dishes which he set in a bake pan for want of a tray. He added a
small tin teapot of tea and disappeared from the dugout.

"Two of us waitin' to see your boss, huh?" Casey inquired boldly
of Joe. "Can't we eat together?"

"You can call yourself lucky if you eat at all," Joe retorted
glumly. "The old man's pretty sore at the way you handled him.
He's runnin' this camp; I ain't."

Casey let it go at that, chiefly because he was hungry and tired
and did not want to risk losing his supper altogether. Hounds
like these, he told himself bitterly, were capable of any
crime--from smashing a man's skull and throwing him off the
rim-rock to starving him to death. He was Casey Ryan, ready
always to fight whether his chance of winning was even or merely
microscopical; but even so, Casey was not inclined toward
suicide.

When the old man presently returned and the three sat down to the
table, Casey obeyed a gesture and sat down with them. In spite
of Joe's six-shooter laid handily upon the table beside his
plate, Casey ate heartily, though the food was neither well
cooked nor over plentiful.

After supper he rose and filled his pipe which they had permitted
him to keep. A stranger coming into the cabin might not have
guessed that Casey was a prisoner. When the table was cleared
and Hank set about washing the dishes, Casey picked up a grimy
dish towel branded black in places where it had rubbed sooty