The Mesa Trail Part 17

"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 canon 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 canon. 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 h.e.l.l 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--"