Over opposite, in a corner of the big front window, sat a man, a stranger to Fred Ross. This man had come into town on the late afternoon train. He was palpably a city man, palpably not of this part of the country; he had registered at the desk as James Z. Premble of New York. Speculating idly as he waited, Fred Ross set him down as a high-class drummer.
Thus waited the six men, as though they were awaiting some event about to happen: Ross, seated under the big wall map; the four red-faced men who read newspapers with marked absorption; and, in the corner of the window, James Z. Premble of New York.
Suddenly and abruptly it happened. It happened just as Fred Ross had anticipated. The hotel door opened and into the lobby walked Sandy Mackintavers with Abel Dorales at his elbow. They had been to the livery stable, they had been to one place and another, and they had soon learned that Thady Shea, easily noted and remembered by all who saw him, had been in the company of Ross and Murray. Both Ross and Murray were known to Mackintavers and his field marshal.
Upon entering, Abel Dorales passed straight on to the cigar stand, where he stood idly gossiping with the proprietor. Mackintavers, with a wave of his hand and a grunt, halted in front of Fred Ross, and dropped into a chair beside the latter.
“Hello, Ross. Just the man I was looking for. Know a man name o’ Shea, Thady Shea?”
“Evening,” returned Ross, easily. “Sure I know him. Seen him a while ago.”
“Know where he is now?” asked Mackintavers without too great show of interest.
“Uh-huh. He went off with Bill Murray to St. Johns a couple of hours ago. Murray was in some hurry, believe me! He’d been laid up here with a busted car, and had to get out his paper to-morrow sure pop, so he aimed to travel some to-night. You interested in Shea?”
“Some.” Mackintavers bit into a cigar. Over the cigar, his eyes fell upon James Z. Premble of New York, who was also looking at him. After an instant Premble rose and left the hotel.
Ross had not hesitated to impart the information about Thady Shea, for the excellent reason that if Mackintavers followed Shea to St. Johns, he would miss Thady Shea entirely. Therein Fred Ross made a mistake. It did not occur to him that Dorales, in a high-powered car, might follow the tracks of Murray’s flivver where it struck from the highroad upon the Old Fort Tularosa trail.