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.