Suddenly patience exploded. Stooder pushed the Papago to his haunches and threw his own body full length into the hole dug. His arms embraced a flaring shape of metal. His eyes fell upon faint ridges and lines, like lettering. He spat upon the spot and rubbed it clean of clinging soil.
Gloria Dei et Mund——
Phillipus Rex
Anno Dom.——XXIV
“The bell! The mission bell!” screamed the Doc.
[CHAPTER XIII]
CROSSCURRENTS
An hour after the sun had set on the day of Colonel Urgo’s humiliation at the Casa O’Donoju, Quelele tooled his car into the avenue of palms at the end of the long return journey from Magdalena, on the railroad. With him were his master, Don Padraic, and an American stranger, Bim Bagley of Arizora.
Fate had played capriciously with Bim. When he set out from Arizora on the quest of his pal Grant Hickman it was only on the bare report that the man was seriously wounded and under the care of El Doctor Coyote Belly at Babinioqui, south of the Line. Near the end of his journey his car had wrecked itself beyond repair hard by Magdalena; a mule had been requisitioned to carry him over the mountains to the home of the medicine man; once there he was as far from the end of his quest as ever.
For grey old Coyote Belly lied unblinkingly. He knew nothing of a wounded man. Persuasion of words nor the chink of silver dollars availed to budge him from a trust he conceived to be joined between himself and the master of the Casa O’Donoju.
The hours following the scene in the patio and the sudden gust of action concluding the visit of Hamilcar Urgo had been trying ones for Grant. Spent as he was by the struggle with the Spaniard, he had suffered himself to be half-carried to his room by the Indian servants. Benicia, accompanying him to the door, had permitted her hand to rest in his at farewell; a clasp tried to tell what the storm in her soul denied speech. The girl’s face was etched by suffering; sacrificed pride and a shadow of some deep fear lay heavy in her eyes and the drawn lines about her mouth. The wound made by her spiteful suitor was deeper than Grant could conceive.