Casey Ryan

Casey Ryan

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Title: Casey Ryan
Author: B. M. Bower
Release Date: June 2, 2004 [eBook #12495]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CASEY
RYAN***
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CASEY RYAN
BY
B. M. BOWER
Author of "Chip of the Flying U", "Rim O' the World", "Cow-Country",
etc.
1921

[Illustration: Casey reached for his pocket, and the white man also
reached for his. FRONTISPIECE. See page 237.]

CHAPTER I

From Denver to Spokane, from El Paso to Fort Benton, men talk of
Casey Ryan and smile when they speak his name. Old men with the flat
tone of coming senility in their voices will suck at their pipes and
cackle reminiscently while they tell you of Casey's tumultuous
youth--when he drove the six fastest horses in Colorado on the stage
out from Cripple Creek, and whooped past would-be holdups with a
grin of derision on his face and bullets whining after him and
passengers praying disjointed prayers and clinging white-knuckled to
the seats.
They say that once a flat, lanky man climbed bareheaded out at the
stage station below the mountain and met Casey coming springily off
the box with whip and six reins in his hand. The lanky man was still
pale from his ride, and he spluttered when he spoke:
"Sa-ay! N-next time you're held up and I'm r-ridin' with yuh, b-by gosh,
you s-stop. I-I'd ruther be shot t-than p-pitched off into a c-canyon,
s-somewhere a-and busted up!"
Casey is a little man. When he was young he was slim, but he always
has owned a pale blue, unwinking squint which he uses with effect. He
halted where he was and squinted up at the man, and spat fluid tobacco
and grinned.
"You're here, and you're able to kick about my drivin'. That's purty
good luck, I'd say. You _ain't_ shot, an' you ain't layin' busted in no
canyon. Any time a man gits shot outa Casey Ryan's stage, he'll have to
jump out an' wait for the bullet to ketch up. And there ain't any
passengers offn' this stage layin' busted in no canyon, neither. I bring in
what I start out with."
The other man snorted and reached under his coat tail for the solacing
plug of chewing tobacco. Opposition and ridicule had brought a little
color into his face.
"Why, hell, man! You--you come around that ha-hairpin turn up there
on two wheels! It's a miracle we wasn't--"

"Miracles is what happens once and lets it go at that. Say! Casey Ryan
always saves wear on a coupla wheels, on that turn. I've made it on one;
but the leaders wasn't runnin' right to-day. That nigh one's cast a shoe. I
gotta have that looked after." He gave up the reins to the waiting hostler
and went off, heading straight for the station porch where waited a
red-haired girl with freckles and a warm smile for Casey.
That was Casey's youth; part of it. The rest was made up of fighting,
gambling, drinking hilariously with the crowd and always with his
temper on hair trigger. Along the years behind him he left a straggling
procession of men, women and events. The men and women would
always know the color of his eyes and would recognize the Casey laugh
in a crowd, years after they had last heard it; the events were full of the
true Casey flavor,--and as I say, when men told of them and mentioned
Casey, they laughed.
From the time when his daily drives were likely to be interrupted by
holdups, and once by a grizzly that reared up in the road fairly under
the nose of his leaders and sent the stage off at an acute angle, blazing a
trail by itself amongst the timber, Casey drifted from mountain to
desert, from desert to plain and back again, blithely meeting hard luck
face to face and giving it good day as if it were a friend. For Casey was
born an optimist, and misfortune never quite got him down and kept
him there, though it tried hard and often, as you will presently see.
Some called him gritty. Some said he hadn't the sense to know when he
was licked. Either way, it made a rare little Irishman of Casey Ryan,
and kept his name from becoming blurred in the memories of