What lay over the rim-rock he did not know, though he meant to find out.
Daylight found him leaning against a smooth ledge which formed a part of the black capping he had seen from the road.-He had spent the night toiling over boulders and into small gulches and out again, trying to find some crevice through which he might climb to the top. Now he was just about where he had been several hours before, and even Casey Ryan could not help realizing what a fine target he would make if he attempted to climb back down the bluff to camp before darkness again hid his movements.
Standing there puffing and wondering what to do next, he saw the two burros come picking their way toward the spring for their morning drink and a handful apiece of rolled oats which Barney kept to bait them into camp.-The lead burro was within easy flinging distance of a rock, from camp, when the thin, unmistakable crack of a rifle-shot came from the right, high up on the rim somewhere beyond Casey.-The lead burro pitched forward, struggled to get up, fell again and rolled over, lodging against a rock with its four feet sticking up at awkward angles in the air.
The second burro, always quick to take alarm, wheeled and went galloping away down the draw.-But he couldn't outgallop the bullet that sent him in a complete somersault down the slope.
Barney might keep the rest of his rolled oats, for the burros were through wanting them.
Casey squinted along the rim of black rock that crested the peak irregularly like a stiff, ragged frill of mourning stuff the gods had thrown away.-He could not see the man who had shot the burros. By the intervals between shots, Casey guessed that one man was doing the shooting, though it was probable there were others in the gang. And now that the burros were dead, it became more than ever necessary to locate the gang and have it out with them.-That necessity did not worry Casey in the least.-The only thing that troubled him now was getting up on the rim without being seen.
It was characteristic of Casey Ryan that, though he moved with caution, he nevertheless moved toward their unseen enemy.-Not for a long, long while had Casey been cautious in his behavior, and the necessity galled him.-If the hidden marksman had missed that last burro, Casey would probably have taken a longer chance.
But to date, every bullet had gone straight to its destination; which was enough to make any man think twice.
Once during the forenoon, while Casey was standing against the rim-rock staring glumly down upon the camp, Barney's hat, perched on a pick handle, lifted its crown above the edge of his hiding place; an old, old trick Barney was playing to see if the rifle were still there and working.-The rifle worked very well indeed, for Barney was presently flattened into his retreat, swearing and poking his finger through a round hole in his hat.
Casey seized the opportunity created by the diversion and scurried like a lizard across a bare, gravelly slide that had been bothering him for half an hour.-By mid-afternoon he reached a crevice that looked promising enough when he craned up it, but which nearly broke his neck when he had climbed halfway up.
Never before had he been compelled to measure so exactly his breadth and thickness.-It was drawing matters down rather fine when he was compelled to back down to where he had elbow room, and remove his coat before he could squeeze his body through that crack.-But he did it, with his six-shooter inside his shirt and the extra ammunition weighting his trousers pockets.
In spite of his long experience with desert scenery, Casey was somewhat astonished to find himself in a new land, fairly level and with thick groves of pinon cedar and juniper trees scattered here and there.-Far away stood other barren hills with deep canyons between.-He knew now that the black-capped butte was less a butte than the uptilted nose of a high plateau not half so barren as the lower country.-From the pointing Joshua tree it had seemed a peak, but contours are never so deceptive as in the high, broken barrens of Nevada.
He looked down into the gulch where Barney was holed up with their outfit.-He could scarcely distinguish the place, it had dwindled so with the distance.-He had small hope of seeing Barney.-After that last leaden bee had buzzed through his hat crown, you would have to dig faster than Barney if you wanted a look at him. Casey grinned when he thought of it.
When he had gotten his breath and had scraped some loose dirt out of his shirt collar, Casey crouched down behind a juniper and examined his surroundings carefully, his pale, straight-lidded eyes moving slowly as the white, pointing finger of a searchlight while he took in every small detail within view.-Midway in the arc of his vision was a ledge, ending in a flat-topped boulder.
The ledge blocked his view, except that he could see trees and a higher peak of rocks beyond it.-He made his way cautiously toward the ledge, his eyes fixed upon the boulder.-A huge, sloping slab of the granite outcropping it seemed, scaly with gray-green fungus in the cracks where moisture longest remained; granite ledge banked with low junipers warped and stunted and tangled with sage. The longer Casey looked at the boulder, the less he saw that seemed unnatural in a country filled with boulders and outcroppings and stunted vegetation.
But the longer he looked at it, the stronger grew his animal instinct that something was wrong.-He waited for a time--a long time indeed for Casey Ryan to wait.-There was no stir anywhere save the sweep of the wind blowing steadily from the west.
He crept forward, halting often, eyeing the boulder and its neighboring ledge, distrust growing within him, though he saw nothing, heard nothing but the wind sweeping through branches and bush.-Casey Ryan was never frightened in his life.-But he was Irish born--and there's something in Irish blood that will not out; something that goes beyond reason into the world of unknown wisdom.