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, h.e.l.l 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 l.u.s.t 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 ma.s.s. 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 canon 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, senora!

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 canon 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.

"Senora, this is my friend Thomas Twofork, of whom I told you. He has been following those G.o.ds of the San Marcos, and now he has found them."

Coravel Tio gestured toward the earth, where lay the seven stone G.o.ds sprawled in grotesque att.i.tudes, 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 canon, Thady Shea had waited until Dorales had ridden down into the canon, 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 canon, it had not been simple or prosaic.

It had been very tragic and very terrible.

"So work the G.o.ds!" Coravel Tio tossed away his cigarette. "Thomas Twofork, here are the G.o.ds 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, senora, 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 Fe. I arranged a few things; a few affidavits, chief among them that of Senor 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 G.o.ds 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?"