Which would be the end of his preliminary journey and the beginning of Casey's last drive toward his goal; for from the top of the divide between Starvation Mountain country and that forbidding waste which lies under the calm scrutiny of Furnace Peak he could see the far-off range of the Tippipahs.
He was a mile out on the Lake when he first glimpsed the light.

Casey studied it while he walked ahead, leaving no footprints on the hard-baked clay.

He had not known that any road followed just under the crest of the ridge that hid Crazy Woman lake, yet the light was plainly that of an automobile moving with speed across the face of the ridge just under the summit.
Away out in the empty land like that you notice little things and think about them and try to understand just what they mean, unless they are perfectly familiar to you.

One print of a foot on the trail may betray the lurking presence of a madman, a murderer, a traveling, friendly, desert dweller or the wandering of some one who is lost and dying of thirst and hunger.

You like to know which, and you are not satisfied until you do know.
A light moving swiftly along Crazy Woman ridge meant a car, and a car up there meant a road.