out through the windshield.
"Pile out thirty gallons of the bottled goods by that bush. You can keep the kegs."-The big man's eyes shifted to Casey Ryan's expressionless profile and dwelt there curiously.
"Seems like I know you," he said abruptly.-"Ain't you the guy that was brought in with that Black Butte bunch of moonshiners and got off on account of a nice wife and an L. A. alibi?-Sure you are! Casey Ryan.-I got yuh placed now."-He threw back his head and laughed.
Casey might have been an Indian making a society call for all the sign of life he gave.-Young Kenner, having deposited his camp outfit in a heap on the ground, began lifting out tall, round bottles, four at a time and ricking them neatly beside the large sagebush indicated by the officer.
Standing upon the running board at Casey's shoulder where he had a clear view, the big man watched the unloading and at the same time kept an eye on Casey.-It was perfectly evident that for all his easy good nature, he was not a man who could be talked out of his purpose.
"All right, pile in your blankets," the big man ordered at last, and young Kenner unemotionally began to reload the camp outfit.
The big man's attention shifted to Casey again.-He looked at him curiously and grinned.
"Say, that's a good one you pulled!-You had all the county officials bluffed into thinking you were the victim of that Black Butte bunch, instead of being in cahoots.-That alibi of yours was a bird. Does Kenner, here, know you hit the hootch pretty strong at times? Bootlegging's bad business for a man that laps it up the way you do. Where's that piece of change, Kenner?"
"Aw, can't yuh find some way to leave me jack enough to buy gas and grub?"-Young Kenner asked sullenly, reaching into his pocket. The big man shook his head.
"I'm doing a lot for you boys, when I let yuh get past me with the Lizzie, to say nothing of half your load.-I'd ought to trundle yuh back to San Berdoo; you both know that as well as I do.-I'm too soft-hearted for this job, anyway.-Hand over the roll."
Young Kenner swore and extended his arm behind Casey.-"That leaves me six bits," he growled, as the big man dropped something into his coat pocket.-"You might give me back ten, anyway."
"Couldn't possibly.-I have to have something to square myself with if this leaks out.-Just back up, till you can get around my car. Turn to the left where the sand ain't so deep and you ain't likely to run over the booze."
With the big man still standing at his shoulder on the running board, Casey Ryan did what he had rashly declared he never would do; he backed the Ford, turned it to the left as he had been commanded to do, and drove around the other car.-It was bitter work for Casey; but even he recognized the fact that the "settin'" was not good that evening.-Back in the road again, he stopped when he was told to stop, and waited, with a surface calm altogether strange to Casey, while the officer stepped off and gave a bit of parting advice.
"Better keep right on going, boys. I'd hate to see yuh get in trouble, so you'd better take this old road up ahead here.
That'll bring yuh out at Dagget and you'll miss Barstow altogether.-I just came from there; there's a hard gang hanging around on the lookout for anything they can pick up.-Don't get caught again.-On your way!"
Casey drove for half a mile still staring straight before him.
Then young Kenner laughed shortly.
"That's Smilin' Lou," he said.-"He's a mean boy to monkey with.
Talk about road hawgs--he's one yuh can't outset!"