“But anyway I should have vanished if you had been a stranger.”
“Not being one, you remained. I had no idea of such luck as this when I set out for a walk.”
Both pleasure and satisfaction sounded in his voice.
“I was just taking a little stroll myself,” said she.
“Let me take the chance first thing to apologize for my behavior the night we talked on your porch,” Steele Weir exclaimed. “Your statement of being engaged surprised me into words and conduct that has had me in an unhappy state of mind ever since. Mr. Sorenson’s talk to the crowd stirred my anger. Had I known your exact relationship to him and his son, I should have made no mistakes.”
“I had urged you to speak, had I not?”
“Grant that. But I don’t stand excused.”
“There was no questioning the sincerity of your last expression that night, in any case,” she said. “But I’ve not been indignant because of what you exclaimed or because you hate the Sorensons. ‘Hate’ isn’t too strong a word, is it? I’m none the less interested however to know what it’s all about. You see I don’t take any stock in the reasons commonly given: that you’re a ‘bad man,’ an agent of a rich corporation trying to put our people out of business, a public menace and all the rest.”
“Is that what they say?” Weir asked, with a laugh.
“Part of it. Nor does it fool father, for he said only yesterday that there’s something more at bottom of the feeling against you than merely a fight of moneyed interests. He knows from what I told him that that dead man tried to murder you; yet he hears constant 92 talk of your ‘crime,’ of evidence being gathered against you by the county attorney, Mr. Lucerio, and of the penalty you shall pay. All absurd, to be sure.”
“Mr. Martinez tells me the same,” Steele responded. “But he says also that all the people do not believe the stories.”
“That’s true.” And she appeared to reflect upon the circumstance.
To Weir nothing could be stranger than this talk on the dark road with the girl who, too, should be naturally opposed to him. In fact, here at this very spot and at their first meeting she had announced herself as a critic and an enemy. He could smile over that now; she herself probably did smile at the recollection. Yet she was calmly discussing his situation without animus or even unfriendliness.
How could that be possible if she actually loved the man whom she expected to marry, Ed Sorenson? Why did she not at once spring to arms in defense of the Sorenson side? Unless––unless she suspected the baseness of her lover and his father, and fear had replaced love.
All at once she spoke.
“They will put you in jail if they can, and bring you to trial, and––and–––”
“And hang me, that’s what you hesitate to say,” Steele finished for her. “Whom do you mean by ‘they’?”
“The people.”
“Are the people here in this county really ‘they’? Do the people, that is, the mass of poor ignorant Mexicans, have anything to do with public affairs? Both you and I know they do not.”
“Why deny it!” she sighed. “It’s generally known 93 that four men, with a few more at their skirts, run things. They nominate the men who are to fill office––there’s only one political party in the county worth mentioning––and give them orders and expect them to obey. For that reason father would never accept an office. He could be coroner; he could be county treasurer; he could go to the legislature; or anything else––if he would but wear their political livery. But he prefers to be a free man. I used to think nothing of it, see no wrong in such a state of affairs, for everything went along well enough and about the same as ever as far as I could see.”
“Possibly you didn’t see everything that was occurring below the surface even then.”
“Exactly what father told me yesterday. We talked about everything under the sun, I imagine. And I informed him that you walked home with me the night of the shooting; I had not spoken of it before.”
“That was proper; he should know it.”
“He doesn’t share in the feeling against you, Mr. Weir, let me assure you of that. Ever since he heard my explanation of the shooting and then met you at the inquest, he’s convinced that you’re being done a great injustice.”
Steele experienced a warm glow of pleasure.
“I liked your father at first sight,” said he, simply. “But where does all this leave us?” He spoke in a light tone of amusement that he was far from feeling. “Our position is––odd.”
“It is,” she assented so earnestly that he began to laugh.
“You mustn’t allow it to disturb you. I’m really presuming upon your kindness of heart and innocence in enjoying your company now. Acquaintance with 94 me is a rather serious matter here in San Mateo and carries consequences. You don’t think for an instant that I’d allow my personal pleasure––and pleasure it is to be with you, needless to say––to bring you into ill-favor among your friends and to make you the subject of gossip. I appreciate your good spirit towards me; and I admire you greatly. But it will be well if I admire you at a distance hereafter.”
“I don’t see whose business it is except mine.”
To Steele Weir it was like pushing aside the only thing that brightened his hard, toilsome existence thus to abjure future companionship with her.
“Good heavens, do you fancy that comes easy for me to say?” he exclaimed, drawing a deep breath. “I never before knew any one who––well, I’ll stop there.”
“Who what?” she demanded.
“I nearly overstepped the bounds.”
“Oh, that’s it.”
What imp of perversity was in the girl? Weir stared at her for a moment through the gloom.
And then she remarked that she must be returning home, and said she would be glad if he would accompany her part way as there was a Mexican’s house half way to town where a particularly vicious dog always rushed out. The dog rushed out exactly as she had predicted, barking savagely, so that she slipped her arm into the engineer’s and held fast until they were past.
“He does that only after dark; I hadn’t expected to walk so far and it was still light when I set out,” said she.
The touch of her fingers on his sleeve, the light swing of her form at his side, the subtle fragrance that emanated from her hair and face, this intimate nearness 95 on the dark road, the heavy scent of flowers in the bordering fields,––all sent the blood thumping from his heart. If he––if he were in Ed Sorenson’s place, what love he could pour out!
Ed Sorenson, the double-faced wretch who while engaged to her had attempted to entice away for his own vile gratification the simple, trustful girl on Terry Creek, he was to marry this sweet and charming companion. What diabolical tragedies life could mix!
“See, the moon is rising,” she said.
Over the edge of the mesa the yellow globe was bulging, rayless for the moment, round and full.
“We’re almost at the edge of town, and I’ll stop here,” he replied. “As I said, I’d not bring down upon your head a single unpleasant word.”
“My head’s not so tender,” she responded quickly. “But I think you’re right––for the present.” A tight little smile followed the words. “We’ll see.”
“That’s best.”
“But I propose to stand by you. I told you that night I couldn’t remain indifferent when I saw an innocent man persecuted.”
“You give me a tremendous amount of happiness.”
“If I do, I’m glad. I don’t believe you ever had much of it. Do you know what is said? That you never smile. But I can swear that isn’t true, and I’m beginning to wonder if you really are––Heavens, what was I about to say!”
“Go ahead. It’s nothing terrible, I wager.”
“Well, I won’t finish that, but I’ll ask a question even more impertinent, if I may. Frankly, I’m dying of curiosity to know.”
Weir turned his head to listen to the approach of a horseman. He could see the man galloping towards 96 them for town, having turned into the road from a lane a short distance off, his horse’s hoofs striking an occasional spark from a stone. Then the engineer looked smilingly at Janet Hosmer.
“I’ll tell you anything––or almost anything.” One subject alone was sealed.
“It’s that name.”
“Name?”
“‘Cold Steel.’ How did you get it?”
“It was just pinned on me a few years ago. I’m not particularly proud of it. I don’t even know the rogue who gave me the label. And it means nothing.”
“Even your enemies are using it,––and I understand what it signifies.” She bent her eyes upon him for a time. “That is, what it signifies to your friends.”
“And to my enemies?”
“More gossip. They say it’s because you’re a gun-man and a knife-man. Oh, I wish I didn’t have to have my ears filled with such vicious slander! But it means the same to enemies as to friends if they would but admit it. I’ll wait until this rider passes, then I must go.”
No thought of friends or foes, both, or of any such person as Ed Sorenson in particular, was in Steele’s mind as he made answer.
“I’d stand here forever if you didn’t go,” he said, with a low eagerness that caused her breath to flutter in spite of herself.
On her part, her mind was whispering, “He means it, I believe he really means it.” Which caused her to lift and lower her eyes hurriedly, and feel a peculiar sense of trepidation and excitement. Odd to state, she, too, just then had no recollection of any such being as Ed Sorenson, which was the extreme of unloverliness.
“Before I do go, I’ve something to tell you,” she said hurriedly, dropping her voice. “It’s this: the dead man’s name was”––here her tone went down to a mere sibilance––“Pete Ortez.”
He leaned forward, once again the hard fierce man she had seen in Martinez’ office the night of the shooting.
“How did you learn that?”
“It––well, it was let slip inadvertently in my presence.”
Weir would not press her further. Nor was there need, for the sudden embarrassment on her face and indeed the information itself could have but one source, the man who knew, Ed Sorenson.
“You’re the equal of a thousand ordinary friends,” he declared. “I can make use of that item. Step aside, please; we’re in the middle of the road.” And he drew her from in front of the horseman advancing upon them.
They said nothing, but waited for the man to pass. But he pulled his mount from a gallop to a trot, and from a trot to a foot pace, and at last when squarely even with them came to a full stop. From under his broad hat brim he silently considered the girl in white summer dress and the bare-headed engineer.
Then he began to shake with laughter, which lasted but an instant. So insulting, so sinister was that noiseless laugh that Janet’s hand had flown to Weir’s arm, which she nervously clutched. As for Weir, his limbs stiffened––she felt the tightening of the arm she grasped––as a tiger’s body grows taut preparatory to a spring.
The short, fleshy, insolent rider sitting there in the moonlight was Burkhardt.
“Ed Sorenson better keep an eye on his little turtledove,” he remarked. And touching heel to his animal he swung ahead for town.
For one dazed minute they stared after him.
“Shoot him!” she suddenly said, through shut teeth.
“I haven’t my gun along, or I’d be glad to oblige you.”
“He deserves killing, the wretch!”
“On more accounts than one,” he replied, quietly.
So quietly and so gravely, in truth, that her gust of rage subsided before the low-spoken menace of the words. No quick anger was his but a steady and deadly purpose. Again she felt the hard-held force, the mystery of the man, as if flowing suddenly upward from subterranean channels. What wrong had he suffered, what undeserved torture at the hands of this man and others thus to freeze his soul?
But he immediately turned to her, asking, “Does that upset the broth?”
A wan smile greeted his words.
“I expect it will keep the cook busy, anyway,” she said.
Janet Hosmer made no effort to guess what her fiancé would say when next he called, or to prepare a defense of explanations and excuses. She was not that kind. What was necessary to be stated at the proper time would arise to her lips. Nevertheless she had a heaviness of heart, a natural distress as to the unpleasantness in prospect; and had only the slightest hope that Ed would ignore or refuse to hear Burkhardt’s story. The man would tell her lover, of that she might rest assured, out of hatred for the engineer if for no other reason.
She knew how passionately Ed was set against Steele Weir, for a score of times she had heard his incensed opinions, increasing lately to tirades. It had seemed strange at first that one could be so bitter over a simple difference like that of who should work at the dam. But ever since Weir had uttered his hoarse exclamation regarding her engagement, words so full of protest and amazed indignation, she was aware the cause went deeper.
At that moved ejaculation of her companion that night something, too, had settled on her heart like a weight––an indefinable foreboding. The anxiety aroused about Ed’s father and his integrity came to include Ed likewise. Loyalty of course required that 100 she accept the man she had promised to marry, without reservations. As between him and others there should be but one choice. But did she really know him? Was he simply the open, jolly, generous, upright adoring fellow he appeared? Or were there less pleasant, more ignoble sides to his character? Was he, as well as his father, capable of a mean, unworthy, selfish persecution of another?
The engineer had made no open accusation against him––or against any one, for that matter. She had done her best to get him to express himself, but he had refused. Enemies he might have, but he would not discuss the fact beyond admitting it was true. Only at moments when his restraint slipped could she measure his feelings. Quite different that from Ed Sorenson’s voluble, heated denunciations of the other. Yet, heavens, how appalled this reserved man had been at hearing of her engagement! Far more than words, far more than any open charge, did his face and incredulity, both so patently sincere, bespeak the mistake she was making and justify gnawing doubts of her lover.
As she approached her home Ed Sorenson came dashing out to spring into his runabout waiting before the gate. At sight of her he pulled up short.
“Ah, here you are,” he said.
“Yes, here I am,” was her reply.
“You doubtless know what I’ve been told,” he stated, significantly.
“No, I don’t. I can only suspect.”
“Is it true you’ve been meeting this man Weir on the quiet? Meeting him while engaged to me? You know what I think of him, and what every other respectable person thinks of him.”
“Was that Mr. Burkhardt’s report? That I am 101 meeting Mr. Weir on the quiet, to use your words?” she countered.
Sorenson made an angry gesture at what he considered an evasion.
“Janet, listen. He said he saw you at the edge of town, that you were both bare-headed, standing close together, arms locked. Good heavens, can’t you imagine my feelings on hearing what he had to say! He stopped me on the street and drew me aside to put me on my guard, he said. Burkhardt wouldn’t just make up a yarn like that against you, and he’s a good friend of mine. He didn’t say half what he suggested.”
The girl turned her face towards the house, shut her eyes for an instant. She could picture the rider’s brutal leering face and unspoken insinuations; and her brain also placed in the scene her lover greedily if angrily drinking in the tale. Harkening to it instead of knocking the man down, that was the worst of it. Harkening––and believing.
“I’ll not deign to resent your remark of meeting Mr. Weir ‘on the quiet’,” said she, quietly. “I met him on the road accidentally.”
“Don’t you think I’m entitled to know something about it?” he asked, with an edged tone.
“What is it you desire to know?”
Nearly an oath of wrath escaped his mouth, but he kept his control.
“Janet, you know what kind of a man he is,” he said. “You know what I feel against him, and father, and all our friends, and the town. And the whole town, too, will probably hear of this, with a lot of gossip added that isn’t true.”
“But I met him accidentally.”
“You didn’t have to chat with him like an old friend.”
Janet Hosmer gave him a slow, meditative look.
“How do you know how I talked with him?”
“You talked with him. That in itself was too much.”
“I don’t view it in that light,” she responded. “He was perfectly civil. Whatever public opinion may be regarding the shooting, I know he killed the man in self-defence. So that’s nothing against him. You would have done the same in his place.”
Ed Sorenson leaned towards her.
“You were mistaken, Janet. I’ve said before that I feared you were, but the prosecuting attorney has witnesses to the gun-play that he’s dug up. Martinez saw nothing; how could he from inside the office? And remember that you’re only a girl, Janet; in the darkness and with the excitement you were confused. I haven’t a doubt this scoundrel Weir made you believe you saw what never occurred, when you appeared in Martinez’ office. When you’ve thought it over, you’ll realize that yourself. These new witnesses tell just the reverse of what you fancied happened. I’m going to see that you’re away from San Mateo when the man’s tried, as he will be.”
No reply coming from her, he continued:
“He deceived you then and he’ll endeavor to poison your mind right along. You’re too trustful. Now, I was angry at first, but if there was anything in this meeting to-night that was out of the way, it was his doing, I know. If he got familiar with you, as Burkhardt hinted–––”
“Well?”
“I’ll kill the dog with my own hands!”
“You may rest easy. His conduct was irreproachable, Mr. Burkhardt to the contrary.”
Sorenson regarded her in perplexity, divided between anger and doubts. Too, a new feeling unaccountably sprang into his breast––jealousy. In the end apprehension all at once filled his mind, darkening his face and bringing down his brows.
Uneasy as at first he had been after the row in the restaurant, he had eventually dismissed the matter from his mind, for no rumor of it had reached San Mateo. Neither Weir nor Johnson, the girl’s father, had blabbed of it, so his alarm passed; they didn’t want to talk of it for the girl’s sake, any more than he wished it known, was his grinning conclusion. The deuce would have been to pay if Janet had got wind of the business. But now his fears came winging back a hundred-fold as he stared at her.
“What did he say to you?” he asked, in a tense voice.
“Not that tone with me, if you please.”
Sorenson, however, was past observation of her mood or temper.
“He told you a lot of lies about me, didn’t he?” he went on, not hiding the sneer. “And you believed them.”
“He didn’t say much, but what he did say was to the point. I don’t recall that there were any lies.”
“There were, of course. It would be just his chance to give you his made-up story about me and that Johnson girl. That was what so interested you.”
“No, he didn’t say anything about you and any girl except me. Then he only said he was sorry he couldn’t have the pleasure of my friendship–––”
“Ay-ee,” the other grated. His lips worked above his teeth.
A shudder passed over Janet Hosmer’s skin at the sound and the sight, for she had never seen him like this. A cold hand might have been closing about her heart: his glare was animal-like and bestial. His nature at the instant stood unclothed.
“And he said he would be at pains to avoid even chance meetings with me, because it would make talk and cause me annoyance.”
“He’ll not meet you another time if I have anything to say about it.”
“I see. But I wanted you to understand that he told me no lies, nor repeated any story––about you and a Johnson girl, I think you said.”
A visible breath of relief lifted his breast. He now would have been glad for some one to boot him along the street for ever mentioning the thing. He almost had put his foot in it. Apparently she was not interested in seeking further knowledge of the subject that he so ill-advisedly had brought up. Lucky for him she hadn’t the inquisitiveness of some girls.
The narrow escape restored a trace of his good humor, and he was shrewd enough to divert her mind before the incident made an impression. He reached out and patted her shoulder.
“Don’t think me a scold, darling,” said he. “Burkhardt upset me with his news, that was all. He hates that gun-man so much that it’s no wonder he was angry at seeing him hoodwink you. He probably imagined a lot. Just don’t speak to Weir if he tries to stop you again. And pretty soon we’ll have him where he won’t interfere with anybody.”
“When will that be?”
“The county attorney’s still collecting evidence. Nothing will be done before the grand jury meets, which is in a couple of weeks. You must arrange to go off on a visit about that time.”
“Why?”
“So you won’t have to go through the ordeal of appearing in court. There are ways of fixing such things.” He laughed softly. “Especially here in San Mateo County. It’s too rotten a business for you to have to step into, this murder. Come along down to the drug store and have some ice cream.”
“Not to-night. I’m feeling a little tired.”
“Then let us rest on your porch. I haven’t seen you twice in the last week.”
“Some other evening, Ed. I promised father to help get up his account books.”
“You’re not angry with me?” he asked. “If you’re not, give me a kiss before I go.”
A sharp smile showed on her lips.
“I’m not angry, but I’m going to penalize you to that extent. If you must have a cheek to press, go kiss–––” She paused, while the conviction darted into his mind that she had remembered that Johnson girl blunder after all, then said: “Mr. Burkhardt’s cheek.”
Again relief swept him.
“Come, be kind, Janet,” he began. But she was already through the gate and skipping up the walk, vanishing in the gloom of the veranda. The screen door clapped shut. “Peeved, all right. I’ll have to be extra-nice to her for a day or so until she calms down,” he murmured to himself. “Must send her a box of chocolates and some magazines to-morrow to show my contrite heart; that always gets ’em. Hang it, it’s time to fix a day, too. We’ve been engaged long 106 enough. She sure has a figure and face––a beaut! I guess she didn’t smell the booze on my breath. Got to be careful about that till we’re married.” He jumped into his car.
The screen door had clapped shut, but Janet had not entered. She had employed the artifice to convey the impression it had. She did not wish to go in to her work just yet, for calm as she had appeared during the interview her emotions were running full tide. Love Ed Sorenson? Marry him? She groped for and dropped into a wicker chair, her head sinking in shame and self-abasement. Never––never!
And before her mind swam another face, a face with the hair ruffled about the brow, clear of eyes and strong-lined, as she had beheld it in the moonlight of the road.
All at once she tugged at a finger, fiercely pulling off the engagement ring. She rubbed her cheek as well, with an angry hand, for the memory of kisses was burning her as by fire.
Then she sat quite motionless for a long time.
“I’ll just ask father,” she exclaimed. “There can’t be more than a dozen Johnsons around here.”
Which would have given Ed Sorenson a fresh jolt in his breathing apparatus if he had overheard, and shriveled the cocky self-assurance with which he sipped a high-ball that moment at Vorse’s bar.
In a region as sparsely settled by white people as San Mateo and its adjoining counties there were not, as Janet put it, more than a dozen Johnson families. In fact, there were but two, she learned from her father: one at Bowenville, the small railroad town of three hundred people, a merchant with a wife and four little children; the other a rancher on Terry Creek, whose wife was dead and who had one child, a girl of sixteen or seventeen years of age.
“I may be away at dinner time, so don’t wait for me,” she told her father next morning. “I’m going out in the country a few miles––and you know my car! If you’d just let me squeeze some of these patients who never pay, you could have a new car yourself.”
“Mine’s all right,” he smiled.
“But mine isn’t. Look at it. You gave it to me only because you scorned to ride in it any longer yourself. It would do for me, you said, but you prance around in a bright shiny one yourself. I blush at the row mine makes; sounds like a boiler factory; I drive only along side streets. If the patients would pay what they owe, I could ride like a lady instead of a slinking magpie.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed (they were at breakfast) and remarked that old friends were best.
“Don’t call my asthmatic tin beast a friend; we’re bitter enemies,” said she.
It carried her to Terry Creek about noon, however, safely enough, whither she went with a firm resolution that crushed a certain embarrassment and anxiety. Suppose these people resented her inquiries.
She placed the bearded, tanned rancher at once, when she saw him working on a piece of harness before the door as she drove up. She had seen him in town at different times. She once had stopped here, too, several years previous when accompanying her father, who had been called to dress the rancher’s injured hand. The girl could not have been over twelve or thirteen then, a shabby, awkward girl wearing a braid who came out to gaze shyly at her sitting in the car.
Johnson arose from the ground and approached as she alighted, while the girl’s head popped into sight at the door.
“I’m Dr. Hosmer’s daughter, Janet,” she stated, putting out her hand and smiling. “I’ve come to see you on a matter. Shall we go into the house?”
With curiosity sharing a vague hostility in his bearing he led her in, where his daughter was setting the table. Janet also told the girl who she was. At once dismay and startlement greeted the announcement. But she invited Janet to be seated, she herself withdrawing to a spot by the stove.
No need for Janet to beat about the bush with her errand.
“Mr. Johnson,” she said, “I’ve come to you and your daughter for a little help if you can give it.” That seemed the best way to break down their reserve, an appeal rather than simply blunt questions––and what was it if not an appeal? “What I have to say is 109 just among the three of us and I know it will go no farther. You’re acquainted with my father; he’s respected by every one.”
“He is,” Johnson stated, nodding.
“The situation is this, to speak plainly: last night I heard something that has caused me to come to you for information; I’m engaged to Ed Sorenson, and in a moment of anger he denounced Mr. Weir, the engineer at the dam, for having told me a false story––lies––about him and your daughter.”
Janet perceived the quick, troubled look exchanged by man and girl.
“Mr. Weir has never mentioned your daughter’s name in my hearing; I think him incapable of discussing any one maliciously. He’s very careful of what he says. I consider him a very honorable man. At any rate, he said nothing of what Ed Sorenson suggested, and if the latter himself hadn’t spoken of the thing I should have had no inkling that there had been anything justifying an inquiry on my part. There may not be. But why should he imagine Mr. Weir had told me ‘lies’ linking him and your daughter?”
“I know Weir––and I know Ed Sorenson, too,” was the rancher’s grim rejoinder.
“This is a disagreeable subject, I know. But I’m not here out of mere curiosity, but a desire to learn if something has been concealed from me by Ed Sorenson that I should be informed of. His manner, his words, the whole incident has filled me with doubts. See, I’m trusting you absolutely.” And she extended a hand in a gesture bespeaking sincerity.
Johnson peered at her in silence from under shaggy brows.
“I ask myself why Mr. Sorenson took it for granted 110 that the engineer had been telling me false stories and if there was any ground for such fears,” she went on. “He had nothing to be afraid of, no matter what might be said, if he had done nothing unworthy. I can’t imagine Mr. Weir, for instance, being alarmed in that way.”
“They’re telling plenty of lies about him, for that matter, but I guess it doesn’t worry him any,” Johnson said.
“What I ask you touches a delicate subject, perhaps,” Janet continued, reluctantly. “You may feel that I’m pushing in where I’m not concerned. But if Mr. Sorenson has done anything discreditable––if he has acted in a way to make me ashamed when I know, then it becomes a matter affecting my happiness too. I would never marry a man who had done something dishonorable, for if I did so knowingly I should be dishonored and dishonorable as well.”
Johnson suddenly thrust a brown forefinger at her.
“Do you want to know what Sorenson did?” he demanded, wrathfully.
Janet gripped her hands together. “Yes.”
“You’ll not go spreading it all around the country? But I guess you won’t as long as it would make you out a fool too. I’ll not have Mary’s name dragged about in a lot of gossip.”
“I assure you I shall remain silent, for her sake and my own.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. You’re too good a girl––any decent girl is––to marry Ed Sorenson. He met Mary at a dance last spring in town where she went with some friends of ours, and made love to her but wouldn’t let her tell me or any one. We don’t get to town so very often; she never knew he was engaged 111 to marry you, there never happening to be any mention of it to her. Then he got her to go to Bowenville one day awhile ago, under promise to marry her there––Mary is only sixteen, a little girl yet. To me, anyway.”
Janet felt the working of his love in those simple words. Felt it but half-consciously, though, for her own soul was stifling at Ed Sorenson’s revealed infamy.
“When he got her there, he told her they would have to go away farther to be married––to Los Angeles.” Again his finger came up, this time to be shaken at her like a hammer. “He never intended to marry her; he planned to get her there, ruin her, and cast her off. That’s the sort of man you’re going to marry!”
“I remember he expected to be away for a couple of weeks––a business trip, he said. But afterwards he explained that it hadn’t been necessary to go.”
“A business trip! Yes, the dirty kind of business he likes. And if it hadn’t been that Weir heard him explaining to Mary that she must go on and interfered––there in the restaurant––Ed Sorenson might have succeeded. Mary trusted him, thought he was straight. But he’s crooked, crooked as his old man. When Weir told him to his face what he thought of his tricks, he let it out he was engaged to you. Didn’t mean to, of course. Weir said he would stay right with them and see that they got married next day before a minister, then Sorenson snapped out he was to marry you. That opened Mary’s eyes, that and his refusing to go before a preacher as the engineer demanded. So Weir brought her home to me.
“And that isn’t all I know,” he snarled. “Mexicans and cowboys and others have talked––women don’t 112 hear these things––how he’s had to pay Mexicans hush-money for girls of theirs he’s wronged. But what do people care? He’s rich, he’s old man Sorenson’s boy; everything’s kept quiet; and he goes around as big as life.” With a muttered oath he turned away, his lips shut hard and his beard sticking out savagely.
He came back to her again.
“The young one gets it from the old one,” he exclaimed. “Bad crooked blood in both of them. I know. I’ve been here ever since I was a boy and remember things Sorenson believes every one has forgotten, I know how he got his start, how he and the rest of his bunch cleaned out Dent of his ranch and cattle gambling and then killed him when he discovered they had used marked cards, how at the same time they robbed another man–––”
Janet struggled to her feet. She had covered her eyes and bowed her head before the torrent of his vehemence.
“No more, I want to hear no more,” she gasped. “Let me go home. I’m sick.”
“It all makes me sick, too,” he answered. “Sick and sore, both. But it’s the truth. I’m sorry if it’s been a bad pill to swallow, but it’s the God’s truth, girl. I’m sorry it couldn’t be any other way, but I wouldn’t see you marry that scoundrel if I lost a hand stopping you. Mary felt sick at first, too; she’s over it now. You’ll not feel bad long. Better stay for dinner with us.”
“I couldn’t swallow a bite. Thank you for your kindness in asking me––and for telling me what I wanted to know, too. Father never knew, or he would have warned me. People saw I was engaged to Ed Sorenson and would say nothing to father, of course. 113 I shall always count you as one of my best friends, Mr. Johnson. And you too, Mary; you must come down and stay with me sometime, for I imagine you get lonely here. No, another day I’ll remain to dinner––and I want to be alone now.”
They pressed her no further, seeing her wretchedness of spirit. But they walked with her to the car and shook hands with her when she was in and urged her to come again.
When she had disappeared in the aspens among which the trail led, Mary said to her father:
“You said they killed a man named Dent.”
“They did. I saw the killing.”
“And nothing was ever done about it?”
“No. Nobody but me knew of the happening and I’d of had a bullet through my heart if I’d talked. I might yet even now, so see that you keep your mouth shut.”
“You told her.”
“I was mad, so mad I could say anything. But she isn’t the kind to repeat the story; I’m not afraid on that score. She’s clean strain all through.”
“Did you know the man whom Sorenson and the others killed?” Mary questioned, in some awe.
“I knew of him, but I was only a lad then. I saw it all through the back door of Vorse’s saloon where it happened, but I’ve never breathed about it to a soul. I didn’t want to be murdered some dark night. Those four men would see that the job was done quick even now, I’m saying, if they were on to the fact. I know ’em, if nobody else does.”
Mary’s skin crawled with prickles of fear.
“They must be awful bad.”
“They were devils then, and I don’t think they’ve 114 changed to angels to-day, though they try to appear decent. I know ’em; I know what they’ll do once they start. You can’t make sheep out of wolves just by giving ’em a fleece.”
“You said they robbed another man at the same time they killed that Dent.”
“Yes; and it only goes to show the hellish crooks they are. It was another man in the saloon. He was drunk. They made him believe he had killed Dent. Then said they’d help him to get away if he gave them his property. He was a rich fellow who had come out from the east and gone to ranching, a tenderfoot. They took his stuff and he skipped the country with his wife. That was the last of him, and I reckon he believes to this day that he’s a murderer. And that’s how they got the start of their wealth, or a big part of it, Sorenson and Vorse and the other two. They’ve got the San Mateo Cattle Company, with fifty thousand head of steers, and ten or twenty bands of sheeps and ranches, and the bank, and all the rest, and they walk around like honest men. But they’re thieves and murderers, Mary, thieves and murderers! I’d rather be the man I am, poor and with nothing but this little mortgaged piece of ground and my few cattle, than them, who robbed Dent and killed him and then robbed and drove out Weir.”
“Was that the other man’s name?”
“Yes.”
“That’s funny. The same as the man who brought me home.”
“There are lots of Weirs, like the Johnsons.”
“Not so many, I guess. Maybe they’re related. Did the man who skipped have any children?”
“No. None I ever heard of, though I didn’t know much about him. Just him and his wife, I think.”
Johnson had perceived no resemblance between the engineer and the vanished man of whom he spoke. As for that, however, he had no clear recollection of the elder Weir’s face; he was but twelve years old at the time of the dramatic event, thirty years before.
“Now, come along and eat,” he said. “And remember! Not a word of this to a soul.”
Meanwhile Janet Hosmer was driving slowly down the canyon, oblivious that opportunity to unlock the whole mystery had been hers, never dreaming that she had just missed by the slenderest margin what Steele Weir would have given the world to know.
For an instant Fate had placed the key in her hand. She knew it not; it was withdrawn again and the door remained closed and locked while the threads of Destiny continued to be spun.
In Vorse’s saloon, where in the past so many evil ideas for the acquisition of money or power had sprouted, the scheme had its inception. It had been of slow growth, with innumerable suggestions considered, tested, discarded. The intended arrest and trial of Weir had been the first aim; but this had expanded until at last the plot had become of really magnificent proportions, cunning yet daring, devilish enough even to satisfy the hate and greed of its originators, consummate in design, absolutely safe and conclusive.
It was Sorenson who conceived the notion of pulling the irrigation project down in ruins at the moment of Weir’s own fall. Judge Gordon a few days later had pieced out the method, which was either to corrupt the workmen to wreck dam and camp or to place them in the equivocal position of having done so apparently though others did it in fact. Vorse and Burkhardt devised the details. Weir should be left free until the blow had fallen on the camp, whereupon he should be immediately clapped into jail on the murder charge, which, coming on top of the “riot,” would paralyze all company action and work. From such a crushing double-blow no concern could quickly recover, if indeed the loss did not result in total cessation of construction.
Thus shedding their coats of expedient lawfulness, 117 they reverted under the menace of Steele Weir’s presence to the men they were in an earlier age––an age when a few white land and cattle “barons” dominated the region, predatory, arrogant, masterful and despotic; the age just ceasing when the elder Weir and Dent arrived; the age of their youth forty years before, the age when railroads and telegraphs and law were remote, and chicanery and force were the common agents, and “guns” the final arbiters.
To them Weir was like a reincarnated spirit of that age. He guessed if he did not know their past. He had appeared in order to challenge their supremacy, end their rule, avenge his father’s dispossession at their hands. He instinctively and by nature was an enemy; he would have been their enemy in any other place and under any other circumstances. He was a head-hunter, and in turn was to be hunted down. He was the kind who neither made compromises nor asked quarter. He veiled his purposes in as great secrecy as did they, and when he struck it would be suddenly, fiercely, mercilessly––if he struck. They were determined he should not strike, being himself first surprised and crushed, for though in ignorance of what he could bring against them their fears were real. Everything, indeed, about the man antagonized them, alarmed them, stirred their hate and filmed their eyes with blood. He must be destroyed.
“And with him the dam,” Sorenson had said. “Both together.” For there was no effort to conceal among themselves their savage intention.
“He’ll never come to trial,” Vorse remarked, with a malignant gleam in his blue eyes and a shutting of his thin lips. “An attempted jail delivery by ‘friends’ 118 will fix that. All they will have to do then is to buy him a pine box.”
“If the man had but stayed away!” Judge Gordon exclaimed. Cunning, not force, was his forte; and the measures in prospect at times had oppressed him with dreadful forebodings. He was growing old, feeble, and here when he was entitled to peace he still had to fight for his own.
In accordance with the scheme Burkhardt vanished from San Mateo for a time, ostensibly on business but in fact on a journey across the Mexican line, where he conducted negotiations with a certain “revoluçionista” of no particular notoriety as yet, of avaricious character, unscrupulous nature, and with a small following of fellow bandits and a large animosity for Americans. His ambition was to emulate the brilliant Villa. But pickings had been poor of late, no more than that of stealing a few horses from across the border. To Burkhardt, who had heard of him and sought him out, he listened with interest and bargained with zest. Five thousand in gold for fifty men was like pearls from Paradise. And whatever this Yankee’s own private purpose, it was a chance for the chieftain to strike secretly and safely at Americans, in addition.
“They will come through in squads after they’ve slipped across the line,” Burkhardt reported. “They’re to pose as laborers.”
“When?” Sorenson asked.
“Along next week. They’re to drop off down along the railroad at different towns and I’ll run them up into the mountains with some grub. Then we’ll assemble them quietly a couple miles off from the dam, where they’ll be handy on the chosen night. Afterwards we’ll slip them back to the railroad, and they 119 fade into Mexico. Weir’s workmen will be drunk and rowing––and will have done the job, eh?” Burkhardt shook with suppressed, evil laughter.
“If they’re drunk, they may join in and help,” Judge Gordon stated, acutely. “A mob full of whiskey will do anything. If they did take a hand, it would round out the case against them perfectly. Very likely next day they, too, would fade, as you put it, Burkhardt; they would want to get out of this part of country as quickly as possible when they realized what had happened. I see no flaw in our plan. Fortunately the three directors who are coming will be gone by the end of next week.”
“What’s that? What directors?” Burkhardt asked.
“They’re to be here on an inspection trip, so they wrote, and will be pleased to hear our complaints in regard to the question of workmen.” Gordon’s tone was ironical. “I wrote them protesting Weir’s discharge of our people, you remember, but that was some time ago.”
“What’s the use of paying attention to the fools now?”
“We must carry out the farce, Burkhardt, for the sake of appearances.”
“I’d like to blow them up along with their dam!” was the scowling rejoinder, “Well, let ’em inspect. Next time they come back there won’t be any.”
“I believe we should arrest Weir before the thing’s pulled off,” Gordon said, meditatively. “It would be surer.”
Sorenson set his heavy jaw.
“No. I want him to see the wreck; I want him to know just what’s happened before he’s haled away; I 120 want him feeling good and sick already when he gets the next jolt.”
“Sure. It’s him or us, as I’ve said from the first; and I’ve always believed in making a clean sweep,” Vorse remarked. “We have the right line this time. First, make his men drunk and sore; then smash the works; then arrest him quick; and last finish him off with a bullet during a pretended jail delivery.”
“There will be elements of danger in the last,” Judge Gordon stated, cautiously.
Vorse smiled and Burkhardt grinned.
“Not so you’ll notice it,” said the latter. “The town won’t know anything about it until afterwards. Just a few good men at night, masked and working fast, and the thing is done.”
“I’ll not feel easy till it’s over.”
“Keep up your nerve, Judge,” Burkhardt grunted. “You used to be as lively as anybody when you were young.”
“I know, I know. But this Weir isn’t going to stand idle. If he ever gets a chance with his gun–––”
“He won’t get it,” said Vorse.
“And he’ll not resist the sheriff when Madden arrests him legally,” Sorenson added. “Nothing could be better for us than if he did. He knows that.”
“Still I’ll be glad when next week is past,” the Judge replied, with a sigh.