"Got me," he said as he saw Calumet.
"Who got you?" repeated Calumet.
"Telza."
"Telza?" Calumet bent over him again; the name sounded foreign. "Talk sense," he said shortly; "who's Telza?"
"A Toltec Indian," said the man. "He's been hangin' around here—for a month. Around the Arrow, too. Mebbe two months. Nobody knows. He's like a shadow. Now you see him an' now you don't," he added with a grim attempt at a joke. "Taggart's had me trailin' him, lookin' for a diagram he's got."
"Diagram of what?" demanded Calumet. His interest was intense. A Toltec! Telza was of the race from whom his father and Taggart had stolen the idol. He leaned closer to the man.
"Are Telza an' Taggart friends?" he asked.
"Friends!" The man's weak laugh was full of scorn. "Taggart's stringin' him. Telza's lookin' for an idol—all gold an' diamonds, an' such. Worth thousands. Taggart set Telza on Betty Clayton." The man choked; his breath came thickly; red stained his lips. "Hell!" he said, "what you chinnin' me for? Get that damned toad-sticker out of me, can't you. It's in my side, near the back—I can't reach it."
Calumet felt where the man indicated, and his hand struck the handle of a knife. It had a large, queerly-shaped handle and a long, thin blade like a stiletto. It had been driven into the man's left side just under the fleshy part of the shoulder, and it was plain that its point had found a vital spot—probably through the lung and near the heart, for the man was limp and helpless, his breath coughed in his throat, and it was certain that he had not many minutes to live. Calumet carefully withdrew the weapon, and the man settled back with a sigh of relief.
"You're Marston, ain't you?" he said, slowly and painfully, gasping with every breath. "I've heard the Taggart's talk about you. Old Tom's developed a yellow streak in his old age an' he's leavin' all his dirty work to Neal. Neal's got a yellow streak, too, for that matter, but he's young an' ain't got no sense. I reckon I'm goin' somewhere now, an' so I can say what I like. Taggart ain't no friend of mine—neither of them. They've played me dirt—more than once. My name's Al Sharp. You know that Tom Taggart was as deep in that idol business as your dad was. He told me. But he's got Telza soft-soaped into thinkin' that Betty Clayton's folks snaked it from Telza's people. Taggart's got evidence that your dad planted the idol around here somewheres—seems to know that your dad drawed a diagram of the place an' left it with Betty. He set Telza to huntin' for it. Telza got it tonight—it was hid somewhere. I was with him—waitin' for him. If he got the diagram I was to knife him and take it away from him. Taggart an' his dad is somewhere around here—I was to meet them down the river a piece. Telza double-crossed me; tried to sneak over here an' hunt the idol himself. I found him—he had the diagram. I tried to get it from him—he stuck his toad-sticker in me, … the little copper-skinned devil. He—" He hesitated and choked, raising himself as though to get a long breath. But a dark flood again stained his lips, he strangled and stretched out limply.