“Well,” he responded, gravely, “in a way it is true, ma’am. I sure did fill Shea with red licker, filled him plumb to the brim. And when I went to Datil yesterday, there was a jug two thirds full o’ licker in that cupboard. When I come home las’ night, ma’am, there wasn’t a single drop o’ whiskey left. For a fact.”
Try as he might, he could not keep the twinkle from his eye. That twinkle was something Mrs. Crump could not understand; it bade her go slow, be cautious. She knew her type of man animal, and that twinkle gave her covert warning not to make a fool of herself.
“I’m goin’ to see him,” she declared, after compressing her lips and eying Fred Ross suspiciously. “If you’ve made a soak out o’ him, pilgrim Ross, I’m coming right back here and perforate you without no further warning. That goes as it lays—so ile up your gun.”
She turned about and strode away, up the cañon. Once she glanced back, to see Ross standing where she had left him, and upon his face was a wide grin.
CHAPTER XI—THADY SHEA DISCOVERS A PURPOSE
“What in hell made you run off?” demanded Mrs. Crump in an aggrieved tone.
“Well,” hesitated Thady Shea, “I figured I might get you into trouble with Mackintavers and his crowd; Dorales would be after me, you know. And then I wanted to make up for what I’d done. I wanted to go away and prove to myself that I could do something—without any one else helping me. It’s a little vague, but——”
“Oh, I savvy,” finished Mrs. Crump for him. “My land, Thady! I been hunting you all over creation, but I never aimed to see you lookin’ like this—never!” Hands on her hips, she surveyed him with appraising, delighted eyes.
As he stood there awkwardly beside the plow, Thady Shea did look unlike her last view of him. Also, he sounded different. They had talked at length, but in all their talk, in all his tale to date, he had not once broken into the rolling, rounded phrases which formerly he had so loved.
He showed the lack of self-consciousness that was upon him. It was not the bristly beard which had wrought the change, although this disguised him startlingly. Perhaps it was the gruelling work which he had been doing of late, with its effects.