“Señor, my house and all it contains belong to you!”
Coravel Tio passed 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 Cañon. 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 space 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 analyzing 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.