Unconsciously he reached for his gun.
This, he told himself, must be the secret habitation of the fiend who shot from rim-rocks with terrible precision at harmless prospectors and their burros.
Casey squinted up at the sun and turned his level gaze again upon the cabin.

Reason told him that the man with the rifle was still watching for a pot shot at him and Barney, and that there was nothing whatever to indicate the presence of only one man in the camp below.

Had he been glimpsed once during the climb, he would have been fired upon; he would never have been given the chance to gain the top and find this cabin.
The place looked deserted.

His practical, everyday mind told him it was empty for the time being.

But he felt queer and uncomfortable, nevertheless.