The Mesa Trail Part 29

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 canon 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 G.o.ds 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 senora 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 senora is very happy! She has found both a husband and a child. _Adios!_"

THE END

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y.