Away out on the high mesas that are much like the desert below, except that the nights are cool and the wind is not fanned out of a furnace, Casey fought sand and brush and rocks and found a trail now and then which he followed thankfully, and so came at last to a short range of mountains whose name matched well their inhospitable stare.

The Starvation Mountains had always been reputed rich in mineral and malevolent in their attitude toward man and beast.

Even the Joshua trees stood afar off and lifted grotesque arms defensively against them.

But Casey was not easily daunted, and eerie places held for him no meaning save the purely material one.

If he could find water and the rich vein of ore some one had told him was there, then Casey would be happy in spite of snakes, tarantulas and sinister stories of the place.
Water he found, not too far up a gulch.