I don't suppose Casey Ryan ever started out to do something for himself-- something he considered important to his own personal welfare and happiness--without running straight into some other fellow's business and stopping to lend a hand.

He says he can't remember being left alone at any time in his life to follow the beckoning finger of his own particular destiny.
Casey had made camp that night in one of several deep gulches that ridged the butte with two peaks.

We had been lucky in our burro buying, and he had two of the fastest walking jacks in the country, so that he was able to give them a good long nooning and still reach the foot of the butte and make camp well before sundown.

For the first time since he first heard of the Injun Jim gold mine, Casey felt that he was really "squared away" to the search.

As he sat there blowing his unhurried breath upon a blue granite cup of coffee to cool it, his memory slanted back along the years when he had said that some day he would go and hunt for the Injun Jim mine that was so rich a ten-pound lard bucket full of the ore had been known to yield five hundred dollars' worth of gold.