Upon entering, Abel Dorales pa.s.sed 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.ds 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.," a.s.serted 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 un.o.bserved 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 Canon, the road that comes south to Socorro from Albuquerque and Santa Fe. This automobile did not turn into a garage; instead, it pa.s.sed 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?"

"Senor, my house and all it contains belong to you!"

Coravel Tio pa.s.sed 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 Canon. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.n.a.lyzing 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds; 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 G.o.ds. 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 superst.i.tions of the old school. As everyone knows, there are no stronger, firmer, and more absolute superst.i.tions than those of The Profession.