A little later Mrs. Crump shook hands with him and departed. Coravel Tio watched her off, and heard the roar of her car’s engine. The roar became a thrum that lessened and died into the distance like a droning fly. Only then, it seemed, a sudden thought shook the man.
“Dios—I forgot!” he ejaculated. “I forgot to ask her about the permit for the explosives! Well, I warned her in the note. What matter? These incidents of destiny are intended to work out their own effects, and good somehow comes from everything. I am a philosopher!”
Blissfully unconscious whether philosophy might be of aid in running a flivver, Mrs. Crump headed southward over the river road to Albuquerque.
A rough road is that, and well travelled. Mrs. Crump was in some haste to get over this section unobserved, and it was entirely evident that her haste was greater than her caution regarding the jiggling boxes in the rear of the car.
More than once the two men in the tonneau stared quickly at each other’s white faces; more than once the boxes and bundles crashed and banged fearsomely, in view of their partial contents; but Mrs. Crump only threw in more gas and plunged ahead. As for Thaddeus Roscius Shea, he stared out upon the passing scenery with glazed and lack-lustre eyes, and held his peace.
When at last they arrived in the outskirts of Albuquerque, Mrs. Crump paused at a wayside station to fill up with oil and gasoline, also to refill several emptied water bags which formed part of the equipment.
“We ain’t goin’ into town,” she vouchsafed, curtly, to her charges. “And when we gets reaching out over the mesa, you two boys act tender with them boxes! They’s two-three places we got to ford cattle runs, and we got to do it sudden to keep out of the quicksands. But don’t worry no more, there ain’t no special danger.”
The advice was entirely superfluous. Gilbert and Lewis could by no means have worried more. They had reached the limit.
Barely skimming the outlying streets of Albuquerque, Mrs. Crump avoided the better-known highway beside the railroad and took the shorter but deserted road that leads south over the mesa to Becker. Most of this was covered before darkness descended upon them.
Then a brief and barren camp was made; it was also a fireless camp, and the “grub” was cold. Stiff and weary though the three passengers were, it was clearly impossible that they should prove less tough than a mere woman. So, when after an hour’s halt Mrs. Crump grimly cranked up, they piled into the car without protest.