"Where's that there Joshuay tree pointin' to?" Casey asked
finally. "She's the biggest and oldest in the bunch, and ever
since I've been here she's looked like she's got somethin' on 'er
mind. Whadda yuh think, Barney?"

Barney walked around the yucca, stood behind the extended arm,
squinted at the sharp-peaked butte with the black capping, toward
which the gaunt tree seemed to point. He spat out a stale quid
of tobacco and took a fresh one, squinted again toward the butte
and looked at Casey.

"She's country I never prospected in, back in there. I've
follered poorer advice than a Joshuay. Le's try it a whirl."

Thus it came to pass that Casey Ryan forsook his Ford for a
strange partner with two burros and a clouded past, and fared
forth across the barren foothills with no better guidance than
the rigid, outstretched limb of a great, gaunt Joshua tree.



CHAPTER THREE

In a still sunny gulch which shadows would presently fill to the
brim, Casey Ryan was reaching, soiled bandanna in his hand, to
pull a pot of bubbling coffee from the coals,--a pot now
blackened with the smoke of many campfires to prove how
thoroughly a part of the open land it had become. Something
nipped at his right shoulder, and at the same instant ticked the
coffeepot and overturned it into a splutter of steam and hot