“They’ll have to clean up her hootin’-annies before they git outa here,” Casey observed shrewdly, having intimate and sometimes unpleasant knowledge of Fords and their peculiar ailments.  “And I wonder what the sufferin’ Chris’mas they’re doin’ here, anyway.  If it’s huntin’ the Injun Jim they’re after, the quicker they scrape the sut off them dingbats and git outa here, the healthier they’ll ride.  You ask anybody if Casey Ryan’s liable to back up now he’s on the ground and squared away!”

He stood there uneasily for a minute or two longer, caught a whiff of his bacon scorching and stooped to its rescue.  Then he fried a bannock hastily in the bacon grease, folded two slices of bacon within it and ate in a hurry, keeping an ear cocked for any further sounds from the concealed car.

He finished eating without having heard more and piled his dishes without washing them.  I don’t suppose he had used more than ten minutes at the longest in eating his supper.  That was about the limit of Casey’s inaction when he smelled a mystery or a scrap.  This had the elements of both, and he started out forthwith to trail down the Ford, wiping crumbs from his mouth and getting out his plug of tobacco as he went.

In broken country sounds are deceptive as to direction, but Casey was lucky enough to walk straight toward the spot, which was over a hump in the gulch, a sort of backbone dividing it in two narrow branches there at its mouth.  He had noticed when he rode toward it that it was ridged in the middle, and had chosen the left-hand branch for no reason at all except that it happened to be a little smoother traveling for his animals.

He topped the ridge and came full upon a camp below, almost within calling distance from where he first sighted it.  There was a stone hut that could not possibly contain more than two small rooms, and there was a tent pitched not far away.  There seemed to be a spring just beyond the cabin.  Casey saw the silver gleam of water there, and a strip of green grass, and a juniper bush or two.

But these details were not important at the moment.  What sent him down the hill in an uneven trot was a group of three that stood beside a car.  From their voices, and the gestures that were being made, here was a quarrel building rapidly into a fight.  To prove it the smallest person in the group suddenly whipped out a revolver and pointed it at the two.  Casey saw the reddening sunlight strike upon the barrel with a brief shine, instantly quenched when the gun was thrust forward toward the other two whom it threatened.

“You get out of my camp and out of my sight just as fast as your legs can take you.  This car belongs to me, and you’re not going to touch it.  You’ve got your wages—­more than your wages, you great hulking shirks!  A fine exhibition you’re making of yourselves, I must say!  You thought you could bluff me—­that I’d stand meekly by and let you two bullies have your own way about it, did you?  You even waited until you had gorged yourselves on food you’ve never earned, before you started your highwaymen performance.  You made sure of one more good meal, you—­you hogs. Now go, before I empty this gun into the two of you!”