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 hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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, senor." 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, senor," whimpered the wide-eyed native.

"Is he coming here?"

"No, senor, not until Senor Dorales sends for him."

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

"I heard Senor Dorales say that she would not get there until to-morrow night, senor."

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.