In this speed-hungry age Casey had not escaped the warped viewpoint which others assume toward travel.  Casey always had craved the sensation of swift moving through space.  His old stage horses could tell you tales of that!  It was a distinct comedown, buying burros for his venture.  That took straight, native optimism and the courage to make the best of things.  But he hadn’t the price of a Ford, and Casey abhors debt; so he reminded himself cheerfully that many a millionaire would still be poor if he had turned up his nose at burros, sour-dough cans and the business end of pick and shovel, and made the deal.

At that, he was better off than most prospectors, he told himself on the night of his purchase.  He had the mule, William, to ride.  The prospector had assured Casey over and over that William was saddle broke.  Casey is too happy-go-lucky, I think.  He took the man’s word for it and waited until the night before he intended beginning his journey before he gave William a try-out, down in a sandy swale back of the garage.  He returned after dark, leading William.  Casey had a pronounced limp and an eyetooth was broken short off, about halfway to the gums, and his lip was cut.

“William’s saddle broke, all right,” he told his neighbor, the proprietor of the Oasis.  “I’ve saw horses broke like that; cow-punchers have fun in the c’rall with ’em Sundays, seein’ which one can stay with the saddle three jumps.  William don’t mind the saddle at all.  All he hates is anybody in it.”  Then he grinned wryly because of his hurt.  “No use arguin’ with a mule—­I used to be too good a walker.”

Casey therefore traded his riding saddle for another packsaddle, and collected six coal-oil cans which he cleaned carefully.  William was loaded with cans of water, which he seemed to prefer to Casey, though they probably weighed more.  The burros waddled off under their loads of beans, flour, bacon, coffee, lard, and a full set of prospector’s tools.  Casey set his course by the stars and fared forth across the desert, meaning to pass through the lower end of Death Valley by night, on a trail he knew, and so plod up toward the Tippipah country.

He was happy.  He owed no man a nickel, he had grub enough to last him three months if he were careful, he had a body tough as seasoned hickory, and he was headed for that great no-man’s-land which is the desert.  More, he was actually upon the trail of his dream that he had dreamed years before up in the Yellowstone.  An old, secretive Indian was going to find his match when Casey Ryan plodded over his horizon and halted beside his fire.

By the way, don’t blame me for showing a fondness for gloom and gore when you read the names Casey carried in his mind the next few weeks.  Casey crossed Death Valley and the Funeral Mountains—­or a spur of them—­and headed up toward Spectre Range, going by way of Deadman’s Spring, where he filled his water cans.  That does not sound cheerful, but Casey was still fairly happy,—­though there were moments when he thought seriously of killing William with a rock.