CHAPTER XXX

PARDNERS STILL

Every day he spent the greater part of his time under the mesquite trees with Bob, and in the night, they would hear him going out “to see,” as he said, “if his pardner was all right.”

In the Cañada del Oro, Doctor Burton and his mother watched beside the old prospector and the wounded Mexican.

The man who had been so heartlessly abandoned by his outlaw leader did not speak; but his eyes, like the eyes of a wounded animal, followed every movement of Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. But as the days and nights of suffering passed, and he received nothing but the gentlest and most attentive care from the two good Samaritans into whose hands he had fallen, the expression of suspicion and fear which had at first marked his every glance gave way to a look of wondering and pathetic gratitude.

It was late in the afternoon of that first day following the tragedy, when Thad regained consciousness. Saint Jimmy, who was at the bedside when the sturdy old prospector looked up at him with a smile of recognition, said cheerfully:

“Good morning, neighbor. How are you? Had a good sleep?”

There was the suggestion of a twinkle in those faded blue eyes as Thad returned:

“There ain’t no need for you to pretend none with me, Doc. I come to, quite a spell back. Got a peek at you, though, first thing when you weren’t lookin’ an’ I jest naterally shut my eyes again quick. I been layin’ here, figgerin’ things out. Got ’em about figgered, I reckon.” His leathery, wrinkled, old face twisted in a grimace of pain and his gray lips quivered as he added: “They got my gal, didn’t they?”

Saint Jimmy returned gravely:

“You must be careful not to excite yourself, Thad. You have had a dangerous injury.”

“Holy Cats! You don’t need to think this is the first time I ever been knocked out. My old head is tougher than you know. You don’t need to worry about me gettin’ rattled neither. I tell you I know what happened up to the time that half Mex devil hit me with his gun. I know they must a-got her or she would a-been settin’ right here, certain sure--tell me.”

“Yes, they took her away, but Hugh Edwards and Natachee are on their trail.”

“What time did the boys start after them?”

“About noon.”

“Good enough. They won’t throw the Injun off, an’ him an’ Hugh will be able to handle them if they ain’t too many.”

“There are only two with Marta--Sonora Jack and the Lizard.”

“The Lizard, you say? Is he in on this deal too?”

“Yes.”

“Huh, I always knowed he’d do some real meanness if he ever worked up nerve enough. That made three of them, then?”

“Yes.”

“I got one of them, didn’t I?”

“Yes, he is lying in the other room.”

“Pretty sick, is he?”

“He is going to die, Thad.”

“Uh-huh, that’s what I expected him to do when I took a shot at him.”

The old prospector looked at Doctor Burton appealingly, as if there was another question which he longed, yet dreaded to ask.

Saint Jimmy evaded the unspoken question by asking:

“Have you guessed who that fellow, John Holt, really is, Thad?”

“He certain sure ain’t no decent prospector or he wouldn’t be tryin’ to carry away my gal like he’s doin’--that’s all I know.”

“He is Sonora Jack the outlaw. Natachee found it out.”

“Holy Cats! An’ I wasted a shot on a measly Mex when I might jest as well a-picked the king himself first. But what do you figger he wants to carry off my gal that-a-way for?”

“I wish we knew,” said Saint Jimmy.

“Wal, there ain’t no good tryin’ to guess. We’ll know what we know when Natachee and Hugh comes back with her--But, say, Doc----“

The old prospector hesitated, and his gaze roamed about the room.

Saint Jimmy swallowed a lump in his throat.

“What, Thad?”

“Where--why--“ the gnarled fingers plucked at the bedding nervously, and the faded blue eyes at last met the eyes of the younger man with such pathetic fear that Saint Jimmy’s eyes filled.

“Why ain’t my Pardner Bob here? Where is he? He didn’t go with the Injun an’ the boy?”

“No, Thad, Bob did not go with Hugh and Natachee.”

The old prospector put out his trembling hand as if to cling to Saint Jimmy, and Doctor Burton caught it in both his own.

“They--they didn’t get my pardner--Bob ain’t cashed in?”

Saint Jimmy bowed his head.

Then his mother came to the door and the Doctor willingly made an excuse to leave his patient for a little. When he returned an hour later and Mother Burton had yielded her place to him and left the room, old Thad smiled up at him.

“That mother of yourn is a plumb wonder, sir. I always suspicioned it on account of what she’s done for Marta, but I know now that I hadn’t even begun to appreciate it. I reckon I’ll be gettin’ up now.”

“And I reckon you won’t,” retorted the Doctor, putting out a firm hand and pushing him back on the pillow. “You’ll stay right where you are until to-morrow morning. You have already talked too much. Here, let me fix the bandage. There, that will do. Now take this and turn your face to the wall--and keep quiet.”

The old prospector obeyed.

But the next morning he was out of the house before either Saint Jimmy or his mother had left their beds. When Mrs. Burton went to call him for breakfast, she found him beside the grave under the mesquite trees.

“You see, ma’am,” he explained with childish confusion, “I got to imaginin’ ’long in the night that my Pardner Bob must be feelin’ all-fired lonesome an’ left-out like, with me sleepin’ in the house an’ him out here all alone. Bob an’ me ain’t never been very far apart, you see, for a good many years now, an’ so I felt like he’d kind of want me ’round somewheres. It’s funny, ain’t it, how an old desert rat like me could get fussed up that-a-way! I think mebby that Bob would feel some better too if only our gal was here. I’m plumb sure I would. But I know she’ll be back all right. That Injun can hang to a trail like the smell follers a skunk, an’ the boy will be here too, with both feet, when it comes to gettin’ her away from them again. That half Mex an’ the Lizard won’t stand a show agin Natachee an’ our Hugh. I wish they’d hurry back, though.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m comin’.

“So long, Pardner, I got to get my breakfast. I’ll be back again directly.”

Every day he spent the greater part of his time under the mesquite trees with Bob, and in the night they would hear him going out “to see,” as he said, “if his pardner was all right.”

It was there that Marta found him the morning of her return with Hugh and Natachee.

Later, when Mother Burton had put the tired girl to bed, old Thad roamed contentedly about the place, petting Nugget and going often to the door of Marta’s room to listen with a smile for any sound that would tell him the girl was awake. And that night he did not leave the house.

“You see, ma’am,” he explained to Mother Burton in the morning, “Bob he’s all right now that our gal is safe home again and there ain’t nobody ever goin’ to steal her no more. It’s a good thing the Lizard is gone an’ that the Injun done for that Sonora Jack, ’cause if they hadn’t a-got what was comin’ to ’em, I’d be obliged to take a try for them myself, old as I be. I couldn’t never a-looked Bob in the face again nohow, if I’d a-let them hombres get away with such a job as that. But it’s all right now--it’s sure all right.”

During the forenoon of the day following Marta’s return, the Mexican at last spoke to Doctor Burton, who was dressing his patient’s wound. As the man spoke in his native tongue, Saint Jimmy could not understand. Going to the door, he called Natachee. When the Mexican had repeated what he had said, the Indian interpreted his words for Saint Jimmy.

“He says he thinks he is going to die and wants to know if it is so.”

“Shall I tell him the truth, Natachee?”

“Why not?” returned the Indian coldly. “He may have something that he wishes to say. Perhaps it is something the friends of Miss Hillgrove should know.”

“Tell him, then, that there is no hope for his life. Death is certain. It may come any time now.”

When Natachee had repeated the Doctor’s words in the Mexican tongue and the dying man had replied, the Indian said:

“There is something that he wants to tell. He says that you and your mother have been so kind that he will not die without speaking of the girl you both love so much. I think you should call the others. It may be in the nature of a confession and it would be well to have them.”

He spoke again to the Mexican and the man answered:

“Si, habla le a la muchacha y sus amigos.”

Natachee interpreted:

“Yes, call the girl and her friends.”

A few minutes later Mother Burton, Thad, Hugh Edwards and Marta were with Saint Jimmy and the Indian in the presence of the dying Mexican.