However, it is these vague impulses which often lead men upon the trail of fate, and thus it proved with Thady Shea.
He left the note upon the table, and with it the indorsed check and legally phrased paper, knowing that these would in some measure make matters clear to Mrs. Crump. Then he procured that lady’s whiskey and poured a generous portion into a tin cup. This time, he deliberately smelled of it, and smiled grimly. Mrs. Crump kept on hand a vial of laudanum for the sake of recurrent toothache, and from this vial he dropped a little of the drug into the whiskey.
“Friend Dorales will sleep to-night, methinks,” he said to the staring native captive. “Lift up his head!”
The native picked up the head and shoulders of the still senseless Dorales. Forcing open the thin, strong lips, Shea poured his mixture into the man’s mouth. Dorales choked, but swallowed it and began to revive.
Shea packed his few belongings, regretfully left the historic axe helve for Mrs. Crump, then motioned his prisoner to help him lift Dorales. The latter was now swearing luridly but feebly. Together they carried him out into the darkness.
Ten minutes later Dorales was snoring in the tonneau of Mackintavers’ flivver, beside the injured native. By the light of the lamps, the uninjured captive was working under the directions of Shea, who had realized that upon reaching home Mrs. Crump would be unable to use her own car without tires.
So Shea stripped the enemy car, left the tires beside the dust-white flivver, and then climbed into his captured vehicle. Having disarmed his conquered foemen, he had nothing to fear from them, and headed his bumpy equipage toward No Agua. When the cañon road warned him that he was close to that lone hovel of desolation, he stopped the car and took from his pocket Mrs. Crump’s flask into which he had emptied the laudanum vial. He turned to the two natives, one of whom was groaning and shivering, the other merely shivering.
“Friends,” he said, sonorously, “drink—or take the consequences.”
Knowing from the example of Abel Dorales that the flask contained nothing worse than sleep, mingled with liquor, the two natives drank the contents with avidity. Shea tossed away the empty flask, envy in his eye; he wanted a drink very badly—but he did not want one badly enough to take it.
Passing the No Agua store with a rattle and clatter, Shea considered swiftly. If he went south to Silver City he might meet Mrs. Crump, and he had no desire to meet her at present. If he went west, he would get into Arizona. All he knew about Arizona was founded upon the drama of that name; the prospect of being scalped by Apaches or otherwise mutilated did not invite his soul particularly.