"And he turned the whole outfit over to you for sixteen hundred dollars or so?" He stared thoughtfully into the fire. Abruptly he looked at Casey.
"What the deuce had you done to him, Ryan?" he asked, with a quizzical intentness. "He must have been scared stiff, to let go of all that stuff for sixteen hundred. Why, man, the 'junk'—that's dope—alone must be worth more than that. And the champagne—forty pints, you say? He ought to get twenty dollars a pint for that. Figure it yourself. I hope," he added seriously, "the fellow wasn't too scared to show up again."
"Well," Casey said grimly, "I dunno how scart he is—but he knows darn' well I'll kill 'im. I told im I would."
Again Mack Nolan laughed. "Catching's much better than killing, Ryan. It hurts a man worse, and it lasts a heap longer. What do you say to turning in? To-morrow we'll have a full day at my private bottling works."
They moved their cooking outfit down near the Ford for safety's sake. While it was wholly improbable that the car would be robbed in the night, Mack Nolan was a man who took as few chances as possible. It happened that the excavation Casey had so hopefully made that morning formed a convenient level for their bed; wherefore they spread it there, talking in low tones of their plans until they went to sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dawn was just thinning the curtain of darkness when Nolan woke Casey with a shake of the shoulder.
"I think we'd better be moving from here before the world's astir. You can back on down this draw, Ryan, and strike an old trail that cuts over the ridge and up the next gulch to an old, deserted mine where I've made headquarters. It isn't far, and we can have breakfast at my camp."
Casey swallowed his astonishment, and for once in his life he did as he was told without argument.