I was with him--waitin' for him. If he
got the diagram I was to knife him and take it away from him. Taggart
an' his dad is somewhere around here--I was to meet them down the river
a piece. Telza double-crossed me; tried to sneak over here an' hunt
the idol himself. I found him--he had the diagram. I tried to get it
from him--he stuck his toad-sticker in me, . . . the little
copper-skinned devil. He--" He hesitated and choked, raising himself
as though to get a long breath. But a dark flood again stained his
lips, he strangled and stretched out limply.
Calumet turned him over on his back and covered his face with a
handkerchief. Then he stood up, looking around at the edge of the
clearing. Ten feet in front of him, curled around the edge of a bit of
sagebrush, was a dirty white object. He walked over, kicked the
sagebrush violently, that a concealed rattler might not spring on him,
and took up the object. It was a piece of paper about six inches
square, and in the dim moonlight Calumet could see that it contained
writing of some sort and a crude sketch. He looked closer at it, saw a
spot marked "Idol is here," and then folded it quickly and placed it,
crumpled into a ball, into a pocket of his trousers.
He was now certain that Taggart had been merely deceiving Betty; there
had been no other significance to his visits.
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