Ryan, Casey (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Western stories
Hahnaga did not seem to think that anything need be done about the manner
of Jim's death. She said he was heap sick and would die anyway, or words--
not many--to that effect. Casey decided to go on and mind his own
business. He did not see why, he said, the county of Nye should be let in
for a lot of expense on Injun Jim's account, even if Jim had been killed.
And as for punishing Lucy Lily, he was perfectly willing that it should be
done, only he did not want to do it. I have always believed that Casey was
afraid she might possibly marry him in spite of himself if she were in his
immediate neighborhood long enough.
They made themselves each a small pack of food and what was more vital,
water, and went their different ways. Hahnaga struck off to the west, to
her brother at the end of Forty-Mile Canyon. At least, that was where she
said her brother mostly camped. Casey retraced his steps for the second
time to the camp of the tenderfeet. Loco Canyon, Casey calls the place,
claiming it by right of discovery.
Now I don't see, and possibly you won't see, either, what the devil's
lantern had to do with Casey's bad luck. Casey maintains rather stubbornly
that it had a great deal to do with it. First, he says, it got him all off
the trail following it, and was almost the death of him and William. Next,
he declares that it drove him to Lucy Lily and had fully intended that he
should be tied up to her. Then he suspects that it had something to do
with Injun Jim's dying just when he did, and he has another count or two
against the lantern and will tell you them, and back them with much
argument, if you nag him into it.
It taught him things, he says. And once, after we had talked the matter
over and had fallen into silence, he broke out with a sentence I have
never forgotten, nor the tone in which he said it, nor the way he glared
into the fire, his pipe in his hand where he always had it when he was
extremely in earnest.
"The three darndest, orneriest, damndest things on earth," said Casey, as
if he were intoning a text, "is a Ford, or a goat, or an Injun. You can
ask anybody yuh like if that ain't so."
CHAPTER XVIII
Casey was restless, and his restlessness manifested itself in a most
unusual pessimism. Twice he picked up "float" that showed the clean indigo
stain of silver bromyrite in spots the size of a split pea, and cast the
piece from him as if it were so much barren limestone, without ever
investigating to see where it had come from. Little as I know about
mineral, I am sure that one piece at least was rich; high-grade, if ever I
saw any. But Casey merely grunted when I spoke to him about it.
"Maybe it is. A coupla hundred ounces, say. What's that, even with silver
at a dollar an ounce? It ain't good enough for Casey, and what I'm wastin'
my time for, wearing the heels off'n my shoes prospectin' Starvation, is
somethin' I can't tell yuh." He looked at me with his pale-blue, unwinking
stare for a minute.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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