During the companionable smoke that followed breakfast, Casey learned that Mack Nolan had spent some time in Nevada, ambling through the hills, examining the geologic formation of the country with a view to possible future prospecting in districts yet undeveloped.
"The mineral possibilities of Nevada haven't been more than scratched," Mack Nolan observed, lying back with one arm thrown up under his head as a makeshift pillow and the other hand negligently attending to the cigarette he was smoking.-His gray army hat was tilted over his eyes, shielding them from the sun while they dwelt rather studiously upon the face of Casey Ryan.
"Every spring I like to get out and poke around through these hills where folks as a rule don't go.-Never did much prospecting--as such. Don't take kindly enough to a pick and shovel for that.-What I like best is general field work.-If I run across something rich, time enough then to locate a claim or two and hire a couple of strong backs to do the digging.
"I've been out now for about three weeks; and night before last, just as I stopped to make camp and before I'd started to unpack, my two mules got scared at a rattler and quit the country.-Left me flat, without a thing but my clothes and six-shooter, and what I had in my pockets."-He lifted the cigarette from between his lips--thin, they were, and curved and rather pitiless, one could guess, if the man were sufficiently roused.
"I wasted all yesterday trying to trail 'em.-But you can't do much tracking in these rocks back here toward the river.-I was hitting for the highway to catch a ride if I could, when I saw you topping this last ridge over here.-Don't blame me much for bumming a breakfast, do you?"-And he added, with a sigh of deep physical content, "It sure-lee was some feed!"
His lids drooped lower as if sleep were overtaking him in spite of himself.-"I'd ask yuh if you'd seen anything of those mules-- only I don't give a damn now.-I wish this was night instead of noon; I could sleep the clock around after that bacon and bannock of yours.-Haven't a care in the world," he murmured drowsily.
"Happy as a toad in the sun, first warm day of spring.-How soon you going to crank up?"
Casey stared at him unwinkingly through narrowed lids.-He pushed his hat forward with a sharp tilt over his eyebrow--which meant always that Casey Ryan had just 0. K.'d an idea--and reached for his chewing tobacco.
"Go ahead an' take a nap if yuh want to," he urged.-"I got some tinkerin' to do on the Ford, an' I was aimin' to lay over here an' do it.-I'm kinda lookin' around, myself, for a likely prospect; I got all the time there is.-I guess I'll back the car down the draw a piece where she'll set level, an' clean up 'er dingbats whilst you take a sleep."
Casey left the breakfast things where they were, as a silent reassurance to Mack Nolan that the car would not go off without him. It was a fine, psychological detail of which Casey was secretly rather proud.-A box of grub, a smoked coffee pot and dirty breakfast dishes left beside a dead campfire establishes evidence, admissible before any jury, that the owner means to return.