"That's right," nodded Casey and he added, grinning more foolishly, "Darn right, that's right!-Back-action kick--bet your life."
Joe pushed the gun inside his waistband and crooked his finger at Casey, beckoning mysteriously.-"C'mon an' I'll show yuh how it's made," he invited with heavy enthusiasm.-"Yore a judge uh hootch all right--I can see that.-I'll show yuh how we do it.-Best White Mule in Nevada.-Ain't that right?-Ain't that the real hootch?"
"'S right, all right," Casey agreed earnestly.-"Puttin' the hoot in hootch--you fellers.-You can ask anybody if that ain't right."
Joe laughed hoarsely.-"Puttin' the hoot in hootch--that's right.
I knowed you was all right.-Didn't I say you was?-I told Hank an' Pap you 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 away the hootch.-Lapped it up like a thirsty hound. I knowed yuh would--I was kiddin' yuh, runnin' that razoo with the gun.-Ain't that right?"
"Darn right, that's right! I knew you was foolin' all along. You knew Casey Ryan's all right--sure, you knowed it!"-Casey laid his good hand investigatively against his stomach.-"Pretty hot hootch--you can ask anybody if it ain't!-Workin' like an air drill a'ready."
He blinked inquisitively at Joe, who stared back inquiringly.
"Who's your friend?"-Casey demanded pugnaciously.-"He sneaked in on yuh.-I never seen 'im come in."
Joe turned slowly and looked behind him at the blank boards of the unpainted door.-Just as slowly he turned back to Casey.-A slow grin split his leathery face.
"Ain't nobody.-It's the hootch. Told yuh, didn't I?-Gittin' the best of yuh, ain't it?-C'mon--I'll show yuh how it's made."
"Take a barr'l t' git the besta--Casey Ry'n," Casey boasted, his words blurring noticeably.-"Where's y'r White Mule?-Let 'er kick--Casey Ry'n can lead 'er an' tame 'er--an' make'r eat outa 's hand!"-Following Joe, Casey stepped high over a rock no bigger than his fist.
With a lurch he straightened and tried to pull his muddled wits out of the fog that was fast enveloping them.-Dimly he sensed the importance 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.-He must let them think he was drunk until he knew all their secrets.-He assured himself vaguely that he must, above all things, keep his head.
But it was all pretty hazy and rapidly growing hazier. Casey Ryan, you must know, was not what is informally termed a drinking man. In his youth he might have 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 temperate than most desert men would believe.-Unfortunately virtue is not always it own reward; at least Casey now found himself the worse for past abstinences.
Joe led him into the tunnel, laughing sardonically because Casey found it scarcely wide enough for his oscillating progress. They turned into a drift.-Casey did not know which drift it was, though he tried foggily to remember.-He was still, you must know, trying to keep a level head and gain valuable information for the sheriff who he hoped would return to the butte with Barney.
Paw and Hank were wrangling somewhere ahead.-Casey could hear their raised voices mingled in a confused rumbling in the pent walls of the drift.-Casey thought they passed through a doorway, and that Joe closed a heavy door behind them, but he was not sure.
Memory of the old woman intoning her horrible anathema surged back upon Casey with the closing of the door.-The voices of Hank and Paw he now mistook for the ravings of the woman in the stone hut. Casey balked there, and would not go on.-He did not want to face the old woman again, and he said so repeatedly--or believed that he did.
Joe caught him by the arm and pulled him forward by main strength. The voices of Paw and Hank came closer and clarified into words; or did Casey and Joe walk farther and come into their presence?
They were all standing together somewhere, in a large, underground chamber with a hole letting in the sunlight high up on one side. Casey 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 keg or something.-Hank laughed loudly at the spectacle, and Paw swore because the fall startled him; but it was Joe who helped Casey up.
Casey knew that he was sitting on a barrel--or something--and telling a funny story.-He thought it must be very funny indeed, because every one was laughing and bending double and 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--tears of mirth.-He had never laughed so much before in all his life, he thought.-Every one, even Paw, who was normally a mean, cantankerous old cuss, was having the time of his life.
They attempted to show Casey certain intricacies of their still, which made it better than other stills and put a greater kick in the White Mule it bred.-Somewhere back in the dim recesses of Casey's mind, he felt that he ought to listen and remember what they told him.-Vaguely he knew that he must not 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 his judgment and approval.-He decided that perhaps he really ought to take a little more just to please them; not much--a couple of drinks maybe.-Wherefore, he graciously consented to taste the "run" of the day before.