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   :PG.Id: 35078
   :PG.Title: The Mesa Trail
   :PG.Released: 2011-01-25
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   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank
   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: H. Bedford-Jones
   :DC.Title: The Mesa Trail
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1920
   
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The Mesa Trail
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      Title: The Mesa Trail
      
      Author: H. Bedford-Jones
      
      Release Date: January 25, 2011 [EBook #35078]
      
      Language: English
      
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   “His blazing black eyes stared into the gaze of Ross”

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THE MESA TRAIL

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   | BY
   | H. BEDFORD-JONES
   
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   :align: center

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   | GARDEN CITY — NEW YORK
   | DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
   | 1920

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   | COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
   | DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
   
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   | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
   | TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
   | INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
   
.. class:: align-center   
   
   | COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
   | BY STREET & SMITH CORPORATION

.. contents:: CONTENTS

CHAPTER I—THE MAN WHO HAD BEEN
==============================

A ribbon of winding road leads northeast
from the pueblo of Domingo and the
snaky Bajada hill where gray rocks lie
thickly; it is a yellowish ribbon of road, sweeping
over the gigantic mesa toward Santa Fé and the
sweetly glowing Blood of Christ peaks—great
peaks of green spearing into the sky, white-crested,
and tipped with blood at sunset.

Along this ribbon of dusty yellow road was
crawling a flivver. It was crawling slowly, in a
jerky series of advances and pauses; as it crept
along its intermittent course, the woman who sat
behind the wheel was cursing her iron steed in a
thorough and heartfelt manner.

Both in flivver and woman was that which fired
curious interest. The rear of the car was piled
high with boxes and luggage; certain of the boxes
were marked “Explosives—Handle With Care!”
Prominent among this freight was a burlap sack
tied about the neck and firmly roped to one of the
top supports of the car.

The woman was garbed in ragged but neat
khaki. From beneath the edges of an old-fashioned
bonnet, tied beneath the chin, protruded
wisps of grayish hair, like an aureole of silver.
The woman herself was of strikingly large frame
and great in girth; her arms, bare to the elbows,
were huge in size. Yet this giantess was not unhealthily
fat. Hardened by toil, her hands were
gripped carefully upon the steering wheel as though
she were in some fear of wrenching it asunder in an
unguarded moment.

Her features were large, sun-darkened, creased
and seamed with crow’s-feet that betokened long
exposure to wind and weather. Ever and anon
she drew, with manifest enjoyment, at an old
brown corncob pipe. Above her firm lips and
beak-like nose a pair of blue eyes struck out gaily
and keenly at the world; eyes of a piercing, intense
blue, whose brilliancy, as of living jewels, gave
the lie to their surrounding tokens of toil and age.

“Drat it!” she burst forth, after a new bucking
endeavour on the part of the car. “If I was to
shoot this damned thing through the innards,
maybe she’d quit sunfishin’ on me! I’m goin’ to
sell her to Santy Fé sure’s shooting; I’ll get me a
pair o’ mules and a wagon, then I’ll know what I’m
doing. Dunno how come I ever was roped into
buying this here contraption——”

She suddenly halted her observations. Laying
aside her pipe and peering out from the side of the
dusty windshield, her keen eyes narrowed upon the
road ahead.

Against that yellowish ribbon, with its bordering
emptiness of mesquite, greasewood, and sage,
there was nothing moving; but squarely in the
centre of the road showed up a dark, motionless
blotch. It was the figure of a man lying as
though asleep. No man would or could lie asleep
in the middle of this road, however, under the
withering blaze of the downpouring New Mexico
sun.

Suddenly the fitful flivver coughed under more
gas; it roared, bucked, darted ahead, bucked again,
and a dozen yards from the prostrate man it went
leaping forward as though impelled by vindictive
spite to run over the motionless figure. The woman
swore savagely. She seemed inexperienced as a
chauffeuse; only by a hair’s breadth did she manage
to avoid the man, and then she stopped the
car.

Her great size became more apparent as she
alighted. Standing, she gazed down at the man,
then leaned forward and turned the unfortunate
vagrant upon his back. The body was listless to
her hand, the head lolled idly.

“Hm!” said the woman, reflectively. “Ain’t
drunk. Ain’t hurt. Hm!”

She reached into the car and produced a whiskey
flask, then sat down in the dust and took upon her
ample lap the head of the senseless man. A
sudden deftness became manifest in her motions,
an unguessed tenderness relieved the harshness of
her features.

“This here is breakin’ the law,” she ruminated,
pouring liquor between the lips of the vagrant,
“but it ain’t the first time Mehitabel Crump has
broke laws to help some poor devil! Hm! Looks
to me like he ain’t et for quite a spell.”

With increasing interest she surveyed the
slowly reviving stranger.

He was fully as lank as she was stout, and must
have stood a good six foot two in height. His
clothes were tattered remnants of once sober
black. Long locks of iron-gray hair hung about
his ears. His features were careworn and haggard,
yet in them lingered some indefinable suggestion of
fine lines and deeply carven strength. Had
Mehitabel Crump ever viewed Sir Henry Irving—which
she had not—she might have guessed a few
things about her “find.”

Suddenly the eyes, the intensely black eyes, of
the man opened. So did his lips.

“Angels and ministers of grace!” His voice,
although faint, was touched with a deep intonation,
a roundness of the vowels, a clarity of accent.
“As I do live and breathe, it is the kiss of lordly
Bacchus which doth welcome me!”

“Take it calm,” advised Mehitabel Crump,
pityingly. “You’ll have your right sense pretty
soon. Many’s the time I’ve seen Crump keeled
over, and come to with his mind awandering.
Jest take it calm, pilgrim. I’ll have a bite o’
cornbread——”

She lowered his head to the dust, rose, and went
to the flivver. Presently she returned with a slab
of cold cornbread divided by bacon, and a desert
water bottle.

“Heaps o’ lunch in the car.” She aided the
gaunt one to sit up, and he clutched at the food
feverishly. “My land! Ain’t et real frequent
lately, have ye?”

The man, his mouth full, shook his head dumbly.
About his eyes was a brilliancy which told of sheer
starvation. To the full as worldly wise as any
person in broad New Mexico, the woman asked no
questions as yet; she procured from the car a
basket which contained the remainder of her
luncheon, and set forth the contents.

“Figgered I might get held up ’fore reaching
Santy Fé. If it warn’t that dratted car, it sure
would be something else, which same it is.
Damned good luck it ain’t worse, as Crump used
to say when Providence went agin’ him.”

She observed that the stranger ate ravenously,
but drank sparingly. Not thirst had downed him,
but starvation.

He seemed startled at her disconcertingly frank
manner of speech. She put him down as something better
than an ordinary hobo; an out-of-luck
Easterner, possibly a lunger. He was fifty or so;
with decent clothes, a shave, and a haircut, he
might be a striking-looking fellow, she decided.
Although he had a hard mouth, what Mehitabel
Crump had learned to know as a whiskey mouth,
it was steady lipped.

“You sure played in tough luck comin’ this
road,” she said, musingly. “So did I. Ain’t
nothing between here and Santy Fé ’cept Injuns,
greasers, and rattlers, any one of which is worse’n
the other two. These rocks is playin’ hell with my
tires and the old Henry is coughin’ fit to bust her
innards. If I find the feller who sold her to me,
I’d sure lay him one over the ear!”

Her simple meal finished, she began to stuff her
corncob pipe. The man, still eating wolfishly,
watched her with fascinated eyes. She gazed out
at the snowy, sun-flooded Sangre de Cristo peaks
and continued her soliloquy. When it suited her,
Mehitabel Crump could be very garrulous; and
when it suited her, she could be as taciturn as the
mountains themselves.

“I ain’t surprised at nothing no more, not these
days. No, sir! When I first come to this country
you knowed just what ye had to reckon agin’.
They was Injuns to fight, greasers to work devilment,
claim jumpers to rob ye, and such. But
now the Injuns is all towerist peddlers, the greasers
is called ‘natives’ and runs the courts an’ legislature,
and gun toting ain’t popular. A lone
woman gets skinned plumb legal, when in the old
days it would ha’ been suicide to rob a female.
Yes pilgrim, set right in at what’s left, and don’t
bother to talk yet a spell.”

She touched a match to her pipe, broke the
match, tossed it away.

“If Crump hadn’t blowed up with a dry fuse in
a shaft we was sinking over in the Mogollons,
where we was prospecting at the time, he’d be
plumb astonished at the changes. Yes, and I bet
he’d swear to see me driving one of them contraptions
yonder! Poor Crump, I never had the heart
to dig him up, though it was a right smart prospect
we was workin’. But somehow I couldn’t never
work that claim, with him still in it that-a-way.
I won’t need the money, neither, if I’ve got hold
of——”

She paused. Her gaze went to the devouring
stranger. Abruptly she changed the subject.

“You don’t look like you was much more’n a
poor, innercent pilgrim without any brains to
mention. Yet, stranger, I’d gamble that we’d
stack up high in morals agin’ such old-timers as
Abel Dorales, him what’s half greaser and half
Mormon, or old Sandy Mackintavers, what come
straight from Scotland to Arizony and made a
forchin in thirty years of thieving! Yes, I reckon
ye’ve got a streak of real pay dirt in ye, stranger.
And if I can’t tell what breed o’ cattle a man is by
jest looking at him, it’s a queer thing! I’ve
knowed ’em all.”

The complimented pilgrim bolted the last scrap
of food in sight, raised the canvas bag to his lips,
and drank. Sighing, he wiped his lips with the
frayed cuff of his sleeve. Then he disentangled
his long legs and rose. One hand upon his heart,
the other flourished magnificently, he made a
bow that was the piteous ghost of a perished
grandeur.

“Madam!” His voice rang out firmly now, a
deep and sonorous bass. “Madam, I thank you!
In me you behold one who has received the plaudits
of thousands, one who has bowed to the thunderous
acclaim of——”

“What d’ye say your name was?” snapped
Mehitabel Crump. Her voice was suddenly acid,
her blue eyes ice. The other was manifestly
disconcerted by her change of front.

“Madam, I am familiarly known as Thaddeus
Roscius Shea. Under the more imposing title of
Montalembert I have made known to thousands
the aspiring genius of the immortal Avonian bard.
I avow it, madam—I am a Thespian! I suit the
action to the word, the word to the action——”

“Huh!” cut in his audience with a ruthless lack
of awe. “Huh! Never heard of them Thespians,
but likely it’s a new Mormon sect. I knowed a
man of your name down to Silver City twelve
year back; this Thady Shea was a good fightin’
man, with one eye and a harelip. Glad to meet ye,
pilgrim! I’m Mehitabel Crump, with Mrs. for a
handle.”

Something in her manner seemed mightily to
embarrass Mr. Shea, but he took a fresh start and
set forth to conquer the difficulty.

“Madam, a Thespian is of no religious persuasion,
but one who treads the boards and who
wears the buskin of Thespis. You behold in me
the first tragedian of the age. My *Hamlet*,
madam, has been praised by discerning critics from
Medicine Hat to Jersey City. The accursed
moving pictures have ruined my art.”

“Oh! It’s usually whiskey or woman,” said
Mrs. Crump, her eyes ominous. “So you’re a
stage actor, eh? Then that explains it.”

“Explains, madam? Explains what?” faltered
Shea, sensing a gathering storm.

“Your damn foolishness. Shake it off, ye poor
hobo! I no sooner hands ye a bit o’ kindness than
it swells ye up like a balloon. Now, don’t you get
gay with *me*, savvy? Don’t come none o’ that
high-falutin’ talk with me, or by hell I’ll paralyze
ye! I did think for a minute that ye had the
makin’s of a man, but I apologize.”

The blue eyes turned away. Had Shea been
able to see them, he might have read in them a
look that did not correspond to Mrs. Crump’s
spoken word. But he did not see them.

He turned away from the woman. The carven
lines of his face deepened, aged, as from him was
rent the veil of his posturing. A weary and hopeless
sadness welled in his eyes; the sadness of one
who beholds around him the wreckage of all his
little world, brought down to ruin by his own
faults. When he spoke, it was with the same
sonorous voice, yet lacking the fine rolling accent.

“You are right, Mrs. Crump, you are right.
God help me! I, who was once a man, am now
less than the very dust. Your harshness is
justified. At this time yesterday, madam, I was
a wretched drunken fool, spouting lines of rhetoric
in Albuquerque.”

“I’m surprised at that,” said Mrs. Crump.
“How’d ye get the liquor, since this here state an’
nation ain’t particularly wet no more? And how
ye got here from Albuquerque I don’t figger.”

“It is simply told.” From the miserable Shea
was stripped the last vestige of his punctured
pose. “Twenty years ago my young wife died,
and I started upon the whiskey trail; it has led
me—here. Yesterday I came into Albuquerque,
starving. At the railroad station, amid some—er—confusion,
I encountered a company of those
motion picture men who dare to call themselves
actors. So far was my pride broken that I begged
of them help in the name and memory of The
Profession.”

Shea emphatically capitalized these last two
words.

“They took me aboard their train,” he pursued,
“and I was given drink. Some controversy arose,
I know not how; I found myself ignominiously
ejected from the train. I walked, not knowing
nor caring whither. Nor is that all, madam. I
am a fugitive from justice!”

“Broke jail?” queried Mrs. Crump, betraying
signs of interest.

“No, madam. In Albuquerque I was starving
and desperate. I—I stole fruit and—sandwiches—from
a railroad stand.”

His voice failed. He turned away, staring at
the snowy peaks as though awaiting a verdict.

“Pretty low-down and worthless, ain’t ye?”
Mrs. Crump checked herself suddenly, glancing
at the yellow ribbon of road over which she had so
recently come. A flying cloud of dust gave notice
of the approach of a large automobile.

Suddenly rising, Mrs. Crump knocked out her
pipe, then caught Shea by the shoulder. Her hand
swung him about as though he were a child. His
eyes widened in surprise upon meeting the warm
regard in her face, the steady and sympathetic
smile upon her lips.

“Thady,” she said, bluntly, “how old are ye?”

“Fifty-eight,” he mumbled in astonishment.

“Huh! Two year older’n me. Made a mess
of your life, ain’t ye? Don’t know as I blame ye
none, Thady. When Crump passed out, I come
near throwin’ up the sponge; but I got to fightin’
and I been fightin’ ever since, and here I am!
Now, Thady, you got strength and you got guts;
I can see it in your eye. All ye need is backbone.
Why don’t ye buck up?”

“I’ve tried,” he faltered, controlled by her
personality. “It’s no use——”

“You go get in that car.” Mrs. Crump glanced
again at the approaching automobile, then half
flung the gaunt Shea toward her dust-white flivver.
“Get in and don’t say a word, savvy? One thing
about you, ye can be trusted—which is more’n can
be said for some skunks in this here country! Get
in, now, and leave me palaver with Sheriff Tracy.”

Shea, shivering at mention of the sheriff,
jack-knifed his length upon the car’s front seat.

From some mysterious recess of her ample
person Mrs. Crump produced an immense old-fashioned
revolver, which she began to burnish
with seeming absorption. The big automobile
slowed up. It halted a few feet behind the flivver,
and a hearty hail came forth.

“By jingoes, if it ain’t Mis’ Crump! Hello, old-timer—ain’t
seen you in ages!”

From the car sprang a hale and vigorous man
who advanced with hand extended.

“I kind o’ thought it was you, Sam Tracy,” said
Mrs. Crump. “Thought I recognized that there
car o’ yours. How’s the folks?”

“All fine. And you? But I needn’t ask—why,
you grow younger every month——”

“See here! What ye doin’ over in this county,
Sam? Why don’t ye get back to Bernalillo where
ye belong?”

The sheriff waved his hand.

“Going to Santy Fé. I’m looking up a fellow
who came this way from Albuquerque—a hobo and
sneak thief name o’ Shea. Where ye been keepin’
yourself, ma’am? It don’t seem like the same old
state not to see ye from time to time.”

“Sam Tracy,” observed Mrs. Crump with a look
of severity, “I’ve knowed you more years than I
care to reckon up. And you know me, I guess!
Now, Sam, I sure hate to do it—but I got to.
Stick up your hands, Sam, and do it damn
sudden!”

The muzzle of her revolver poked the astounded
sheriff in the stomach. For a moment he gazed
into her shrewd blue eyes, then slowly elevated his
hands.

“Are you crazy, ma’am?” he demanded.

She removed his holstered weapon, then lowered
her own and shook her head.

“Nope. I’m heap sane right here and now.
Set down and smoke whilst I explain.”

CHAPTER II—THADY SHEA ENCOUNTERS PURPOSE
========================================

“Your man Shea is settin’ in my car yonder,”
said Mrs. Crump.

Heedless of the glaring sun, she picked up
her pipe and disposed her giant frame for converse.
From narrowed lids the sheriff eyed the lanky, up-drawn
figure of Shea, which he now noticed for the
first time. Then he produced the “makings” and
proceeded to roll a cigarette.

“Glad you picked him up,” said he. “I’ll take
him back with me.”

“No, ye won’t,” retorted Mrs. Crump, calmly.
“You’ll not touch him, Sam Tracy.”

“He’s a thief and a drunkard and a hobo,” said
the sheriff.

“If they wasn’t no drinks to be had in heaven, I
reckon hell would be majority choice,” quoth the
lady. “When it comes to that, I’ve seen you
and Crump so paralyzed you couldn’t talk. There
was that night down to Magdalena when the
railroad spur was finished and they held a celebration——”

The sheriff grinned. “No need to argue
further along them lines, ma’am. You win!”

“I reckon I do, Sam. Besides, you ain’t got no
authority over in this county. You can run a
bluff on ignorant hoboes an’ greasers, but not on
Mehitabel Crump! Your authority quit quite a
ways back. Thady Shea only stole because he
was starving, which I’d do the same in his place.
I picked him up here and I’m goin’ to keep him.”

“You always was soft-hearted,” reflected Tracy.
“Now you got him, what’s your programme?”

Mrs. Crump refilled and lighted her corncob
with deliberation, then made response:

“Sam, I’m sure in a thunderin’ bad pinch.
Damned good luck it ain’t worse, as Crump used
to say at times. You know I ain’t no legal shark,
huh? Well, three weeks ago I had a blamed good
hole in the hills, until Abel Dorales come along and
located just below me. Then in rides old Sandy
Mackintavers and offers a thousand even for my
hole, saying that Abel had located the thrown apex
of my claim——”

“The apex law don’t obtain here,” put in
Tracy.

“I know it; but who’s goin’ to argue with
Mackintavers? If it wasn’t that, it’d be somethin’
worse. Anyhow, he offered to compromise
and so on.”

The sheriff nodded. “I see how you come to
have the flivver,” he observed, drily.

“Yas, ye do!” Mrs. Crump’s response was raw-edged.
“If you was the kind o’ man you used
to be, ye’d up and give them jumpers a hemp
necktie! But now ye play politics, Sam Tracy, and
ye lick the boots o’ Sandy Mackintavers——”

“That’s enough, Mis’ Crump!” broke in the
sheriff, icily. “I don’t blame ye for feelin’ sore,
but the likes of us can’t fight Mackintavers in the
courts. We ain’t slick enough! And Dorales is
a Mormon-bred greaser, than which the devil ain’t
never fathered a worse combination. Now, Mis’
Crump, you show me the least excuse for doin’ it
legally, and I’ll pump them two men full o’ lead
any day! I’m only surprised that you didn’t do it.”

“I did.” A smile of grim satisfaction wreathed
the lady’s firm lips. “First I took Sandy’s
money, then I lets fly. They was several hired
greasers with Dorales, and I reckon I got two-three;
ain’t right sure. I only got Abel glancingly,
and when I threw down on Sandy his arms was
both elevated for safety. All I could decently do
was to nick his ear so’s he’d remember me.”

“You didn’t kill Dorales?”

“Afraid not.” Mrs. Crump sadly shook her
head. “I didn’t wait to inquire none, but it
looked like I’d only blooded his shoulder and he
was layin’ low to plug me in the back, so I belted
him over the head with the butt, and slid for
home.”

The sheriff, astounded, emitted a long whistle.
“Whew-w!” he said, slowly. “Say, whereabouts
did all this happen?”

“Down the Mogollons. Over Arizony way.”

“Why didn’t ye go west into Arizony, then?
After that doin’s this state will be too hot to hold
ye——”

“Oh, Sandy won’t go to law over the shootin’.
It’d make him look too ridic’lous.”

The sheriff threw back his head and laughed
with all the uproarious abandon of a man who
laughs seldom but well.

“Best look out for yourself,” he cautioned.
“That there Dorales will be on your trail till hell
freezes over, ma’am! I sure would admire to see
you in action on that crowd!”

“You’ll see me in action when that there car
gets movin’ again,” she retorted. “She bucks like
a range hoss and kicks to beat hell—why, I
couldn’t hardly keep the saddle!”

The sheriff arose and went to the dust-white
flivver. He adjusted the spark, cranked, and for
a moment listened to the engine before killing it.
Then he threw back the hood, and, under the
sombre eyes of Thady Shea, worked in silence.
At length he finished his task, started the engine
again, and with a nod of satisfaction shut it off.

“Thought mebbe so,” he stated, rejoining the
lady. “Your spark plugs was fouled. Well, ma’am,
what can I be doin’ for you?”

“Ye might send me a wire in care of Coravel
Tio whenever ye get a line on Dorales or Mackintavers.
I’m fixing to meet them again.”

“How come?” demanded the sheriff in surprise.

Mrs. Crump gestured with her pipe toward the
flivver.

“I got a sack of ore in there that I found in the
lava beds or thereabouts. I suspicions it’s one o’
these new-fangled things nobody give a whoop for
in the old days, but that draws down the money
now. If it is, then you can lay that Sandy will
hear I’ve found it, and he’ll be after me to jump
the claim.”

“He sure does keep a line on prospectors,”
reflected the sheriff. “And skins ’em, too, mostly.
But he does it legal.”

“Yep. If this here stuff is any good, Sam,
they’s going to be some smoke ’fore he gets his
paws on it! Where you goin’ from here? Back
to Albuquerque?”

“Nope. I got some business up at the capital.”

“Will ye tote that ore sack and a letter up to
Coravel Tio for me—and do it strictly under your
hat?”

“You bet I will, ma’am!”

Mrs. Crump unstrapped the burlap sack.
With the sheriff’s pencil and paper she settled
down to write a letter. The process was obviously
painful and laborious, but at length it was finished.
The sheriff shook hands, picked up the sack, and
turned to his car. Mrs Crump had already restored
him his revolver.

“Take good care of yourself, ma’am—and your
hobo! Adios.”

Mrs. Crump watched the trail of dust disappear
in the direction of Santa Fé, then she turned to the
flivver and looked up at Thady Shea.

“They’s a new corncob laying in back somewheres.
You can have it, Thady. Get out here
and settle down for a spell o’ talk. If ye act real
good I’ll give ye a drink.”

“I don’t want any,” came Shea’s muffled voice
as he leaned back in search of the pipe.

“That’s a lie. You’re fair shaking for liquor
and a drop will brace ye up.”

Shea procured the pipe, filled and lighted, and
promptly assumed, as a garment, his usual histrionic
pose. The gulp of liquor which Mrs.
Crump carefully measured out sent a thin thread
of colour into his gaunt, unshaven cheeks.

“Madam, I owe you all,” he announced sonorously.
“I have not missed the heart of things
set forth in this your discourse to the sheriff’s
ear, and I have gathered that your need is
great for the strong arms of friends, the counsel
wise——”

“You got it,” cut in Mrs. Crump, curtly. “The
p’int is, Thady, where do you come in? Listen
here, now! I got a good eye for men; ye ain’t
much account as ye stand, but ye got the makin’s.
Now cut out the booze and I’ll take ye for partner,
savvy? What’s more, I’ll spend a couple o’
weeks attending to it that ye *do* cut out the
booze! I sure need a partner who ain’t liable to
sell me out to them heathen. Can ye down the
booze, or not?”

Something in her tone cut through the man’s
posturing like a knife. As a matter of fact, he
was miserable in spirit; his soul quivered nakedly
before him, and he was ashamed. For a space he
did not answer, but stared at the far mountains.
The strong tragedy of his face was accentuated and
deepened into utter bitterness.

What Mrs. Crump had only vaguely and darkly
seen Thady Shea observed clearly and with
wonder; yet, just as she missed the more mystical
side of it, he missed the more practical side. More
diverse creatures wearing human semblance could
scarce have been found than these twain, here met
upon a desert upland of New Mexico—the woman,
a self-reliant mountaineer and prospector who
knew only her own little world, the man a drunkard,
a broken-down “hamfatter,” who knew all the
outside world which had rejected him. They had
come together from different spheres.

As he sat there staring, he mentally and for the
last time reviewed the life that lay behind him;
before him uprose all the contemptuous years,
the sad wreckage of high hopes and tinsel glories,
the hard and wretched fact of liquor. He would
shut it out of his mind forever, after to-day, he
thought. He would live in the present only, from
day to day. He would try a new life—and let
the dead bury their dead!

He turned to Mrs. Crump, his sad and earnest
eyes looking oddly cynical.

“I do not think it humanly possible that I can
resist liquor,” he said, gravely. “I am frank with
you. It were easy to swear that I would pluck
out drowned honour by the roots—but, madam, I
think that this morning I am weary of swearing.
I have tried to abstain, and I cannot. Always it
is the first week or two of torture that downs
me——

“You’re showin’ sense, now,” said the lady.
“Want to try it or not?”

He rose in the car and attempted a bow in his
showy and pitiful manner. In this bow, however,
was an element of grace, the more pronounced by
its sharp contrast to his gaunt, sombre aspect.

“Madam, I am deeply sensible of the compliment
you pay me. Yet, in picking from the
gutter a drunken failure, are you wise? I am
entirely ignorant of prospecting and——”

“Don’t worry none. Ye’ll learn that quick
enough.”

Again Thaddeus bowed. “But, madam, I
understand that prospectors go off into the desert
places and live. In justice to yourself, do you not
think that your enemies might seize viciously upon
the least excuse for misinterpretation of character——”

For the first time Shea saw Mehitabel Crump
gripped in anger. He paused, aghast.

Her gigantic form quivered with rage then
stiffened into towering wrath. Her tanned, age-touched
features suddenly hardened into sentient
bronze from which her blue eyes blazed forth
terribly, jewelled indices of an indomitable and
quick-flaming spirit within.

“Thady Shea, it’s well for you them words
come from an honest heart,” said she, with a
slow and grim emphasis. “They ain’t no one
goin’ to say a word agin’ me, except them for what
I don’t give a tinker’s dam; and if one o’ them
dasts to say it in my hearin’, chain lightnin’ is
goin’ to strike quick and sudden! This here territory—state,
I mean—knows Mehitabel Crump
and has knowed her for some years back. Paste
that in your hat, Thady Shea!”

As some dread lioness hears in dreams the horns
and shouts of hunters, and starting erect with
bristling front mutters her low and terrible growl
of challenge, so Mehitabel Crump defiantly faced
Thaddeus.

He, poor soul, inwardly cursed his too-nimble
tongue, and shrank visibly from the spectacle
of wrath. Before the hurt and amazed eyes of
him Mrs. Crump suddenly abandoned her righteous
attitude. Having palpably overawed him,
she now felt ashamed of herself.

“There, buck up,” she brusquely ordered.

“Tell me, now! If I answer for it that ye stay
sober a couple o’ weeks or so, will ye make the
fight?”

“Yes.” Hope fought against despair in Shea’s
voice; he knew his own weakness well.

“All right. Let’s go, then!”

“We’re going to Santa Fé?”

Mrs. Crump advanced to the front of the
flivver, and seized the crank. Then she paused,
her blue eyes striking up over the radiator at Shea.

“No, I ain’t goin’ to Santy Fé; neither are you!
We’re goin’ to the most man-forsaken spot they
is in all the world, I reckon. We got grub, and
everything else can wait a couple o’ weeks or so.
Accordin’ to the Good Book, Providence was
mighty rushed about creation, but I ain’t in no
special hurry about makin’ a man of you——”

Her words were drowned in the engine’s roar.
Thaddeus Roscius Shea made himself as small
as possible; Mrs. Crump crowded in under the
wheel, the car swaying to her weight, and they
leaped forward.

In silence she drove, pushing the flivver with
a speed and abandon which left Shea clinging
desperately to his seat. Twenty minutes later
an intersecting road made its appearance; Mrs.
Crump left the highway and followed this road
due north for a couple of miles. There, coming
to an east-and-west road which was decidedly
rough, she headed west.

“This here’s the trail to Cochiti pueblo,” she
announced, enigmatically.

Four miles of this, and she struck an even
worse road that headed northwest. Shea’s eyes
opened as they progressed. Never in all his life
had he encountered such grotesque country as
this which now lay on every hand as though
evoked by magic—utter desolation of huge rock
masses, blistered and calcined by ancient fires,
eroded into strange spires and pinnacles of weird
formation. To the north towered Dome Rock
with its adjacent crater. No sign of life was
anywhere in evidence.

Shea was helplessly gripped by the personality
of the woman beside him. Mentally he was
overborne and awed; physically he was sick—not
ill, but downright sick, possibly due to the
sparse gulps of liquor which he had downed,
possibly to the glaring sun. He cared not whether
he lived or died. He felt that this day had brought
him to the end of his rope, and that nothing more
could matter.

“Getting into the lava beds,” observed Mrs.
Crump, cheerfully. Shea understood her words
only dimly. “This here Henry sure does go
pokin’ where you’d think nothin’ short of a mule
could live! The trail peters out a bit farther,
then we got to hoof it over to the Rio Grande and
make camp.”

Poor Shea shivered. The frightful desolation
of the scene horrified him. He had never been
an outdoor man. His had ever been the weakness,
the dependency of the sheltered and civilized
being. Contact with this strangely primitive
woman frightened him. He felt like babbling in
his terror, begging to be taken back and allowed
to resume his place among the swine. Here was
something new, awful, incredible! But he held
his peace.

Had he been able to look a few miles ahead;
had he foreseen what lay before him in that camp
in White Rock Cañon, a place which in grandeur
and inaccessibility rivalled the great cañon of the
Colorado; had he known that he was about to
tread a trail which few white men had ever
followed—in short, had he understood what
Mehitabel Crump’s plan held in store for him,
he would at that moment have yielded up the
ghost, cheerfully!

At last, reaching a sheer incline where boulders
larger than the car itself filled all the trail and
rendered further progress impossible, Mrs. Crump
killed her engine and set her brakes hard.

“I guess Henry can lay here all his life and
never be stole,” she said, with a sigh of relaxation.
“Well, Thady, here we are! D’you know what?
It ain’t lack of ambition that makes folks mis’able
and unsatisfied; it’s lack o’ purpose. Now, I
aim to teach ye some purpose, Thady. Look
at me! I been prospectin’ all my life, and still
goin’ strong, just because I got a definite object
ahead—to strike it rich somewheres!

“Well, climb down. We got to rig up some
grub into packs, hoof it to the nearest canoncito,
and reach the Rio Grande. It’s less’n two mile
in a straight line to water, but twenty ’fore we
gets there, if we gets there a-tall. Come on,
limber up!”

Thaddeus Roscius Shea groaned inaudibly—but
limbered up.

CHAPTER III—CORAVEL TIO ENJOYS A BUSY MORNING
=============================================

Coravel Tio sold curios in the old town
of Santa Fé. He also sold antiques, real
and fraudulent; he had a wholesale business
in Indian wares that extended over the
whole land.

Coravel Tio was one of the few Americans
who could trace their ancestry in an unbroken
line for three hundred years. It was almost
exactly three hundred years since the ancestor
of Coravel Tio had come to Santa Fé as a conquistador.
Coravel Tio was wont to boast of
this, an easily proven fact; and, boasting, he had
sold the conquistador’s battered old armour at
least fifty times.

When the boasts of Coravel Tio were questioned,
he would admit with a chuckle that he
was a philosopher; and do not all philosophers live
by lying, señor? There was great truth in him
when he was not selling his ancestor’s armour to
tourists—and even then, if he happened to like
the looks of the tourist, he would gently insinuate
that as a business man he sold fraudulent wares
and lied nobly about them, but that in private
he was a philosopher. And the tourists, liking
this quaintly naïve speech, bought the more.

It was a big, dark, quiet shop, full of Indian
goods and weapons, antique furniture that would
have made Chippendale’s eyes water, ivories, old
paintings, manuscripts from ancient missions. A
good half of Coravel Tio’s shop was not for sale
at any price. Neither, said men, was Coravel
Tio.

He was a soft-spoken little man, quiet, of
strange smiles and strange silences. His was the
art of making silence into a reproof, an assent,
a curse. The world of Santa Fé moved about
Uncle Coravel and heeded him not, shouldered
him aside; and Coravel Tio, knowing his fathers
to have been conquistadores, smiled gently at the
world. His name was usually dismissed with a
shrug—in effect, a huge tribute to him. Talleyrand
would have given his soul to have been
accorded such treatment from the diplomats of
Europe; it would have rendered him invincible.

One of those rare men was Coravel Tio whose
faculties, masked by childish gentleness, grow
more terribly keen with every passing year. His
brain was like a seething volcano—a volcano
which seems to be extinct and cold and impotent,
yet which holds unguessed fires somewhere deep
within itself.

Upon a day, some time following the meeting of
Mehitabel Crump with Thady Shea, this Coravel
Tio was standing in talk with one Cota, a native
member of the legislature then in session.

“But, señor!” was volubly protesting the legislator,
with excitement. “They say the majority
is assured, that the bill already drawn, that the
capital is to be moved to Albuquerque at this very
session!”

“I know,” said Coravel, passively, his dark
eyes gently mournful.

“You know? But what—what is to be done?
Shall those down-state people take away our
capital? We must prevent it! We must do
something! It’s this man Mackintavers who is
at the bottom of it, I suppose——”

Coravel Tio fingered a blanket which topped
a pile beside him—a gaudy red blanket. He regarded
it with curious eyes.

“I fear this is not genuine—it does not have
the old Spanish uniform red,” he murmured, as
though inwardly he were thinking only of his
wares. Then suddenly his eyes lifted to the
other man, and he smiled. In his smile was a
piercing hint of mockery like a half-sheathed
sword; before that smile Cota stammered and
fell silent.

“Oh, señor, this matter of the capital!” answered
Coravel Tio, softly. “Why, for many,
many years men have said that the capital is to
be moved to Albuquerque; yet it has not been
moved! Nor will it be moved. And, Señor
Cota, let me whisper something to you! I hear
that you have bought a new automobile. That
is very nice, very nice! But, señor, if by any
chance you are misled into voting for that bill,
it would be a very sad event in your life; a most
unhappy event, I assure you! Señor, customers
await me. *Adios.*”

As the legislator left the shop, he furtively
crossed himself, wonder and fear struggling in
his pallid features.

The merchant now turned to his waiting customers.
Of these, one was a Pueblo, a Cochiti
man as the fashion of his high white moccasins
and barbaric apparel testified to a knowing eye.
The others were two white men who together approached
the curio dealer. Coravel Tio stepped
to a show case filled with onyx and other old
carvings, and across this faced the two men with
an uplift of his brows, a silent questioning.

“You’re Mr. Coravel—Coravel Tio?” queried
one of the two. The dealer merely smiled and
nodded, in his birdlike fashion. “Can we see
you in private?”

“I have no privacy,” said Coravel Tio. “This
is my shop. You may speak freely.”

“Huh!” grunted the other, surveying him in
obvious hesitation. “Well, I dunno. Me and
my partner here have been workin’ down to
Magdalena, and we had a scrap with some fellers
and laid ’em out. Right after that, a native by
the name of Baca tipped us off that they was
Mackintavers’ men, and we’d better light out
in a hurry. He give us a loan and said to tell
you about it, so we lit out here.”

Coravel Tio seemed greatly puzzled by this tale.

“My dear sir,” he returned, slowly, “I am a
curio dealer. I do not know why you were sent
to me. Do you?”

“Hell, no!” The miner stared at him disgustedly.
“Must ha’ been some mistake.”

“Undoubtedly. I am most sorry. However,
if you are looking for work, I might be able to
help you—it seems to me that someone wrote
me for a couple of men. Excuse me one moment
while I look up the letter. What are your names,
my friends?”

“Me? I’m Joe Gilbert. My partner here is
Alf Lewis.”

Coravel Tio left them, and crossed to a glassed-in
box of an office. He opened a locked safe, swiftly
inspected a telegraph form, and nodded to himself
in a satisfied manner. He returned to the two
men, tapped for a moment upon the glass counter,
meditatively, then addressed them.

“Señors, I regret the mistake exceedingly. Still,
if you want work, I suggest that you drive over
to Domingo this afternoon with my cousin, who
lives there. You may stay a day or two with
him, then this friend of mine will pick you up
and take you to work.”

The second man, Lewis, spoke up hesitantly.

“Minin’ is our work, mister. We ain’t no
ranchers.”

“Certainly.” Coravel Tio smiled, gazing at
him. “You will not work for a native, my friends.
Ah, no! Be here at two this afternoon, please.”

The two men left the shop. Outside, in the
Street, they paused and looked at each other.
The second man, Lewis, swore under his breath.

“Joe, how in hell did he know we was worried
over workin’ for a greaser boss?”

Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders and
strode away.

Within the shop, Coravel Tio turned to the
waiting Indian and spoke—this time neither in
Spanish nor English, but in the Indian tongue
itself. As he spoke, however, he saw the stolid
redskin make a slight gesture. Catlike, Coravel
Tio turned about and went to meet a man who
had just entered the shop; catlike, too, he purred
suave greeting.

A large man, this new arrival—square of head
and jaw and shoulder, with small gray eyes closely
set, a moustache bristling over a square mouth,
ruthless hardness stamped in every line of figure,
face, and manner. He was dressed carelessly but
well.

“Morning,” he said, curtly. His eyes bit
sharply about the place, then rested with intent
scrutiny upon the proprietor. “Morning, Coravel
Tio. I been looking for someone who can talk
Injun. I’ve got a proposition that won’t handle
well in Spanish; it’s got to be put to ’em in their
own tongue. I hear that you can find me someone.”

Regretfully, Coravel Tio shook his head.

“No—o,” he said, in reflective accents. “I am
sorry, Mr. Mackintavers. My clerk, Juan
Estrada, spoke their language, but he joined the
army and is still in service. Myself, I know of
it only a word or two. But wait! Here is a
Cochiti man who sells me turquoise; he might
serve you as interpreter, if he is willing.”

He called the loitering Indian, and in the bastard
Spanish patois of the country put the query.
Mackintavers, who also spoke the tongue well,
intervened and tried to employ the Indian as
interpreter. To both interrogators the Pueblo
shook his head in stolid negation. He would not
serve in the desired capacity, and knew of no
one else who would.

“It is a great pity he is so stubborn!” Coravel
Tio gestured in despair as he turned to his visitor.
“I owe you thanks, Mr. Mackintavers, for getting
my wholesale department that order from the
St. Louis dealer. I am in your debt, and I shall
be grateful if I can repay the obligation. In this
case, alas, I am powerless!”

“Well, let it go.” Mackintavers waved a large,
square hand. He produced cigars, set one between
his square white teeth, and handed the other to
Coravel Tio. “You can repay me here and now.
A man at Albuquerque sent a telegram to that
Crump woman in your care. Where is she?”

“What is all this?” Coravel Tio was obviously
astonished. “Señor, I am a curio dealer, no more!
You surely do not refer to the kind-hearted Mrs.
Crump?”

Mackintavers eyed him, chewing on his cigar.
Then he nodded grimly.

“I do! Is she a particular friend of yours?”

“Certainly! Have I not known her these
twenty years? I buy much from her—bits of
turquoise, queer Indian things, odd relics. Her
mail often comes here, remaining until she calls
for it. I am a curio dealer, señor, and in other
matters I take no interest.”

“Hm!” grunted Mackintavers. “Has she been
here lately?”

“No, señor, not for three months—no, more
than that! Mail comes, also telegrams.”

“D’you know where she is?” demanded the
other, savagely.

Dreamily reflective, Coravel Tio fastened his
eyes upon the right ear of Mackintavers. That
ear bore a half-healed scar, like a bullet-nick.
Beneath that silent scrutiny the other man
reddened uneasily.

“Let me see! My wife’s second cousin, Estevan
Baca, wrote me last week that he had met her in
Las Vegas. Everyone knows her, señor. If I
can send any message for you——”

“No. Much obliged, all the same,” grunted
the other. “I’ll probably be at the Aztec House
for a few days. Let me know in case she comes
to town, will you? I want to see her.”

With exactly the proper degree of bland eagerness,
Coravel Tio assented to this, and Mackintavers
departed heavily. The merchant accompanied
him to the door and watched him stride up
the narrow street, cursing the burros laden with
mountain wood that blocked his way. Then,
smiling a trifle oddly, the descendant of conquistadores
returned to the waiting man from Cochiti
pueblo.

“Do you know why that man wanted an interpreter?”
he asked the Indian, in the latter’s
native tongue. The redskin grinned wisely and
shook the black hair from his eyes.

“Yes. But it is not a matter to discuss with
Christians, my father.”

Coravel Tio nodded carelessly. The question
was closed. The Pueblo folk are, of course, very
devoted converts to the Christian faith; yet those
who know them intimately can testify that they
sometimes have affairs, perhaps touching upon
the queer stone idols of their fathers, which do
not bear discussion with other Christians. They
do not pray to the old gods—perhaps—but they
hold them in tremendous respect.

“You came to tell me something,” prompted
the curio dealer, gently.

The Indian assented with a nod. He leaned
against one of the wooden pillars that supported
the roof, and began to roll a cigarette while he
talked.

“Yesterday, my father, I was near the painted
caves of the Colorado, and I stood above White
Rock Cañon looking down at the river. There on
the other side of the water I saw the strangest
thing in the world. I went home and told the
governor of the pueblo what I had seen, and it
was his command that I come here and tell you
also, for this is some queer affair of the white
people.”

Coravel Tio said nothing at all. The Pueblo
lighted his cigarette and continued:

“Upon the east side of the river and cañon, not
so well hidden that I could not see it, was a camp,
and in that camp were a white man and a white
woman. I have never before seen white folk
able to reach that place, unless it were the Trail
Runner who takes pictures of us and sells them
to tourists. These were strangers to me. One
was a very large woman. The man was tall, but
he acted very strangely. He acted as though
God had touched his brain. So did they both.”

“In what way?” asked Coravel Tio, sharply.

“In every way, my father. The man wore no
shoes, and the hot rocks hurt his feet so that he
limped. I saw him spring on the woman, and
they fought. She beat him off and pointed a gun
at him. Then he seemed to be weeping like a
woman, and he grovelled before her. She threw
something far off on the stones, and I think it was
glass that broke—a bottle, perhaps.”

“Oh!” said Coravel Tio. “Oh! Perhaps it
was.”

“There were other strange actions,” pursued the
stolid red man. “I could not understand them——”

“No matter.” Coravel Tio made a gesture
as though dismissing the subject. “Could you
get to that camp from your pueblo?”

“Of course, by crossing the river, by swimming
the water there. But that may be a hard thing
to do, my father.”

“Undoubtedly, but you will do it, and I will
pay you well. There is a package to give that
woman. Wait.”

Coravel Tio went to his little box of an office,
seated himself at the desk, and began to write
in a fair, round hand. The epistle required
neither superscription nor signature:

  The burlap sack proved to contain some interesting
  contents. The two small sacks in the centre were even
  more interesting. The samples have been assayed with
  the following results:
  
  Numbers one to five, quartzitic with bare traces of
  brittle silver ore; no good. Numbers six to fifteen,
  barytes, perhaps five dollars a ton; no good. Number
  sixteen is strontianite. This is converted into certain
  nitrates used in manufacture of fireworks and in beet
  sugar refining. Tremendously valuable and rare.
  This, señora, is enough.
  
  I think that M. has scented those assays. He is
  asking for you, but I have made him look toward Las
  Vegas. To-morrow you will find two men at Domingo
  who wish work—they will be there until you arrive:
  Joe Gilbert and Alf Lewis. Meet me there also, please.
  I will take one-third interest in Number Sixteen as
  you suggest, and will furnish whatever money you
  desire on account. I enclose an advance sum.
  
  I shall have articles of partnership ready. Suppose
  you meet me day after to-morrow, at Domingo. You
  must give me location, etc., in order to arrange details
  of filing, land and mineral right lease, etc. Be careful
  about the new explosives law, unless you already have a
  permit.

“Being a woman,” reflected Coravel Tio, “she
should know that the most important thing in
this letter is the very end of it.”

He sealed the letter, placed it upon a thick
sheaf of bank notes, wrapped the parcel in oiled
silk and again in a small waterproof Navaho saddle
blanket. This package he gave to the waiting
redskin.

“It must go into the hands of that large woman,
and no other,” he said, gravely. “If you fail,
there is trouble for all of us—and perhaps for the
gods of the San Marcos also!”

At these last words a flash of keen surprise
sprang athwart the Indian’s face; then he took
the package and turned to the doorway without
response. Coravel Tio looked after him, and
smiled gently.

CHAPTER IV—MRS. CRUMP HEADS SOUTHWEST
=====================================

There was in Domingo a man named Baca.
Domingo is a tiny village of adobes nestling
along the curve of Santa Fé creek under
the gray sharpness of Bajada hill; there is also
an Indian pueblo of the same name.

In every ancient native settlement there is at
least one man named Baca, which signifies
“cow” and may be spelled, in the old fashion,
either Baca or Vaca. If these folk came all of one
stock, they have increased and multiplied exceedingly.

Under the big cottonwood tree that grew in
front of the Baca home sat smoking Joe Gilbert
and his partner Lewis. Up to them, and halting
abruptly before the house, crept a dust-white
flivver in which sat two people: one a woman,
great of girth and frame, the other a man, gaunt
and haggard, whose black eyes blazed like twin
stars of desolation.

The woman alighted and faced the two smokers.
They rose and doffed their hats.

“Gents, know where I can find Alf Lewis and
Joe Gilbert?” she inquired, bluntly.

“That’s us, ma’am.”

“Thought so. My name’s Mehitabel Crump,
with Mrs. for a handle. I’m goin’ to open up
an ore outcrop. This here is Thady Shea, my
partner. Want work, or not?”

“I’ve heard of you, ma’am,” said Gilbert.

“So’ve I!” exclaimed Lewis. “You bet we
want work! Only, ma’am, we’d ought to tell ye
square that they’s apt to be warrants out for
us.”

“Warrants never made me lose sleep,” said
Mrs. Crump, eying them with a nod of satisfaction.
“Howsomever, I’ll return the favour by
saying that if ye take up with me it ain’t goin’
to be no pleasure trip, gents. ’Cause why, I’ve
got something good, something that’ll bring
Mackintavers on the trail soon’s he smells it—him
or his friends. I don’t aim to be bluffed
out, I don’t aim to be bought out, and I don’t
aim to be lawed out; I got something big, and I
aim to hang on to it spite of hell and high water
until I sell out big. Them’s my openers.”

“They’re plenty, ma’am,” said Gilbert. “We
sure would admire to work for you!”

A brief discussion followed as to wages. Thaddeus
Roscius Shea sat jack-knifed in the car’s front
seat, saying not a word. His face was sun-blistered
and graven with gnawing desire, his
black eyes were feverish, he looked anything but
a mining man. Yet the two miners, who must
have felt more than a slight curiosity touching
him, evinced none. At length Mrs. Crump
turned to the car.

“Well, pile in here! Make room in the back,
but handle them boxes gentle. Three or four
holds blasting powder and dynamite. I had
quite a stock left over, and brung it along.”

“Do we travel far?” asked Lewis, nervously.

“You bet we do! But don’t worry none. I
ain’t much farther from them boxes than you
boys are, and I’m pickin’ the soft spots in the
road. Besides, I’ve driv’ several hundred mile
a’ready with this here outfit, and she ain’t gone
up on me yet. Barring bad luck, we’d ought to
get where we’re goin’ by the night of day after
to-morrow.”

“I’ve heard tell that you had cold iron for
nerves,” commented Gilbert. “But you ain’t
backing me down, none whatever, ma’am!”

He sprang in, began to shift the load, and
Lewis promptly joined him. Mrs. Crump turned
and strode away through the dust. Thady Shea
watched her out of sight, then twisted about,
and for the first time broke the silence that had
enveloped him.

“Gentlemen! May I inquire whether either
of you delvers in the deeps of earth are possessed
of spirits?”

At the sonorously booming voice Gilbert’s jaw
dropped in amazement.

“Good gosh! Is that Scripture talk? What
d’ye mean—spirits?”

Shea made an impatient gesture. “The fiery
fluids that do mingle soul with vaster inspiration!
I pray you, give me to drink as you do value
drink!”

“Oh, he means a drink!” ejaculated Lewis,
staring. “We ain’t got a drop, Shea.”

The lanky figure jack-knifed together again in
disconsolate despair. The two men in the rear
of the car glanced at each other. Gilbert tapped
his head; Lewis grimaced.

Meantime, Mrs. Crump had passed along the
winding row of adobes and finally turned into a
corral of high boards. There, concealed from
exterior view, she found an automobile at rest; she
went on to the adjoining rear door of the adobe
house. The door was opened to her by Coravel
Tio, who greeted her with a quick smile and a bow.

“My land, it’s hot!” said Mrs. Crump.
“Howdy!”

“This place is hot indeed,” responded the
merchant. “Let us take the front room and we
may talk in private. I have the papers all made
out.”

They understood each other very well, these
two. Presently, however, Coravel Tio discovered
that a third interest in Number Sixteen was to
be assigned to Thaddeus Shea, in whose name,
also, the entire mining property was to stand.
He leaned back and surveyed Mrs. Crump with
interest.

“I do not know this man Shea, señora. Why
do you make him wealthy?”

There was no hint of offence in his tone. He
spoke as one having the right to ask, and Mrs.
Crump promptly acquiesced.

“He’s an old stage actor, Coravel. I picks
him up on the road and takes him along. I’m
breakin’ him of drink, and I got a hunch that he’s
goin’ to turn out a real man. As for makin’ him
wealthy, none of us ain’t going to thrive on
Number Sixteen for quite a spell yet! I’m gambling
that Thady Shea will earn all he gets. He’s
absolutely honest, and good-hearted. He won’t
know the mine’s in his name, and won’t care;
bein’ that way, it’ll throw Mackintavers off the
track. Besides, I feel downright sorry for Thady;
he’s had a heap o’ misery in his life, looks to me.”

The other smiled gently and waved his hand.

“Señora, you are the one woman whose great
heart has no equal! It is in my mind that this man
will be the cause of misfortune; but what matter?
If not from one cause, then from another. Misfortunes
are sent by the gods to make us great!

“I shall attend to everything in his name; a
good idea, since he will be unknown to Mackintavers
or Dorales. You will uncover the vein,
and send me more samples immediately. These
other two men must become small shareholders, so
that adjacent claims and mining rights may be
secured for the company. Once we are secure,
we may talk of eastern capital.”

“Once we’re secure,” said Mrs. Crump grimly,
“look out for Mackintavers, then and before;
likewise, after!”

“Exactly.” Coravel Tio bowed and finished
his writing.

A little later Mrs. Crump shook hands with
him and departed. Coravel Tio watched her
off, and heard the roar of her car’s engine. The
roar became a thrum that lessened and died into
the distance like a droning fly. Only then, it
seemed, a sudden thought shook the man.

“*Dios*—I forgot!” he ejaculated. “I forgot to
ask her about the permit for the explosives! Well,
I warned her in the note. What matter? These
incidents of destiny are intended to work out
their own effects, and good somehow comes from
everything. I am a philosopher!”

Blissfully unconscious whether philosophy might
be of aid in running a flivver, Mrs. Crump headed
southward over the river road to Albuquerque.

A rough road is that, and well travelled. Mrs.
Crump was in some haste to get over this section
unobserved, and it was entirely evident that her
haste was greater than her caution regarding the
jiggling boxes in the rear of the car.

More than once the two men in the tonneau
stared quickly at each other’s white faces; more
than once the boxes and bundles crashed and
banged fearsomely, in view of their partial contents;
but Mrs. Crump only threw in more gas
and plunged ahead. As for Thaddeus Roscius
Shea, he stared out upon the passing scenery with
glazed and lack-lustre eyes, and held his peace.

When at last they arrived in the outskirts of
Albuquerque, Mrs. Crump paused at a wayside
station to fill up with oil and gasoline, also to
refill several emptied water bags which formed
part of the equipment.

“We ain’t goin’ into town,” she vouchsafed,
curtly, to her charges. “And when we gets reaching
out over the mesa, you two boys act tender
with them boxes! They’s two-three places we
got to ford cattle runs, and we got to do it sudden
to keep out of the quicksands. But don’t worry
no more, there ain’t no special danger.”

The advice was entirely superfluous. Gilbert
and Lewis could by no means have worried more.
They had reached the limit.

Barely skimming the outlying streets of Albuquerque,
Mrs. Crump avoided the better-known
highway beside the railroad and took the shorter
but deserted road that leads south over the mesa
to Becker. Most of this was covered before
darkness descended upon them.

Then a brief and barren camp was made; it
was also a fireless camp, and the “grub” was cold.
Stiff and weary though the three passengers were,
it was clearly impossible that they should prove
less tough than a mere woman. So, when after
an hour’s halt Mrs. Crump grimly cranked up,
they piled into the car without protest.

On they went through the darkness. It was
well after midnight when the iron nature of
Mehitabel Crump acknowledged signs of approaching
dissolution in the hand that rocked the steering
wheel. Admitting her weakness with a sigh,
she turned out of the interminable road and
halted. Blanket rolls were unlashed, and sleep
descended swiftly upon three members of that
quartet.

It must be told that this camp was a milepost
in the life of Thaddeus Roscius Shea. He could
not sleep. A hundred yards away from the camp
he strode up and down under the cold stars, his
gaunt body shivering with the chill of the night,
his haggard features contorted with the desperate
anguish of shattered nerves. All the old impertinences
of his soul were risen strong within
him; he wanted to run away and end this intolerable
situation. He wanted to run away, here
and now!

Yet, when at length he clumsily wrapped himself
in his blanket and fell asleep, tears beaded
his hollow cheeks and reflected the pale starlight
above; and like the stars, those tears were cleansing,
and serenely sad. The first tears he had
shed in years—the tears of a man, wrung from
deep within him; tears of brief conquest over
himself. He would stick!

Sunrise found the dust-white flivver once more
far afield.

The remaining details of that odyssey have no
place here. The dust-white flivver came safely
to its destination, and work duly began upon
Number Sixteen. Days of hard, back-breaking
labour ensued—days in which living quarters had
to be erected before the claim could be touched.
In those days Thaddeus Roscius Shea became,
for good and all, Thady Shea.

Number Sixteen lay among the most desolate
of desolate hills, just over the ridge of a long
hogback. In the cañon below there was a trickle
of water from the mountains; beside this *rito* were
erected two rough shacks, and here the dust-white
flivver rested peacefully. To the north towered
the higher forested ranges whence came the cañon—the
continental divide, rugged crests leaping
at the sky. Below, a few miles distant, stretched
the bad lands and the lava beds; a scoriated,
blasphemous strip such as is often found in the
southwest. Behind this lay scattered ranches
and the road into Zacaton City.

Up on that hogback, leaning upon his pick,
stood Thady Shea. Gone was the threadbare
black raiment, gone and replaced by overalls,
high boots, flannel shirt. Shea was less conscious
of his changed exterior than were those
about him. Lewis and Gilbert, preparing a blasting
charge a hundred feet distant, glanced at the
great, gaunt figure.

“Bloomed out most amazing, ain’t he?” said
Lewis. “No tinhorn, neither. Dead game.”

Gilbert, cutting the fuse with deft fingers,
wagged his head. “Sure looks that-a-way,
partner. Reckon Mis’ Crump knew her business,
after all, when she tied up with him. Gosh! Ain’t
she one a-gile critter, though?”

Shea stood rocklike, watching the blast. Even
in this short space of time the swing of axe and
pick had hardened him amazingly; his towering
figure seemed to move with a more lissome flow of
muscles; for the first time in his life, most wonderful
of all, his deeply lined features had become
centred about one fixed and determined purpose—to
keep himself clean of liquor. He had conquered,
and with the victory had come a new
serenity.

The muffled report of the blast echoed dully.
From nowhere appeared Mrs. Crump, hastily
coming to the scene. Shea dropped his pick and
joined the others. Mrs. Crump, examining the
results of the blast, flung out an exultant cry.

“Got it!”

“Ain’t much of a vein,” observed Gilbert,
skeptically. “Veins, rather—looks like a lot of
’em, and they go deep. This here limestone runs
clear to Chiny, I reckon.”

Mrs. Crump chuckled in a satisfied manner.

“These here veins don’t never come big, Gilbert.
Who’d think this here greenish-white stuff was
better’n a gold seam? But she is. Well, never
mind any more work a while, boys. I got a
letter already writ, and when I fill in the size o’
these here openings, she’s ready to mail—and
she’s got to be sent sudden. These samples
likewise.

“Let’s see; I ain’t goin’ to town myself. Mackintavers’
men are sure to be watchin’ everywhere,
and this here location has got to be kept secret
if possible. I s’pose the devils will get it from
the land office, though. Joe, can you and Al
show up in Zacaton City without occasioning no
rumpus?”

Gilbert shook his head doubtfully.

“I reckon not, ma’am. We’re pretty well
known there, and we ain’t right sure how things
is fixed for us. Still, it won’t bother us none;
if you say so, we’ll go——”

“Nope; can’t take no chances with the letter
and samples, boys. It’s up to Thady. He’s
learned how to run the car, anyhow. Thady, you
got to send them samples and a letter. No one’s
goin’ to suspect you of bein’ partners with me,
and be sure to send the samples in your own name,
savvy?

“They’s enough gas to take you into Zacaton,
and ye can bring a fresh supply when ye come back.
Then we need more flour an’ grub, for which same
I got a list made out already. A new axe helve,
too. Don’t forget that there axe helve, whatever
ye do! It ain’t on the list—I guess ye can
remember it all right. Sure, now! Don’t come
without it. How soon can ye get going?”

“Now,” said Shea, a slight smile curving his
wide lips.

CHAPTER V—THE AMBITION OF MACKINTAVERS
======================================

It is an established but peculiar trait of human
nature, by which most of us desire to be that
which we are not, or to do that for which
we have no talent. I, who write, may aspire to
be a great engineer; you, who read, may aspire to
the study of the stars. We reach out toward
that which we may never grasp.

Sandy Mackintavers was a wealthy and a
powerful man; his hands were gripped hard in
both the politics and the mining properties of
the state. Self-made and self-educated, he had
accomplished a good job of it. He had, of necessity,
seen a good deal of those men who were ever
radiating out from Santa Fé; those men who, on
behalf of many universities and great museums,
were ever delving amid the thousands of pre-historic
ruins which lay in and between the valleys
of the Pecos and the Rio Grande.

Slowly, Sandy had discovered that these men
were digging in the earth for science, and that
science and the world of letters honoured them.
He had learned something of their “patter” and
of the things they were seeking; he had studied
their work and methods and ideals, and he had
found within himself the makings of a scientist.
In short, he had formed the stupendous ambition
of becoming, at one fell stroke, a renowned
ethnologist!

Do not smile. In the course of thirty years a
man can pick up a great many divers things, and
it was the way of Mackintavers to pick up everything
in sight. Sandy knew a great deal more
than he appeared to know. He had mining
properties all over, and he was a silent partner
in a chain of Mormon trading stores that ran
north from the Mexican border through three
states. His sources of information were varied.

Being unmarried and loving his ease when he
was in the city, Mackintavers maintained a suite
at the Aztec House. He had entertained many
men in that place, some to their eternal sorrow.
Never had he entertained a more distinguished
visitor, however, than the Smithsonian professor
with whom he was speaking on this Sunday
morning—a scientist known around the world,
and a man of supreme authority in ethnologic
circles.

“Now, professor,” said Mackintavers, bluntly,
“I ain’t a college-educated man, but I’ve knocked
around this country for thirty year, and I know
a few things. When I die, I aim to be remembered
as something more than a mining man,
see?”

The other, in puzzled suspense, nodded tacit
understanding.

“Now,” pursued Sandy, chewing hard on a
cigar, “if I had something to give the Smithsonian
or some other museum, something that
would be a tenstrike for science, something that
’ud make every scientific shark in the country
water at the eyes for envy, what ’ud the Smithsonian
do for *me*?”

The professor cleared his throat and registered
hesitation.

“I—ah—I do not exactly apprehend your
meaning, Mr. Mackintavers. You do not speak
in a financial sense, I presume?”

“Of course not. I tell you, I want to be known
as a scientist! Man, I’ve got the biggest thing up
my sleeve that you ever struck! Can your museum,
or any other, make me famous as a scientist?
That is, if I turn over a regular tenstrike?”

“Ah—that is exceedingly difficult to answer.
A scientific reputation, Mr. Mackintavers, is
founded upon solid bases, upon research or discoveries.
If your—ah—contribution were a thing
of such merit as you say, it would undoubtedly be
published far and wide. Your name, naturally,
would be attached to it, according as your work
justified.”

“In other words,” amended Sandy, “if I turn
over a complete job, I’d get full credit and publicity?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I want. I’m interested in this
ethnology stuff, and I can do you sharks a whopping
good turn. I want to get the credit, that’s
all. Folks call me a hard-fisted old mining crab,
and I want to show ’em that I’m something more.”

“A highly laudable ambition, sir. You understand,
however, that what to a lay mind might
appear to be a most interesting ethnological fact,
to a scientist might prove well known or insufficiently
supported——”

Mackintavers waved his square hand.

“This thing is all assayed and fire tested,
professor, and I’m no fool. May I give you an
outline of it?”

“If you care to, by all means do so!”

“You know where the San Marcos pueblo is—away
down south of Bonanza?” Mackintavers
struck into his subject without further parley.
“It was abandoned about 1680 because of attacks
from the Comanches, who destroyed several
pueblos down in that country. There’s a tradition
that the Injuns migrated west of the Rio
Grande and settled the Cochiti and Domingo
pueblos. Has that tradition ever been proved
up?”

The professor evinced an awakening interest.

“No, sir. We know that the survivors of the
Pecos pueblo went to Jimez, but the older migrations
are hidden in the mists of time, unfortunately. Where
the present Pueblos came
from we do not know. The migrations——”

“They won’t be hid very long,” said Mackintavers,
complacently. “Aiblins, now, we’ll clear
’em up a bit, eh?”

The only Scottish evidences which remained
from Sandy’s youth were an uncanny acquisitiveness
and a habit of interjecting the word “aiblins”
into the conversation at random. When Sandy
used that word, it betrayed mental effort.

“Some time ago,” he resumed, “a man found
seven stone idols in a bit of the adobe ruins at San
Marcos. They had been walled up and buried
alive, ye might say. The heavy rains last year,
which took out some pieces of the adobe walls,
washed ’em out. I’ve got ’em now, down to my
ranch near Magdalena.”

At this announcement the professor displayed
mild disappointment. He had been more than
interested in Sandy’s preamble, but this supposed
climax caused him to shake his gray head regretfully.

“My dear sir, these idols are of course very rare
things, but not exceptionally so. I fail to see how
they would give any proof of migration——”

“Hold on; I ain’t done yet! A drunken Injun
from Cochiti seen those idols and spilled a good
deal of information, calling them by name and so
on. That is not evidence which would stand on a
scientific basis, I reckon. But if a Cochiti man
could be made to talk, and if he was to recognize
those idols first crack as his ancestral gods——”

“And not be drunk at the time,” interjected the
other, smiling.

“Sure. If he was to name ’em like old friends,
and they corresponded with the same idols from
Cochiti which are in various museums—then
wouldn’t all this go to show mighty plain that the
migration theory was true?”

Mackintavers leaned back, breathless and triumphant.
The scientist nodded quickly.

“Sir, this is an unusual and surprising proposal,
but I cannot deny your premises. I do believe
that such evidence would go a long way, could it be
secured. That, of course, is the doubtful point,
for these red men can very seldom be made to
talk. However, you have an astounding perception
of ethnologic values in merely conceiving the
scheme!”

“Taken by and large, that’s nothing but human
nature. Well?”

“If this proof could really be adduced, it would
be epochal! The possibilities, sir, would be tremendous
in their application!”

“It ain’t proved up yet,” returned Sandy, drily,
“but it will be. It may take a bit of time gettin’
things in shape—a week or so, maybe. Ye know,
professor, these Injuns are touchy about questions
o’ deity, and they have to be handled wi’ gloves.
But I’ll do it! A bag of silver dollars will loom
mighty big to them. If ye care to be on hand
when the time comes, I’d be glad to have ye as a
guest at my ranch——”

In many ways the professor had an extended
knowledge of New Mexico. It is quite possible
that he knew all about the playful habits of Sandy
Mackintavers in regard to testimony along mining
and mineral lines. So, while he did not restrain
his enthusiasm over the ambition of his host, he
made it plain that he certainly did wish to be on
hand when the testimony in this case was obtained.

Mackintavers agreed readily, for in this instance
he was more or less resolved to play fair;
and the interview ended.

Scarcely had the scientist departed, than the
door opened to admit an individual of striking
appearance. This gentleman was the satellite, the
adherent, and field marshal, the *âme damnée*, of
Mackintavers.

Mormon progenitors had given him a stocky,
massive front and splendid build, a steely eye and
projecting lower jaw. A touch of Mexican blood
had given him coarse black hair, a swart complexion,
and sinister mental attributes. He had
much the appearance of a west-coast Irishman,
with his black hair and gray eyes, but there the
resemblance ended. Such was Abel Dorales, a
man of reputation and education.

“Well?” greeted Mackintavers, abruptly.
“What’s up now?”

“Trouble,” was the response. “Rodrigo Cota
wants to see you. Also, I got a telegram from
Ben Aimes, at Zacaton City, but haven’t decoded
it yet. I think it’s about the Crump
woman.”

“Then hurry it along,” snapped Mackintavers.
“Send Cota in here pronto.”

A moment later entered the room a nervous
native, the same legislator who had briefly interviewed
Coravel Tio regarding the moving of the
capital. Mr. Cota stood mopping his brow and
glancing around.

“Well, Cota?” exploded Sandy, transfixing him
with frowning gaze. “What’s the matter now?
Need more money to swing it?”

“Señor,” blurted the legislator in desperation,
“it cannot be swung!”

“Oh! And why not, Mr. Cota?”

“I do not know. Three weeks ago we had a
clear majority. The measure was to be presented
to-morrow—but our men have gone to pieces!”

“Do they want more money?” snapped Sandy,
savagely.

The native shrugged. “I have done my best!
It is a question of the people. In some way, I
know not how, word has been spread abroad that
the capital is to be changed. Our people are
furious. Our natives, sir, have sentiment about
this——”

“Sentiment, hell!” snarled Mackintavers, as his
fist crashed down. “I tell ye, it’s goin’ to be
done! Ain’t there plenty in it for all, ye fool?
Ain’t new state buildings got to be built at
Albuquerque? Ain’t——”

“Señor, it is no question of money; it cannot be
done! I myself dare not propose this bill without
voting for it; and I cannot vote for it.”

“Why not?” The face of Mackintavers was
purpled, seething with furious passions. Livid,
the native glared back at him.

“Because I am afraid for my life.”

Mackintavers leaped to his feet in a whirlwind
of rage at what he considered a palpable lie. The
native shrank back, but doggedly, as though a
greater fear were beside him than any fear of this
political master of his.

At this instant the door opened and Abel
Dorales appeared. He made a slight gesture, a
gesture of command, of authority. The empurpled
countenance of Mackintavers composed
itself by a mighty effort.

“Very well, Mr. Cota,” he said, thickly. “Let
the bill pass over for this time, since I got more
important business on hand than chasing down you
native senators. But let me tell you this: When
it comes up again, there’ll be no more talk like
you’ve just handed out—or I’ll know the reason
why. Get out!”

Cota took his hat and left, thankfully. Dorales
closed the door, while a flood of oaths burst from
the lips of Mackintavers. With extended hand,
Dorales checked the flood.

“Never mind that, Sandy,” he said, calmly.
“We’ll probably find later that the railroad is
double-crossing us. There’s no rush—we can get
to the bottom of it in time. The more important
affair is this of the Crump woman, so far as money
goes. There’s a bigger fortune in this mine than
in any political game!”

Uncouth bear that he was, Mackintavers could
be swayed by this more polished tongue; he knew
this tongue was devoted absolutely to his own
interests, and he forced himself to accept the
dictum of Dorales at the moment.

“Well?” he growled. “Ye don’t mean to say
she’s down at Zacaton?”

“The wire was from your store manager there,
Aimes. He said merely that he had smashed the
Crump outfit flat, and that I had better get there
in a hurry to take charge of things.”

“Aiblins, yes!” The thin lips of Sandy curled
back. “We hadn’t looked for such quick action,
Abel. That Aimes is a good man! I s’pose this
news don’t grieve ye none, after what the lady
done to you. How’s your head?”

A fleeting contraction passed across the face of
Dorales. His eyes narrowed to thin slits. His
nose quivered like the nose of a dog sniffing
game.

“Thank you, it’s quite well,” his voice was low
and cruel. “If you think best, I shall go down
there immediately.”

Mackintavers crammed a cigar between his
teeth and chewed at it for a moment.

“Aiblins, yes,” he mused aloud. “Somebody
has blocked us on this moving-the-capital bill. I
won’t get hold of the skunk right away, neither; we
might’s well call it off until the next session.

“Tell ye what, Abel! I’m fixing to spend a
while at my ranch, so I’ll go south with ye. I’ll
need ye mighty bad to get that business of the
Injun gods moving along, because I got my heart
set on doin’ that up brown. But as ye say, this
mine means millions—the biggest strike in the state
in a long time. The assayer was positive it was
strontianite and not merely barytes?”

“Dead certain,” assented Dorales.

“Well, it won’t be such a long job; I’ll be at the
ranch where ye can reach me quick. We’ll have to
find out what Aimes has done, then make plans and
go ahead. If there’s one thing that the Lord gave
me ability to do, it was to handle mining deals!”

“With a cold deck,” added Dorales. “Very
well. If we go by auto, we can save a good deal of
time.”

Mackintavers grimaced. “I ain’t built for long
trips, but go ahead. Get the big car, Abel. Want
to run her yourself? All right. Land me at the
ranch, then go on to Zacaton City with the ranch
flivver, unless ye want the big car.”

“The flivver is the thing down there.”

“Aiblins, yes. And mind! What we got to do
is to get that Crump female clear off’n her location;
that’s all. Aimes has evidently found some
means of gettin’ her arrested. We can take that
for granted. By the time you get there, she’ll be
in the calaboose.

“You telephone me at the ranch with a full
account of what’s happened, and I’ll have a
scheme ready for ye. The main thing is to get
possession of the property; maybe we can frame a
deal on this fellow Shea—it’s all held in his name,
ain’t it? That was a foxy move, but not foxy
enough to fool us long! Get possession, Abel, and
the law will do the rest for us.”

“It ought to!” Dorales showed white and even
teeth as he smiled.

Mackintavers met those steely eyes beneath
their strangely black brows, and his square mouth
unfolded in a grin.

“Get possession, that’s all!” he uttered.

“Consider it done, Sandy. If you’ll be ready in
an hour, I’ll be around with the car.”

CHAPTER VI—THADY SHEA SMELLS WHISKEY
====================================

The little town of Zacaton City, within
easy trucking distance of the railroad,
formed the nucleus of a goodly mining
centre. Its residential section was extensive, and
consisted of adobes occupied by “native” miners
or workmen. Its business section was made up
chiefly of a bank, the Central Mercantile Store,
hardware, drug, and harness shops, and a soda-water
parlour that adjoined the Central Mercantile.
This last was a blind pig, maintained with circumspection
and profit by Ben Aimes, manager of
the store. Aimes also ran the combination hotel-garage
across the street.

Thady Shea came into town about sunset. He
had broken bread on the way, and disdained to
seek further dinner. Having been much cautioned,
he was wary of danger. Leaving the
dust-white flivver at the garage, he went to the
express office and sent off his ore samples and
letter, then he sought the emporium of Ben
Aimes.

The two native clerks being busy, Aimes, a
brisk fellow of thirty, espied the tall figure of
Shea, and in person took charge of the customer.

“Well, partner, what can I do for you?” he
inquired, cheerfully. “Can’t say as I’ve seen you
before. Stranger in town?”

Shea fumbled in his pocket for the list of supplies,
and transfixed the merchant with his cavernous
black eyes. He had been particularly warned
against Aimes.

“Friend,” he trumpeted, “you say sooth.
Truth sits upon thy lips, marry it does!”

Aimes blinked rapidly. “Stranger, I don’t get
you! You’re a prospector?”

“That, sir, is somewhat of my present business,”
boomed Shea. “Yet have I seen the day when
every room hath blazed with lights and brayed
with minstrelsy, when thick-eyed musing and
cursed melancholy fled from before me like twin
evil spirits! Make ready, friend, thy pencil for
its task.”

Those sonorous tones drew grinning attention
from others. Aimes, quite overcome by the
rounded periods and the imposing gestures, asked
no more questions, but devoted himself to making
ready packages as Shea read off from his list the
supplies required.

Two or three loafers sauntered along and
listened to Shea’s enunciation with awed delight.
When the end of the list was reached, the amounts
totalled, and the money handed over, Thady
Shea carelessly crumpled up the list and tossed it
behind the counter.

His arms filled with the bundles, he left the
store and crossed the street to his car. He had
laid up the flivver for the night, and now attended
to having it filled with gas and oil. He stated to
the mechanic that he might be here for several
days; at this juncture, it occurred to him that he
had forgotten that axe helve which Mrs. Crump
had demanded especially.

Meantime, Ben Aimes had retrieved the list of
supplies, and had stared at the uncrumpled paper
with amazed recognition. He swiftly summoned
one of the idling loafers.

“If this ain’t the writing of Mrs. Crump, I’m a
liar! You chase over to the garage and get the
number o’ that feller’s car—hump, now!”

Thady Shea reëntered the store, in blissful
ignorance that he was done for, and demanded his
axe helve. Ben Aimes, in blissful ignorance of
what that axe helve was destined to mean to him
and to others, filled the order. Then, handling
Shea his change, Aimes gave him a meaning wink.

“Step into the sody parlour a minute, stranger!
Have a cigar on the store.”

The offer was entirely innocuous. Shea greatly
desired to avoid any argument or trouble, so he
followed Aimes into the adjoining room, which at
this hour was deserted. Aimes procured cigars,
then went to the soda fountain.

“Want you to try somethin’ new we got here,”
he said, and paused. “What did you say your
name was?”

“My cognomen, sir, is Shea. Thaddeus Shea.”

“Well, Shea, just hold this under your nose and
see if it smells like sody.”

Unsuspicious as any innocent, Shea took the
proffered glass and held it to his nose. A tremor
ran through him—an uncontrollable shiver that
sent fever into his eyes. He lowered the glass
slightly and forced a ghastly smile. Already
defeat had engulfed him.

“Friend, I am sorry thus to disappoint you, but
I have sworn that never——”

“Shucks!” Aimes grinned and held up his
own glass. To meet it, that of Shea again came
within sniffing distance. “Just one between
business acquaintances, Mr. Shea. It’s the finest
licker ever got to this city! Absolutely twenty
year old, partner. One little snifter now—don’t it
smell good? The real thing, the real thing!”

Thady Shea’s entire system was impregnated by
that whiff. His big fingers closed upon the little
glass with a convulsive contraction.

“One, sir, and one only!” he declaimed. “To
the dead god Bacchus, all hail!”

He tossed down the drink and smacked his lips.

It was upon a Saturday evening that these
things happened. That smell had done the business
for Thady Shea; that raw odour of whiskey,
which in a flash had permeated to the very deeps
of his being with its awful lure. No guile, no
argument could have forced him to drink, but that
sniff had ruined him utterly.

Twenty minutes later, in maudlin confidence, he
was relating to Ben Aimes how two miners of his
acquaintance had driven several hundred miles in
deadly fear of being hoisted by dynamite at every
jolt.

Shea mentioned no names. Drunk or not, he
knew subconsciously that he must mention no
names. Also subconsciously, he knew that he
must hang on to his axe helve or Mrs. Crump
would be much disappointed in him. So he was
still hanging on to it when, after a parting drink,
he was thrust forth into the cold night air.
That parting drink had been soggy with opiates.

Ben Aimes went to the telephone and called up
the sheriff at Silver City.

“This is Aimes at Zacaton, Bill,” he said. “A
queer guy just blew in here to-night with a grand
souse and is sleeping it off now. You know old
lady Crump, don’t you? Heard of her at any rate.
Well, he says that she’s out in the hills a piece with
two other fellers. These two were run out o’
Magdalena last month for talking agin’ the gov’ment
and they’re said to be dangerous characters.
The place is north o’ the bad lands, over in Socorro
County.

“The p’int is, Bill, this here guy says they’ve got
heap o’ dynamite and such stuff out there. Them
two anarchists ought to be prevented usin’ it;
according to this guy, they got no licenses and
never heard o’ the new license law. This here
is plumb illegal and you’d ought to stop it. Both
these fellers are I. W. W. organizers, he says, and
prob’ly are German spies; this guy talked with a
queer kind of accent.

“No, I wouldn’t think it o’ Mrs. Crump, neither,
but you never can tell these days. What’s that?
Well, I got the location pretty straight from this
guy. Yep, a car can make it; he come into town
that way. Get up on the night train and you can
take my car out there. Sure, I’ll meet the train.
You’re welcome.”

This pleasant duty finished, Aimes dispatched a
lengthy telegram to Abel Dorales at Santa Fé. He
then summoned the constable in search of Thady
Shea. But Shea had vanished from human ken,
although the dust-white flivver remained in the
garage.

Bright and early next morning Aimes departed
in his automobile, went to the railroad and met the
sheriff, and brought that official back to town.
The hardware merchant was pressed into service
as a deputy, and the sheriff took over Aimes’ car.

“I’d like to go along myself,” said Aimes,
regretfully, “but I got to ’tend the garridge myself
to-day account of my mechanic hurting himself
last night and being laid up. Tell ye what, Bill!
Why not take the whole crowd right down to Silver
City? It’ll save ye comin’ back here, and your
new deppity yonder can fetch the car back here.
Sure, you’re dead welcome! I ain’t got no use for
the car anyhow.”

To this arrangement the sheriff consented
gladly, and Aimes watched them depart with a
twinkle in his eye. Before Mrs. Crump could
possibly return from Silver City, to say nothing of
her two men, Abel Dorales would be on the spot
to take charge of things. Aimes considered that
he had managed things very neatly indeed, and he
mentally patted himself on the back that morning.

Ben Aimes, however, did not take local politics
into account. It is such little unconsidered
trifles which very often go to make up the warp of
affairs of larger moment.

Only a few months previously an ancient and
honourable gentleman by the name of Ferris had
been ousted from the job of justice of the peace,
mainly on account of certain hostility to Ben
Aimes and the Mackintavers forces. It is quite
possible that old man Ferris was no good as a
justice, yet he had an inconspicuous but important
part to play in the tangled affairs of Thady Shea
and Sandy Mackintavers, to say nothing of the
seven stone gods.

In broad daylight, therefore, Thady Shea came
to his senses. While slow remembrance dawned
upon him, he found himself reposing in the back
yard of an adobe house; how he got there was
never explained. A furred tongue and an aching
head gradually brought home some errant sense of
shame. This feeling was intensified by a goat-like
visage above him.

“Well, pilgrim!” sounded a raucous voice.
“Slep’ it off, have ye?”

Shea groaned and sat up. “Where—where am
I?”

“Town of Zacaton City, county o’ Grant, State
o’ New Mexico.” The other chuckled. He was a
disreputable old fellow, distinguished by shiftless
garb and dirty gray hair. “I reckon Ben Aimes
must have give ye quite a jag, eh? If I was you,
I’d spill out o’ town right smart. He’s got the
constable lookin’ for ye.”

Shea clasped his head and groaned again, not
understanding the words clearly.

“I’ve fallen!” he moaned.

“With a thud,” agreed the other. “But
worse’n that, pilgrim. Ye’ve gone and got ol’
Mis’ Crump in real bad. If ye wasn’t so mis’able
I’d boot ye out o’ here for it.”

Thady Shea stared up dully. “What—what’s
that you say?”

Old man Ferris surveyed him in pitying contempt,
and carefully sank his remaining fangs
into a plug of tobacco.

“D’ye mean as ye don’t know what ye been an’
done? Well, I can’t say as I can see why Mis’
Crump ever’s taken up with the likes of you, but
it’s plumb certain that ye’ve gone an’ done for
her this trip, ye no-account swine!”

Shea’s brow broke into cold perspiration. His
quickening faculties began to grasp the sense of
these words.

“Expound!” he said. “What have I done?”

“A plenty. The sheriff come over this mornin’.
Him and a deppity has gone to arrest Mis’ Crump—and
all along o’ you, ye mis’able coyote!”

“Arrest her? Why?” Shea stared, his heart
sinking. So piteous was his gaze that old man
Ferris turned aside, spat, and resumed his discourse
in kindlier tones.

“Don’t ye know that they’s a new law about
explosives? Well, they is. Everybody what
handles powder or dynamite has got to have
a license. From what I gather, Mis’ Crump
ain’t wise to it and ain’t got none.

“Last night you done blabbed out your soul
to Aimes. Danged fool! Why did Aimes git
the sheriff after Mis’ Crump? Ain’t but one
answer to that—so’s that devil Mackintavers
could profit! And sheriff’s goin’ to take ’em to
Silver City, too. If Mis’ Crump has located
an ore prop’ty, as looks likely, Mackintavers is
after it.

“Once she gits out’n the way and they ain’t
nobody to hold down the location, some o’ Mackintavers’
crowd is going to jump it sure’s shooting!
Huh! Git out’n my back yard ’fore I come back,
ye swine!”

Snorting angrily, old man Ferris turned and
stamped away, and so out of the story. He had
fulfilled his share in destiny, with greater measure
than he knew.

Thady Shea sat staring, his eyes terrible with
comprehension. With every moment that final
exposition sank more deeply into his brain. The
ghastly consequences of his own weakness left
him stunned and paralyzed.

He could dimly remember what had happened,
up to that final drink. He was certain that he
had not mentioned the name of Mehitabel Crump.
Yet he could remember telling about those explosives;
as he connected things, he groaned again.
Aimes had been pumping him, of course; had
somehow suspected something.

The pitiless deduction of old man Ferris struck
upon Shea’s brain like a trip-hammer. The
mine was left unprotected, or soon would be,
and Mackintavers’ men would grab it. Of
course!

Frightful remorse crumpled Thady Shea, mentally
and bodily. He owed all that he was, all
that he might be, to Mrs. Crump; yet his action
had literally ruined her. That cursed sniff of
whiskey had done it! Shea wasted no recrimination
upon himself for his lapse from rectitude.
He had gone through all that before. It was the
consequence of this lapse that horrified him, that
lashed down upon his soul.

“What have I done!” he mumbled, groping
for coherency. “What have I done!”

All the old memories of Mrs. Crump flooded
into his mind. He recalled all her actions and
words, he pictured mentally all the deep waters
of human kindness that lay hidden below her
mask of harshness, he visioned anew how she had
picked him out of the very gutter and had set him
upon his feet, a man. How had he repaid her?

In this hour Thady Shea was cast absolutely
upon himself. There was none to whom he might
go for advice or aid. He was alone with his consciousness
of guilt, alone with the remorse that
ate into his heart like acid. A month previously
he would have mouthed a curse at the world and
have gone shambling away in search of the nearest
saloon, where he would have recited “The Face
on the Barroom Floor” as the sure and certain
price of liquor.

This thought recurred to him. He pictured
himself as he was a month ago. From his lips was
wrenched an inarticulate cry, the voice of a soul
in anguish. Heedless of the burning ache in his
head, he brought his long body erect and looked
up at the sky.

“Oh, God!” he said, a dry sob in his throat.
“Oh, God! I have scoffed and blasphemed because
You let me stumble down into hell. It
was my own fault, God. Now, for the sake of
that woman who helped me to find myself, it’s up
to You to give me a hand! I don’t know what
to do. But I’ve got to make up for this thing
that I’ve done, and there is no one to help me
except You—and it’s for her sake——”

The words failed, for as he spoke out his heart
the deepness of feeling that had laid hold upon
him ebbed; just as the bitterness of grief ebbs
with tears. A tremor shook him, and for a
moment he stood motionless.

Close at hand was an *acequia*, an open ditch
with running water. He went to it, kneeled, and
plunged his head into the water; it cooled his
brain and steadied him. He rose and saw his
axe helve lying where he had lain that night. He
picked it up and stood there, indecision eating into
him.

What was to be done? He must do something.
The constable was seeking him—why? No matter.
The name of Ben Aimes explained everything.
The morning was wearing along, and
by this time all hope of warning Mrs. Crump
was gone. Of course, there was the dust-white
flivver. He could take that and sneak back to
the mine. It would be deserted.

Deserted? But that was what Mackintavers
wanted, according to this disreputable ancient!
That was why Mrs. Crump was under arrest!
That was the aim and purpose of the whole affair—to
have the mine left deserted, so that the man
Dorales could step in and seize upon it.

The gaunt, grim face of Shea tightened and
hardened. “One thing I can do—go there,” he
reflected. “What the hell have I to worry about—can
they do any worse to me than I have done
to myself? No. They’ll try to arrest me, they’ll
try to keep me here. They can’t do it! I’m
going.”

As he left the place and sought the road, there
was a sublime unconsciousness of self in him. He
was in no condition of mind to do the usual, the
conventional thing, the thing that any sane man
would have done, the thing that any one would
be expected to do.

No! From that hour, Shea was a different
man. He had entered upon this new and primitive
existence, and now it took hold upon him.
His course of life had been abruptly shifted, and
he was climbing new paths; as he climbed, the
exhilaration of the heights sang in his blood. He
had flung away the lessons of his old dreary years.
Now his actions were to be the simple, terrible, and
impulsive actions of a child who fears no consequences.

Finding that he was only a couple of blocks
from the main street of the town, Shea walked
toward it, the axe helve still in his hand. He
meant to take out his flivver and go.

There was no church in Zacaton City, and it
was not yet time for the Mormon chapel to open.
The garage doors were wide. In front, standing
in the warm sunlight, Ben Aimes was chatting with
the constable about the mysterious disappearance
of the man Shea. Half-a-dozen idlers were lined
up to one side, smoking and discussing the coming
and going of the sheriff. Around the corner of the
store, across the street, swung the gaunt figure of
Shea.

“By gosh!” exclaimed Aimes, staring. He
clutched the arm of the constable. “There’s the
cuss now! Lay him up until Dorales gets here
to-morrow, anyhow. Whew! I’m glad he’s
showed up at last. Must ha’ been laying in a
ditch.”

The loafers galvanized into sudden interest.
The constable started across the street and met
Shea midway. He held out one hand, with the
other showing his badge of office.

“Get out of my way,” said Shea, lifelessly,
looking through him.

“None o’ that, now,” snorted the constable.
“You come along with me.”

With a smack that was heard for half a block,
the axe helve swung a vicious half-circle and landed
over the officer’s ear. The constable threw out
his hands and fell on his face, lying motionless.
Shea strode forward.

“Lay on to him, boys, he’s locoed!” cried Aimes,
turning to the men behind. He whirled again
to face Shea, and his right hand crept to his hip.
“Hello, Shea! lay down that——”

“You gave me a drink last night, didn’t you?”
said Shea, halting before him.

Aimes laughed, thinking that he perceived what
was in the other’s mind.

“Oh, want another, do ye?” he returned.
“Well, lay down that——”

“You’re the man that gave me a drink,” said
Shea. His deep bass voice boomed upon the
morning air like a bell. “If any man dares to
give me a drink again, he’ll get worse than
this.”

Aimes suddenly perceived danger, and whipped
out his weapon. Swifter than his hand was the
axe helve. It struck his wrist and knocked the
revolver away. As he staggered to the blow,
the axe helve swung again and smote him over the
head. Aimes made a queer noise in his throat and
limply sank down.

There was something frightful in the deliberate
way those two men had been felled. For a
moment Shea stood gazing at the loafers, who
shrank back before his blazing eyes. Then:

“I’ll do worse than this to any man who dares
give me a drink again,” he said.

Without further heed, he passed into the
garage. Up and down the street men were calling,
running. The group outside the place looked at
each other, their faces blanched.

“My Lord!” gasped someone. “He’s done
killed ’em both! In after him, boys.”

Thady Shea laid down his bludgeon in front
of the dust-white flivver, and began to crank.
For almost the first time in his life he had struck
a man in cold anger; more terrible than this
thought, however, was the acid-like bitterness in
his soul.

Just as the engine caught and roared, Shea,
rising, saw over his shoulder the string of men
pouring in upon him. He had no time to get into
his car. With a quick motion he caught up the
axe helve; swiftly the foremost men flung themselves
upon him, and found him facing them.

There in the obscurity of the little garage ensued
a scene that is still told of from Silver City to
Magdalena. All noise was drowned in the roar
of the engine that throbbed behind Shea. Outside,
other men paused to ask what was going on,
to group about the figures of Aimes and the constable.
Inside, Shea fought for more than his life.

There were six men against him; yet, in the
felling of those two outside, the battle had been
half won, for the cold terror of Shea’s blows had
made itself felt. The first man at him shrieked
out and fell, crawling away with a broken arm.
The others came in before Shea could recover
from the blow, and fastened upon him like dogs
upon a mountain lion.

Silent, deadly, Shea swung up his weapon and
waited. He took their blows without return.
He braced himself against the throbbing car
behind him, and awaited his time. Then he
began to strike. There was nothing blind and
frantic in his blows; rather there was something
fearful and inhuman, for inside him was that which
rendered him insensible to the smiting fists, and
when he brought down his weapon it was with
simple and deadly intent.

Three times he struck, each time lifting on his
toes, and twice lifting one man who had fastened
about his waist. To his three blows, a man
reeled away into the darkness; a second plunged
forward beneath an adjacent car; a third ran
screaming into the open air, across his face a
bloody blotch. A fourth man, unhurt, turned
and ran.

Shea looked down, curiously, at the last assailant,
who was still gripping him around the waist,
trying to bend him backward. Then he deliberately
heaved up his axe helve and brought down the
rounded oval of the halt against the man’s head
twice. At the second crunching blow the man’s
grip relaxed. Shea threw him, staggering and
clutching, clear across the garage floor, then turned
and leaped into his car.

With a grinding roar and a honk of the horn,
the dust-white flivver went out of the wide-open
doorway into the street.

Men jumped aside, yelled, pursued. Somebody
fired a revolver, and the bullet smashed the
windshield in front of Shea’s face. Other shots
sounded, but flew wild. The car went around
the nearest corner on two wheels, and shot away
toward the west at thirty miles an hour.

Thady Shea had come and gone.

CHAPTER VII—THADY SHEA HAS A VISITOR
====================================

Thady Shea was on his way to Number
Sixteen. The sheriff was on his way to
Silver City with Mrs. Crump, Gilbert, and
Lewis. In the ordinary course of events, Thady
Shea would have encountered them in the cañon
north of No Agua. The ordinary course of events
did not obtain, however, because of Ben Aimes.

Having sustained nothing worse than a broken
wrist and a sore head, Ben Aimes upon being revived
at once telephoned the store and post office at
No Agua to stop Thady Shea. No Agua was the
jumping-off place at the edge of the bad lands,
and it was nothing but a long frame building from
which radiated all the cañon trails to north and west.

When Shea arrived, he found a reception committee
awaiting him in the shape of a dozen
men, most of whom were mounted upon horses
or mules as if they had convened for a Sunday
holiday. Shea needed no information upon the
subject of his reception. He had previously observed
the telephone wires and had drawn his
own conclusions. As he drew near to No Agua he
was the recipient of a bullet that finished off the
windshield and sent a sliver of glass slithering
across his forehead.

What next happened was wild and incoherent
in all subsequent reports. Shea cared absolutely
nothing for results, so long as he got through.
When he found his path barred by mounted men,
he opened up the throttle wide, shut his eyes, and
gripped hard to the wheel. General opinion was
that the first bullet had killed him and that the
car was running wild; for blood was trickling
over his face from his slashed brow, and he was
a fearsome sight.

The dust-white flivver smashed head-on into
the mass of men and horses. It paused as though
for breath, then went ahead. The radiator was
boiling over; and when that red-hot projectile
began to bore its way, things happened. The
steam seared into a big mule, and the mule instantly
began to plunge and kick. Two horses
went down and the flivver climbed over them and
their riders. A vaquero was pitched across the
hood and with screams of anguish managed
to leap away to earth. A horse sat on the right-hand
fender and toppled over upon his rider as
the car went ahead.

After a moment Thady Shea opened his eyes
and looked back upon a scene of wonderful confusion.
Men and horses strewed the ground or
were plunging in all directions. With a sigh of
relief Thady Shea found that he was still going
forward; so, in order to avoid the bullets that
came swarming and buzzing after him, he aimed
for the nearest cañon, which was not his proper
road at all, and followed the trail blindly.

An hour later this trail petered out at an abandoned
mine in the bad lands. With a vague general
idea of his directions, Shea went plunging
off through the sand, winding his way past huge,
eroded masses and amid weird pinnacles of wind-blown
rock. Somewhere past noon he was in the
lava beds, and was apprised of the fact by his
tires blowing out one by one.

Lack of pneumatic cushions did not trouble
Shea in the least. He punished the poor flivver
unmercifully, and by the eternal miracle of flivvers
the car kept going. Shea climbed rocky masses,
shoved through sand, rolled over jutty fields of
volcanic rock, and when the afternoon was half
gone, came upon automobile tracks. He had
found his road at last. From the tracks, he could
tell that the sheriff’s automobile had lately gone
that way—but in the direction of Silver City.

When, late in the afternoon, Shea came to
Number Sixteen, it was deserted. Upon the door
of the shack which Mrs. Crump had occupied
was pinned a brief note. It read:

  Thady: Set rite here till I get back. We are
  pinched but not for long. My gun is over my bunk.
  Set tite. Yours,
  
  —M. CRUMP.

Methodically, Shea went to the other shack and
began to wash the dried blood from his face,
plastering the cut on his brow.

In front of him he propped the note and studied
it, tried to read between the lines. It had been
written, he thought grimly, as a forlorn hope, a
desperate chance that Thady Shea might yet save
the day. Mrs. Crump had not been aware of his
culpability; or, if she had been aware of it, she had
mercifully indulged in no recriminations.

“Well, I’m here,” said Shea, then glanced
quickly around. The sound of his voice in that
solitude was startling.

He felt in no mood for theatricalisms, and that
morning he had given vent to none; but now,
when he tried to express himself otherwise, homely
words failed him. So long had he mantled himself
in the braggadocio rhetoric and rounded phrases
of The Profession, that he could not rid himself
of the bluff which had bolstered up his years of
miserable failure. Therefore, he held his peace
and tried to face facts squarely. The lesson of
primitive silence was another thing that he learned
in this strange land.

Now, for the first time, he became aware that
he had not come off undamaged that morning.
His body was bruised, his face and head were
much cut about by hard knuckles. Also, he had
not eaten since the previous night, and hunger was
beginning to ride him. So he took temporary
possession of Mrs. Crump’s shack and began to
prepare a meal.

The single room of the shack was fairly large,
since it had to serve not only as living quarters
for Mrs. Crump, but as a dining room for all hands.
The walls were rough and bare; like the bunk in
the corner, they were formed from hewn timbers,
unchinked. Gilbert had knocked together a big
mess table; the seats were puncheon stools; in the
lean-to adjoining was the kitchen, consisting of a
small sheet-iron stove, frying pan, and a kettle.
And yet, about this primitive bareness Mrs.
Crump had contrived to throw a fragrance of
femininity—a rag of curtain to the unglazed
window, a faded photograph of the late departed
Crump, a battered clock decorated by a scarlet
cactus flower, an ancient, white, mended lace
counterpane that covered her bunk. And upon
the table, a red cloth that was always spick and
span. Only a Mrs. Crump would have bothered to
bring such tag ends of womanly presence into this
bare and rugged spot in the wilderness.

Contemplating these things, Thady Shea sighed;
he sighed at thought of Mehitabel Crump, doomed
to live in such a place, destitute of all things her
woman’s heart must have craved. He ceased
his sighing, suddenly aware that his bacon was
burned.

Thady Shea knew more about prospecting for
tungsten than he did about cooking. His coffee
was miserable and wretched in spirit. His bacon
was brown and hard as wood. Trying to get
the beans warmed throughout, he forgot to stir
them until unpleasantly reminded of his remissness.
However, by the time he had to light the
oil lamp in order to see his food, he had managed to
make a fair meal, in quantity if not in quality.

Afterward, he filled his pipe and sat in the
doorway, staring upon the empurpled masses of
the mountains that were piled into the evening
sky, and trying to conclude what he must do
next.

Mrs. Crump’s scribbled mention of her revolver
drew a whimsical smile to his lips. He could not
remember having fired a revolver in all his life,
except with stage blanks; and he had not the
slightest intention of learning the art at this time.

He was slightly surprised at his own lack of
feeling in regard to the men whom he had hurt.
His one uneasiness was lest he be arrested—or,
rather, lest someone try to arrest him. He did
not intend to leave Number Sixteen until it was
safe to do so; until he was certain the place was
secure. Therefore, if any officers appeared, a
fight must ensue. Consequences did not matter.
Thady Shea was quite willing to face any ultimate
dispensation of justice so long as he kept Number
Sixteen intact for Mrs. Crump.

“I must make up for what I’ve done,” he reflected.
“Then I can go. I am a failure, a
sodden wreck upon the shoals of self. Once let
my reparation be established, and I shall go forth
into the world again to seek the dregs of fortune
with the bent diviner’s rod of Thespian
mimicry.”

He broke short off, smiling at his own language.

Shea knew inwardly that the old life was
gone from him forever. He looked up at the
looming mountains and felt a sudden savage joy
in himself; a joy that frightened him, so primitive
and sweeping was it. He had fought with men—had
conquered them! In a measure he was done
with all self-recrimination for his weakness and
failure. Those were things of the past. He would
not be weak again! Remorse fell away from him,
and peace came.

The more he thought about arrest, however, the
less probable it seemed. Ben Aimes had given
him liquor, which was in defiance of law. Shea
already knew that Mackintavers et. al. were not
desirous of getting into court unless they had
an ironclad hold upon the other fellow; this was
proven by Mrs. Crump’s having “shot up”
Dorales with impunity. If the proceedings of
the past twenty-four hours were given a public
airing, sundry matters might require explanations
which would be uncomfortable for Mackintavers.

No, upon that count he was perhaps safe
enough; but there would be other counts. They
would try to get him—how? No matter. Here
was another reason why he must leave Number
Sixteen. He must lose himself from those enemies,
and he must not involve Mrs. Crump in the
mix-up.

Thus deciding, it must be admitted rather
vaguely, Thady Shea knocked out his pipe and
sought his bunk. He was not so ill pleased with
himself, after all; he would yet save Number
Sixteen for Mrs. Crump!

The following morning, for the first time in
the weeks since Mrs. Crump had picked him up,
Thady Shea relaxed in blissful indolence. He
had no idea of how the vein or veins of strontianite
should be worked. There was little to do about
the cabin. So he climbed the long hogback and
settled down to smoke and watch the road that
wound down from the cañon toward the lava beds,
the road that led into the world.

The day passed idly and uneventful. With its
passing, Shea felt more assured that his theory
was correct; that he was not to be arrested. So
convinced of this was he, that when, toward
sunset, he discerned a dusty streak betokening the
approach of an automobile, he made certain that
Mrs. Crump was returning.

Thady Shea sat where he was, resolved to tell
her frankly the whole story of his disgrace, then
to pause for no argument, but to go. He did not
so misjudge her as to think that she would kick
him out; still, he felt that he had been false to her
trust, and as a part of his penance he must go
away, until he might be able to come back a
man renewed. A most indistinct idea, this, but
strongly persistent. Besides, he would now be a
marked man and he must not involve her in his
possible danger.

Somewhat to his surprise and uneasiness, as the
approaching flivver drew up the cañon Shea could
not recognize the gigantic figure of Mehitabel
Crump aboard. He saw only three men in the
car, and he knew none of them. Two in the rear
seat were evidently natives; from the dirty and
heavily laden appearance of the car, Shea deduced
that these men had come upon no errand of the
law. They seemed, rather, to be prospectors or
campers.

Near the dust-white flivver the car came to a halt.
The driver alighted, and having previously made
out the motionless figure of Thady Shea on the
hillside above, waved a hand and started upward.
The two natives climbed out and began to unstrap
bundles.

As the visitor came near to him, Shea saw that
the man was powerfully built, roughly dressed, and
possessed striking gray eyes beneath black brows
and hair.

“Howdy, old-timer!” greeted the new arrival,
pausing with outstretched hand and a frank smile.
“My name’s Logan, Tom Logan. We got lost
over in the lava beds and struck your auto tracks.
We’re prospecting. You don’t mind if we camp
out here for the night?”

Shea rose and gravely shook hands.

“Not a bit, my friends,” he said, then pointed a
hundred yards beyond the halted car. “You see
that big rock down the valley? Instruct your
comrades to make camp at that point or below it.”

Logan gave him a puzzled look. That word
“valley” was strange in these parts.

“Eh, partner? You’re not joking?”

“Sir, the habiliments of jest do not become me,”
returned Shea, his cavernous eyes piercingly steady.

“But this is all free country, isn’t it?”

“It is not. No person may intrude upon this
property, sir. You are welcome to water and food
if your needs be such, and I am fain of your company.
Kindly instruct your knaves to move as
I have said.”

For a moment Logan met the gravely firm gaze
of Shea, then turned and lifted his hands to his
mouth. He shouted something in the patois, to
which the two natives waved assent. They turned
their car and took it to the rock that marked the
limit of Mrs. Crump’s location in the cañon. Logan
began to roll a cigarette with deft fingers.

“Prospecting hereabouts, I presume?” he inquired.
“I didn’t get your name.”

Shea found himself warming to the cultivated
accents.

“My name, sir, is Shea.”

“W-whew!” A long whistle broke from Logan,
whose thin lips parted in a smile. “So you’re the
man! I heard about you at Zacaton City last
night. They say you cleaned up Aimes and his
crowd for giving you a drink, and that you threatened
to do worse to any man who offered you one
again! Good thing I didn’t do it, eh? Glad to
meet you, Shea. I’m set against liquor myself.
You’ve sure become famous in this part of the
country!”

Thady Shea did not altogether like the swarthy
features and the odd contrast between steely eyes
and coarse black hair, but he did like applause.
He took the stranger down to the shacks and when
Logan set about cooking an excellent dinner, Shea
was delighted.

Over their meal the two men conversed at
length, chiefly on the subject of mining. Tom
Logan asked no questions about Number Sixteen,
but he formed the private opinion that Thady
Shea was earnest, upright, and a simpleton. Two
thirds of this diagnosis was correct. The other
third was destined to make trouble for Tom
Logan.

At last, over their third pipe, Logan yawned.

“This here is a queer country,” he observed.
“You’re prospecting for gold hereabouts, of
course. But d’you know, Shea, the old prospecting
business is changed? Yes, it is. Nowadays
two thirds of the prospectors turn up their
noses at gold. There are new things in the field,
things that pay better than gold.

“Platinum, for instance; or tungsten or manganese.
Take my own case—I’m one of a dozen
men sent out by a big New York chemical house.
I’m after strontium. It comes in two forms,
celestite and strontianite. Celestite brings about
twenty dollars a ton at seaboard; but strontianite,
when converted into nitrates, brings five hundred.
The average old-time prospector hasn’t the chemical
knowledge to find such things as those.”

“Maybe,” said Shea, reflectively. “But yonder
hillock, black against the stars, holds in its deep
heart veins of mineral; and in those veins, my
friend, there runs an ichor bearing the self-same
name as that you seek.”

Logan stared over this for a moment. Then:

“By jasper! D’you mean that you’ve got
strontianite here?”

“So they do tell me,” averred Shea, modestly.
He added with frankness, that while he held a
third interest in the claim, he knew little of
minerals.

Logan displayed a cordial and friendly interest,
and asked to see samples. Shea found one or two
and set them forth, telling what he knew of the
veins. The interest of the visitor grew and
waxed enthusiastic. Logan examined the samples
closely, and then his gray eyes suddenly struck up
at Shea.

“Look here!” he exclaimed, eagerly. “Would
you, provided the veins and so forth run as you
describe them, accept ten thousand dollars cash for
your interest in this location?”

To Thady Shea this offer came like a thunderbolt
from a clear sky.

“You see,” pursued Logan, “a deposit like this
would answer my company’s purposes admirably.
We might never find another like it. Ten thousand
is not a large offer, but it would be a year or
more before you’d begin to pull money out of the
property. Say yes, and I’ll examine the location
to-morrow; if it’s what you say, I’ll buy your right
and interest in the property, sign the papers, and
before to-morrow night you’ll cash my check.”

Shea rose to his feet. He wanted to get away
from the influence of this man’s personality. He
wanted to ask counsel from the friendly stars.

“I’ll think it over,” he said, unsteadily. “By
myself——”

“Sure,” Logan agreed, heartily. “I’ll make out
the papers, eh? We’re not the kind of men to
haggle and fight each other for price.”

Thady Shea stalked forth into the darkness, his
soul a riot of emotions. “Ten thousand dollars!”
he murmured, staring up at the blazing stars.
What a sum to turn over to Mrs. Crump upon
leaving! With that sum, Mrs. Crump could at
once begin development work, independently of
Logan’s company. With that sum, she could set
trucks at work hauling ore to the railroad. With
that sum, she could do—anything!

It never occurred to him that he might keep the
money for himself; it never occurred to him that
he was actually one third owner of the mine, and
could sell out any time. Never had he thought
about money in connection with Number Sixteen;
he had not mentally placed his partnership with
Mrs. Crump upon any financial basis. It was
because of this very simplicity of thought that Mrs.
Crump had felt drawn to him. It was because of
this, too, that she had instructed Coravel Tio to
record the entire property in the name of Thady
Shea, in order to camouflage her ownership from
the many eyes of Sandy Mackintavers. But this
Shea did not know.

Thady Shea came to the big gray bowlder that
marked the limit of the cañon location. He stood
against it, gazing upward at the stars, lost in his
dream. The rocky mass shut off from him the
flickering fire, built by Logan’s native companions.
Behind, the light in the shack was as another star.
He was alone. He was alone, and in the valley of
decision.

Ten thousand dollars—for Mrs. Crump! Never
had Thady Shea visioned so much money all in one
lump. Nor did he now vision it as his own.

Shea did not know that he was technically and
legally the owner of Number Sixteen. But the
fact was on record, and Tom Logan knew it
perfectly well. Back in the shack, under the oil
lamp, Logan was already chuckling over the
cleverly drawn papers which would make him the
sole owner of Number Sixteen—for the comparatively
unimportant sum of ten thousand
dollars! He had persuaded Sandy Mackintavers
to gamble that sum, to play it as a table stake.

CHAPTER VIII—DORALES GOES TO TOWN
=================================

Standing by that big bowlder, Shea
suddenly awakened from his dream. Out
of the night on the other side of the
bowlder, where the dim fire of the two natives had
flickered into red embers, floated a slow, musical
laugh and a few words. The patois was totally
unknown to Shea. One of those words, however,
drifted across the darkness and smote upon his
brain with jarring force. The laugh, too, was not
honest; it was a silky laugh, a laugh pregnant with
sly meanings and furtive humours. The word was
“Dorales.”

Shea trembled. Dorales! Why did these natives
speak of Dorales in this way?

Now it came into his mind how Tom Logan had
known all about him; how Logan had been in
Zacaton City the previous night; how Logan had
gotten lost in the lava beds—even to Shea’s
innocence a very improbable thing. Prospectors
for limestone formations do not enter the lava
beds.

Latent suspicion crystallized within Shea’s
brain. Tom Logan was no other than Abel
Dorales; he was certain of it, he knew it absolutely.
His eyes were opened, and he sought
for no proof.

Dorales had intended to come here, thinking the
place deserted. In Zacaton City he had learned
that Thady Shea was probably at Number Sixteen.
He had come with cunning intent, he had come
with cunning words and a false tongue. The offer
of ten thousand dollars might or might not be
genuine; no matter!

To the terribly childlike Shea it seemed that
Providence had sent that low word and laugh
through the night to his ears, to save him from
temptation. At thought of how, a few minutes
ago, he had been on the point of swallowing the
gilded lure of Dorales, he shivered and wiped
sweat from his brow.

He turned about and started toward the shacks.

Beside the table where the oil lamp burned,
Dorales was sitting and writing. He filled out a
previously prepared paper which would transfer
to the Empire State Chemical Company, for the
sum of ten thousand dollars, all the rights, holdings,
and so forth, of Thaddeus Shea in the property
underfoot. The company in question consisted
of Sandy Mackintavers.

This paper ready for signatures and witnessing,
Dorales produced a blank check which bore the
almost illegible but widely known signature of A.
Mackintavers. This Dorales filled out in the
name of Thaddeus Shea, and in the amount of ten
thousand dollars. At this instant he heard a
hoarse voice whisper his name—“Dorales!”

“Well?” He glanced up sharply, taken by
surprise.

Into the lighted doorway stepped Thady Shea,
his cavernous eyes blazing. For an instant
Dorales was too completely astounded to move—astounded
by the realization of how he had just
betrayed himself, astounded by the fact that this
gaunt fellow was no simpleton after all!

That instant of indecision was fatal. Dorales
pushed back his chair and came to his feet, one
hand sliding to his coat pocket. Too late! The
big fingers of Thady Shea gripped down on his
wrist, and Shea’s right hand took him by the
left shoulder, and he was staring into the blazing
black eyes of the man he had thought to
cheat.

“I am glad to meet you, friend Dorales!” A
grim smile sat on Shea’s wide lips. “The airy
tongues that syllable men’s names have borne to
me your rightful cognomen.”

Dorales writhed under that iron grip. His left
hand drove up to Shea’s face, landed hard. From
his lips broke a shout for aid.

Under the blow, Shea staggered; he knew
nothing of fighting. He did know, however, that
the shout of Dorales would bring the two Mexicans,
and the knowledge fired him. He merely threw
himself bodily and blindly at Dorales and carried
the latter to the floor.

Luck was kind. Dorales, trying not to fall
underneath, writhed aside; the impetus of Shea’s
rush, or rather fall, threw Abel Dorales headlong
against the wall and knocked him senseless.

After a moment Shea realized that Dorales was
knocked out, relaxed his iron grip, and rose. His
first thought was to turn out the lamp. Then,
taking from the corner the axe helve, Shea passed
outside the shack. He discerned two figures running
toward him in the starlight, and he strode at
them.

The two natives were not at all sure of what had
been going on. They called to Shea, who made no
answer but came steadily at them. Hesitant,
they awaited his approach, again addressing him in
English. For response, Shea heaved up the axe
helve and struck the nearer man senseless.

Here was answer enough. The second man
whipped up a ready revolver and fired hastily; too
hastily, for the bullet only whipped Shea’s lean
cheek and passed over the hogback. An instant
later the axe helve broke the man’s arm.

“Be quiet!” commanded Shea; then considered
that the groaning wretch could not well obey such
an order with a smashed arm. “Go down and
climb into your automobile. Wait there.”

“Si, señor.” The native turned and went into
the night, groaning.

Stooping, Shea picked up the body of the
second man, the one whom he had stricken senseless.
He heaved it up over his shoulder, and
returned to the shack. There he lighted a
match, got the lamp burning again, and clumsily
tied Abel Dorales hand and foot. He rightly considered
that the fight was taken out of the two
natives.

Dorales evinced no symptoms of recovery.
Shea threw some water over the face of his native
prisoner, and presently the man sat up and stared
around. At sight of Shea’s figure, he shrank back
and crossed himself.

“I’ll not hurt you,” said Shea. “Where’s
Mackintavers?”

“At the ranch, señor,” whimpered the wide-eyed
native.

“Is he coming here?”

“No, señor, not until Señor Dorales sends for
him.”

“That will not be for some time.” And Shea
smiled. “Do you know where Mrs. Crump is?”

“I heard Señor Dorales say that she would not
get there until to-morrow night, señor.”

This explained to Shea why Dorales had planned
on cleaning up the sale so hastily. It also set his
mind at rest about Mackintavers, whose arrival he
had feared.

There was no doubt whatever that Dorales had
figured things closely and accurately. Therefore,
Mrs. Crump would return upon the following afternoon
or evening, and in the meantime no other
attempt would be made upon the property.

With this thought in mind, Thady Shea set
about making his departure, for he intended to be
gone when Mrs. Crump arrived home. If Dorales
were safely out of the way for a day or two, there
would be no danger in leaving the mine deserted;
and Shea was already possessed of a scheme for
putting Dorales in cold storage.

Prompt to act upon the swift impulse in his
mind, Shea turned over the cleverly drawn paper
which Dorales had been studying, and upon its
back wrote a note to Mrs. Crump. The check
caught his eye, and he pulled it toward him; smiling
sardonically, he read and reread that magic
slip of paper which stood for ten thousand dollars.

He picked up the check and held it for a moment
over the oil lamp—then he quickly jerked it
back.

“No, I’ll leave it,” he muttered. “She’ll know
I’m honest, perchance! It will be a tongue most
eloquent.”

That sardonic smile still curving his wide lips,
he turned over the check and carefully indorsed
it; across the back of the paper he wrote the same
name which he had signed to the note. The
whimsical thought came to him that, if he
presented this paper at a bank, he would get ten
thousand dollars for Mrs. Crump; he had no
intention of so presenting it, however—had he not
refused the proffered negotiations? He indorsed
that check merely as a mute message to Mrs.
Crump. It quite escaped him that, by so indorsing
it, he had made it good.

He picked up the epistle which he had written,
and read it over, frowning:

  MADAM: If you do not already know of my unhappy
  share in your misfortunes, you may be easily apprised
  of it from other lips. Farewell! I take my leave to
  seek an errant soul upon the roads, and I shall not return
  until some testing has surfeited my most uneasy
  spirit.
  
  —Thaddeus R. Shea.

He folded up the note, and nodded to himself.

“’Tis not so clear as crystal, yet ’twill serve,” he
murmured.

Whether Mrs. Crump would fully understand
the reasons for his departure was immaterial, since
Shea himself did not fully understand them; at
least, he had not figured them into concrete bases.
His idea of doing penance, of seeking either ultimate
strength or ultimate failure again in the
world, was vague. His secondary motive, that of
not drawing his benefactress into his own danger
from the Mackintavers forces, was equally vague,
since Mrs. Crump was far more imperilled and far
better equipped to face such peril than he.

However, it is these vague impulses which
often lead men upon the trail of fate, and thus it
proved with Thady Shea.

He left the note upon the table, and with it the
indorsed check and legally phrased paper, knowing
that these would in some measure make matters
clear to Mrs. Crump. Then he procured that
lady’s whiskey and poured a generous portion into
a tin cup. This time, he deliberately smelled of
it, and smiled grimly. Mrs. Crump kept on hand
a vial of laudanum for the sake of recurrent toothache,
and from this vial he dropped a little of the
drug into the whiskey.

“Friend Dorales will sleep to-night, methinks,”
he said to the staring native captive. “Lift up his
head!”

The native picked up the head and shoulders of
the still senseless Dorales. Forcing open the
thin, strong lips, Shea poured his mixture into the
man’s mouth. Dorales choked, but swallowed it
and began to revive.

Shea packed his few belongings, regretfully left
the historic axe helve for Mrs. Crump, then motioned
his prisoner to help him lift Dorales. The
latter was now swearing luridly but feebly. Together
they carried him out into the darkness.

Ten minutes later Dorales was snoring in the
tonneau of Mackintavers’ flivver, beside the
injured native. By the light of the lamps, the
uninjured captive was working under the directions
of Shea, who had realized that upon reaching
home Mrs. Crump would be unable to use her own
car without tires.

So Shea stripped the enemy car, left the tires
beside the dust-white flivver, and then climbed
into his captured vehicle. Having disarmed his
conquered foemen, he had nothing to fear from
them, and headed his bumpy equipage toward No
Agua. When the cañon road warned him that he
was close to that lone hovel of desolation, he
stopped the car and took from his pocket Mrs.
Crump’s flask into which he had emptied the
laudanum vial. He turned to the two natives, one
of whom was groaning and shivering, the other
merely shivering.

“Friends,” he said, sonorously, “drink—or take
the consequences.”

Knowing from the example of Abel Dorales that
the flask contained nothing worse than sleep,
mingled with liquor, the two natives drank the
contents with avidity. Shea tossed away the
empty flask, envy in his eye; he wanted a drink
very badly—but he did not want one badly
enough to take it.

Passing the No Agua store with a rattle and
clatter, Shea considered swiftly. If he went south
to Silver City he might meet Mrs. Crump, and he
had no desire to meet her at present. If he went
west, he would get into Arizona. All he knew
about Arizona was founded upon the drama of that
name; the prospect of being scalped by Apaches or
otherwise mutilated did not invite his soul particularly.

So he turned east to Zacaton City, confident that
he could pass through that nest of enemies before
dawn, and with a vague scheme already in his
mind. All he wanted was to get clear away, and
he mentally blessed that vial of laudanum.

It was shortly before dawn when the snoring
mechanic in Aimes’ garage was awakened by a tall,
gaunt stranger.

“Friend,” said Shea to the yawning mechanic,
“in this my vehicle behold three villains, scoundrels
of the deepest dye! But yesternight they
tried to jump my claim, wherefore I laid them by
the heels, and charge you, upon your honest
visage, guard them well until the sheriff shall
appear to claim them.”

After some repetition the astonished mechanic
gathered that this gaunt stranger had brought in
three claim jumpers to be held until the sheriff arrived.
Not having participated in the events of
Sunday morning, the mechanic was blissfully
ignorant of Shea’s identity, and Thady had no
intention of disclosing it. Despite protest, Shea
left the crippled flivver in the garage, the
three snoring occupants being obviously safe for
another twenty-four hours. Having been carefully
dirtied and disguised by Dorales himself, the
flivver was not recognized immediately as that of
Sandy Mackintavers.

These things successfully accomplished, Thady
Shea faded into the gray dawn. For lack of better
direction, he took the rough and rugged road that
led off to Datil and the transcontinental highway
into Magdalena. He had no illusions about
arrest not being probable in *this* case, and he
desired to avoid arrest.

Zacaton City was ere long in a roar of half-wrathful
enjoyment. The three “claim jumpers,”
who slept like the dead and refused to be awakened,
were soon known as Abel Dorales, tied hand and
foot, and two natives from the Mackintavers
ranch, one having a broken arm. The garage
mechanic’s description of Thady Shea was accurate
and recognizable. Details were lacking and could
not be obtained until the drugged men awakened—but
details were largely unnecessary.

Ben Aimes did not telephone to Mackintavers
at the ranch; at the time, this seemed a rather
superfluous detail. The news bearer would have
a thankless and possibly dangerous job, so Ben
Aimes left Mackintavers alone, and left Dorales to
tell the sorry tale in person. However, Aimes
swore out warrants charging battery and other
things, and sent automobiles forth to bring in
Thady Shea.

Him they did not find; but they went as far as
Magdalena, spreading the story as they progressed.
Within three days, this immediate section of the
state was in a roar of laughter; Dorales had a
reputation as “the worst man to monkey with” in
existence. Added to the joke was the story of
Thady Shea and the axe helve, which travelled fast
and far. Neither story reached the Mackintavers
ranch fast enough, however.

On the afternoon following Thady Shea’s desertion
of Number Sixteen, Mrs. Crump arrived
there in a hired car from Silver City. She came
alone; Gilbert and Lewis were in jail awaiting
bail, and she came only to make sure that Number
Sixteen had escaped the ravishers.

By this time Mrs. Crump knew all about what
had happened to Thady Shea in Zacaton City, and
how the disaster had come upon her, but she had
made no comments. At the shack, she found the
papers which Thady Shea had left. She read his
note, and muttered something about “damned
fool.” Then she took the check which he had
indorsed, returned to her hired car, and before
midnight was back in Silver City.

At nine the next morning the Silver City bank
telephoned Sandy Mackintavers over long distance
regarding a check for ten thousand dollars
issued to one Thady Shea, and properly indorsed,
which had been presented for payment by Mrs.
Crump. Promptly and delightedly Mackintavers
gave it his O. K. Quite naturally, he considered
that Abel Dorales had carried his mission to
success, and that Number Sixteen now belonged to
the Empire State Chemical Company.

But that evening, when Dorales arrived with
new tires on the flivver, Mackintavers learned
what had really taken place. Then he telephoned
to Silver City in all haste, only to find that he was
out ten thousand big round dollars. He had
gambled, and he had lost his stake.

Dorales spent a most unpleasant evening.
Despite everything, even the monetary loss, which
rankled to the very bottom of his soul, Mackintavers
had a deep grain of humour. This was the
first time he had ever known Abel Dorales to be
put absolutely down and out; he gave his humour
full vent until Dorales, who had no humour whatever,
writhed under the lash.

“It’s your loss most of all,” growled Dorales,
white lipped and venomous.

“Aiblins, yes.” Mackintavers fell grave.
“We’ll leave Mrs. Crump alone for the present;
never fear, I’ll get that money back, with interest!
I’ve a scheme in the back of my head that will work
on her a bit later. Are ye going to hide out till the
laughing’s done with?”

“Hide—hell!” snarled Dorales, viciously. “The
first man that laughs to my face, except you, gets
something to remember. And,” he added, slowly,
“I’m not so sure about excepting you, Sandy.”

“There, there, cannot ye take a joke?” returned
Mackintavers, hastily. “I’ve suffered the most,
but leave Mrs. Crump be for the present. I want
to get the matter o’ those stone idols settled, and
under cover o’ the noise it will make when I become
a scientist, then we’ll take over this strontianite
mine.

“I want ye to go up to Santa Fé, and get a big
sack o’ silver dollars. I’ve me eye on two or
three o’ them Cochiti redskins and I think ye can
bribe ’em. If——”

“What about this man Shea?” snapped Dorales.
“I’m going to get him if it takes me ten years!
I’m going to write my name in his hide with a
knife!”

“Ye shall; he’ll be here when ye get back from
Santa Fé,” soothed Mackintavers. “He can’t
hide out long, Abel. I’ll have him held for ye.”

“You’d better,” said the other, sourly. “I
don’t like wasting time on these idols, anyway. I
never knew any good to come of bothering the
Indian gods, Sandy.”

Mackintavers only laughed, although not without
a frown to follow the laugh. He was wondering
if the presence of those gods in his house had
brought him the loss of ten thousand dollars. He
was the last man on earth to let superstition alter
his plans; yet he was Scottish, and he could not
help wondering—just a little.

CHAPTER IX—THE WICKER DEMIJOHN
==============================

As has been related, Thady Shea somewhat
vaguely set out upon the way to
Magdalena, after disposing of his shoeless
flivver and its snoring load.

The dawn came up and found him plodding onward.
An hour later he was hailed from the roadside
by a venerable ancient having one very blue
eye and a long white beard. This worthy proved
to be a tramp printer, who intended to get work at
Magdalena when his money gave out.

For the present, however, the ancient had no
intention of working; so he proposed a road
partnership, stating that he liked Shea’s looks.
Thady Shea wanted to sleep, which “Dad”
Griffith, as the ancient was named, deemed a
highly laudable ambition.

Accordingly, a little while afterward, Shea
found himself snugly ensconced in a camp well
back from the road and well hidden in a clump of
trees. Before sleeping, he explored his pockets and
found some money, left from the sum given him
by Mrs. Crump for his Zacaton City purchases.

“Take it, friend,” he said, drowsily, thrusting the
money upon the ancient. “Take it, and add it to
thy scanty store, that so we may have wherewithal
to live.”

“You bet I will, partner,” and Dad Griffith
seized it. “It’ll keep us quite a spell, with what
I got. No sense workin’, I says, when they’s no
need. I figger on gettin’ a job to Magdalena when
I got to work. I had a job there two year ago.
These here goshly-gorful linotypes is puttin’
honest printers out o’ business. Why, I seen th’
day——”

In the midst of a dissertation upon the elegancies
of hand-set type and the blasted frightfulness of
an existence surrounded by linotype machines,
Shea stretched out and fell asleep. The ancient
droned along, regardless. When Shea wakened
toward sunset, old Griffith was still discoursing
upon the same topic.

Over a tiny smokeless fire Griffith conjured
biscuits, coffee, and beans, and the two men ate.
Thady Shea probed his companion’s mind for
future plans, and found only a vague emptiness;
the ancient liked to spend each night in a different
spot, that was all. Thady Shea proposed, with
pursuit in mind, that it might be better to camp
during the day and to tramp at night.

At this suggestion the ancient winked his one
intensely blue eye. He winked with the uncanny
gusto of an old man, with the horrible craftiness
of an old man. His one eye winked, and the
ancient was transformed. He became an emblem
of doddering truancy, a living symbol of the
soul which desires ever to flee responsibilities and
to shirk the onus of labour inherited from Father
Adam.

“Suits me, pardner. I used to do that over in
Missouri, one time, ’count of a hawg bein’ missed
from a pen. Anyhow, these nights is too cold
to sleep ’thout blankets, which mine ain’t extra
good.

“Still, a spry young feller like you, Thady,
ought to have more get up an’ get to him than to be
gettin’ in a mess o’ trouble. Take a goshly-gorful
old ranger like me, and it’s all right; I’m a sinful
man, an’ proud of it. But you, now—you’d ought
to be aimin’ for something. I know, I do! That’s
the trouble with folks; ain’t got no aim ahead.
But no use talkin’. You got your reasons, I
reckon.”

Thady Shea sat and stared into the fire. He
did not take the hint to retail his story. He was
suddenly thinking.

Memory worked within him. “It ain’t lack of
ambition that makes folks mis’able and unsatisfied;
it’s lack o’ purpose!” Mrs. Crump had said those
words, and they had been burned into Shea’s
brain. Purpose, indeed! What purpose now lay
ahead, except the vague desire to rehabilitate
himself? To become a vagrant with this tramp
printer—why, this would be to shake off all the
shackles of purpose! Yet, what else was there to
do? What could be done, except to evade the
law which by this time must be seeking him?

His head drooped. Was some higher Power
extending its hand against him, closing every
avenue of escape from his old drifting existence,
forcing him back into vagrancy? His eyes
widened under the thought. The thought staggered
him. Then, slowly, his mouth tightened,
his wide lips drew firmly clenched. A flush of
fever darkened his high cheekbones.

Very well; he would go on fighting! For once
the superstitious nature of the man was borne
down by his inward anger, was borne down by the
impotent feeling that he was a pawn in Destiny’s
game; he rebelled against it. He rebelled against
everything.

“By heaven, I’ll *make* a purpose!” he mentally
vowed. “I’ll look for one—find one—fight for
one!”

Even as the words rose in him, he choked down
a vague feeling that they were false and erroneous,
a feeling that this purpose could not be sought, but
must seek him out, must come to him of itself.
Yet he choked down the feeling, repulsed it.
He reiterated his mental vow, fiercely insistent
upon it.

All this while the ancient had been droning
something about the beauties of the old flat-bed
presses, and the goshly-gorfulness of machine
printing. Now Shea became aware of a more
personal note in the droning.

“If I was you,” and the ancient chuckled in his
dirty white beard, transfixing Thady Shea with his
one bright-blue eye, “if I was you, I’d grow
whiskers!

“They’s places and places I can’t never go no
more without these here whiskers. Yes, they is!
I’m a sinful man an’ proud of it; mebbe ye think
I’m old, but I can show you young fellers a thing
or two, he, he! Grow whiskers, Thady. You can
take ’em with ye to go a-sinning, and then go
back over the same trail without ’em, and nobody
the wiser!”

Shea’s gorge rose. He suddenly saw Dad
Griffith as the latter really was—a foul old man, a
worthless wastrel of humanity, seemingly dead to
all higher things. He grew afraid for himself; he
was vaguely alarmed, as though he had touched
some slimy, crawling thing in the darkness. He
came to his feet with an impellent desire to crush
this unholy man like a toad, to flee into the night,
to lie under the stars and seek clearance for his
troubles. However, he did none of these things.
Shea reached for his pipe, filled it, lighted it with
an ember from the fire. Here he got a new
sensation—the tang and sweetness of an ember-lighted
pipe!

“Let’s be moving,” said Thady Shea, crisply.
“It’s a fine night.”

An hour later they were plodding along, sharing
the load of provisions. Thady Shea was quite
aware that something was wrong with him in the
body, but he felt no definite pain. It was an
errant “something” which he could not place,
and which he was too uplifted in spirit to heed.

The night wore on. With every step, Thady
Shea was learning from the lore of Dad Griffith.
He was learning the worldly wise lore of the roads—to
walk with straight feet, to carry his body uphill
on bended knees, to take the high side of a
wet trail. The ancient talked continually, eternally.
The ancient seemed to like Thady Shea
immensely.

Some time after midnight they left the road
by a faint and unknown trail, followed it until
they were weary, and then camped. Griffith had
a pair of tattered blankets. Thady Shea refused
to share them; he slept in his clothes. When he
wakened at sunrise his head was heavy with fever.
A mile distant the ancient descried a creek, and
they moved over to it for the day. Thady Shea
felt peculiar, and detailed his symptoms, whereupon
the ancient produced a tattered little case of
leather. He opened the case and disclosed three
vials.

“All the med’cine a man needs, I claim,” he
declared. “Middle one’s quinine; right’s physic;
left’s physic again, only more so. Take your
choice, one or all!”

“Give me the more so,” said Thady, who felt
miserable in the extreme.

The ancient began to look alarmed. His one
intensely blue eye shone with an uneasy light.
His continual talk became querulous. After a
time he forced Thady Shea to continue their
progress; the trail, said he, must lead them to a
ranch. Groaning, Shea protested; but presently
he yielded to the urgings of Griffith. The two
men followed the trail.

There was a man named Fred Ross, who had
homesteaded a cañon in the hills beyond the
Datils. Thus far unmarried, although he had
his hopes, he lived alone; a hard, rough man,
kindly at heart, redly wrinkled of face, and keenly
alert of eye, he shot beaver and turkey when the
forest rangers were not around, and fared well.
Indeed, he was wont to say that he was the last
man in the United States to know the taste of
that succulent morsel, a beaver’s tail.

Fred Ross was plowing on the flat behind his
shack when he observed the approach of a tattered
old man who moved in trembling haste. Having
no liking for tramps, Ross set his hands on his
hips and met the visitor with a vigilant eye.

“Well?” he snapped. “Who in time are *you*?”

“Don’t matter ’bout me, mister,” said the
other, agitatedly pawing a long and dirty white
beard. “A friend o’ mine is down the cañon a
ways, plumb petered out. He was took sick last
night—I reckon he’s got a touch o’ fever. D’you
s’pose you could let him lay somewheres—mebbe
in that cowshed yonder?”

“You be damned, you old fool,” said Ross,
harshly. “I ain’t got no room for sick men in my
shed—which ain’t no cowshed, neither. Where
is he?”

“He—he give out by them trees,” faltered Dad
Griffith, backing away. “I got a little money,
mister——”

“You be blistered, you an’ your money!”
roared Ross. “I don’t want no tramps around
here, savvy? I got trouble of my own. Let’s
have a look at this friend o’ yours—if you-all are
tryin’ any skin game on *me*, look out!”

He strode forward, and Dad Griffith fluttered
away. After him strode Ross. Ten minutes
later they came to the gaunt figure of Thady Shea
lying beneath some scrub oaks and muttering
faintly. Ross leaned over him then straightened
up and faced the ancient.

“You—on your way!” he said, roughly, “I’ll
take care o’ this feller, but I don’t aim to keep
two of ye.”

“Devil take ye, I don’t want none of ye!”
quavered Griffith in querulous anger. “I’m goin’
to Magdalena to get me a job; you tell him so when
he can travel, ye goshly-gorful old ranch hand!”

Disdaining a response, Ross stooped; after some
effort, he got Thady Shea in the “fireman’s grip”
and staggered erect, the delirious man still muttering.
He turned and walked toward his shack,
striding heavily under the burden. Dad Griffith
hesitated, then wagged his beard—he did not
deem it wise to follow.

“Hey!” he lifted his voice after the departing
rancher. “You be good to him, hear me? Mind
my words, if ye ain’t good to him I’ll—I’ll come
back and burn ye out some night!”

Ross paid no heed but strode on out of sight.
Dad Griffith shook his fist in senile rage, then
slowly, and with a sigh, turned about and started
in the opposite direction.

The shack which Ross had built, anticipating
matrimony, was a two-room affair with a lean-to
kitchen. Grunting beneath his load, Ross stooped
into the house and deposited Thady Shea upon
an iron bed.

Ross came erect, panting, and stared down at
Shea’s fever-flushed features. He scratched his
head, as though in perplexity, and his eyes were
suddenly very kindly.

“Poor devil!” he said, being a man who talked
much to himself. “Poor devil! Got a real good
face, too. What in time can I do? The car’s
broke down and there’s no doctor closer’n Magdalena
anyhow. Well, I never knowed whiskey to
fail curin’ any trouble, and I guess a bit o’ quinine
will help out. Thank the Lord I got whiskey to
burn!”

He went to a cupboard in the corner and drew
forth a wicker demijohn, a new demijohn, a demijohn
that hung heavy in his hand. Upon the
chair beside the bed he put a big crockery cup,
thick and heavy. He poured whiskey into it; he
filled it nearly to the brim with raw red liquor; a
ray of sunlight fell upon the cup and made it seem
filled with rich thin blood.

“Just for a starter,” murmured Ross. “Now
the quinine.”

The hours passed, and darkness fell. Ross
went out to stable and bed down his team. He
came back, ate, resumed his vigil.

Ross was starkly amazed by his muttering
patient. Cup upon cup of whiskey and quinine he
poured down the gaunt man’s throat; the man
drank it like water, avidly, without visible effect.
He seemed to soak up the raw red liquid as a
sponge soaks up water. It seeped down his
throat and was gone.

“My Lord!” exclaimed Ross at last, awed
despite himself. “The man ain’t human!”

Thady Shea was human; although invisible, the
effect was there. Through the hours of darkness
his sonorous voice rose and filled the shack. He
spoke of things past the understanding of the
watching Ross. He used strange names—names
like Ophelia or Rosalind or Desdemona; at times
passion shook his voice, a fury of resonant passion;
at times his words trembled with grief, his rolling
words quavered and surged with a vehemently
agonized utterance, until the listening Ross felt
a vague ache wrenched into his own throat.

About midnight, Thady Shea fell asleep. It
was a deep, full slumber, a slumber of stertorous
breathing, a sound and absolute slumber, a
drunken slumber. Thady Shea lay motionless
except for his deeply heaving chest. His hands,
face, and body were glistening wet, were wet with
perspiration that streamed from him, were wet
with salty sweat oozing from his fever-baked flesh.
Fred Ross turned out the lamp and climbed into a
bunk in the corner.

“That ends it,” he said, drowsily. “He’ll sweat
out the fever and sleep off the whiskey, and wake
up cured. Can’t beat whiskey! Cures everything!”

Upon the following morning Ross returned from
his chores to find Thady Shea still lustily snoring,
the fever gone. He got breakfast and departed
to his work, leaving the coffee ready to hand.
From time to time he came in from the nearer end
of the flat to inspect his patient. He was a big
man, a rough-tongued man, a deep-hearted man.

Thady Shea wakened to an uncomfortable
sensation. He dimly and vaguely recognized the
sensation; he was bewildered and frightened by it.
He had felt that uncomfortable sensation many
times in his life, always on the morning after a
night spent with the jorum.

He tried to sit up, and succeeded, only to close
his eyes before a blinding wave of pain. A headache?
It went with the other symptoms, of course.
He had no remembrance of drinking. Indeed, he
had a fierce remembrance of having meant never
to drink again. Where was he and how had he
come here? His last memory was of trees, and
the ancient helping him as he sank down. He
looked around; the strange room bewildered him.

He was maddeningly conscious that his body,
his soul, his whole being, was a soaked and impregnated
thing, soaked and impregnated with
whiskey. His body cried out for more whiskey, his
soul writhed within him for more whiskey. His
haggard gaze fell upon a cup, on a chair at his
bedside. He reached out and picked up the cup.
It was half full of bitter whiskey, and a bottle of
powdered quinine explained the bitterness.

Even then, Shea hesitated. He hesitated, but
he could not resist. No living man could have
resisted the fearful outcry of body and soul upon
such an awakening. It was no mere craving. It
was a tumultuous, riotous, lawless eagerness—a
fierceness for whiskey, an awful tormenting passion
for whiskey such as he had never before known.
That was because of the flood that had seeped
and soaked through his whole being. The raw
red liquor like thin blood had permeated all his
body tissues and nerves, as water permeates the
sun-dried earth, leaving it not the hard white
earth but the brown soft mud. The earth dries
again and cracks open, calling avidly for more
water. So with Thady Shea’s body and soul.

He drank gulpingly, until the cup was empty.
He sat down the cup; it was a heavy cup of thick
crockery. His nostrils quivered to the smell of
coffee. He began to take in his surroundings, to
realize them, to appraise them. He began to
understand that he must have been drunk. Drunk!
Who was responsible?

A shadow darkened the morning sunlight in the
doorway. There on the threshold, a black blotch
against the brightness outside, stood Fred Ross,
staring at the man who sat on the edge of the bed
and stared back at him. Shea saw only a man—the
man responsible.

“Did you——” He paused, licked his lips, and
continued thickly. “Did you give me whiskey?
Did you?”

Ross stepped into the room.

“Yes, I did,” he began, roughly. He did not
finish.

Something shot from the bedside, something
large and thick, something white and heavy, that
left the hand of Thady Shea like a bullet. It was
the thick, heavy crockery cup. Shea flung it
blindly. It struck Ross over the ear with a
“*whick!*”

Fred Ross looked vaguely surprised. His knees
appeared to give way beneath him. He caught at
the table and seemed to swing himself forward, half
around. He fell, and lay without moving. The
heavy white crockery cup, unhurt by the impact,
rolled in the doorway.

Relaxing on the edge of the bed, Thady Shea
gave no more attention to Fred Ross, but lowered
his face in his two hands. They were big, strong
hands; they clutched into his hair and skin until
their knuckles stood out white. Shea sat motionless,
thus, as though he were trying to produce
some exterior which would quell the anguish within
him.

His voice rang with a sonorous bitterness as he
spoke aloud. The recumbent Ross moved, then
sat up with a lithe, agile motion; but Thady Shea
did not stir. He was lost in the words that seemed
wrung from his very soul.

“I’ve tried, I’ve tried! How have I been weak,
how have I failed? Yet I have failed. I’ve been
drunk. I always fail.”

His speech was heavy, slow, words coming
tenuously to his numbed brain. He did not hear
the slight sound made by Ross in rising erect, in
stepping to the wall. He did not see Ross at all,
nor the hand of Ross that plucked a revolver
from a holster suspended on the wall. He spoke
again, the words coming with more coherence.

“Always an unseen hand blocks me. Is it your
doing, oh, God? Before, it was my own fault,
for I was weak. This time it was not my fault;
I knew nothing about it. God, are You trying to
turn me back into the old shiftless life, into the
old vagabond, aimless existence? God, are You
trying to make me a drunkard again? Are You
trying to rob me of all purpose?”

He paused. The breath came from his lungs;
it was a deep and uneven breath, a sobbing breath,
the breath of one who is fast in the grip of terrible
emotion. At him stood and stared Ross. Inch
by inch the revolver lowered. The keen, alert,
battling eyes of the rancher were filled with perplexity,
with comprehension, with a strange gentleness.
Again Shea spoke, his face still in his hands:

“I’ve done my best, God knows! I’ve put
whiskey out of my life, stifled the craving for it,
forgotten about it. And now—now! Why is it
that even this one purpose is denied me? Is there
no help—is there no help? Is there no help for——”

His fingers clenched upon his iron-gray hair,
swept through it. His head came up. His blazing
black eyes stared into the gaze of Ross. For
half a moment the two men looked at each other,
motionless.

Then, abruptly, Ross pushed home the revolver
into its holster.

“Pardner,” he said, casually, “let’s have a cup
o’ coffee.”

He went to the stove in the kitchen, raked up
charred black brands, opened the draft, and put
the coffeepot over the kindling embers. He set
two thick crockery cups upon the boards of the
table. He got out spoons and sugar and “canned
cow.” Then he turned to the other room and
with a jerk of the head invited his guest.

Thady Shea rose, very unsteadily, and came.

CHAPTER X—MRS. CRUMP SAYS SOMETHING
===================================

Over the rough table Fred Ross delivered
himself.

“Something about you I like, Thady
Shea,” he said, level-eyed. “The old man who
fetched you here told me your name. Don’t know
anything more about you. Didn’t know whiskey
was bad for you; anyway, it cured the fever. First
I knew about you was in yonder, when you talked.
Damn good thing for you, pardner! Savvy? Yes.

“Tell you somethin’. I used to be range rider—a
puncher, savvy? Forty a month. No future.
Never mind the details, but it come to me that
if I didn’t get somethin’ to work for, I might’s
well quit livin’. So I took up this here quarter
section and started in. It cost me dear, I’m
tellin’ you!

“I sweat blood over every inch o’ this here land.
Folks said it was no good. I put up this shack,
put it up right. I set in to raise crops. I put my
body into it. I put my heart into it. I put my
livin’ eternal soul into it—and by the Lord I’m
goin’ to win! I had somethin’ to work for, that’s
all.”

Ross leaned back. The flame died from his
eyes. He surveyed Thady Shea critically, appraisingly,
generously.

“When I heard what you said, in yonder,” he
pursued, “I seen all of a sudden that you were a
man like me. Savvy? Yes. I don’t blame you,
now, for lamming me over the ear like you done.
My Lord! Ain’t I talked to God like you done in
there? Ain’t things come up to rip the very guts
out o’ my soul? Well, it’s like that with all folks,
I guess, only it comes different. Savvy? Yes. I
gave you whiskey, and I was a damn fool. That’s
all.”

Ross rose and began to clatter dishes into the
dishpan. Thady Shea rose and went to the doorway.
He stood there, looking up the east-running
cañon toward the morning sun. He did not see
the half-plowed flat, he did not see the horses and
plow; he did not see the piñon trees and the trickle
of water. Tears were in his eyes. For one blazing
moment he had seen into the soul of Fred Ross,
the iron soul, the gentle soul, the brave soul of
Fred Ross.

Suddenly he turned about, feeling upon his
shoulder the hand of the other man.

“Shea, you asked a while ago if there wasn’t no
help. Well, maybe there is—if you want it. Do
you?”

“Yes,” said Thady Shea, huskily.

Upon the following morning he started in to
work; he was a bit weak, but he insisted upon
working. He dared not do without working.
He began to clear another flat farther up the
cañon, ridding it of brush and scrub oak and
piñons.

As he worked, Thady Shea thought much of
that wicker demijohn, back in the cupboard of
the shack. Once, when he came in to luncheon
ahead of Ross, he opened the cupboard. He
looked at the clean wicker demijohn, the new
demijohn, the demijohn which hung so heavily
and lovingly to the hand; as he looked, a sunbeam
struck the glass behind the woven wicker and made
it seem filled with rich thin blood. Thady Shea
shivered—and shut the door. But he could not
shut that demijohn from his thoughts.

He prayed, every hour he worked, that Ross
would hide away that demijohn. He said nothing
to Ross about it; he felt vaguely ashamed to let
Ross know of his struggles with himself. He
shrank from revealing how he was tempted.

Days passed. Twice, now, Thady Shea had
come in from work merely to open that door and
look at the demijohn. The first time, he had forced
himself to be content with the look. The second
time he hefted it; then he reached for the cork,
trembling—but just then the step of Ross approached,
and Shea replaced the demijohn. He
knew that he had been saturated with liquor, that
in his involuntary carouse his body had seeped
up the whiskey as the thirsty earth seeps up water.
The craving was there, the wicked craving of the
cracked earth for water.

Terrible were the first few nights. Despite
weariness, sleep would not come. On tiptoe
Thady Shea would sneak out of the shack, out
into the bitter cold night, out under the white,
cold stars. He would stride up and down the cold
earth until the chill ate into his bones; then,
shivering, he would tiptoe back and roll up in his
blankets, thinking how a drink would warm him.

As the days passed, he worked harder. He
slaved until, at darkness, he would nod over his
pipe. He did not shave, remembering the words
of the ancient, and his gaunt face became filled
and strengthened by an iron-gray beard.

All the while he cursed his aimlessness, his lack
of purpose. He was looking out, beyond the
present; he was looking over the horizon. He was
thinking of Mrs. Crump. He prayed under a
sweat-soaked brow that some great flaming purpose
would come into his life. The word “purpose”
had become to him a creed, a mania.

He did not realize, except very dimly, that for
him life had already centred upon one immediate
and tremendous purpose: to avoid, to shrink from,
that clean wicker demijohn in the corner cupboard!
Unawares, the purpose had come to him.

And then, upon a day, Fred Ross patched the
broken flivver and went to Datil for grub. Thady
Shea was left alone, alone with the ranch, alone
with the piñon trees and the horses, alone with
the shack, alone with the corner cupboard and
the clean wicker demijohn. Fred Ross did not
seem to perceive any danger in leaving Shea thus
alone.

Fred Ross reached the store at Datil about noon,
after a long pull. Datil lay on the highway, where
lordly Packards and lowly Fords wended east and
west, between California and St Louis. Datil was
nothing more than a frame store-hotel-post office.
In the rear of the long building were sheds, relics
of the days when the far ranchers came in on
horseback, of the days when burros and bearded
prospectors and unrestricted Indians roused talk
of great and blood-stirring events.

A mixed company lunched that day in the long
dining room. Ross was too late for the first table,
and he stood waiting in the adjoining room, smoking
by the huge cobbled fireplace, talking with
other men who had drifted along too late for the
first serving.

The talk struck upon Thady Shea and the huge
joke of which Abel Dorales had been the victim.
Ross listened and said nothing, as was his wont.
He heard that Thady Shea had skipped the
country; had, at any rate, not been found—must
have gone over the Arizona line.

“Too bad,” commented a sturdy rancher from
Quemado way. “He must ha’ been a right strapping guy,
eh? And what he done down to Zacaton,
when Ben Aimes give him a drink—say, ain’t ye
heard ’bout that? It’s sure rich!”

The speaker recounted, with many added elaborations
and details, the story of Thady Shea and
his axe helve. Fred Ross listened in silence. Fred
Ross thought of that heavy white crockery cup;
reflectively, he rubbed his head above his ear, and
grinned to himself. He was not the only one who
had suffered for giving Thady Shea a drink, then!

When the talk turned upon reprisals, Fred Ross
listened with more attention. Charges had been
sworn out against Shea, it appeared; they had
been sworn out by that fool Aimes, but had later
been withdrawn. Abel Dorales had seen to it
that they had been withdrawn. Abel Dorales
had come to Magdalena; there he had half killed
three drunken miners who had ventured to taunt
him, and for the same reason he had taken a blacksnake
to a sheepman. Abel Dorales had given
out that he, and he alone, intended to deal with
Thady Shea whenever the latter was found. It
was a personal matter, outside the law. This
attitude met with general approval.

“Not so bad!” reflected Fred Ross, as he
passed in to his meal. “Not so bad! The law
ain’t after him, anyhow. Now, if he’s let that
demijohn alone to-day, I reckon he’s all right.
Pretty tough on him, maybe, to leave him alone,
but——”

The ins and outs of the business transaction
attempted by Dorales, the transaction concerning
Number Sixteen, had, of course, not been made
public. But the general gist of the matter was an
open secret. The joke on Dorales was huge, and
was immensely appreciated.

The meal over, Ross went out to his car in order
to get his tobacco. He idly observed that alongside
his own flivver had been run another, a dust-white
flivver with new tires. He paid no attention
to it until he was drawn by the sound of a voice
which he instantly recognized. He stood quiet,
listening, looking toward the two figures on the
far side of the dust-white flivver; they did not see
him at all.

“No’m,” said the voice which Ross had recognized.
“No’m, I couldn’t get no work to Magdalena.
Things is in a goshly-gorful state in the
printing business! I done walked here, aiming to
make for Saint Johns, over the Arizony line.
Seein’s you’re headed that way, ma’am, if ye could
give me a lift——”

“Walked here, did ye?” cut in a voice strange
to Ross. “Had any vittles?”

“Not to speak of, ma’am. I’m busted.”

“Well, you trot right in alongside o’ me. Hurry
up, now—ain’t got much time to waste. My
land, of all the fool men—and at your age! Hurry
up.”

The two figures departed toward the stirrup-high
open flooring that formed a porch the length
of the frame building. One was the figure of Dad
Griffith. The other was the figure of a very large
woman, harsh of features; she was clad in ragged
but neat khaki, and beneath her chin were tied
the strings of an old black bonnet. Against her
wrinkled features glowed two bright-blue eyes
with the brilliancy of living jewels, giving the lie
to their surrounding tokens of age. She was
unknown to Fred Ross.

Filling his pipe, the homesteader sought out the
store, and, with inevitable delays, set to work
making his purchases. This was an occupation
demanding ceremony. Other men were here on
the same errand, and there was gossip of crops,
land, and war to be swapped. This was the
forum of the countryside, the agora of the scattered
ranches.

Thus it happened that by the time Ross went
to his car with an armload of supplies old Dad
Griffith had finished his meal and was lounging on
the steps of the stirrup-high porch. He started
up at sight of Ross, who paid no attention to him,
and followed the rancher out to the car.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, eagerly. “Where’s that
there partner of mine?”

Ross dumped his purchases into the car and
turned. He desired only to be rid of this parasite,
to be rid of him for good and all—and to rid
Thady Shea of him.

“He’s where you left him, old-timer—and where
you’re not wanted.”

“Is—is he all right?”

“Sure. I fed him whiskey until he got well.
He’s there now with a demijohn. I never seen a
man able to swallow more red licker than that
partner of yours! But you needn’t go showing
your nose around there, savvy? He’s workin’ for
me and you’re not wanted.”

“You go to hell!” spluttered the wrathful
ancient. “You goshly-gorful old ranch hand!
That’s what you are!”

Ross laughed, swung about to his flivver, and
cranked up. He turned the car and vanished
amid a trail of dust, leaving the ancient to sputter
senile threats and curses. He accounted himself
well rid of that old vagabond, in which he was
quite right.

It was late in the afternoon when Ross got
home; the trail to his cañon from the county road
was wretchedly rough. As he drove, he began
to blame himself for having left Thady Shea all
alone, throughout the day from sunrise to sunset,
with that wicker demijohn. He began to think
that he had stacked the cards too heavily. He
began to think that his desire to test Thady Shea
had been a mite too strong.

He drove up to the shed, seeing no sign of his
guest. The house, too, was deserted. Ross went
straight to the corner cupboard and jerked open
the door. The clean wicker demijohn was gone.
It was not in the house.

“Hell’s bells!” quoth Ross, savagely.

He strode outside and scanned the vicinity.
Nothing was in sight. The team was gone. He
walked up the cañon, seeing that the lower flat was
empty of life. At the turn he came in sight of
the upper flat, and paused.

The team was there; Thady Shea had been
plowing. Thady Shea was there, too, but he was
not plowing. He was standing at one corner of
the flat beside a pile of brush. He was lifting
something in his hand. It was the wicker demijohn.
He set it on his arm and laid the mouth to
his lips. Ross could see him drink, gulpingly.
He drank long, avidly, until Ross swore in blank
amazement that a man could drink thus; he drank
as the sun-cracked earth drinks water.

Ross strode forward. Thady Shea turned to
meet him.

“Hello, Ross! I was just knocking off work for
the day. Drink?”

Ross took the demijohn. He looked at Thady
Shea with hard, bitter cold eyes. His eyes softened
as he remembered his misgivings. After all,
was it not his own fault? He lifted the demijohn
on his arm and laid the mouth to his lips.

“Hell!” He spluttered in stark surprise. He
stared at the demijohn, stared at the smiling
Thady Shea. “Hell! I thought——”

Thady Shea laughed. It was a deep, sonorous
laugh.

“I couldn’t stand it, Ross,” he said. “That
cursed jug was too much for me. So I emptied
out the whiskey and filled it with water, and went
to work. I’m sorry about the whiskey—I’ll pay
you back.”

“Damn the whiskey!” roared Fred Ross, delightedly,
and wiped his lips. “Come on back
to the shack and let’s eat!”

For the first time in long days, the two men talked
over their meal. They talked of the world outside,
talked of ranch gossip, talked of the war and
the government and the high price of wool.
Ross meant to run some sheep up at the head of
the cañon, and discoursed on the project at length.
Not until their pipes were going, and the red afterglow
was shrouding the fading day, did he mention
what he had learned at Datil.

“Heard something over to the hotel,” he mentioned,
casually. “They were talking about you.
It appears that Abel Dorales has called off the
sheriff and withdrawn all charges agin’ you. He’s
lookin’ for you his own self, I hear. Makin’ it a
personal matter.”

Thady Shea drew a deep breath. Nothing to
fear from the law, then! The more personal
menace of Abel Dorales he did not consider at all.

“I’ll tell you what happened—if you don’t
mind,” he said, diffidently. It was the first time,
since that day when he had felled Ross with the
cup, that personalities had been touched upon
between them.

He told his story. Ross made no comment
whatever; in that story he perceived that Thady
Shea was a queer, impulsive child, a man whose
fear and reason were overruled by his impulses,
a man whose primitive soul arose in a lonely
grandeur of sincerity, of absolute and wonderful
sincerity. Ross felt awed, as a man feels awed
when confronted by the mystery of a child’s soul.

The name of Mehitabel Crump meant nothing
to the rancher; he had perhaps heard of her in past
years, but had forgotten her name. When Thady
Shea fell silent, Ross knocked the dottle from his
pipe and filled it anew.

“You watch out for Dorales,” he said. “I
know him. He’s bad med’cine.”

“So everyone says,” returned Shea, gravely
serious. “I hadn’t found it so.”

Ross seemed to discern humour in this, and
chuckled. “Think ye’ll stay here, Shea? Glad
to have ye.”

“Unless something turns up—yes. I—well, I
haven’t found that purpose we spoke about once.
I’m trying hard. I’m trying to find it, to make
it come, to figure out what I must do. Yet I seem
all helpless, bewildered——”

“I never heard of any one puttin’ a rush label
on Providence, not with any success to mention,”
said Ross, dryly. “You’re lookin’ so hard for
something that you can’t find it. You’re too
damn serious. About sixty, ain’t ye? Well, at
sixty you’re goin’ through what ye should ha’ gone
through at thirty or less. Limber up your joints
an’ take it easier, pardner. Wait for what turns
up, an’ remember God ain’t dealing from a cold
deck.”

Here was wisdom, and Thady Shea tried to
accept it.

Upon the following afternoon Thady Shea was
laboriously plowing the upper flat. Down at the
shack, Fred Ross was cleaning house. He was
cleaning house in his own simple and thorough
fashion. He took everything outside in the sun.
Then he set to work with a bucket of suds and a
broom, and scrubbed the walls, floor, and ceiling;
he was figuring on papering the walls a little
later. The result of this cleaning was damp but
satisfactory.

Having returned most of his belongings to their
proper places, Ross was engaged in fitting together
the iron bed. He heard the grinding roar of a car
coming up the cañon trail in low gear, and went to
the doorway. A dust-white flivver was approaching.
As he watched, it came up to the shed and
halted. There was but one person in the car.

From the dust-white flivver alighted a tall,
large woman clad in old but neat khaki, upon her
head a black bonnet. With surprise, Ross recognized
her; it was the woman whom he had seen at
Datil the previous day. It was the woman who
had bought Dad Griffith a meal, and who, presumably,
had given the ancient a lift toward the
Arizona line.

She approached the doorway and transfixed
Ross with keen, glittering blue eyes. Her look
was one of unmistakable truculence, of hostility.

“Your name Ross?” she demanded.

“It is, ma’am,” he meekly answered. “Will——”

“My name’s Mehitabel Crump, with a Mrs.
for a handle,” she stated. “You got a man by
the name o’ Shea workin’ here?”

“Yes’m,” said Ross, staring. So this was the
Mrs. Crump of whom Shea had spoken! “Yes’m.
Will ye come in? I’ll go right up the cañon and
fetch him——”

“You shut up,” she snapped, harshly. “I aim
to do my own fetchin’, and I aim to have a word
with you here and now, stranger. I hear you been
keepin’ Thady Shea filled up with booze.”

Ross was staggered, not only by the amazing
appearance of this woman here, but by her direct
attack. She meant business, savage business, and
showed it.

Those last words, however, suggested an explanation
to Ross. On the previous day he had
given the ancient an “earful” about Thady Shea
and the whiskey. This woman, who now turned
out to be Shea’s friend Mrs. Crump, had given the
ancient a ride westward. The connection was too
obvious to miss.

“You got all that dope from old Griffith, eh?”
he said. “I was at Datil yesterday and seen you
there. If I ever see that old fool Griffith again,
I’ll poke a bullet through him!”

“Then you ain’t real liable to do it,” said Mrs.
Crump, grimly. “If that old vagabone told me
the truth, I aim to put you where you won’t give
whiskey to no more men. Now, hombre, speak up
real soft and sudden! Did you give Thady Shea
whiskey—or not?”

In the blue eyes of Mrs. Crump was a look
which Ross had not seen since the days of his boyhood.
Even then he had seen it only once
or twice, before the “killers” of the old
days were put under sod. Knowing what caused
that look, Ross laughed—but he laughed to
himself.

“Well,” he responded, gravely, “in a way it is
true, ma’am. I sure did fill Shea with red licker,
filled him plumb to the brim. And when I went to
Datil yesterday, there was a jug two thirds full o’
licker in that cupboard. When I come home las’
night, ma’am, there wasn’t a single drop o’
whiskey left. For a fact.”

Try as he might, he could not keep the twinkle
from his eye. That twinkle was something Mrs.
Crump could not understand; it bade her go slow,
be cautious. She knew her type of man animal,
and that twinkle gave her covert warning not to
make a fool of herself.

“I’m goin’ to see him,” she declared, after
compressing her lips and eying Fred Ross suspiciously.
“If you’ve made a soak out o’ him,
pilgrim Ross, I’m coming right back here and
perforate you without no further warning. That
goes as it lays—so ile up your gun.”

She turned about and strode away, up the
cañon. Once she glanced back, to see Ross
standing where she had left him, and upon his face
was a wide grin.

CHAPTER XI—THADY SHEA DISCOVERS A PURPOSE
=========================================

“What in hell made you run off?” demanded
Mrs. Crump in an aggrieved tone.

“Well,” hesitated Thady Shea, “I
figured I might get you into trouble with Mackintavers
and his crowd; Dorales would be after me,
you know. And then I wanted to make up for
what I’d done. I wanted to go away and prove
to myself that I could do something—without
any one else helping me. It’s a little vague,
but——”

“Oh, I savvy,” finished Mrs. Crump for him.
“My land, Thady! I been hunting you all over
creation, but I never aimed to see you lookin’ like
this—never!” Hands on her hips, she surveyed
him with appraising, delighted eyes.

As he stood there awkwardly beside the plow,
Thady Shea did look unlike her last view of him.
Also, he sounded different. They had talked at
length, but in all their talk, in all his tale to date,
he had not once broken into the rolling, rounded
phrases which formerly he had so loved.

He showed the lack of self-consciousness that
was upon him. It was not the bristly beard
which had wrought the change, although this
disguised him startlingly. Perhaps it was the
gruelling work which he had been doing of late,
with its effects.

In this man of fifty-eight there showed a strange
boyishness. He was no longer gaunt and haggard.
True, there was a haunting gentleness, a sadness,
in his eyes, but it was the sadness of time past, not
of the present. His look, his manner, had taken
on a definite personality. No longer was he
Thaddeus Roscius, the actor who fitted himself
into the characters of other men; Montalembert
was dead and here stood Thady Shea, man of his
hands; one whose eyes met the world honestly and
earnestly, with wide questioning, with a balanced
poise and surety in self.

“My land!” pursued Mrs. Crump, meditatively.
“When I think of the knock-kneed, blear-eyed
critter I found layin’ up above the Bajada grade,
I can’t hardly recognize ye, Thady! Ye look’s if
ye’d got used to leaning on yourself. Want to
come back to Number Sixteen with me?”

Shea frowned in perplexity. His eyes were
serious. He had set forth all that had happened
to him, all that he had done; Mrs. Crump had
given him no blame, but in her eyes had shone
pride and praise.

“I—I don’t know,” he said, slowly. “I’m
looking for a purpose in life. I’m trying to find
something definite. It’s so long since I’ve had
anything definite! These twenty years, and more,
there has seemed to be a knot gripped about my
soul, somewhere—stifling me. I don’t seem
to——”

“No need for all that,” said Mrs. Crump,
impatiently. “You’re rich now.”

Shea’s eyes widened. “You mean—the mine?”

“No, I don’t. That mine is a humdinger, or
will be once it gets started to paying. I got
Lewis an’ Gilbert workin’ there now, they bein’ out
o’ jail and shut o’ that old charge. No, Thady; I
mean the ten thousand we screwed out o’ that
skunk Mackintavers.”

Shea looked blank. “Ten thousand? I don’t
understand.”

Mrs. Crump sighed in resignation, and set herself
to explain.

“It was a right smart trick to indorse that
check Dorales had made ready for ye—’bout the
smartest thing I ever knowed ye to do, Thady. I
takes that check and lights out and cashes it ’fore
old Mackintavers heard what had happened to
Dorales. The money’s in your name, down to the
First National at Silver City; I ain’t touched it.”

She fumbled in her bosom and produced a
folded check book.

“Here’s the check book they give me, all proper.
Sign your checks the same way ye indorsed that
one, savvy? I turned in the note ye left me at the
shack, with your signature on it, to the bank.”

She broke off. She came to a faltering but decided
halt.

For, as she had spoken, a queer look had stolen
across the beard-blurred features of Thady Shea,
and had settled there. It was such a look as
she had never previously seen upon his face. It
was a look of incredulous wonder, of grief, of
dismay.

The personal equation in that look silenced and
startled Mrs. Crump. It conveyed to her that she
must have said some terrible thing, something
which had shocked Thady Shea beyond words,
something which had struck and hurt him like a
blow. She rapidly thought back—no, she had not
even sworn!

“What the devil ails ye?” she demanded.

“Why—why—that check!” blurted Shea. He
drew back from the check book which she was
extending to him. His eyes were wide, fixed. “I
never meant it—that way! I never dreamed you’d
do anything with it. I left it there with the other
paper to show you what Dorales had been up to.”

Mrs. Crump laughed suddenly.

“Oh, then I gave ye too much credit? Never
mind, Thady——”

“You don’t understand!” In his voice was a
harsh note, a note of pain. “Don’t you realize
what you’ve done? That money—why, it’s
stolen! It’ll have to go back to Mackintavers!
It isn’t ours.”

For the first time in many years Mehitabel
Crump was shocked into immobile silence. She
was absolutely petrified. She could not believe
the words she heard.

“You didn’t look at it that way, of course,”
added Shea hastily. Earnestness grew upon
him, and deep conviction. “But it’s true. If it
were ten cents or ten dollars, it might not matter.
But—ten thousand dollars! It must go
back.”

The blue eyes of Mrs. Crump hardened like
agates. Her mouth clenched grimly. Her wrinkled
features tightened into fighting lines. She
was dumbly amazed that the magnitude of the
sum did not appeal to Thady Shea’s cupidity; but
she was vigorously and fiercely determined that
the money was to be his. It was not for herself
that she wanted it.

When she made answer, it was with a virile
insistence that drove home every word like a
blow.

“You got no call to insult me, Thady Shea, by
callin’ me a thief; mind that! Are you crazy or
just plain fool? Mackintavers an’ Dorales comes
along thinking to trim us right and proper, like
they done by other poor folks, thinking to rob a
lone widder woman, thinking to fool you into
robbing me. That there check for ten thousand
was the jackpot. Mackintavers signed it as such,
knowin’ it to be such, stakin’ it agin’ Number
Sixteen to win or lose. You didn’t know that the
prop’ty was recorded in your name—but he
knew!

“He lost, and you can bet he ain’t said nothing
about losing them table stakes! What call you
got to beef about winning that bet? It’s plumb
legal, cashed at a bank, sanctified by Sandy hisself
over the phone. You’d be a fool not to take
money after you’d won it in a game like that! If
ye want——”

For the second time Mrs. Crump came to a
decided and bewildered halt.

She was entirely convinced that to take the
money was legitimate; she was convinced that it
had been lawfully won, that Thady Shea was
actually entitled to it. She had chuckled over the
coup a hundred times. She had chuckled a
hundred times over the grimly delightful irony of
cashing that check, of giving Mackintavers a
counter-thrust that he would remember. Yet,
although she was presenting her argument with
entire conviction, she was conscious that it was
like presenting her argument in the face of a stone
wall.

Somehow Thady Shea was ignoring her argument.
Its point seemed quite lost upon him. He
stood before her, flinty, untouched, unheeding.
The slight glint of scorn in his eye, real or fancied,
flicked Mrs. Crump on the raw; it lashed her into
real and unassumed anger.

“All that is quite true,” he said. In his manner
was a gentleness, a frightful gentleness, a gentleness
so entire and calm that it was hideous. One
would have said that he was speaking to a little
child.

“All that is true, Mrs. Crump. Of course
your intentions were whole-souled and generous,
and from your viewpoint the action was justified.
I didn’t mean to call you a thief, heaven knows! I
didn’t mean any such thing.

“But—the money was to be given in exchange
for something. The exchange did not take place.
Therefore, to keep the money would be theft.
That is the way I look at it. That is all I can see
to it—all! The money must go back.”

There was a terrible simplicity in the man’s
face, in the words he used, in the argument he
used. It was a simplicity which nothing could
change. It was a simplicity above all argument
or question. It was a simplicity that stood up
like a gray naked rock. Against this implacable
front Mrs. Crump was impotent and knew
it.

Thady Shea reached out and took the check
book from her hand. He opened it. He stripped
one check from the book and placed this check in
his pocket. Then he took the check book, tore it
across, and flung the pieces away. He did it
casually, impatiently, carelessly.

Now, to tear a check book across is not an easy
thing. To do it carelessly, casually, is a most
unusual and significant thing. It jerked at
Mrs. Crump’s attention. She wondered just how
strong Thady Shea was. Yet, the thought that
the one check in Shea’s pocket was destined for
Mackintavers fired the anger within her, and
fanned the flame. She could deal gently, pityingly,
with a weak man. With a strong man,
strong as Thady Shea was strong, she had but one
argument.

“I’ll write out that check——” began Shea.

“You’re a coward!” said Mrs. Crump, savagely.
She knew the words were fearfully unjust, but they
rose within her and she said them. The thought
that Mackintavers would deem her weak and silly
enough to return that money maddened her.
“You’re a coward!”

She leaned forward and struck him in the
mouth. She struck a man’s blow, a full, hard-fisted,
strong blow, a blow that might have felled
another man than Thady Shea. Under it he
reeled. Then he came upright and stood motionless,
looking at her. He did not speak. Slowly
he lifted his hand to his mouth, and his eyes
shifted to the red smear upon his hand. Then his
gaze went again to her face.

Under his look, Mrs. Crump shivered a little.
The anger went out of her suddenly and utterly.
Before his calm, hurt strength she recoiled. Her
brittle, false hardness was broken and shattered.
He did not speak, and his silence frightened her.
She went to pieces.

“Thady!” The words came from her in a
breath, a groan. Her burning blue eyes were gone
dull and lifeless, dumb with misery, as she realized
what she had just done. “Oh, Thady! I—Heaven
forgive me, Thady, I didn’t mean to do
it. I wanted you to have that money.”

“I wonder if you really think I’m a coward?”
said Shea, curiously calm. “I am one, of course,
but I don’t see how a desire for justice can be
cowardly.”

“I don’t!” she burst forth impetuously, passionately.
“Thady, I’m sorry—I never meant it; it
didn’t come from the heart, Thady! I’m an old
fool of a woman, that’s what I am. An old fool
of a woman! Don’t look at me that way; I tell ye
I can’t stand it—it’s awful! I’m sorry for it,
bitter sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Shea, simply. “Listen to
me, now. You’ve given me something real; a
purpose. Maybe Ross was right. Maybe I had
to wait till it came to me. Now I’m going to find
Mackintavers and give him his money, make
things right. I may be a coward in physical
things, but——”

“Don’t talk that way!” she broke in, harshly.
“Thady, I’m sorry. Come back to the mine with
me; forget this foolishness. I’m a fool of an old
woman, that’s all. I need ye at the mine, Thady.”

He smiled a little. “Do you really mean it,
Mrs. Crump? May I come back—after I have
seen Mackintavers?”

“Come now! Don’t go chasing off like a
dratted mule. Come back with me now!”

“No.” Shea looked away from her. He motioned
toward the horses, their tails switching in
the arrogant sunlight. He motioned toward the
half-plowed field. “I’ll finish this job first.
Then, in a few days, I’ll go and see Mackintavers.
You see? I have to do it. The purpose has come
to me; maybe it’ll lead into something else. I
don’t know. After that, I’ll come back to Number
Sixteen and go to work, if you still want
me.”

“Yes,” she said, humbly. “I’ll need ye, Thady.
I’m sorry ye won’t come now.”

She turned from him and walked down the
cañon. Around the bend, out of Shea’s sight, she
leaned against a bowlder. She was a woman, and
God has given tears to women. Great sobs shook
her for the first time in years. Passionate sobs
were they, holding the pent-up emotion of a deep
spirit that had broken through its mask of cynic
harshness.

Presently Mrs. Crump recalled that, although
she was beyond the sight of Thady Shea, she was
in full view of the distant shack. Muttering that
she was a dratted old fool, she wiped her eyes.
She tucked in loosened wisps of hair about the
edge of her bonnet. She pulled her bonnet
straight and started for the dust-white flivver,
beyond the shack.

Mrs. Crump found Fred Ross cheerfully
whistling “Silver Threads Among the Gold” and
finishing his house-cleaning.

“That there Thady Shea,” she stated, harshly,
“is the most amazing human critter I’ve ever run
up against!”

Ross grinned amiably. “Meaning, ma’am?”

“Meaning you can figger it out for yourself.
Adios!”

“Hold on, ma’am. Ain’t you goin’ to set a
while?”

“I am not. I got work to do. So long, and
good luck to ye!”

Ross insisted upon cranking the dust-white
flivver, and she departed with no more words.

An hour later Thady Shea brought in the
horses, and put them up for the night. He came
into the house and helped Ross get supper. He
commented on the house-cleaning with admiration.
He discussed, from an amateur’s standpoint,
fencing the upper end of the cañon against the
proposed flock of sheep. He seemed to enjoy his
supper hugely.

The meal over, both men lounged outside,
smoking and watching the crimsoned peaks that
overhung them.

“Mrs. Crump,” observed Shea at last, “is the
most generous, whole-souled woman I ever knew.
She’s a wonder, Ross!”

“She is,” assented the rancher, dryly. “I
suppose you’re goin’ to leave me?”

“Yes,” said Shea, gravely. “After that upper
flat is plowed.”

“Tell you what. Wait till Sunday. I’m goin’
to Magdalena then, to see a lady friend. Take
ye in the car if you’re goin’ that way. Then I’ll
pay you—got to give you something for the work,
Shea. So go to Magdalena with me Sunday.”

“Mackintavers’ ranch lies over there, doesn’t
it?”

“North. Yes.”

“All right. That’ll suit me.”

CHAPTER XII—THE STONE GODS VANISH
=================================

The loss of ten thousand dollars was not a
negligible matter, even to Sandy Mackintavers,
who was accustomed to gambling on
a large scale. Like a good gamester, he swallowed
the bitter pill and said nothing. However, the loss
left a scar which, contrary to the custom of scars,
grew more red and angry with each passing week.

The realization that he had been outwitted and
outgamed by the despised Mehitabel Crump was
bad enough; the actual monetary loss made itself
more gradually felt. However, Mackintavers
knew that he would recoup tenfold once his hands
gripped Number Sixteen. So, by means of
various reports from Eastern sources, he discovered
that Coravel Tio, the curio dealer of
Santa Fé, was negotiating for the sale of the property,
and held an interest in the mine. Over this,
Mackintavers laughed long and loud—and perfected
his plans for taking over Number Sixteen.

In the meantime, he gave his attention to the
seven stone gods and his scientific reputation.

His ranch house was a roomy, comfortable
place; one half was inhabited by Old Man Durfee,
who ran the ranch, and the other half was inhabited
by Sandy and his frequent guests. At the
present moment he had three guests besides Abel
Dorales. Two were withered, wrinkled old bucks
from the Cochiti pueblo, and these were quartered
in the bunk house a half mile distant, by the
corrals. The third was the eminent archæologist
previously mentioned, who had arrived to witness
the establishment of Sandy as a scientist.

“To-morrow is the big day, eh?” Sandy Mackintavers
spread his square bulk to the blaze in the
big library fireplace, and surveyed his scientific
guest with complacent expectation. “Dorales is
goin’ to bring them bucks up here. We’ll have the
little gods all ready, then we’ll see what happens.”

He glanced at the wide mantel whereon sat seven
worn stone images, grinning widely over the room.

“You’ve not coached them, of course?” demanded
the wary scientist. “If they had an
inkling of what you wanted, they’d say anything
to please you.”

“Huh!” snorted Mackintavers with honest
indignation. “I should say not! Surprise is the
thing, professor. Aiblins, now, I’ll explain to ye
the system we’ve invented to make these Cochiti
bucks talk—but first, take a look at this. I’m
coming fast, eh? Aiblins, in another year or two
I’ll be having a world-wide reputation, eh? Just
look at this, now.”

He handed the scientist a letter. Now, Mackintavers
himself could not read that letter; but it had
been translated for him, and he was inordinately
proud of it.

The scientist glanced at the letter-head above, a
large and flaunting letter-head of the *Société
Académique*, and below, in very small letters, the
remainder of the legend: *d’ethnologie Amerique*.
In other words, not particularly good French,
denoting the Academic Society of American
Ethnology, of Paris.

The eminent scientist repressed the smile that
rose to his lips. It was obvious that Sandy,
keenly canny in most things, was highly susceptible
to this sort of flattery.

“I’m sending for their gold medal,” went on the
speaker. “Costs about fifteen bucks, but I guess
it’ll be worth it when the papers write me up, eh?
They sent along an engraved parchment to show
I’m a member. Some day I’ll go to Paris and
visit ’em.”

The eminent scientist, who knew all the ins and
outs of that game, did not spoil poor Sandy’s
dream by any intrusion of cold and hard facts.
Instead, he reflected to himself upon the odd
twists and quirks of character, which would bring
such a man as Sandy Mackintavers into the toils
of a vain ambition, and into the nets of smooth
sharpers who knew well how to flatter the American
ignoramus into parting with his dollars.

Cordial and warm was Sandy Mackintavers that
evening, expanding under the genial thought of
what was to happen on the morrow, and making
himself a wondrous fine host. He told how Abel
Dorales had secured an interpreter, had approached
two withered, wrinkled old Cochiti bucks who
loved round silver dollars, and had brought them
here upon specious pretexts. He told how, on the
following morning, those two withered, wrinkled
Cochiti bucks were to be left for an hour in this
same room, alone with the seven stone gods on the
mantel and a whiskey bottle on the table; and he
told how a dictagraph, already concealed and in
readiness, would be waiting for them.

Being presumably alone, being mellowed by one
or two stolen drinks, being in the amazing presence
of those seven stone gods, the two withered,
wrinkled old Cochiti bucks would most unquestionably
talk to each other in their own language.
Later, the dictagraph record could be translated.

It never occurred to Sandy that the entire
Cochiti pueblo might have been aware that he
was in possession of these seven stone gods almost
from the very day he obtained them. Sandy had
picked up some knowledge about the relics of
dead redskins; but he had a good deal to learn
about Indians in the flesh.

So the morning came—the morning that was to
bring about the satisfaction of ambition. Abel
Dorales left the breakfast table in order to bring
the two withered, wrinkled old Cochiti bucks.
Mackintavers drew the eminent scientist into the
library for a last look at the preparations—ah!

“It might be an excellent idea,” said the
professor, dryly, “to set your stone gods in place,
Mr. Mackintavers.”

“Aiblins, yes!” And Mackintavers stared
blankly at the mantel. “Where the devil have
they gone? They were here last night!”

That the seven stone gods had sat, grinning,
upon the mantel only the evening previous, was
true; but they were not on the mantel now. They
were not in the room. They were not in the ranch
house at all!

Curious to incoherence, suspecting everyone
around him, Sandy Mackintavers sought an
explanation. He obtained none. The two
wrinkled, withered old bucks had been in the bunk
house all night. Every man about the place
established a convincing alibi.

Every building upon the place was searched from
ground to rafters, without avail. Noon came, and
Mackintavers had relapsed into a dour, grim rage.
At this juncture, the old Chinaman who served as
cook related that, while emptying the slops the
previous evening, he had seen a strange horseman
down near the creek. He could give no description.

“Stolen!” howled Sandy, beside himself with
fury. “Out and after him!”

Now ensued confusion great and dire. Every
man on the ranch, except the cook and Abel
Dorales and the eminent scientist, shared the
general exodus. Dorales openly expressed profound
disgust for gods, for Mackintavers, and for
the whole accursed business; having assumed
responsibility for the safe return of the two
wrinkled, withered old Cochiti bucks, he loaded
them into the ranch flivver and set out for Socorro
and the main line of the railroad. Sandy and Old
Man Durfee were gone with the big car.

The professor, left alone, secured a volume of
scientific reports and settled himself in comfort on
the wide, screened veranda. The noon meal had
not been pleasant. The afternoon was hot and
dusty. Presently the scientific gentleman slept.

Just when his slumbers had deepened into
snoring somnolence, the archæologist was aroused
by a sonorous bass voice that boomed like a bell.
Startled, he sat up. He first visualized a buckboard
close at hand, within a dozen feet of the
veranda—a strange thing, for he well knew that
natives of the country would have driven their
teams to the corrals. Upon the seat of the buckboard
was a suitcase.

It was a small wicker suitcase, a battered little
yellow suitcase with loose ends of wicker torn and
protruding from its faded surface; it was a suitcase
manifestly third or fourth-hand, cheap in the
first place, and now absolutely contemptible. It
looked more like a lunch basket than a suitcase.

Then the professor was aware of a tall man, a
large, shaggy-bearded man, who stood at the
screen door of the veranda and spoke in sonorous
accents.

“Sir, it grieves me thus to break your slumber,
but I am searching with such power as lies within
my soul for one named Mackintavers. I charge
you, if you be fair Scotia’s son and him whom I do
seek, declare yourself!”

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the scientist.
“Do I gather that you are looking for Mr. Mackintavers?”

“Such indeed are my intent and purpose,”
declaimed Thady Shea.

“He’s gone. Everyone’s gone.” The professor
inspected this specimen of humanity with
swiftly growing interest. “They’ll be back presently;
things are a bit upset. Won’t you come in?
Better take your team over to the corrals.”

The scientist rose and introduced himself.
Thady Shea solemnly gave his abbreviated cognomen
and stated that, since he had hired the team
at Magdalena and expected to return almost at
once, the horses could stay where they were. He
then entered the screen veranda, shook hands, and
with a sigh sat himself down.

Mackintavers gone! It upset all his calculations.
However, he soon found himself engaged in
sprightly discourse.

Lemonade and cigars made an incongruous
accompaniment. This entire situation, in fact,
was the most incongruous the professor had ever
experienced. He could not make out whether
Thady Shea were here as a guest or as an
enemy, as a chance caller, or as a business acquaintance.
Thady Shea kept a tight mouth on
some things.

“You’d better take those horses into the shade,”
reiterated the professor at length. “And that
suitcase of yours—why, the sun will broil it!”

Thady Shea smiled slightly.

“I perceive dust upon the horizon,” he said,
gesturing toward the road, “which doth to my
mind betoken the speedy return of our host, and
the conclusion of my business. As for the suitcase,
sir, therein lie food for musing!”

“What’s in it then?” The professor chuckled.
“A set of Shakespeare?”

“Nay, sir, of its contents I am ignorant.”

Thady Shea eyed the approaching dust cloud,
which might give birth either to Mackintavers or
to Abel Dorales. In his own fashion, he proceeded
to tell his companion how he had acquired that
suitcase, two hours previously, and while on his
way here.

He had encountered a horse, saddled and bridled
and still alive, lying in the road with a broken
leg. Of the rider, there had been no sign. A
little distance farther on Shea had come upon
this battered little suitcase lying in the dust.
Whether the suitcase appertained to the vanished
horseman could not be told. There had been
some sort of accident, yet there was no human
being in evidence. All this upon the main highway.

“Did you notice the brand on the animal, or
anything which might identify it?” queried the
professor, who was well versed in the ways of the
country.

Thady Shea had learned enough, also, to notice
a few such things. The brand was a queer mark,
a queer zig-zag which to him meant nothing.
The animal’s saddle blanket had been an Indian
rug, woven for such use. The bridle had also been
woven. Upon the suitcase, however, there was
no mark of ownership.

“H’m! Sounds like a Navaho brand,” commented
the professor, sagely.

At this point, Thady Shea rose and abruptly
closed the discussion. The approaching automobile
had drawn up.

From the car alighted Sandy Mackintavers,
who stood for a moment staring at the buckboard;
Old Man Durfee went on with the car to the
garage, in the rear of the ranch house. Thady
Shea did not need the professor’s vouchsafed
admonition to know who this square-hewn man
was, this man with the square jaw and mouth and
figure, this man who turned from the buckboard
and came dourly up to the veranda.

“Who’s here?” Mackintavers stood in the
screen doorway.

“You’re Mr. Mackintavers?” Theatricalisms
fell away from Thady Shea. He fumbled in his
pocket. He produced the check which he had
previously filled out. He extended it. “This
belongs to you, I think. There was some mistake
in the matter. Your check was cashed through a
misapprehension.”

Mackintavers swept Thady Shea with keen,
puzzled eyes; then he glanced at the check.

His square mouth contracted slightly at the
corners. Otherwise, not a muscle moved in his
face. After an instant he folded the check and
glanced up at the professor.

“No luck with the thief,” he said, curtly.
“That is, unless some of the boys bring in news.
There was an accident on the Magdalena trail this
morning—a fool Navaho buck was hit by the
flivver from Doniphan’s ranch. Knocked him
and his cayuse to glory. I thought for a time he
was our man, but telephoned into town from
Doniphan’s and found otherwise. Took a look
at the horse to make sure. Nothing doing.”

His eyes went back to Thady Shea. He held
open the door and gestured.

“You’re Shea, eh? Come on into the office,
will you? Excuse me, professor.”

Shea followed his enemy host into the house, and
into a small room which served Mackintavers as
office and study. Sandy dropped into a chair,
motioned Shea to another, and set out a box of
cigars.

This greeting left Thady Shea entirely at sea.
Mackintavers did not seem to be infuriated; he
seemed to understand perfectly all about the
check. He seemed alert, precise, cold-blooded, as
though this were some ordinary business deal.

“So you’re Shea!” he repeated. “Aiblins,
now—ye look it. Friend o’ Mrs. Crump, eh?”

“I am.” Thady Shea began to feel sorry that
he had come inside.

“How come you’re turning back that money?
The old lady feelin’ her conscience?”

“I told you, sir, that there had been an error.
When the mistake was brought to my attention, I
posted straightway hither, seeking you; the money
was not mine to store away; reparation was
incumbent on me.”

“What the hell!” muttered Sandy, with a touch
of wonder.

Mackintavers knew men. He could read men
at a glance, but Thady Shea was slightly beyond
his visual acuity. None the less, he came fairly
close to the mark in that he adjudged Shea to be
of a simple and wonderful honesty, a man of
fundamental virtue. Sandy took for granted that
Thady Shea was mentally unbalanced; a theory
which would explain this amazing refund, and also
the wild stories which were current about the man.

“I hear you own that claim Mrs. Crump is
workin’, Shea.”

“No. It belongs to her.” Thady Shea rose
to his feet. “We need not prolong this——”

“Oh, don’t be in a rush!” soothed Mackintavers,
cordially. “Now, I’ll have your team
attended to, and you’d better stay overnight with
us, eh? We’ll have a talk, and we’ll get squared
up on the trouble between you and Dorales——”

Thady Shea looked down at him. Under those
eyes Mackintavers fell silent.

“Sir, you are an infernal villain,” said Thady
Shea calmly. “I want none of your hospitality.
There is no trouble whatever, save in your own
greed and covetous rapacity. You are an arrant
rogue, a caitiff vile; there can be naught between
us. Sir, farewell!”

Thady Shea strode from the room and slammed
the door after him.

Sandy Mackintavers sat motionless, completely
astounded by this outburst. He looked down at
the check in his hand, then looked out the window;
he could see Thady Shea climbing into the buckboard
and driving off.

“Aiblins, yes; the man’s mad!” he reflected.
A slow chuckle came to his lips. “And to think
I never so much as said thank’ee! If the check’s
good, now—h’m! Better find out about it. A
fool, that’s what the fellow is. A loose-brained
fool.”

He sought the telephone and spoke with the
Silver City bank. The check was good.

Later in the afternoon came the first word of the
actual thief who had made off with the seven
stone gods. One of the men brought in a report
that he had found signs of a camp on the creek
a mile distant. Mackintavers and Old Man
Durfee went out to investigate. They were good
at reading signs; they discovered that a man had
spent the previous night in this spot, and that he
had presumably been an Indian. The tracks of
his unshod horse showed a cracked off hind hoof.
A few tiny shreds of gray wool showed where his
saddle blanket had been laid.

Over the supper table that evening Sandy Mackintavers
recounted these results to the archæologist.
Abel Dorales had not yet returned from Socorro.

“The gods are gone, professor,” he stated,
disconsolately. “Clean gone! Aye. D’ye see,
the thief, that fellow camped by the creek, was the
same Indian who got wiped out by Doniphan’s
flivver this morning! The same, aye. That
saddle blanket was gray, and that horse had the
off hind foot cracked. Aye. The Navaho dog
was the thief. And now the gods are clean gone!
There was no sign of ’em about the horse, and the
man himself had nothing. But he took ’em,
right enough.”

The professor glanced up, roused from his
abstraction.

“That’s queer!” he ejaculated. Excitement
rapidly grew upon him. “Look here, Mackintavers!
The man who was here this afternoon, the
man Shea—did you notice that queer little grip on
his buckboard? He told me he had picked up that
grip near the crippled horse, and he did not know
what was in it!”

Just then Abel Dorales returned, to find that
Thady Shea had come and gone.

Thirty minutes later Mackintavers and Dorales
were on their way to Magdalena in the big car;
Mackintavers was after the seven stone gods, and
Dorales was after Thady Shea.

CHAPTER XIII—THADY SHEA STARTS HOME
===================================

In the early evening Thady Shea reached
Magdalena. He turned in his team and
buckboard to the livery stable, paid for its use
from the money given him by Fred Ross, and with
the little suitcase in his hand left the stable office.
The first person he encountered was Fred Ross.

“Hello!” said Ross, grinning. “Thought maybe
you’d show up this evenin’, so I hung around.
How’s tricks?”

“Fine,” answered Shea, delightedly. “I’m
hungry.”

“So’m I. Let’s eat. I got a friend waitin’ to
meet ye—he’s leavin’ to-night.”

Shea gladly followed to the Hotel Aragon. He
was to-night blissfully happy. For the first time
in years he felt like a boy. It was as though the
reparation made to Mackintavers, and the brief
but emphatic expression of his own mind to
Mackintavers, had wiped away all past things.
Atonement was over and done with. He was free
to go where he would.

From one of the rocking-chairs in the long,
narrow lobby of the hotel arose a man of girth and
twinkling of eye, who came to meet them. Him
Ross briefly introduced as Bill Murray, and urged
haste in reaching the dining room. Thady Shea
left the battered little yellow suitcase on the hat
rack beside the dining-room doors, which were
just about to close, and the three men hastily
entered the nearly empty room.

Fred Ross had known nothing definite about
Thady Shea’s business with Mackintavers, but
possibly he had conjectured a good deal. He was
plainly much relieved to see his friend safely back.

“Bill’s running a newspaper over to St. Johns,”
he confided, when the meal was under way.
“He’d heard about you, Shea, and was kind o’ set
on meeting you. Wants to get the straight o’
that yarn about you and Dorales. He got laid up
here with a busted steering gear, and aimed to go
home to-day, but waited over. Now he’s goin’
back to-night, so he says. It sure beats all how a
fellow gets in a hell of a hurry just when other
folks want him to loaf around a spell!”

Murray tipped Thady Shea a jovial wink.

“Fred ain’t lonesome, much,” he said, wheezily.
“Got a girl here. Fred reckons that the more he
talks about stayin’, the more I’ll be set on goin’—which
is the same true. Human nature is ornery
as the devil, ain’t it now? Well, I s’pose you
ain’t picked up any news to-day, Shea?”

“I have, sir,” intoned Thady, “an item of
importance. A striped Indian, of name unknown, was
overcome by dire fatality this morn.
Upon the road Death ambushed him, and maimed
his faithful steed, and laid him low. An automobile—mark
the irony!—became the instrument
of darkling fate, and brought to this poor aborigine
the end of all things, and the close of life.”

Bill Murray stared open-mouthed, as did most
people who heard Thady’s sonorously rolling accents
for the first time. Then he emitted a
wheezy chuckle.

“Oh! You mean the Injun buck that got
straddled by Doniphan’s flivver! Heard all about
him to-day. He’s layin’ over to the funeral
parlours now. Some of his tribe’s in town, and
they made Doniphan give him a real burial. Joke
on Doniphan, ain’t it?”

“And,” pursued Thady, “at Mackintavers’
ranch this afternoon I gathered there had been a
robbery. What worldly pelf was taken, I know
not, but dread confusion reigned upon the place.”

“Gosh!” Bill Murray started up from his
chair. “Say—that’s red-hot news, Shea! Don’t
tell any one else around here. I’ll run out and
phone the ranch. Got to run off my paper to-morrow
night; I’ll pull some o’ that plate off the
front page and run this in a box. Whee! Back in
a minute!”

Bill Murray departed like a genial cyclone.

Now Thady Shea told about that battered little
suitcase. He was not sure what should be done
with the thing, and asked the advice of Fred Ross.
He had not opened the suitcase; ever since finding
it, he had been on the go. Besides, the suitcase
was locked, and Thady hesitated to smash it
open.

“Likely it was bounced off some ranch car or
buckboard,” deduced Ross. “Belong to that
dead Injun? No chance. None whatever! You
never seen an Injun with one o’ them things, and
anyhow, no Injun riding hossback would tote a
suitcase along. No, none whatever! And that
grip wasn’t made to tie on a saddle, neither.
Reckon you’d better look inside, and if there ain’t
any indication of the owner, then read the papers
for an ad. Well, what ye going to do? Will ye
come back to the ranch with me?”

Thady Shea did not know what he wanted to do.
He wondered if he had fulfilled his extremely vague
ideas of wandering and making good in the world.
In a sense, he had done so. He realized it now,
just as he realized that it is very difficult to view
one’s own immediate self and environment with
any degree of cool detachment.

As to Mackintavers, as to any peril which he
himself might bring upon Mrs. Crump, Thady
Shea had long since abandoned that nebulous idea.
He had met Mackintavers, and feared him no
longer. Of Dorales he did not think particularly.

He had no great desire to return to the Ross
ranch. Try as he would, he could see no purpose
ahead of him save in the one place—Number
Sixteen. All that held him back was that strange
feeling in his soul, a feeling that had been there
twenty years and more; a feeling as though something
were knotted somewhere about his soul,
stifling him. What use to return to Mrs. Crump?
Still, there was the only purpose he could see.

He had conquered the old enemy; of this he felt
certain. Temptations would come, of course.
Temptations were bound to come; they came at
odd intervals; they came here in this hotel dining
room, where he could catch some vagrant odour
of whiskey from an indefinable source. Yet they
would not overcome him anew, he was confident.

“I think,” he said, slowly, staring at the tablecloth,
“I think I’d better head for Mrs. Crump’s
mine, Ross.”

There was that in his voice which admitted of no
argument. Ross shoved back his chair.

“Well, wait a minute, will you? I want to
speak to Bill Murray. Order me some o’ that pie
and another cup o’ coffee, Shea.”

Fred Ross opened the dining-room doors, which
had been closed, and departed to the lobby of the
hotel. He found genial Bill Murray just turning
from the telephone, and wearing a look of puzzled
excitement.

“Get the ranch?” asked Ross. The other
nodded and glanced around cautiously.

“Yes. Talked to Old Man Durfee—he’s manager for Sandy.
He said that Sandy and Abel
Dorales had just left for Magdalena; he admitted
there had been a robbery but would say
nothing except that it didn’t amount to much.
Injun relics, he said.”

“Huh!” Fred Ross gazed at his friend, narrow-eyed.
“I bet if it was Injun relics, it was some partic’lar
kind, then. That sounds damn’ fishy, Bill.”

“Sure does, but she’ll make a grand little story,
played up. This here Shea just came from there,
didn’t he? And everybody knows about him and
Dorales and the bad blood.”

The two men looked at each other, surmise in
their eyes. Ross thoughtfully rubbed his chin,
remembering about that battered little suitcase
on the hat rack. He did not entirely believe the
tale told by Thady Shea, the tale about finding it
in the road. That was too improbable, unless the
dead Indian had been carrying the suitcase—which
seemed, likewise, very improbable.

“I shouldn’t wonder, now,” said Ross, musingly.
“Shea, he’s the calm, hell-nervy sort, he sure is.
Likely Dorales or old Sandy tried to run a blazer
on him, and he played merry hell with them.
Likely they had something he thought belonged to
someone else, and he just up and took it. H’m!
But the robbery had happened before he got
there, he *said*. Well, if he don’t want to tell all he
knows, that’s his business. Eh?”

“I coincide,” assented Murray, curtly. Fred
Ross briefly told him about the suitcase, in so far
as he knew about it.

“Now,” pursued Ross, “you and I ain’t blamin’
him or any other man for gettin’ old Mackintavers
up on his ear. But Shea, in spite o’ the stories
goin’ around about him, ain’t no fighter, Bill.
He’s a downright honest man, and he’s terrible
when he gets roused, but I don’t guess he could
fight for little apples. *And*, he don’t know Sandy
and Dorales are comin’ to town.”

“I see,” said Murray, thoughtfully. “But he
ain’t the kind to run away, Fred.”

“C’rect. But why should he know anything
about Sandy coming? We’d ought to see that he
avoids ’em, so to speak. You’re goin’ west to-night.
You got room, ain’t you?”

“Oh!” Murray chuckled, admiringly. “So
that’s the game! Sure, I got room. Where is he
goin’, though?”

“Near as I got the location o’ the mine he’s
aiming for, it’s in the hills above them lava beds,
down beyond Zacaton City and No Agua. You’re
goin’ west by the highway, which is north o’ there—a
long sight north. But if you were to run a
few mile out of your way, you could hit down the
Old Fort Tularosa trail, which is an auto road now;
you could drop Shea by the Beaver Cañon trail,
down within thirty mile o’ home, more or less.
I’ll send Sandy and Dorales on to St. Johns after
you, savvy?”

For a moment the two men conferred eagerly.

Unobserved by them, meantime, a man had
entered the hotel and was standing at the cigar
case, at one side of the desk. He was buying
cigars. He was roughly dressed, but spoke perfect
English. When he turned to the cigar
lighter, disclosing his face to view, one could see
that he was very swarthy, very dark of colour—an
Indian, perhaps.

This man straightened up, puffing at his cigar.
His eyes flitted to the little battered suitcase,
which reposed on the hat rack, and dwelt there;
thus dwelling, his eyes narrowed slightly. He
turned and left the hotel.

“Who? Him?” said the hotel proprietor in
response to a question from a man near by.
“Why, he’s Thomas Twofork; yep, an Injun, from
Cochiti pueblo, I hear. Been in town two-three
days now. Got money, they say, heaps of it.”

Ignorant of what had transpired in the lobby,
Thady Shea was glad when his companions rejoined
him and sat down to their interrupted
repast. Fred Ross broached the subject of departure;
he broached it with elaborate carelessness.

“Bill is headin’ for home right away,” he said,
“and he goes within thirty mile, more or less, of
where your mine’s located, Shea. If you figger
on walking, that would be a good lift. If you go
back with me to-morrow, you won’t get near so
nigh home.”

“Oh!” Thady Shea saw no guile; he looked
gratefully surprised, and felt it. He had anticipated
a long trip via Zacaton City. That
route would be attended with dangers from
Dorales or the latter’s men, besides having the
expense of a car to take him to Number Sixteen.

“Oh! I’d be glad indeed—but do you have to
leave to-night?”

“You bet,” said Murray, emphatically. “The
minute I get this here pie down. I got the ol’
car all ready to hike, and I’m goin’ to hike some.
I aim to get home about sun-up, sleep two-three
hours, then get to work on the paper. She’s got
to be run off to-morrow night, see? And I’d sure
be glad o’ your company, Shea. It’s a lonesome
trip at night from here over through Datil Cañon
and all.”

Surely, thought Shea, here was fate aiding him!
Barely had he resolved to seek Mrs. Crump and
the mine, than this opportunity offered. A walk
of a few miles did not worry him in the least.

“Thank you, Murray,” he rejoined. “I’ll go,
with pleasure.”

Ten minutes later, the three men left the hotel,
walked up to the corner, and turned in to the
garage behind the trading store. Bill Murray paid
his debts to the proprietor and sought his own car.

“Well, Ross, I’ll say good-bye for a while, at
least.” Shea turned and shook hands with his
friend. “I’ll see you again, that’s sure. Oh—by
the way, hadn’t we better open that suitcase? I
forgot about it. Let’s get it broken open here,
and——”

Ross interposed a hasty negation. He wanted
only to get Shea safely out of town before Mackintavers
and Dorales should arrive.

“No, don’t get Murray nervous, hangin’ around
here, Shea. He’s dead anxious to be off, and we
better not give him any delay. I’m sure curious
about what’s in that case, just the same. S’pose
you drop me a line when you find out, and give
my regards to Mis’ Crump! Maybe I’ll drift over
your way some time; if not, you know where to
find me.”

“You bet,” assented Thady Shea, warmly.

Murray motioned Thady Shea into the front
seat, and took the battered little suitcase to shove
it into the rear of the car. An ejaculation almost
escaped his lips as he felt its weight. It was heavy,
tremendously heavy!

“Ore, likely,” he muttered. “I bet he don’t
walk thirty mile with *that*!”

Thady Shea and Fred Ross parted with a last
handshake. Each of them had probed deep into
the other man; each of them had found the other
strangely dissimilar, yet strangely attuned in
spirit to himself; each of them had found the other
to be a man. Their handshake was firm and
quick and strong.

Ross cranked the car. Bill Murray backed her
from the garage, roared a last farewell, and headed
out into the west and the night.

Fred Ross went back to the hotel after calling
upon certain friends of his; for Ross had a fairly
good idea of what was coming next. His theories
were not altogether correct, but they attained
pretty correct results.

So, after a short time, Fred Ross returned to
the hotel and sat down in the lobby, just under
the big map of New Mexico that hung upon the
south wall. Immediately around him the comfortable
oak rocking-chairs were vacant; but to
right and left, three chairs away, sat red-faced men
who read newspapers—two on either hand. These
four men displayed an ostentatious lack of interest
in each other and in Fred Ross. Over that
section of the lobby hung an ill-defined air of
crisis, of expectation, of foreboding.

Over opposite, in a corner of the big front
window, sat a man, a stranger to Fred Ross. This
man had come into town on the late afternoon
train. He was palpably a city man, palpably not
of this part of the country; he had registered at
the desk as James Z. Premble of New York. Speculating
idly as he waited, Fred Ross set him down
as a high-class drummer.

Thus waited the six men, as though they were
awaiting some event about to happen: Ross,
seated under the big wall map; the four red-faced
men who read newspapers with marked absorption; and,
in the corner of the window, James Z.
Premble of New York.

Suddenly and abruptly it happened. It happened
just as Fred Ross had anticipated. The
hotel door opened and into the lobby walked
Sandy Mackintavers with Abel Dorales at his
elbow. They had been to the livery stable, they
had been to one place and another, and they had
soon learned that Thady Shea, easily noted and remembered
by all who saw him, had been in the company
of Ross and Murray. Both Ross and Murray
were known to Mackintavers and his field marshal.

Upon entering, Abel Dorales passed straight on
to the cigar stand, where he stood idly gossiping
with the proprietor. Mackintavers, with a wave
of his hand and a grunt, halted in front of Fred
Ross, and dropped into a chair beside the latter.

“Hello, Ross. Just the man I was looking for.
Know a man name o’ Shea, Thady Shea?”

“Evening,” returned Ross, easily. “Sure I
know him. Seen him a while ago.”

“Know where he is now?” asked Mackintavers
without too great show of interest.

“Uh-huh. He went off with Bill Murray to St.
Johns a couple of hours ago. Murray was in
some hurry, believe me! He’d been laid up here
with a busted car, and had to get out his paper
to-morrow sure pop, so he aimed to travel some
to-night. You interested in Shea?”

“Some.” Mackintavers bit into a cigar. Over
the cigar, his eyes fell upon James Z. Premble of
New York, who was also looking at him. After
an instant Premble rose and left the hotel.

Ross had not hesitated to impart the information
about Thady Shea, for the excellent reason that
if Mackintavers followed Shea to St. Johns, he
would miss Thady Shea entirely. Therein Fred
Ross made a mistake. It did not occur to him
that Dorales, in a high-powered car, might follow
the tracks of Murray’s flivver where it struck from
the highroad upon the Old Fort Tularosa trail.

“’Bliged to ye, Ross.” With this curt speech,
Mackintavers heaved himself out of his chair and
went to the door. He passed out into the night.

Abel Dorales left the cigar stand, and also started
for the door. But he stopped before Fred Ross,
exchanged a word of greeting, and his white teeth
showed in a smile. It was not a pleasant smile.

“I hear you’re going to run sheep on your ranch,
Ross,” he said clearly. “Bad manners for an old
cowman, isn’t it?”

The four red-faced men laid aside their newspapers.
They seemed to take sudden interest in
Abel Dorales. Fred Ross looked up, unsmiling,
his eyes hard and cold.

“Handsome is as handsome does, Abel. Reckon
I’d sooner run sheep than get chloroformed and
hogtied tryin’ to jump a claim.”

A fleeting contraction passed across the face of
Abel Dorales. His eyes narrowed to thin slits.
His nostrils quivered like the nose of a dog sniffing
game. He became white-lipped, cruel, venomous.

The four red-faced men stirred. One of them
rose, yawning, and stretched himself as does a
weary man who thinks well of bed for the night.
Abel Dorales took sudden warning. He looked
to the right and to the left; then, without a word
more, he turned on his heel and walked away,
following Mackintavers out into the night.

“Trust a Mex to smell trouble!” said one of the
men to the left of Fred Ross. “He reckoned we
was planted to do him up.”

“Well, wasn’t we?” queried someone. All
laughed in unison. Ross smiled grimly and left
his chair.

“Much obliged to ye, boys. I didn’t know they
would come alone, or I wouldn’t ha’ bothered ye.”

Outside the hotel, meantime, Mackintavers had
joined James Z. Premble, who appeared to have
been awaiting him. A moment later Abel Dorales,
mouthing low and vitriolic curses, joined them. In
silence the three men turned to the left and walked
down to the railroad track. There, beyond the
warehouse, they stood with open and empty space
around them, and none to overhear.

“Didn’t look for ye quite so soon, Premble,”
said Mackintavers, chuckling a little as he used
the name.

“Got a good chance at my man,” returned the
other. “Came in this afternoon, Sandy, but
couldn’t catch you at the ranch. Ready for me to
work?”

“Aiblins, yes; reckon we’d better get busy, you
and I.” He turned to Dorales. “Abel, our man
has gone to St. Johns with Murray. You have
plenty o’ friends in that Mormon town, so take
the big car and mosey along. Do whatever you
want with Shea, but bring me back that bunch
o’ stone gods if ye value your life! I’ll be at Mrs.
Crump’s location.”

“All right,” snapped Dorales. “Is he much
ahead of me?”

“Two hours, in a flivver. You can’t fail to
land him this time. Good luck, boy!”

Dorales snarled farewell, and swung off in the
darkness. Mackintavers turned to his friend,
James Z. Premble.

“I’m gettin’ old,” he complained. “Been out
chasin’ a thief all day and I’m no good for an all-night
ride now. I’ll take a room at the hotel.
Drop in after a spell and we’ll arrange the details.
You got the stuff?”

“Every blessed paper and letter. Everything
O.K.,” asserted Premble.

The two men melted into the night.

Five minutes later Dorales was filling his gasoline
tank at the garage. He made brief inquiries
about Murray’s flivver and the brand of tires
thereon. Off to one side, a swarthy man was
hastily working upon the fan belt of a big car,
which had twice broken as his engine started;
this swarthy man took keen and unobserved interest
in the questions of Dorales. The name of
this swarthy man was Thomas Twofork, and he
was an Indian of the Cochiti pueblo. Twenty
minutes after Dorales had departed Thomas
Twofork had finished his repairs and headed his
car out upon the westward road to St. Johns.

An hour afterward, well into the night, an
automobile came into Magdalena from the opposite
direction. It came in by the eastern road,
the road that comes up from Socorro through
Blue Cañon, the road that comes south to Socorro
from Albuquerque and Santa Fé. This automobile
did not turn into a garage; instead, it
passed on through the business section of the
town and did not slacken speed until it reached
the Mexican or western quarter.

There it came to a halt and its horn squawked
four times. Its searchlight revealed a small adobe
house with blue-painted doors. One of these
doors opened to show a man clad in dishevelled
night attire. The automobile drove on into the
yard; its lights flickered out.

“Is that you, Juan Baca?” queried a soft, gentle
voice. “Ah, yes; it is I, Coravel Tio. Will you
give me lodging for the night?”

“Señor, my house and all it contains belong
to you!”

Coravel Tio passed into the little adobe house.

CHAPTER XIV—DORALES KILLS
=========================

In the chill darkness that precedes the early
dawn Thady Shea alighted from Bill Murray’s
car. Before him, a few miles distant,
were Old Fort Tularosa and Aragon; many miles
behind was the highway. Down to the southeast—somewhere—was
his destination.

“Mind, now,” cautioned Murray, “you take
this here trail and it’ll lead up through them hills
into Beaver Cañon. Follow Beaver Crick all
the rest o’ the way. Near as I can judge, your
place is somewhere down beyond Eagle Peak.
If you get clear lost, send up a smoke and a
ranger will be dead sure to trail you down. G’bye
and good luck!”

“Good-bye, and many thanks for the lift!” responded
Shea, his sonorous voice pierced with the
chill of the early morning. Murray went buzzing
away on the back trail.

Carrying his battered little suitcase, Thady
Shea started off, gradually accustoming his eyes
to picking out the rough trail. It mattered
nothing to him that he might be days upon this
road; it mattered nothing that he was about to
negotiate the continental divide afoot. Time and
space did not concern him, nor bodily discomfort.
His was the supremely ignorant confidence of a
child as he headed into the mountains to find a
mine whose entire location, going at it from this
direction, was a matter of guesswork.

To be more accurate and practical, Thady
Shea, having slept lightly while riding, was weary.
He was also cold and confused. Now that he had
reached a decision and was really on his way to
Number Sixteen, he felt unaccountably homesick.
Not that Number Sixteen meant home, but Mrs.
Crump would be there. As usual, Thady Shea
was a bit vague in analyzing his feelings; but he
had a solid and definite purpose in view, at least.
He was going to rejoin Mrs. Crump. He was
going to learn mining work.

He went on, trudging bravely under his burden,
until the cold had pierced and chilled and
numbed him. At last he could endure the cold no
longer. Ignorant of forest rangers or forest law,
he had quite missed the point of Miller’s parting
joke about sending up a smoke. He contrived
to build himself a fire; a fine roaring fire, a ruddy,
leaping fire that warmed him. It was a fire that
blazed forth patent defiance of all law. Its darting
glow was caught by a forest ranger in a lookout
on Indian Peaks fifteen miles away.

With the first gleam of the rising sun Thady
Shea abandoned his blazing fire and took up his
journey again, following the winding trail without
trouble. A little later he halted and made a cold
breakfast from some of the food that filled his
pockets. Then he decided to open the suitcase
and see if it were worth carrying farther, or if it
held tokens of ownership. By this time, he was
sorry that he had dragged the thing along.

He smashed open the suitcase. Within it he
found wads of crumpled newspapers, and among
the newspapers seven stones. At first he thought
they were nothing but stones. Gradually he
realized that they were carven images of some sort.
Except for these, there was nothing in the suitcase.
There was nothing to denote its ownership—not
a mark, not a line, not a card nor a word.

Thady Shea set out the seven stone gods on the
ground, and regarded them. The more he looked
at them, the more he saw in them. Each one was
somewhat different in shape, but all were of a size.
They were smooth and rounded, as if from much
handling, or as if worn sleek by many centuries.
They were crude, uncouth little figures, those
gods; they were fashioned rudely in the semblance
of man, with every angle and sharp line worn
down, obliterated, rounded.

“They look as if some kid had been making
mud dolls, and the mud had hardened,” observed
Shea in some wonder. The description was
accurate and perfect.

Thady Shea knew nothing about Indians or
their gods. He had not the slightest idea what
these things really were; but he was a member of
The Profession, an actor of the old school. All
his life he had been surrounded by the superstitions
of the old school. As everyone knows,
there are no stronger, firmer, and more absolute
superstitions than those of The Profession.

As Thady Shea gazed upon those seven stone
gods which sat in the dust and grinned stonily
back at him, various things suggested themselves
to his fertile brain. Seven of them—and seven
was beyond question a lucky number! Then,
fate had undoubtedly placed them in his hand and
had removed any clew to their former owners.
Luck had come to him, and if he threw the luck
away because of a little bother involved in carrying
it—well, that would be an ill thing to do!

Out of his subconscious self evolved a curious
idea, a remembrance. What did these things
represent? He dimly remembered something
about the seven heavenly virtues and the seven
deadly sins. The vague thought stirred him.
These images were ugly enough to represent the
seven sins—or the seven virtues. He must keep
them at all costs; in the manner of their coming
was something fated, something that appealed
to all the latent superstition within him. He
dared not refuse these talismen!

So he replaced them in the suitcase and took
up his road anew.

It was a rough road that called to him. It was
a long and lonely road, a road that took him out
of human ken and into the heart of the high hills.

He swung along at a good four-mile clip, his
long legs fast covering the ground. He had never
before this day been actually among the mountains,
and he liked their friendly, forested faces.
The rough trail denoted very little usage, yet this
absence of all humanity did not oppress Thady
Shea. He felt gloriously independent, free!

About noon he was following Beaver Creek
through a rough and rugged cañon. Here he
lunched, with a silver-black pool of water foaming
and bubbling fifty feet below him; a pool that
foamed green and silver with sunlight and bubbled
with black shadows. Over on the opposite wall
of the cañon was a broken line of masonry, half
hiding a niche in the rock where once had lived and
died the cliff dwellers. It was a spot to remember.
It was a place that stirred the deep things in a
man’s soul, that caused him to think upon the
mysteries, the flashing glimpses of occult things.
About that place there lingered a sense of the
futility of man, a sense of the gorgeously foaming
and bubbling eternity of the Creator. Thady
Shea was glad that he had seen that place.

Afterward, he halted for a smoke, this time
beside the stream itself, farther along the cañon.
Thady Shea had never been a boy—until to-day.
At ten years he had been an accomplished actor,
a child marvel, drunken and drugged with the
unhealthy atmosphere of the stage. But now—now!
The altitude was high, and he was drunk
as with fine wine. He waded in the stony creek,
he even thought of fishing with a bent pin on a
string; but he had neither pin nor string. He
enjoyed a truant hour. Then he went on his way
anew, vowing inwardly that some day he would
return to this little bubbling creek and the winding
cañon amid the mountains.

Despite the altitude, weariness had left him,
and he carried the seven stone gods without feeling
their weight. Deeper and lonelier grew his
trail, the mountains folding him in upon every
side. He began to feel the infinity of distance.
He was a mere tiny atom here among these great
solitudes. His insignificance was borne home
upon him, mellowing all his spirit.

In this chastened mood he came, suddenly and
without warning, upon the tragic shack of the
sheep-herder.

It was a shack of logs and hewn timbers, a rough
little shack, a tragic little shack. Upon one wall
was fastened a faded paper, a permit issued by
the forest ranger to cut these same timbers. In
the sun by the doorway sat a little brown, half-naked
baby, perhaps a year of age, whimpering
and chewing upon a strip of raw white bacon.
There was no one else visible. Over the place,
tainting the clear high air, hung a fearful odour of
mortality; an odour of tragic suggestion, an odour
of blood and liquor.

Seeing no one about except the baby, who
stopped whimpering at sight of him, Thady Shea
advanced to the doorway. He glanced inside. As
he did so, cold and awful horror stiffened upon him.
Even to his tyro’s eye the story was plain to read.

Upon the bare earthen floor, just inside the door,
sat the sheep-herder. The effluvia of his garments
told eloquently his profession. Between his outstretched
feet lay a cheap revolver. His swarthy,
brutal face, the face of a Mexican, the face of a
barbarian drawn from mingled Indian and bastard
Spanish blood, was sunken upon his chest.
He was breathing stertorously, horribly. He was
drunk, stupefied with liquor. Upon the floor
beneath his hand had fallen an empty bottle
which stank of the vilest mescal.

Only a few feet distant, sprawled under one
wall of the room, was the body of a woman, a
brown native woman. She had been upon her
knees beneath a little crucifix. She had fallen
partly forward, partly sideways; a cotton garment
had been torn from her left shoulder and
breast, as though in some last agony. Beneath
the left breast, black with flies, a pool of black
blood was coagulating. She had not been dead
a long time; an hour or two, no more.

Thady Shea took a step backward. He put
one hand to his eyes, as if to shut from his vision
that sordid and horrible scene. For a moment
he stood thus, his brain in riotous turmoil; then
he started violently as a hand touched his arm.

“Hello, stranger! I been looking for you!”

Shea stared at the man who had just dismounted
from a pony; a white man, grave and
steady of eye. Something in the horror-smitten face
of Shea drew an exclamation from this other man.

“Here—what’s the matter?”

“In there. Look!” Thady Shea motioned to
the doorway.

The other man, the forest ranger who had come
from the lookout station on Indian Peaks,
quickly strode forward. His figure filled the doorway
for a long moment. He stood there silently,
gazing in upon that tragic shack, reading every
detail with skilled eyes. At last he turned and
rejoined Thady Shea, who was staring down at the
baby.

“You built a fire early this morning on the old
trail up from the Tularosa Road?” The ranger
gave his name and office. “H’m-m. Know
anything about the fire laws?”

“Fire laws? No,” Shea was disturbed and
wondering. “Why? Shouldn’t I have built any
fire?”

“Not that kind—not a big hell-roarer. No
harm done, I reckon; I stamped out your fire.
But see to it that you don’t do it again. Here’s
a copy of the laws.”

He extended a card. Shea pocketed it with a
helpless gesture, and looked again at the doorway
of the shack. The ranger caught his look, and
nodded.

“I guess you’d just found ’em, eh? It’s a hell
of a note. This fellow Garcia, with his wife and
kid, came up from Mexico; refugees. He’s been
herding some sheep; some that the Y Ranch
got a permit to run in a big box cañon last winter—and
he’s not a bad sort when he’s sober. But now—well,
there’s no doubt about him now. He’ll
be a good greaser in two-three weeks, when the
drop’s sprung. Suppose I got to take him in;
hell of a note! You ain’t been inside?”

Thady Shea shuddered. “No,” he answered.
He looked down at the baby. The baby looked
up at him, removed the strip of white bacon from
her mouth, and smiled.

“It’s a girl!” said Thady Shea in surprise and
awe.

The ranger gave him a curious look, then took
out his notebook and pencil.

“Name and where from, if you please,” he
said. “We’ll likely have to come and take down
your testimony later on.”

Thady Shea gave his name, and gave as well
as he was able the location of Mrs. Crump’s mine.
The ranger once more eyed him, but this time
with a new air.

“Hell! I’ve heard o’ you, Shea. Partners with
Mrs. Crump, eh? That’s a pretty good recommend.
Where you goin’ from here?”

“To the mine. I believe that by following this
creek I’ll get into the right territory sooner or
later. I know how to reach the mine from
Zacaton City, but from this direction I’m not so
sure.”

Thady Shea was badly off. He was thoroughly
shaken by the fearful scene within the tragic
shack. It had unnerved him, and he wanted a
drink with avid and terrible longing. The ranger
observed it.

“I ain’t offering you any drinks, Shea,” he said,
drily. “Heard a few things about what happens
to folks that offer you drinks. Still, I always do
carry a drop for emergencies, and I have a notion
that you need a sip mighty bad.”

Thady Shea forced a grim smile. “Thanks. But—the
need will have to be greater than it is now, my
friend. You think I can reach the mine to-night?”

“No. Some time to-morrow, most likely. Now
listen close and I’ll give you directions where to
leave this cañon, or else you’ll come out clear
down on the Gila!”

Having gleaned a fairly precise knowledge of the
location of Number Sixteen, the ranger proceeded
to give Thady Shea an accurate mental map
of the trails, backed up by a rough drawing. Then
he entered the shack, carried out the murderer,
and bound the man on his pony like a sack of flour.

“What the devil will become o’ the kid?” he
queried. “Come on, Shea, let’s get the poor
woman buried. That baby, now—d’you suppose
you could wait here until I send back for her? I
can’t handle the greaser and the baby, too.”

Thady Shea did not respond at once. He
seemed oblivious of the question; but as a matter
of fact, he was deep in thought.

The two men together dug a grave and decently
interred the poor murdered woman. Over
the mound Thady Shea intoned a fragmentary
burial service. What he lacked in words he made
up in rolling phrases culled from other sources
than the prayer book, and in a deeply sincere
manner which sat upon him with stately dignity.

They returned to the front of the shack, where
the ranger rolled a cigarette with studied care,
and returned to his perplexity.

“What about this here kid, now? These folks
haven’t any kin this side the border, and these
greasers don’t give a whoop for babies anyhow;
too common. This Garcia is the one that deserves
my close and personal attention until he
gets shoved into the kind o’ hell he’s bound for—which
won’t be very long. Of course, the kid can
go to some orphanage or the State will take care
of her. She’s a smilin’ little cuss!”

Thady Shea fingered his shaggy, gray-black
beard.

“If there’s a razor around the place, I think
I’ll shave,” he uttered, thoughtfully. His words
drew a look of frowning surprise from the ranger,
so utterly at variance with the subject did they
seem. “Yes, I think I’ll shave.”

“Why, friend, I’ve been thinking about that
infant,” pursued Shea. “You know Mrs. Crump,
I gather? I think she would care for the little
one. I’ll take care of the child on the journey
there; I imagine we can get along. I—er—I don’t
mind saying that—er—there is a whimsey born of
infancy’s fond smiles which warms the kindlier
soul within a man.”

He broke off, quite at a loss for further words.
But the ranger understood, and smiled to himself.

“That suits me, Shea. You’ll be at the mine,
eh? May call on you later in regard to the evidence
here. Yes, that’s a good plan. Let’s see
if we can chase up a razor, now.”

The ranger disappeared inside the tragic shack.

Upward of two hours later a new Thady Shea
was continuing his journey; the tragic shack was
far lost to view in the wilderness behind him.

His upper lip, his long under jaw, were shaven
and in white contrast with the bronzed skin of
cheeks and brow. His wide, mobile mouth and
chin differed from those of the wastrel Thaddeus
Roscius who had lain in the road above the Bajada
hill. They were firmer, more virile of set, stronger
of muscle.

In one hand he carried the battered little yellow
suitcase. Upon the other arm was perched the
half-naked brown baby, for whose benefit Shea
also carried a blanket tied to his shoulders. This
was not the ideal trim for a walking tour across
the Continental Divide, but Thady Shea had no
complaints to make.

Never before had Thady Shea communed alone
with a baby, particularly with a baby quite dependent
upon him. This baby could not talk
but she could coo, and she did coo. She could
laugh, and she did laugh. She seemed to find a
kinship within the deep, sadly earnest eyes of
Thady Shea. She made it evident that she liked
his eyes, and whenever they were turned upon her,
she giggled with self-conscious and adorable delight.

The day wore on. When darkness descended,
Thady Shea camped at the brink of the cañon,
at the edge of a deep and stony gully which ran
down into the cañon below. He built a fire, this
time in accord with the laws of the land, and produced
his scant store of food. Fortunately, the
baby was used to living by rough ways and pastures
sere.

In this one day Thady Shea lived long years.
He realized it himself. He realized the change
within him; he perceived it at once, without any
vagueness or obscurity. He was filled with
wonder and awe. He felt clearly that the manifest
friendship and love of this brown baby had
loosened something far inside of him. Within a
few hours she had loosened something which had
been hard and clenched and bitter inside of him
these twenty years—something like a knot gripped
about a part of his soul, stifling it. But now,
at last, the knot was loosened, was gone.

Once again he fell asleep under the stars with
glinting tears bedewing his brown cheeks; they
were tears of joy and thankfulness. He knew
that he was no longer to drift upon the earth.
From depending upon the applause of others for
happiness, others were now depending upon him.
He had someone for whom to live. Vanity was
gone from him, and the worth of life was come
in unto him. He now had a purpose, a real
purpose, to drive him.

That this purpose was very definite and earnest,
he had realized with the unloosing of that knot
about his soul. He knew whither he was going,
and why—why he wanted to find Mrs. Crump.
He fell asleep with tears upon his cheeks and in
his heart a dumbly vibrant song.

Some time during the night he was awakened;
the baby was whimpering, was cold. The fire
was dying down. He had been awakened by a
queer noise, a noise like the clank of a shod hoof
against a stone. He rose and kicked the ember
ends into the fire. He removed his coat and laid
it over the baby, then he stood looking down at the
bundle. The fire flickered up until its glowing
flare lighted his tall figure redly and distinctly.

From somewhere in the darkness came a slight
sound. Thady Shea lifted up his head and peered
about, the vague thought of wild animals disturbing
him. From the darkness echoed a faint
laugh—a thin, ironic laugh, a laugh that thrilled
Thady Shea with evil memories and swift apprehension.
He seemed to recognize it as the laugh
of Abel Dorales.

Before he could do more than lift his head and
peer into the darkness, that darkness was suddenly
split and rended by a red flash. The crack
of a weapon lifted and lessened among the hills;
as it died away, the baby cried out, whimpering.
Across the face of Thady Shea flickered a look of
dismay, of surprise, of utmost horror. Thady Shea
took a step backward, as though something had
lifted him off his balance, as though something unseen
had impacted against him with terrific force.
He staggered and lifted both hands to his head.
Then his knees seemed to loosen, and he pitched
downward, at the very brink of the gully.

From the stony ravine below came a heavy
sound, as of a body pitching and dragging downward.
It ceased, and there was abrupt silence.
In that silence, the baby cried out, whimpering
thinly.

Into the circle of light cast by the tiny fire came
a man leading a pony. The man was Abel Dorales
and he was smiling.

CHAPTER XV—MACKINTAVERS MAKES FRIENDS
=====================================

Mrs. Crump was grimly jubilant. She
had just killed, not far from the shack
which she inhabited, a rattler. It was a
peculiarly deadly rattler, a big diamond-back, and
its black-and-yellow body looked very beautiful
lying out in the morning sunlight.

Mrs. Crump had killed that rattler most
expertly; she had killed it with one snapping
crack of a blacksnake whip. That one whip snap
had coiled about the rattler’s head and had neatly
decapitated the reptile. Somewhere among the
rocks that head lay naked and ugly, jaws wide
agape, white fangs gleaming like needles.

Now, up on the long hogback, Mrs. Crump
directed the work of getting out ore, Lewis and
Gilbert working steadily under her orders. There
was already a goodly heap of ore ready for hauling.
Mrs. Crump was awaiting the arrival of Coravel
Tio, whom she expected hourly; she had written
Coravel Tio very explicitly, and was looking forward
to making some money in the near future.

When Coravel Tio arrived, they would arrange
about getting a light truck to haul the ore to railroad,
and they would arrange about selling the ore.
Coravel Tio would handle all such details. Actual
production was well under way, and inside of another
month Mrs. Crump hoped to have a good
force of men working. Provided, of course, that
the mine was not sold outright.

“Looks like he’s a-coming.” Gilbert swung out
his hand toward the trail from No Agua. Shading
her eyes, Mrs. Crump perceived a smudge of
white dust. An automobile was approaching.

It was not Coravel Tio who came, however.
It was Sandy Mackintavers, driven in a hired car
from Magdalena.

Mehitabel Crump was stiff-necked and uncompromising.
She stood in the door of her
shack, storm in her eyes, and waited grimly. Outside,
sprawled on a bench that ran the length of
the shack, Lewis and Gilbert smoked and also
waited, ready to act if called upon.

Sandy Mackintavers left his automobile and
approached the shack, quick to note the arrangements
for his reception. He came up to the doorway
where Mrs. Crump awaited him. He removed
his hat as he came, and mopped his brow;
the sun was pitiless, streaming down with direct
and scorching glare, absolute and insufferable. In
another hour or two it would be much worse.
Sandy Mackintavers held his hat in his left hand;
he extended his right hand, square-fingered and
strong, to Mrs. Crump.

“Madam, I have come here as a friend. Will
you shake hands with me?”

“Not by a damn’ sight!”

Mrs. Crump’s eyes were snapping dangerously.
Her retort did not seem to affect Mackintavers,
however. His square-hewn features assumed an
oddly hypocritical expression of patient resignation.
His hand remained extended.

“I must explain. Your friend Shea has repaid
the money—you understand?”

“Reckon I do. What about it?”

“We had quite a conversation, Mrs. Crump.
That man is a wonder! Yes’m. Most remarkable!
I never did see things so clear as he made
me see ’em, aiblins yes. If I may say so, I feel
ashamed of myself. I’ve done some unhandsome
things; aiblins, now, I’ll turn around. I’m right
sorry for some things, Mrs. Crump. Will ye take
my hand?”

Now, if there was anything which could shake
the uncompromising hostility of Mrs. Crump, it
was to hear her bitterest enemy praise Thady Shea.
Aside from this, to hear Sandy Mackintavers
express penitence for past sins, even to hear
him admit that he had sinned, was an astounding
thing. The incredibility of it was tremendous.

That mention of Thady Shea softened Mrs.
Crump. She realized that Thady had made a great
impression, had made so great an impression that
here was Sandy Mackintavers, in the flesh, making
apologies for past deeds!

“Well, Sandy,” she returned, bluntly, “I will
say that I think ye to be more or less of a skunk.
Howsomever, I’ll meet any man halfway—even
you—when he talks that-a-way. I don’t guess
we’d ever be bosom friends, but I don’t aim to be
mean or ornery when a man’s tryin’ to be as
white as his nature allows him. Here y’are.”

She seized his hand and shook it vigorously.
Mackintavers looked rather red about the face, as
though her frank opinion of his character had
bitten into him.

“Now, if you have time to be talkin’ over a little
matter o’ business——”

“About this here location?” Mrs. Crump’s eyes
began to snap again.

“Yes.”

“Gilbert! Lewis! Come on in here. Meet
Sandy Mackintavers. They’re members o’ the
company, Sandy. They got claims along the
cañon, which same they turned in for stock.
Stock ain’t issued yet, but that’s all right. Come
on inside an’ talk.”

The lady was truculent and openly suspicious;
the two men were narrow-eyed, hostile. Mackintavers
seemed quite oblivious, and entered the
shack. All four seated themselves. Mackintavers
produced cigars. Mrs. Crump lighted her
pipe and uttered a single emphatic word.

“Shoot!”

“You have a valuable mine here,” said Mackintavers,
without preamble. “I want to control it.
I’m talking frank and laying my cards on the table,
ma’am. First, let me give you folks an idea of
the railroad situation.”

He briefly described the prevalent car shortage,
with the reasons therefore.

“You’ll get no ore cars until the war’s over,
and maybe not then,” he pursued. “But I have
a standing contract that can’t be broken, for so
many cars a month—and I’m getting them. Ye
see? Aiblins, now, that contract’s worth something;
set your own figure on it. For the rest,
I’ll buy stock at your own price, a controlling
interest.”

“Sandy, who’d ever trust you once ye got your
nose into this thing?” Mrs. Crump laughed scornfully.
“Not me!”

“Then don’t trust me,” returned Sandy, meekly,
although the veins in his temples swelled into
blue cords. “Don’t trust me. Hire your own
lawyers to draw up the matter, protect your
interests fully. Give me charge of the actual
mine, and then sit back an’ draw down the coin
from your interest; savvy? If I’m not able to
make millions out o’ this here mine, I’ll quit!
Ain’t that frank talk? Ain’t I human? I tell
ye, when that man Shea came along and turned
back that money, I learned something!”

“Where’s Thady Shea now?” demanded Mrs.
Crump.

“Went to St. Johns night before last, with Fred
Ross and Bill Murray. Said he’d be here later,
maybe. I like that man! Something about him
kind o’ draws you. Aiblins, he’d be grand in the
legislature, now! Eh? Well, well, about this
mine matter; as I say, use any means ye like. I
don’t blame you for not trusting me. But it’s a
good thing and I’ll buy into it, savvy? Protect
yourself, certainly. But why not let me buy into
it? I have a bit of influence; aiblins, now, I’d be
able to help production here an’ there, and to
furnish no end of money for the work.”

The snap had gone out of Mrs. Crump’s
blue eyes. They were suddenly warm, kindly, unguarded.
Thady Shea in the legislature! Why
not? And Sandy was dead right. Everyone
seemed to be drawn to Thady Shea.

There was some subsequent discussion to which
Mackintavers himself put an end.

“Let it hang fire for a day or so, Mis’ Crump.
If ye don’t mind, I’ll hang around and look over
the place and vicinity for my own self. Mebbe
Shea will get back; the place is in his name, ain’t
it? Understood so.”

“Yes,” assented Mrs. Crump, unthinking.
“And each of us owns a third interest, or at least,
so it’ll be arranged.”

“And the other third?” Mackintavers looked
swiftly at her. “I heard somethin’ about a
greaser up to Santy Fé making inquiries with
Eastern firms about strontianite—that old curio
dealer—Coravel Tio! He ain’t the man, aiblins,
now?”

“Yes. He’ll be here to-day, I hope. All
right, Sandy, let her hang over a day or so. I
don’t know but what we might consider it.”

Mrs. Crump felt suddenly cold at that mention
of Coravel Tio. How much had he discovered?
He must have learned through Eastern connections
that Coravel Tio had been making inquiries.
Was this pose of honesty a blind, or not? What
lay behind this visit? Had anything happened
to Thady Shea?

She cursed herself furiously for having been
beguiled even into listening to Sandy Mackintavers.
Yet—why not? His proposal offered no
loophole for trickery. Mrs. Crump would have
preferred to sell the place entirely; but to retire in
security and draw down fat dividends would be a
very comfortable thing.

Late in the afternoon arrived Coravel Tio. He
was mildly surprised to see Mackintavers. He
was urbane, shy, suave, and professed great ignorance
of everything. He readily listened to the
plan of Mackintavers, and discussed it; but he
reserved any opinion on the matter.

Mackintavers had sent his hired car back to
Magdalena, and would bunk with Gilbert and
Lewis for the night. Coravel Tio had driven his
own car, which was fitted with a camping outfit.
He made his own little camp down the cañon.

Late that evening, after all hands had retired to
rest, Mrs. Crump picked her way down the
rocky slope and joined Coravel Tio, who sat
smoking beside his car.

“This here location is gettin’ right crowded,”
she began, irritably, settling down and filling her
corncob. “No chance even to speak a word no
more! Well, what d’ye think o’ this scheme?
Don’t it look to you like Sandy was tryin’ to catch
us off balance and topple us over?”

Coravel Tio showed his white teeth in a slow
smile.

“Señora, let us go slowly. Let us go slowly. I
really do not think that Mackintavers intends that
we should consider his offer seriously. I think he
is tricky about it. Well, he is about to come to a
very high precipice, and is about to fall over that
precipice; you see, I know something. I have
information of which he is not aware. I have
information which will prove very dangerous to
him.

“About the mine. I have corresponded with the
Williams Manufacturing Company of New Jersey,
who are large manufacturers of chemical products.
They will buy this location outright, should it
prove up to the samples we sent. They are of the
very highest standing and reputation; I have
dealt with them for years. One of their men is
due here any day; in fact, he is overdue. His name
is James Z. Premble. He will be empowered to
make full negotiations with us. Until he arrives,
let us not worry about Mackintavers.”

“Mebbe that’s how come Sandy learned about
your stake in the game; he knew you’d been
correspondin’ with somebody,” and Mrs. Crump
frowned. “My land! He’s in with a heap o’
them mining sharps, Coravel. They know all
about each other.”

Coravel Tio smiled gently. “Very likely,
señora. However, this firm is entirely above
suspicion. Now, we must find your friend Shea
at once; that is imperative. The property is
recorded in his name, you remember.”

“Sandy knows that, too,” said Mrs. Crump, her
eyes troubled. “He knows too damned much, if
you ask *me*!”

“Fear not, señora. He has been meddling with
forbidden things, things which bring their own
punishment. He has been meddling with things
that I would not meddle with! By the way, I
met a very interesting man the other day; one
Thomas Twofork, an Indian from the Cochiti
pueblo, recently returned from an Eastern college.
You would enjoy meeting him. A very fine
young man.”

Mrs. Crump grunted. “I’d admire to know
just what’s laying back in your mind, Coravel
Tio! Now, why the devil would I want to know
any Injun buck like him? What’s he to me?”

Coravel Tio laughed softly and puffed at his
cigarette.

“Ah! I cannot say, señora. I am a curio
dealer, no more. I know nothing at all about
such things as these. But I know that Thomas
Twofork is a very interesting man.”

With the following morning Mrs. Crump took
Mackintavers over the ground and the adjacent
claims. Coravel Tio complained of the heat, and
did not accompany them. Instead, he stood out
in the sun, heedless of the heat, and watched
Lewis and Gilbert at work. He talked with
them at some length, and they seemed much
interested in his discourse. By this time they
knew a little more about Coravel Tio than they
had known at their first meeting with him.

“What do you figger is goin’ to happen, then?”
demanded Lewis, when he had finished.

“I do not know.” Coravel Tio shrugged his
shoulders. “But it is well to know what might
have to be done, eh? Ah, yes.”

The morning wore on. Mrs. Crump retired to
her own shack to cook luncheon, with much
grumbling about the way the country was getting
crowded up, and if many more folks came in she’d
have to seek other quarters, and so on. Secretly,
she was much pleased to exhibit her culinary
skill, which was considerable.

At length she energetically hammered a pie
pan, and the four men assembled. Gilbert was
the last to come in from the mine over the flank of
the hogback.

“Looks like some puncher is headed this way,”
he announced, eagerly. “Feller comin’ on hossback,
looks like he’s headin’ down from that big
cañon north of here.”

“My land!” ejaculated Mrs. Crump in dismay.
“Wait till I get another plate set.”

“No hurry,” returned Gilbert. “I seen him
top a rise four mile north. Ain’t no rush, ma’am.
He’ll be quite a spell gettin’ here. Lots o’ bad land
in between and no trail.”

They sat down to the meal.

Outside, the sun was beating down in waves of
heat. It was a pitiless, insufferable sun. Few
things could stand that beating, merciless sun and
still enjoy it. Out among the stones, what was
left of the big diamond-back was withered and
scorched. Some distance away, the head of the
rattler lay among the rocks, dead jaws wide agape,
white fangs gleaming like needles in the beating
sunlight.

Inside the shack, the heat was intense; it
filled the cañon as heat fills an oven, and here was
no cool adobe walls to break its force. The heat
had odd and curious effects upon the five people
gathered there. It did not seem to touch Coravel
Tio or the two miners in the least. Mackintavers
it coarsened and reddened and thickened with
pitiless breath. Mrs. Crump it softened; flushed
and perspiring from cooking, she seemed to have
become less harsh, more feminine, altogether
transformed.

Suddenly, while they were eating, Coravel
Tio looked up sharply and appeared to be listening.
Then, one after another, the others glanced up,
surprise in their eyes. The sharp and staccato
pulse of an approaching automobile was to be
heard. Another car!

Mrs. Crump led the exodus. Beside her own
car and that of Coravel Tio, a third car was
standing; a hired car from Magdalena, the same
which had brought Mackintavers on the previous
day. From this car alighted a man who carried a
suitcase and bag, upon each of which were printed
the letters J. Z. P. He was a man of citified
aspect, and he approached the party clumped
around the shack doorway with a stiff gaze and a
businesslike air.

“I am looking for a lady by the name of Crump,
Mrs. Crump,” said he, setting down his suitcase
and doffing his hat to the lady in question. “I
presume that you are the lady named; if so you
may be expecting me. My name is James Z.
Premble.”

Mrs. Crump recovered from her surprise and
stepped forward.

“I’m her,” she announced. “Glad to meet ye,
Premble. Here, let me heft them grips inside the
shack.”

Gilbert, however, was ahead of her in the task.
But James Z. Premble disregarded them both.
He had come to a staring pause. Across his city-pale
features swept an expression of amazement
and gusty anger. His eyes were fastened upon
Sandy Mackintavers, and back at him was staring
Mackintavers, wearing a look of consternation.
Mr. Premble lifted one arm and shook a milk-white
fist in air.

“You low-down hound!” he snapped at Sandy.
“Didn’t I warn you to keep away from me?
What are you trying to——”

“Shut your fool mouth!” roared Mackintavers.
“No need of airing things here.”

“I’ll say what I dashed please!” affirmed
Premble, glaring. “I suppose you own this
place, eh? I suppose you told some lying tale and
these people swallowed it! Well, you can’t shut
me up. You can’t gag *me*! You’re about the
worst swindler that ever kept out of State’s
prison, get that? You may be running this
place, but you’ll not run me.”

“Hush up, pilgrim!” Mrs. Crump stepped in
front of Premble and assumed charge of the
situation. “Hush up! Sandy don’t own this
place, and he ain’t runnin’ nothin’. You a friend
of his?”

“Friend? *Friend?*” Mr. Premble hoarsely
gasped the word. “I wouldn’t be his friend if he
would give me a million dollars! I wouldn’t be
his friend if I was the last man and he was the last
woman on earth! Why, that rogue played the
worst low-down trick on me over in El Paso
that——”

“Well, repress the sentiments,” urged Mrs.
Crump, calmly. “I guess we coincide with your
feelin’s, more or less, but at the present moment
Sandy is a guest on this here prop’ty, which same
prop’ty belongs to me, more or less. You’re a
guest likewise and I don’t aim to have no ruction
start between two o’ my guests. I don’t know
you, Mr. Premble, and I don’t know as I want to
know ye, having a mean and rollin’ eye like you
have; but you’re here on business and that goes as
it lays. No war talk! Savvy?”

With a mighty effort Mr. Premble composed his
features.

“Very well, madam, very well,” he returned,
stiffly. “You may depend upon it, there will be
no more trouble—unless I meet this man the other
side of your property line.”

“You won’t,” said Mrs. Crump, grimly. “Come
on in and set to dinner. Gilbert, you done?
Then call that there driver to come up and have
a bite, will ye? No words out’n you, neither,
Sandy Mackintavers. Gents, come inside an’
smoke up and entertain Mr. Premble. I’ll get
them ’tatoes het up in a mite.”

First to enter the shack was James Z. Premble.
He passed Mackintavers, standing at the door, and
glared at him. Then, as he passed on into the
shack, the features of Mr. Premble relaxed into
the fleetest and most momentary shadow of a
grin.

CHAPTER XVI—DORALES POSTS NOTICES
=================================

The excitement caused by the arrival of
James Z. Premble caused everyone to forget
the horseman who had been seen approaching
from the north. And Mr. Premble,
somewhat against his inmost desire, continued for
a time to fill the centre of the picture.

The assemblage quite filled the shack—crowded
it, in fact. Premble, the New Yorker, barely
paused for introductions before diving into the
food that Mrs. Crump set before him. Lewis sat
and smoked in the lean-to, by the stove; Gilbert
lounged beside the door. Mackintavers sat in
the corner, chewing a cigar. Coravel Tio was
rolling a cigarette with great care, and sighed a
little as he licked it; leaning forward, he scratched
a match upon the floor, and took advantage of a
pause in the conversation to address James Z.
Premble.

“An odd name, señor,” he said, softly. “A very
odd name! I have never met any one whose
initial was that of Z. May I ask what name it
stands for, señor?”

Mr. Premble looked at his questioner, and in
his shrewd eyes there showed a swift and sudden
hesitation; but Coravel Tio was lighting his cigarette
with much absorption.

“Zacariah,” responded the New Yorker. “I
don’t like the name, myself. Never use it.”

“Ah, yes! Now that I remember, I have met
others—there is a name Zebulon, I think, eh?
Yes, Zebulon. So you are the gentleman of whom
your firm wrote me, eh? I am glad to meet you,
señor, very glad. You have letters and so forth?
You see, I am part owner of this property, señor,
and while I do not doubt you in the least, I desire
to make quite sure of things before talking
business.”

Laying down his knife and fork, Premble once
again inspected Coravel Tio, who was now looking
directly at him. Something in those gentle, mournful
black eyes seemed to cause the city man uneasiness
and disquiet. He reached into his
pocket, nodding.

“Eh? Sure, I have plenty of papers that will
establish my identity and prove my authority to
deal with you. A little bit hasty, aren’t you?
No trouble, though. Glad to have you assure
yourself——”

He produced a sheaf of papers and passed them
intact, as though entirely certain of their contents,
to Mrs. Crump. That lady, her keen blue eyes
suddenly perplexed and watchful, handed on the
papers to Coravel Tio. The latter, in silence,
began to unfold and look at them, one after another.
Premble continued his meal, and fell to
talking with the others.

Presently Coravel Tio came to the end of his
cigarette. He rose and tossed the butt through
the open doorway, where Gilbert was lounging.
His eyes snapped a message to those of Gilbert;
in turn, Gilbert made a slight motion. Lewis rose
and shoved aside the curtain from the window, as
though desiring more air, and then stood watching.

Coravel Tio returned to his stool. At another
pause in the conversation, he tapped the refolded
documents on his knee.

“These are all correct, Mr. Premble,” he said,
gently. “Do you know—ah, there is something
that puzzles me! Now, when I had the pleasure
of meeting you in Las Vegas last month, your
name was different; it was Zebulon and not
Zacariah. And you looked different, señor. Then,
if I remember rightly, you wore a moustache, and
your eyes were another colour, and you had a
stronger chin than you have at present.”

A sudden tense silence had come upon the room.
James Z. Premble looked very red, then his
features paled again. Imperceptibly, his right
hand fluttered toward his left armpit.

“Don’t do it!” said Lewis, from the window, and
Mr. Premble gazed into the muzzle of a revolver.
And: “Go slow!” said Gilbert, from the doorway,
carelessly fondling another revolver. Mr.
James Z. Premble set both hands upon the table in
front of him.

The chauffeur, seeing the general trend of
events, quietly slid from his stool and vanished
beneath the table. Mrs. Crump sat motionless,
looking from one person to another. Sandy
Mackintavers swallowed hard and made as if to
rise, but Lewis shifted eyes and weapon slightly,
and Sandy changed his mind about moving.

“I was afraid of something like this.” The
voice of Coravel Tio was gently apologetic. “You
see, the real James Zebulon Premble always keeps
his engagements to the minute—unless something
has happened to him. He is now two days overdue
here. Of course, it would be possible for another
man to waylay him and to obtain his papers;
it would be quite possible for that other man to
come here under the name of Premble, and to
carry out a slight business transaction.”

“Smooth guy, aren’t you?” sneered Premble.
“You’ll have a hell of a time proving anything on
me!”

“My dear señor, *I* don’t want to prove anything
on you!” said Coravel Tio in pained surprise.
“No, no, far from it! But I suspect that
a certain firm by the name of the Williams Manufacturing
Company, a firm that is very jealous
of its reputation, might like to know that you are
in its employ. *Si!* Of course, you’ll not reveal
to us for whom you are working?”

“I’ve nothing to say,” sullenly returned
Premble. He looked much perturbed.

“Very well. Gilbert, take the gun from the
señor’s left armpit and lead him to his automobile.
Tie him in his automobile and allow him to repose
in peaceful meditation. That is all. Young man,
kindly come from beneath the table and resume
your meal!”

The chauffeur, looking sheepish, crawled into
view again. Gilbert fulfilled the orders that had
been given him, and departed with Mr. Premble.

Sandy Mackintavers, although trying to appear
impassive and unconcerned, signally failed in his
endeavour. He was completely astounded, swept
off his feet, by the falling of Coravel Tio’s mask.
He was suddenly aware of the fact that in Coravel
Tio he had a damnably clever antagonist.

Now, too late, Sandy began to suspect a thousand
things that did not appear on the surface.
Conjectures flitted through his brain. Suspicion
that the hand of Coravel Tio was a very powerful
hand, and that this hand was set against him,
deepened into hard certainty. Yet—not even
Coravel Tio could know the truth! No one
could know that Mackintavers and the false
Premble were friends, were working in concert!
There was yet hope.

“Aiblins, now, there’s no tellin’ about these
mining sharks!” observed Sandy in righteous
accents. “I’ve had experiences of my own in that
line, aye! But if you’re willing to talk over the
proposition we discussed last night——”

Coravel Tio looked at him. Coravel Tio
laughed gently, softly, very acridly.

“My dear señor!” he said. “You knew about
the real Premble and his business here. Your
friend met the real Premble and did his work very
well. You planned things nicely. You came
and made us your proposition, knowing that we
would refuse it, knowing that we would be assured
that you and Premble were at enmity; knowing
that we would sell out to Señor Premble—eh?
And Premble would buy the mine for you. Ah,
yes!

“It was very cleverly planned, and very well
executed. But now, señor, you had better go and
sit beside your friend, and be driven back to town
with him. There I think that you will receive
some interesting information. I would like to tell
you about it myself, but——”

At this point Mrs. Crump came to her feet.
She understood the whole trick at last, she understood
the deep cunning of Mackintavers, and she
was white with fury.

“Coravel Tio, this skunk sure makes me blush
to see him! Now, I aim to give him a right good
hidin’, which same he deserves plenty. Get outside,
ye coyote—hustle!”

From the wall Mrs. Crump seized her trusty
blacksnake. Thoroughly alarmed, Mackintavers
attempted no protests but backed through the
doorway. Before the lady, however, uprose Coravel
Tio, and his hand restrained her from pursuit.

“No,” he said, softly, looking into her eyes. “I
have reasons, señora; good reasons.”

Mrs. Crump flushed, then paled again. Restraint
came hard to her.

“I aim to punish him,” she rasped.

“That is already arranged.” Coravel Tio
smiled at her. “That has been arranged—by the
gods of the San Marcos. You will, please, leave
everything in my hands, señora. Everything! I
wish to handle everything here to-day. Everything!”

Mrs. Crump stared at him, puzzled. Then she
tossed away the whip.

“All right,” she assented, sullenly, angrily. “I
won’t say another damned word.”

By this time, Mackintavers was somewhere
outside. Lewis still stood by the window. Gilbert
was presumably down at the automobiles
with his prisoner.

But now the voice of Gilbert came to them. It
was lifted in a shout of surprise, a shout of aggrieved
anger and amazement.

“Hey! Hey, you feller! What the hell you
doin’ there? Hey, Mis’ Crump! Hustle out
here!”

Those in the shack hastened outside—all
except the chauffeur. Scenting further trouble,
that gentleman grabbed his plate and again
retired beneath the table, to finish his meal in
security.

As Mrs. Crump, standing out in the sunlight,
surveyed the situation, she became aware that the
previously discerned horseback rider had arrived.
He had evidently ridden right over the long flank
of the hogback, past the mine workings, into the
cañon. Fifty yards up the cañon, fifty yards
above the two shacks, lay a horse that was weary
unto death, a horse that had been ridden hard and
furiously, without mercy.

Not far from the horse was something white.
This was a piece of new, white paper that had been
fastened to Mrs. Crump’s original location notice.

Down below the shacks, between them and the
automobiles, was another scrap of white; another
piece of white paper fastened over another location
notice. Standing only a few yards from the
shack, and hurriedly talking to Mackintavers,
stood the rider who had just arrived. The man
was Abel Dorales. He had just put up those two
notices, and he paid no attention whatever to the
threatening approach of Gilbert.

“Dorales!” gasped Mrs. Crump, and whirled.
“Lewis! Here! Gi’me that gun!”

“Stop!” Coravel Tio grasped her arm. “Stop,
señora! Force does nothing. Leave things in my
hands, *si servase!* Lewis, go and tell Gilbert to be
quiet—*pronto!*”

The potently gentle voice of Coravel Tio held
firm command. He was obeyed. Gilbert stood
motionless, scowling; Mrs. Crump stayed her hand.

Mackintavers walked quickly toward Mrs.
Crump and Coravel Tio; eagerness shone in his
eyes, and exultation. Behind him strode Abel
Dorales, fixedly regarding Mrs. Crump. The
half-breed’s features were thinly cruel; his nostrils
quivered slightly; a shadowy smile curved his
lips into sneering lines.

Gilbert turned and walked toward the new
notice posted by Dorales.

“Just got some news,” said Mackintavers,
jerkily. “Abel is goin’ to stay and tell ye bout it.
I don’t s’pose ye got any objection if I light out for
Magdalena, aiblins, now?”

Coravel Tio was rolling a cigarette, quite
unconcernedly. He flashed Sandy a smile.

“Object? Why should we object, señor? By
all means, go! And take your friend with you,
your friend whose name is Zacariah and not
Zebulon. *Vaya con Dios, señor!*”

Mackintavers was plainly in haste to be off.
He called to the chauffeur, who came from the
shack and joined him. Together the two walked
rapidly toward the car wherein was reposing the
bogus James Z. Premble.

“Y’ain’t goin’ to let them varmints go?” Mrs.
Crump surveyed Coravel Tio with pleading
indignation. “After them tryin’——”

Gracefully, Coravel Tio waved his cigarette.
“Si, *señora*! Let them go. Let them both go.
There are larger things, much larger things,
awaiting us.”

“But that feller Premble!”

“Let them both go, señora. We have larger
things ahead.”

Mrs. Crump sniffed in uncomprehending disgust;
but she gave tacit assent.

The engine of the car began to whir; the whir
became a roaring hum, then a deep vibrant
thrumming that lifted through the cañon. The
car, with its three men, moved away and leaped
into speed.

“Hey!” The voice of Gilbert, who had been
reading the new location notice, drifted up to
them. “Hey! This guy is jumpin’ our claim!
He’s posted notices in the name o’ Mackintavers.
What the hell!”

“Come up here, Gilbert,” said Coravel Tio,
“and keep quiet. We are to hear some news.
Ah, Señor Dorales, have you lunched? We are
glad to welcome you.”

Dorales did not reply. He did not move, but
upon his lips lingered that thin, shadowy smile
that was like the stamp of a cruel jeer. Gilbert
heavily came up and rejoined the others.

They stood there at the doorway of the shack—Mrs.
Crump, Coravel Tio, Gilbert, and Lewis.
Facing them stood Abel Dorales; he seemed to be
waiting until the automobile should have gotten
away beyond pursuit. Already it was a dot,
lessening amid a trail of dust. In the bearing of
Abel Dorales was a commanding air, a deep
significance, a sneering sense of power. He was in
no hurry to explain.

The sun beat down in vertical, sickening waves;
the heat was suffocating, insufferable. It filled
the cañon like an oven. To the left lay the spent
horse, panting, loose-tongued, exhausted, unable
even to reach the trickle of water below. No
other thing moved within sight. Behind and
above rose the long hogback that formed the
north wall of the cañon. It shut out from view all
that lay beyond, all that lay over toward the
mountains and the larger cañon that drew out
from the mountains to the north.

The ground seemed to radiate heat in shimmering
waves. To one side lay the dry and withered
body of the rattler Mrs. Crump had killed—what
was left by the preying tiny things of the earth.
Somewhere among the rocks lay that reptilian
head, what was left of it. Inconspicuous it was,
unseen, dead jaws agape and long fangs glimmering
like needles in the hot, sickening sunlight.

“Yes,” said Abel Dorales at last. “Yes. I
have some news for you.”

He ignored that offer of luncheon. He ignored
the lowering, menacing looks of Lewis and Gilbert.
He ignored the suave Coravel Tio. He fixedly
regarded Mrs. Crump, hatred flaming in his dark
eyes and quivering at his nostrils. He had hated
her from the depths of his soul ever since that day
he had jumped her claim over in the Mogollons,
that day when she had shot him down like a dog.

There was nothing melodramatic in his bearing.
He was grimed with dust and dirt. He was
perspiring profusely; his lined and evil face was
streaming with sweat against its sleek bronze. He
had ridden hard, and he was tired.

Suddenly he shifted his gaze and looked around,
to right and left, at the shimmering and empty
cañon. He looked at the farther hill on the other
side. He looked up at the long hogback which
closed in those five persons, shutting out all the
rest of the world like a vast door of rock. He
looked up toward the mountain peaks that showed
above the head of the cañon. Some inward sense
seemed to whisper to him a warning against
eavesdroppers; but all the visible world was
glowing with insufferable heat, and was deserted.
His eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

“What for ye postin’ notices on my lands?”
demanded Mrs. Crump. “Huh? How come ye
sent Mackintavers off to file the claims at the
recordin’ office, huh? What ye expect to gain by
all that fool play, huh? Speak up, ye mangy
dog!”

Abel Dorales looked at her, and smiled thinly.
“One moment,” he said.

Turning, Abel Dorales strode up the cañon to
where lay his exhausted horse. The poor brute
made a painful struggle as if to rise; forefeet, neck,
and shoulders heaved convulsively, then collapsed
again. Abel Dorales kicked the horse with
contempt. From the saddle he took a battered
little yellow suitcase which had been tied there
and he started back.

At a word from Coravel Tio, the others moved
into the slender shadow cast by the north side of
the shack, the side that faced uphill to the hogback.
There Abel Dorales rejoined them. There
he set the battered little suitcase on the ground.

“I should have given this to Sandy,” he said,
“but I forgot it. Now, Mrs. Crump, your friend
Shea stole this from the ranch of Mackintavers.
Here is what he stole.”

With a swift movement he opened the suitcase
and dumped out the seven stone gods. They
strewed the ground in grotesque attitudes. One
fell upright, grinning stonily as if delighted by the
feat. Dorales tossed the little suitcase away.

“Ah, yes!” It was Coravel Tio who spoke,
unexpectedly. He spoke as though in recognition.
“The gods of the San Marcos! But you are
wrong, señor. Our friend Shea did not steal these
things. They were stolen by a Navaho, a buck
who was hired to steal them because he knew the
ranch house of Mackintavers very well. He was
hired by Thomas Twofork, who comes from the
Cochiti pueblo. These gods were the gods of the
San Marcos, you understand, and they were the
gods of Thomas Twofork’s fathers. That Navaho
buck was killed in an accident. How Señor Shea
obtained these gods, I do not know.”

Dorales laughed.

“It doesn’t matter particularly now. Anyway,
we’ll concede that Shea didn’t steal them, eh?
All right. Sandy wanted these gods back, so I
fetched them along. In my hurry to get this
property located, I forgot to give them——”

“Where’s Thady Shea?” cried out Mrs. Crump,
suddenly. “Where is he?”

Abel Dorales looked at her, his lips curving in
cruel enjoyment.

“Dead. This location was in his name. I
believe that he is without heirs; since he is dead, I
believe that his location reverts to the government.
Whoever is first to file upon it, gets it.
You see? The notices have been posted. Sandy
has gone to file the location—now do you understand?”

“Liar!” Mrs. Crump flung the word at him
in blind, gasping incredulity. “He ain’t dead!
Thady Shea ain’t dead!”

“Oh, you need not blame me!” said Dorales,
and laughed again. “I followed him, yes; but I
came too late. I found him in a cañon over on the
divide—Beaver Cañon.”

“There was a Mexican refugee camped there
with his family; a sheep-herder. Shea had come
and had drunk mescal. He had become drunk,
beastly drunk. I am not certain of what took
place, because unfortunately I arrived too late—but
the woman was dead, and Shea had fallen
over the edge of a gully, breaking his neck. He
had been shot, also. I think the woman must
have shot him—first.”

Under the lash of these slow words, delivered
with a frightful appearance of truth, Mrs. Crump
had gone quite livid. A hoarse, inarticulate growl
came from her throat. The mortal pallor of a
fury beyond all control came upon her; she
trembled with sheer passion.

Then she started forward—but the hand of
Coravel Tio gripped into her wrist.

CHAPTER XVII—DORALES RUNS AWAY
==============================

“Look!” said the soft voice of Coravel Tio.
“Look up at the skyline!” Mrs. Crump
tore herself free from that restraining hand—but
she looked. She looked up, beyond Abel
Dorales, above Abel Dorales, at the line of the
hogback that cleaved across the hot blue sky.
She stood thus, looking, wonder upon her.

There, clear-cut and sharp against the quivering
blue sky, appeared three figures. They were the
figures of a horse and two men; one of the men
carried a bundle in his arms. This last figure sank
again from sight almost instantly, as did that of the
horse. The figure of the other man came down
the steep slope, came down swiftly and eagerly.

Abel Dorales saw Mrs. Crump look upward.
He saw the others follow her gaze, saw the startled
and wondering surmise that filled their eyes. He
turned, catlike, and looked. He stared at that
tall figure, whose clothes were torn and dishevelled,
whose forehead was streaked by the raw, red
brand of a hot bullet. He stared at that figure,
which was coming down the hillside rapidly toward
him.

“*Dios!*” he whispered, throatily. “*Jesus
Maria!*”

He crossed himself; the gesture was made in
terrible, spasmodic haste. His arms flung out
wide, palms backward as though in search of some
support. He took a retreating step, and another,
as that tall figure strode down at him; he backed
against a bowlder and stood thus, staring. His
brown face became ghastly pale, his mouth opened
in slavering horror.

In his madness there was reason. He had come
here quickly, very quickly, after shooting Thady
Shea and seeing him topple into that gully; he
knew that no other man could walk here and
arrive so soon after he had arrived himself. He
knew that this tall figure with the raw, red brand
across the brow could be no living man.

“*Que quiere?*” he cried, huskily, with a great
effort forcing his vocal chords to do their work.
“*Que quiere?* What do you want, hell dweller?”

Mrs. Crump, who did not believe in ghosts, and
who was not easily shaken off her balance, satisfied
herself that it was really Thady Shea who approached.
Then she slipped to the doorway of
the shack and picked up the blacksnake whip
which she had tossed away. She stood at the
corner of the shack, waiting, watching Abel
Dorales, her lips grimly clenched into a thin line.
She was quite content to let Thady Shea settle his
own score with the man.

Thady came forward, wordless, his gaze fastened
upon Dorales, deep anger gleaming in those intensely
black eyes. Abel Dorales, ashen white,
edged around the side of the bowlder. His hand
drifted to his pocket; it flashed up again with a
revolver.

But as Abel Dorales swung down that revolver,
as he drew down on Thady Shea for a desperate
ghost-quelling shot, something snaked out through
the air—something that seemed to leap from the
expert arm of Mehitabel Crump. It curled about
the wrist of Abel Dorales, it curled and clung with
vicious snap about his hand and fingers; as the
head of a rattlesnake is snapped and tugged from
his body with one whipcrack, so the revolver was
torn from the hand of Dorales and sent flying out
upon the stones.

Thady Shea flung himself upon Dorales.

As has been previously seen, Thady Shea knew
nothing about the science and art of fighting. His
was a blind, primitive, untutored lust for vengeance.
He had heard that resonant voice telling
the story of his death; he had heard, lifting to him
above the crest of the hogback, that false tale
designed to blacken his memory, and now he
plunged headlong at Abel Dorales, angered as he
had never been angered in his life.

Stricken and all unstrung by what he had taken
to be an apparition, Abel Dorales tried to stumble
away, cowering. But in a moment the furious,
clumsy blows of Thady Shea proved that here was
real flesh and blood; Shea landed one smash that
all but stove in the ribs of his enemy. In his arms
was terrific strength, had he but known how to use it.
Perhaps it was as well that the knowledge was lacking,
else Dorales had died very brutally and quickly.

Still retreating, Dorales gathered himself together
and faced the storm. He saw that this
was no ghost, but a man of flesh and blood—a
man very weary, very terrible, a man whose consuming
anger swept away all sense of bodily
hurt and weariness. Dorales blocked the furious
blows, then, most incautiously, allowed Thady
Shea to clinch.

That was near to being the death of Dorales,
for now the terrific strength of Thady Shea poured
forth like a flood. The two men locked, reeled
back and forth, went plunging down to the stones.
They rolled down the hillside; they fought with
utter madness—yet ever the steel arms were
tightening about the body of Dorales, ever the
ribs of Dorales were cracking and giving inward.

In that primitive and sickening struggle, neither
man saw or gave heed to anything else than the
face of his foe. Neither man observed that, as
they upheaved and rolled again, they had come
upon something that gleamed like needles in the
sunlight; something wide and gaping that lay
there unseen and inconspicuous among the stones.

Desperate, feeling the very life wrenching out
of him, Abel Dorales flung loose one arm and
attempted to clutch a stone, wherewith to batter
at the deadly face above him. The two men
writhed again, heaved upward, fell heavily in a
twisted mass. Something thin and piercing, something
that gleamed like white needles in the sunlight,
ripped the skin of Dorales’ outflung arm.
Upon that arm fell all the plunging weight of
Thady Shea, grinding it down upon the stones,
grinding with it the gaping jaws of that rattler’s
head, grinding arm and jaws until the skin, from
wrist to elbow, was burst and ripped asunder as
cloth is ripped before a knife.

The pain of this unseen, blind hurt fired Dorales
into frantic efforts. He flung Shea backward;
he hammered in one blow and another, rocking
back Shea’s head and blinding him. Dorales
gained his feet once more, writhing free, panting.
He was freed of Shea’s grip. His arm was dripping
blood. Dorales looked down at Thady Shea,
who was weakly rising to throw himself forward
anew—then Abel Dorales turned. He turned and
ran, bounding and sliding to the cañon floor in
great leaps, running wildly and blindly past the
two automobiles, running from the vengeance of the
man whom he had tried to murder, the man who
now seemed to be more than man. But Thady
Shea did not pursue, for now weakness and dizziness
had come upon him, and after two steps Shea
fell forward.

From the doorway of the shack came a sharp
report; a fleck of dust lifted, slightly to one side of
the running figure of Dorales. There came a
second report, and a fleck of dust lifted from between
the running feet of Dorales. Mrs. Crump
was throwing down for the third and final shot
when Coravel Tio wrenched her arm aside.

“For the love of Heaven, stop!” cried Coravel
Tio. “No murder, señora! Go and look after
Shea—quick!”

He tore the revolver away from her; then he
watched Abel Dorales until the half-breed turned
a bend in the cañon and was lost to sight.

Gilbert and Lewis had run to lift Thady Shea,
and Mrs. Crump joined them. Tears shone upon
her cheeks as Thady Shea came to his feet and
faintly smiled at her. His lips moved, and a panting
whisper reached her ears.

“The baby—look after—her! I—knew—you
wouldn’t mind——”

“Carry him into the shack, ye galoots!” snapped
Mrs. Crump, crisply, one hand dabbing the tears
from her eyes. “Can’t you see his mind’s wanderin’?
Hurry up, now!”

Despite Shea’s protest, they obeyed her mandate.
She followed them as far as the shack
doorway, then paused. Another man had come
down from the hogback, had suddenly appeared
from nowhere, and was talking with Coravel Tio;
another man, tall and swarthy of face, behind
whom followed a saddled pony. The pony was
very weary.

It was not the man at whom Mrs. Crump looked,
however. It was the bundle in his arms which
drew her startled attention—that bundle was
unmistakably a baby! She realized that Thady
Shea had not been wandering in his mind after all.
It was a baby, a little brown baby who was cooing
and laughing in the face of Coravel Tio.

Hastily, Mrs. Crump stepped forward, Coravel
Tio turned to meet her.

“Señora, this is my friend Thomas Twofork,
of whom I told you. He has been following those
gods of the San Marcos, and now he has found
them.”

Coravel Tio gestured toward the earth, where
lay the seven stone gods sprawled in grotesque
attitudes, one alone being upright, grinning
stonily. But Mrs. Crump paid no heed to him
or to the smiling Thomas Twofork. From the
latter’s infolding arms she seized the baby with
a sudden and fierce gesture.

“Where’d ye get it? Where’d Thady Shea
get it?” she demanded, sharply.

Thomas Twofork, standing there in the sunlight,
told his story, while Mrs. Crump fondled
the baby with admiration and kindliness growing
in her keen blue eyes.

Thomas Twofork had located that battered
yellow suitcase at the Hotel Aragon, had seen
Thady Shea depart with it—and had found the
fan belt on his own car broken. While repairing
it, he had become aware that Dorales was also
on the trail of Shea. Dorales had started westward,
and after him, Twofork.

Dorales had not gone on to St. Johns, but had
followed the tracks of Murray’s car when it
turned off on the trail to Old Fort Tularosa and
Aragon. He had met Murray’s car returning
without Thady Shea, and had hastened on into
Aragon; by the time he discovered that Shea had
not been here, and had exchanged his car for a
horse, much time was lost.

Dorales had gone back along the trail, had
picked up Shea’s track at daybreak, and had followed;
after Dorales had gone Thomas Twofork,
patiently unhurrying. Both men had met the
ranger returning to town with the murderer,
Garcia, and had learned Shea’s route.

When Dorales had fired that shot in the night,
Twofork had been waiting, had seen the act too
late to prevent it. Dorales had at once taken
the yellow suitcase, pushing forward without
delay. Thomas Twofork had found Thady Shea
in the gully, creased by the bullet, but unwounded,
battered by the fall but sound of wind and limb.
With Shea in the saddle, holding the baby, Thomas
Twofork had followed the trail of Dorales quickly
and unerringly.

The remainder was briefly told. Knowing that
the hogback hid all the country beyond the view
of those in the cañon, Thady Shea had waited
until Dorales had ridden down into the cañon,
then had come on with Thomas Twofork. Unseen,
the two men had arrived, had waited; at
the right moment, Thady Shea had made his appearance.
As Thomas Twofork told it, the whole
story was very simple, all very prosaic. But to
those who had waited by the shack in the cañon,
it had not been simple or prosaic. It had been
very tragic and very terrible.

“So work the gods!” Coravel Tio tossed
away his cigarette. “Thomas Twofork, here are
the gods of your fathers; they are yours to take
back to Cochiti. They have brought disaster
upon Mackintavers and Dorales; they have
brought us good blessings. And presently will
come the real Premble, señora, to buy this mine of
ours.”

“What was that ye threatened Sandy about?”
demanded Mrs. Crump, looking up from the baby
for the first time. “That information ye mentioned?”

“Oh, that!” Coravel Tio laughed gently. “The
grand jury is sitting at Santa Fé. I arranged a
few things; a few affidavits, chief among them
that of Señor Cota, one of our native legislators.
I am confident that by this time Sandy Mackintavers
has been indicted for bribery and other
things. When he reaches Magdalena, he will
find officers waiting for him. That is all. He
paid too much attention to the gods of the San
Marcos, and not enough attention to business.
Ah, yes! Now, I am very curious to find what
made so much blood upon the arm of Abel Dorales.
I wonder, now!”

He beckoned to Thomas Twofork. The two
men walked away, their eyes intent upon the
stony ground of the hillside.

Mrs. Crump went into the cabin, bearing the
baby. Somewhat to her surprise, she found
Thady Shea sitting at the table, enjoying a
hearty meal by the aid of Gilbert and Lewis.

“My land, Thady. I thought ye was plumb
laid out. So ye’ve come back at last, huh? Well,
set steady a while till I get some water on the
stove—got to fix this here baby up a bit. Pore
little critter! Don’t know when I’ve seen a baby
chortle like this here one.”

Presently she had disposed the baby upon her
own bunk, and found that the two men had gone.
She was alone in the shack with Thady Shea and
the baby. She went to the table and extended
her hand.

“Thady,” she said, her blue eyes moist, “have—have
ye forgiven me that blow?”

He stood awkwardly, gripping her hand, a glow
spreading over his face as he read the message in
her eyes. Seldom had he seen her eyes look so
tender, so womanly.

“What blow? I don’t—oh! Why, I had really
forgotten it.”

“I ain’t. It’s sore mem’ry,” said Mrs. Crump,
bluntly. “Thady, when that varmint told that
yarn about you bein’ dead and so on, I was fixin’
to kill him—yes, I was! In another minute I’d
ha’ done it, too. And now,” suddenly her voice
became crisp and harsh, defiantly harsh, “what
ye mean bringin’ that baby around here? D’you
reckon I got time and room to take care o’ babies?”

A look of pained astonishment came to the
man’s eye.

“Why—why, I intended to take care of that baby
myself! She seemed to like me——”

“Who wouldn’t, ye blunderin’ big heart of a
man!” she returned, softly. “Yes, I reckon that
baby is goin’ to stay right here, Thady Shea. I
just wanted to see the idea in your mind, and now
I reckon I know. Yes, sir! I reckon I know.”

“You don’t know—at least not all of it.” Thady
Shea was smiling now, smiling down into her eyes.
“That baby is dependent on me; I’m going to
make her happy! And she isn’t all, either. I’m
an old man and pretty useless, but—but I found
a big purpose that has drawn me back here—and—and
I want to tell you——”

Out upon the stony hillside, out in the blinding
white sunlight, Coravel Tio and Thomas Twofork
were standing together. In his hand the Indian
held something—something fragmentary and
crushed, something that glittered like broken
needles in the sunlight.

“It was the head of a rattlesnake,” said Thomas
Twofork, meditatively, “and not long dead. You
see? The fangs caught in his arm. The two
men fell and ground into the stones the arm and
fang together; the fangs were ripped along his
arm——”

“Ah, yes! It is very wonderful.” Coravel Tio
began to roll a cigarette. He gazed down the
cañon where the running figure of Abel Dorales
had disappeared, and speculation filled his dreamy
dark eyes.

“Was there any poison in the fangs? Very
likely, Thomas Twofork. Perhaps it had been
there in the moment of death; beyond doubt, it
had been there. Was it dried up, too dried up to
take effect? Well, we do not know. Soon, in a
day or two, we shall know. One thing I do know,
however—I know that *I* would never meddle
with the gods of the San Marcos. Eh?”

Thomas Twofork was a college graduate, but
he was first an Indian. To this last word of his
companion he nodded solemn affirmation. The
two men turned and started toward the shack;
but a few yards from the doorway, they halted
and glanced at each other. From the building
had come a sudden low sound of a woman softly
sobbing. Into the eyes of Thomas Twofork
leaped a mute question. Coravel Tio answered
with a gesture, and the two men changed their
course and came to a halt near the automobiles.

“Well?” asked the Indian a moment later.
“Why does she cry, Coravel Tio? Has that man
Shea harmed her?”

Coravel Tio struck a match, lighted his cigarette,
broke the match in two, and gracefully tossed
away the fragments.

“No, he has not harmed her,” he said, gently.
“Yet she is sobbing; so, perhaps, is he. You do
not understand these things, Thomas Twofork,
but I am a philosopher. I understand everything!
I have expected to hear the señora sob, thus, for
some time past. Now it has happened. All is
well.”

“Eh?” The Indian scrutinized him in perplexity.
“But what does it mean?”

“It means,” and Coravel Tio smiled, “that
the señora is very happy! She has found both a
husband and a child. *Adios!*”

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THE END

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