Casey killed the engine and got out stiffly, bit off a chew of tobacco, and gazed pensively at Furnace Mountain that held Lucky Lode, where the widow was cooking supper at that moment.
“I sure would like to flop m’ lip over one of her biscuits, right now,” he said aloud. “If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too high-toned to cook?”
His eyes went to Furnace Lake lying smooth and pale yellow in the saucerlike basin between Furnace and Ghost Mountains. In the soft light of the afterglow it seemed to smile at him with a glint of malice like the treacherous thing it was. For Furnace Lake is treacherous. The big earthquake—America knows only one big earthquake, that which rocked San Francisco so disastrously—had split Furnace Lake halfway across, leaving an ugly crevice ten feet wide at the narrowest point and eighty feet deep, men said. Time and the passing storms had partly filled the gash, but it was there, ugly, ominous, a warning to all men to trust the lake not at all. Little cracks radiated from the big gash here and there, and the cattle men rode often that way, and sometimes not often enough to save their cattle from falling in.
By day the lake shimmered deceptively with mirage that painted it blue with the likeness of water. Then a lone clump of greasewood stood up tall and proclaimed itself a ship lying idle on a glassy expanse of water so blue, so cool, so clear that one cannot wonder that thirsty travelers go mad sometimes with the false lure of it.
Just now the lake looked exactly like any lake at dusk, and Casey’s thoughts went beyond, to his claim on Ghost Mountain. Being tired and hungry, he pictured wistfully a cabin there, and a light in the window when he went chucking up the long mesa in the dark, and the widow there with hot coffee and supper waiting for him. Just as soon as he struck “shipping values,” that picture would be real, said Casey to himself, and opened his tool box and set to work changing the tire. By the time he had finished it was dark, and Casey had yet a long forty miles between himself and his sour-dough can. He cranked the engine, switched on the electric headlights, and went tearing down the long incline to the lake.
“She c’n see the lights, and she’ll know I ain’t hangin’ out in town lappin’ up whisky,” he told himself as he drove. “She’ll know it’s Casey Ryan comin’ home—know it the way them lights are slippin’ over the country. Ain’t another man on the desert can put a car over the trail like this.”
Pleased with himself and the reputation he had made, urged by hunger and the desire to make good on his claim, so that he might have the little home he instinctively craved, Casey pulled the gas lever down another eighth of an inch—when he was already using more than he should—and nearly bounced his dynamite off the seat when he lurched over a sandy hummock and down onto the smooth floor of the lake.
It was five miles across that lake from rim to rim, taking a straight line, as Casey did, well above the crevice. In all that distance there is not a stick, nor a stone, nor a bush to mark the way. Not even a trail, since Casey was the only man who traveled it, and Casey never made tracks twice in the same place, but drove down upon it, picked himself a landmark on the opposite side, and steered for it exactly as one steers a boat. The marks he left behind him were no more than pencil marks drawn upon a sheet of yellow paper. Unless the lake was wet with one of those sporadic desert rains, you couldn’t make any impression on the cementlike surface. If the lake was wet you stuck where you were. Wherefore Casey plunged out upon five miles of blank, baked clay with neither road, chart, nor compass to guide him. It was the first time he had ever crossed at night, and a blanket of thin, high clouds hid the stars.
The little handful of engine roared beautifully and shook the car with the vibration. Casey heaved a sigh of weariness mingled with content that the way was smooth and he need not look for chuck holes for a few minutes, at any rate. He settled back, and his fingers relaxed on the wheel.
Suddenly he leaned forward, stared hard, leaned out and stared, listened with an ear turned toward the engine. He turned and looked behind, then stared ahead again.