Though the sun was bright that day, unseen forces were gathering in the sky above town, mesa and mountains, not of weather but of fate, to loose their lightnings. Sunday peace seemed to reign, the languid summer Sunday peace of tranquil nature. Yet even through this there was a faint breath of impending events, a quiver or excitement in the air, an increasing expectation on the part of men, who sensed but did not realize what was to come.
All day whispers and hints had passed among the people in San Mateo and out to isolated farms and up nearby creeks, kindling in the ignorant, brown-skinned Mexicans a lively interest and an exorbitant curiosity. Nothing was said definitely; nothing was promised outright. So in consequence speculation ran wild and rumors wilder. The hints had to do with the manager of the dam who had shot the strange Mexican: something was to be done with him, something was to happen to him. He had been arrested, or was to be arrested; he had confessed, or was about to confess the murder; he was going to kill other Mexicans, or had killed other Mexicans; he was about to raid San Mateo with his workmen and slay the town; he was to be hanged;––and so on eternally. Uncertain as was everything else, what was sure apparently was that something would happen at San Mateo that night.
Families visiting about in wagons spread the news. Horsemen were at pains to ride to outlying Mexican ranch houses, for what messenger is so welcome as he who brings tales of great doings? He might be sure of an audience at once. So it was that the plan craftily put in operation by Weir’s enemies, to gather and inflame the people, under cover of whose pressure and excitement when the engineer was arrested he might be slain by a pretended rescue or popular demonstration, whichever should serve best, produced the expected result. During the afternoon wagons and horsemen and men on foot began to appear in town, to join already aroused relatives or friends at their adobe houses or to loaf along the main street in groups.
Outwardly there were few signs in the aspect of the Mexican folk of something extraordinary developing. But to the sheriff, Madden, aroused from an afternoon nap at his home by a telephoned message from the county attorney requesting him to come to the court house, the unwonted number in the town was in itself a significant fact.
“I didn’t know this was a fiesta, Alvarez. What’s up with you people?” he asked of one he met on the street.
“The fiesta is to be to-night, eh?” the man laughed. “Have you this engineer locked up yet?”
“What engineer?”
“The killer, the gun-man, that Weir. It is said he is already arrested and is to be hanged from the big cottonwood at dark beside the jail. It is also said he is still loose and bringing five hundred workmen to burn the town, rob the bank, kill the men and steal the girls.”
“If he is to do either, it’s news to me,” Madden said, and proceeded to the office of Lucerio, the county attorney.
Madden was a blunt man, who for policy’s sake might close his eyes to unimportant political influence as exercised by the Sorenson crowd. But he was no mere compliant tool. This was his first term in office. He had never yet crossed swords with the cattleman and the others associated with him, because the occasion had never arisen. When he had allowed himself to be nominated for sheriff, though Sorenson might imagine Madden to be at his orders, the latter had accepted the office with certain well-defined ideas of his duty.
“What do you want of me?” he asked Lucerio, for whom he had little liking.
“I desire to tell you, Madden, that at eight o’clock I’ll have a warrant for you to serve on the engineer Weir. You’ll go to the dam and arrest him and bring him in to the jail.”
“Well, apparently the whole country except me knew this was to happen. The town’s filling up as if it were going to be a bull-fight.”
“I know nothing of that.”
“All right; give me the warrant.”
“At eight o’clock. I don’t want it served before then.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Sorenson? And Vorse and Burkhardt? They’ve stirred up this charge against the man.” Lucerio making an angry answer, he continued. “Well, everybody knows you jump when they pull the string. I’ll have to serve the warrant, naturally. But I’m going to tell you what I think: you’ve faked the evidence you’ve got; we had the truth from Martinez and Janet Hosmer at the inquest; you’re trying to railroad Weir to the gallows.”
“Mr. Sorenson shall know what you’ve said. As for 212 me”––the Mexican swelled with outraged dignity––“the evidence was placed in my hands. It warrants the engineer’s arrest and trial. You attend to your department and I’ll attend to mine.”
“All to the good, Mr. County Attorney. I’ll arrest him; he won’t make me any trouble on that score. But you won’t find it so easy to prove his guilt. And afterwards, just look out, for if he doesn’t come gunning for you and fill your carcass full of lead, I miss my guess. You won’t be able to hide behind Sorenson, either.”
He left the county attorney at that, the latter unable despite all his efforts to hide his uneasiness and alarm. Madden reaching the street looked at his watch; it was half past five, so he started home for supper.
Some way before him he saw Martinez walking. The lawyer did not stop to converse with any of the loiterers along the street, but moved steadily along. He had come out of Vorse’s saloon and was going towards his office. Just then the sound of an automobile caused Madden to turn his head in time to see Weir speed along but stop with a sudden application of brakes as he caught sight of the attorney.
A hail brought Martinez to the car. A few minutes’ rapid speech there followed. Then the lawyer mounted beside Weir, the machine went on, turning into a side street and vanishing. To Madden there was nothing unusual in the circumstance, and he only noted the surprise and silence along the street at the engineer’s passage. The Mexicans would know the man wasn’t yet arrested at any rate, he thought. But he should like to learn what was the purpose in bringing them all to town! He would keep an eye open for any lynching nonsense if it were attempted.
Weir and Martinez were hastening to Judge Gordon’s 213 house, for shortly before the engineer had received an unexpected call from Pollock for him to join him there. Evidently the eastern lawyer had turned a card of some sort; and Weir had gone at once, wondering what the meeting might portend. The sight of Martinez, free and composed of hearing, walking along the street, further amazed him.
He perceived, however, when the lawyer stepped out to the car from Vorse’s place that he was pale, his mouth tight-drawn and his eyes glittering.
“You got my message?” the latter asked, quickly.
“The telephone message, yes. Janet Hosmer got the paper also.”
“They dragged me to Vorse’s cellar,” Martinez whispered fiercely. “They beat me with their fists, Vorse and Burkhardt. Then they tied me and squeezed my eyeballs till I could stand the pain no longer and told. I’ve been there ever since, bound and without food or water, the devils! Sorenson came with them last night, afterwards. And now he and Vorse came again––there they are back there in the bar yet––and gave me a draft on a Chicago bank for a thousand dollars and said to get out and stay out of New Mexico and never open my mouth about what had happened.”
“Get in with me,” Weir ordered.
At Judge Gordon’s house the lawyer said:
“You are going in here? He’s one of them.”
“I know it. Come in, however. I may need you. You’re not going to leave San Mateo, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t cash the draft. That’s only part of the damages you’ll make them pay for what you underwent.”
“It isn’t money I want from them,” Martinez replied, between his teeth.
Judge Gordon lived in a rambling adobe house two squares from the Hosmer dwelling. It was old but had been kept in good repair, and as he had never married he had lived comfortably enough with an old Mexican pair as servants. One of these, the woman, admitted the visitors at their knock and conducted them, as if expected, to the Judge’s study, a long room lined with cases of books, mostly legal, and filled with old-fashioned furniture.
That something had occurred to change the Judge’s aspect during the hours in which Pollock had been closeted with him was at once apparent. He looked older, broken, haggard of face, terrified.
“I met Mr. Martinez and brought him along,” Weir said.
“Was that necessary?” Judge Gordon asked, heavily.
“He’s my attorney, for one thing.”
“And I’ve been a prisoner in Vorse’s cellar for twenty-four hours for another, and you’re one of those responsible for my being there and for the torture to which I was subjected,” Martinez exclaimed, glaring.
“Mr. Martinez, I give you my word of honor that I knew nothing of your incarceration until this morning.”
“That for your word of honor!” the lawyer cried, snapping his fingers in the air. “And in any case, you’re an accessory after the fact. You let me stay.”
Pollock stepped forward.
“Is this Mr. Martinez? Glad to meet you, sir. Mr. Weir has spoken very favorably of you and of your handling of legal matters for the irrigation company, of which I am a director. Pollock is my name. Are you a notary? Ah, that is good. There will be some papers to acknowledge and witness and so on.”
He pointed at seats, seemingly having direction of matters, and the visitors sat down. Judge Gordon had sagged down in the padded leather chair in which he sat; his face was colorless, his eyes moving aimlessly to and fro, his white mustache and hair in disorder.
“Let us begin on business at once,” Pollock stated, on his feet as was usual when entering a discussion and removing his eye-glasses. “I called on Judge Gordon this afternoon after my talk with you, Weir, and disclosed the evidence which has been gathered relative to the fraud perpetrated on your father and the crime against the man Dent. I assumed, and rightly, that to a man of the Judge’s legal mind the facts we hold would prove the futility of resistance, and I set out to convince him of the wisdom of sparing himself a long losing fight, in which he would be opposing not only the evidence which was sure to convict him, and not only you, Mr. Weir, but our company which proposed to see the fight through. I went so far, Weir, as to promise him immunity from your wrath and from public prosecution.”
Weir arose slowly.
“No,” said he, “no.”
“But, my dear fellow–––”
“No. He made my father’s life a hell for thirty years. Why should I spare him?”
“If granting him freedom from prosecution did actually spare him anything, I should say ‘No’ also, standing in your place. But with the facts made public as they will be, with Judge Gordon losing his legislative office and the esteem in which he had been held, with him relinquishing the bulk of his fortune as he agrees, with his finding it necessary to go elsewhere to live at his time 216 of life, with the thought constantly in his mind of how low he has been brought, don’t you think he will be suffering quite adequately? I should think so. He would probably die quicker in prison, but I believe he will suffer more outside. See, I don’t hesitate to measure the alternatives, for the Judge and I have discussed and canvassed the whole situation, which was necessary, of course, in order to arrive at a clear understanding.” And Pollock smiled genially.
“Does he admit my charges?”
“He hasn’t denied them.”
“Will he admit them?”
“I’ve outlined exactly what we must have––deeds to his property and an acknowledged statement of the Joseph Weir and James Dent affair, supplementing the Saurez affidavit, which by the way he at first thought we did not possess but which an account of what happened last night in the mountains and your recovery of the same”––Pollock’s eyelid dropped for an instant towards Weir––“convinced him of. This statement is not to be produced as evidence against his associates except in the last extremity, and if not needed is always to be kept secret. We are to give him, when the papers are signed, a draft for ten thousand dollars. This will permit him to have something to live on. He states that he will want to go from San Mateo at once.”
During this speech Weir’s eyes had glanced to and fro between the lawyer ticking off his words with his glasses and the figure in the leather chair. Old and shattered as Judge Gordon had suddenly become, wretched as Weir saw him to be, the engineer nevertheless felt no pity. The man had been in the conspiracy that had ruined his father; he suffered now not because of remorse but through fear of public opinion; and was a 217 fox turned craven because he found himself enmeshed in a net. And to save his own skin he was selling out his friends.
Weir’s face went dark, but Pollock quickly stepped forward and drew him into a corner of the room.
“Keep calm, man,” was the lawyer’s low advice. “Do you think if we had him tied up as tightly as I’ve made him believe that I should propose a compromise in his case. He’s the weak link. Do you think I’ve had an easy time the last three hours bringing him to the point he’s at? I had to invent evidence that couldn’t possibly exist. I had to give him a merciless mental ‘third degree.’ I told him if he refused I was going to Sorenson with the same offer, who would jump at the chance. And, my dear man, we haven’t, in reality, enough proof to convict a mouse since you lost that paper. So now, so far as he’s concerned, you must bend a little, a very little––and you’ll be able to hang the remaining three.”
This incisive reasoning was not to be denied.
“I yield,” said Weir.
Beaming, Mr. Pollock walked back to the table.
“Mr. Weir consents,” he stated. “Mr. Martinez, if you will go to your office and bring the necessary forms and your seal we can make the transfers and statement and wind the matter up.”
An hour later Judge Gordon had signed the deeds, stock certificates from his safe and bills of sale spread before him, passing the ownership of lands, cattle and shares in companies to Pollock for equitable division between Weir and the Dent heirs if found. The old Mexican servants were called in and witnessed his shaky signatures to the papers.
At the statement regarding the Dent shooting and Weir fraud, which Pollock had dictated to Martinez with 218 Gordon’s assistance, he staggered to his feet while the pen dropped from his hand.
“I can’t sign it, I can’t sign it; they would kill me!” he groaned.
The two aged servants stared at him wonderingly.
“My dear Judge, they’ll never know of it until it’s too late for them to do anything––if they ever know,” came the easterner’s words, in smooth persuasiveness.
Judge Gordon brushed a hand over his eyes.
“Give me a moment,” he muttered.
He stood for a time motionless. Then he walked across the room and opened a door and entered an inner chamber.
“He won’t live a year after this,” Pollock whispered to his companions.
The speaker could have shortened the time immensely and have still been safe in his prophecy. For when at the end of five minutes he sent the woman to request the Judge to return, she stumbled out of the bed-chamber with affrighted eyes. She said the Judge was asleep on his bed and could not be aroused.
Sleep of the profoundest, the men discovered on going in. And in his fingers was an empty vial. So far as Judge Gordon was concerned Weir had had his revenge.
Revenge Weir had. But even in death Judge Gordon, true to his evasive, contriving character, had tricked him; and the irony lay in the fact that in this last act the trick was unpremeditated, unconscious, unintentional. Instead of the signed confession, necessary above everything else, which seemed almost in his fingers, the man had left a little poison vial.
Night had settled over the earth when the three men, after directing the Mexican servants to bring the undertaker, went out of the house, for considerable time had been occupied in the discussion and the preparation of papers preceding Judge Gordon’s tragic end. With him Mr. Pollock carried the documents pertaining to the property restitution. These, considered in connection with the suicide, would constitute something like a confession, he grimly asserted.
Avoiding the main street of San Mateo they drove out of the town for camp. The first part of the ride was pursued in silence, for each was busy with his own thoughts in consequence of the sudden shocking termination of the meeting. When about half way to camp, however, their attention was taken from the subject by a sight wholly unexpected, a scene of high colors and of a spirit that mocked at what had just happened.
Some way off from the road, at one side, two bonfires burned brightly before an adobe house, the flames leaping 220 upward in the darkness and lighting the long low-roofed dwelling and the innumerable figures of persons. At the distance the place was from the highway, perhaps two hundred yards, one could make out only the shadowy forms of men––of a considerable number of men, at that.
“I never saw any one at that old tumble-down house before, Martinez,” Weir remarked, lessening the speed of the car. “Always supposed it empty.”
“No one does live there. The ground belongs to Vorse, who leases it for farming to Oterez. Perhaps Oterez is giving a party there. They are dancing.”
Weir brought the machine to a full stop, with suspicion rapidly growing in his mind. The place was owned by Vorse, for one thing, and the number about the house was too large for an ordinary Mexican family merry-making, for another. In view of what had occurred the previous night all “parties” in the neighborhood of the dam deserved inquiry, and this house was but a mile from camp.
They could now hear the sound of music, the shrill quick scrap of a pair of fiddles and the notes of guitars. Against the fire-light too they could distinguish the whirl of skirts.
“Just run over there, will you, Martinez, and have a look at that dance?” Weir said. “See how much whiskey is there, and who the people are.”
The Mexican jumped down, climbed through the barb-wire fence bordering the field and disappeared towards the house.
“I told you about some one giving the men booze last night,” the engineer addressed his remaining companion. “We found the place off south along the hills where that business happened, and stationed a man there to warn us if another attempt was made to use the spot. But I 221 shouldn’t be surprised if this is the location used for to-night; it has all the signs. We suspected that this evening would be the real blow-out and if the men are going there I shall send down the foremen and engineers to break it up. Vorse’s owning this house and his being the source of the liquor is almost proof. I met Atkinson returning to the dam when you sent him back from town and he’ll know something is up if the workmen have been melting away from camp. This is simply another damnably treacherous move of the gang against us to interfere with our work, starting a big drunk and perhaps a row. We’ll stop it right at the beginning.”
“Are the officials of this county so completely under Sorenson and his crowd’s thumbs that they won’t move in a case like this?” Pollock questioned.
“Yes.”
“Then we must act on our own initiative, as you say.”
“That’s our only recourse. Giving whiskey isn’t actually an illegal act––and they’re giving it away, not trying to sell it here without a government licence.”
“The thing’s illegal if it’s part of a conspiracy to disrupt our work, and if we can secure proof that such is the fact it will but add one more item to the score to be settled with these San Mateo outlaws.”
“There are more men going there. See them?” Weir asked. “You hear them on the road ahead of us. They’re ducking through the fence and crossing to the house. Our workmen. The thing’s plain now; they had word there would be another ‘party’ to-night, but they didn’t know just where until they received word this evening. I suppose the whole camp except a few men will be here.”
“Won’t they turn ugly if you interfere?”
“Can’t help that. I’ll send men down with axes and 222 when the booze is poured on the ground it makes no difference then; the men will be kept sober. If they are stubborn, I’ll run a new bunch in and fire these fellows. But I don’t imagine they will quit work, however surly, for they know whiskey’s no excuse. Men usually cool down after a night’s sleep.”
From where they sat and since Weir had turned out his car lamps, they could see the steady string of men emerging from the darkness of the field and approaching the house, to quickly dissolve in the gathering already there. In their lively steps, as well as in the eager voices occasionally raised along the dark road, the men’s desire to join in the debauch was apparent.
With the swelling of the crowd the scraping of the fiddles became louder, the dancing more furious, shouts and yells more frequent, while a dense line of men passing and jamming in and out of the door pointed only too plainly that inside the house liquor flowed. This would be no matter of a few drinks per man, but a big drunk if not stopped.
Martinez confirmed this opinion on his return.
“There are two barrels inside and a couple of fellows are dipping it up in tin cups like water,” said he. “They’re not even troubling to draw the stuff; the barrels have been placed on end and the heads knocked out. It will be the biggest spree San Mateo ever saw, with plenty of fighting after awhile. Women, you know, always start fights during a spree.”
“Those surely are not women from town,” Weir exclaimed.
“Oh, no. I never saw them before. Brought in here from somewhere––Santa Fé perhaps, El Paso more likely. You know the kind who would mix with that crowd––tough girls. They’re wearing low necks and 223 short skirts, red stockings and all that. You know the kind. Out of joints and dives somewhere. There’s only a dozen, but they keep circulating and dancing with different ones. I just put my head through a window to look inside, which is lighted by a big kerosene lamp hanging from the roof; and I tell you, gentlemen, it made me sick the way those two fellows were dipping up whiskey and the crowd drinking it down.”
“And more men coming all the time,” Weir stated.
“And more coming, yes. It will be very bad there by midnight. Vorse and Burkhardt and Sorenson are managing the thing, of course.” Martinez lighted a cigarette and stepped into the car. “No mistake about that, for Vorse’s bartender is one of the men at the barrels. And I imagine Judge Gordon knew this thing was coming off though he made no mention of it.”
“Since we were ignorant of the matter, he naturally wouldn’t inform us,” Pollock remarked, dryly.
“Time to put a stop to the show before it grows bad,” Weir stated resolutely. And he started the machine.
“If it can be stopped,” Martinez replied.
That was the question, whether or not now it would be possible even to reach and destroy the barrels inside the house, what with the numbers who would oppose the move and what with the state of intoxication that must rapidly prevail at the place.
For as they drove away they could already detect in the mad revel about the old adobe dwelling a faster beat in the sharp shrieking music, a wilder abandon in the movements of the figures about the flames, a more reckless, fiercer note in the cries and oaths.
“This is deviltry wholesale,” Pollock said. “On a grand scale, one might put it.”
So thought a horseman who approached and halted almost at the same spot where the car had rested. This was Madden who with a warrant for Weir’s arrest in his pocket had arrived opposite the house a moment after the automobile’s departure. He had secured the warrant at eight o’clock according to the county attorney’s request, but he had taken his own time about setting off to serve it.
For a quarter of a mile he had been interested in the evidences of unwonted hilarity at the usually untenanted structure. Now he sat in his saddle, silent and motionless, observing the distant scene. He easily guessed the men were from the construction camp and that liquor was running.
“I can almost smell it here, Dick,” he addressed his horse.
But two circumstances puzzled him. One was that there had been no news in town of such a big affair impending for the night; the second, that there were women present––for no Mexican, however ignorant, would take or allow his women folks to attend such a howling show. Coming on top of the crowd in town, he wondered if this business might not be linked up with Weir’s affairs. These were his workmen and this was Vorse’s farm-house and very likely Vorse’s liquor. After he had arrested the engineer he would look into the thing.
Fifteen minutes later, when he had gone on, other passers-by paused for a minute on the road to stare at the amazing picture across the field. These were Dr. Hosmer and Janet, Johnson and his daughter Mary: the two men being in the doctor’s car, the two girls in Janet’s runabout.
“What on earth is going on there!” Janet exclaimed, when the two machines had pulled up.
The two fires, fed by fresh fuel, were leaping higher than ever, bringing out in strong relief the long squat building, the dark, restless, noisy throng, and the space of illuminated earth. Against the night the flames and building and mob of hundreds of men seemed a crimson vision from some inferno to an accompaniment of mad music.
“The camp’s gone on a tear; drive ahead,” her father said. “This isn’t a sight for you girls to look at.”
And with that the two cars sped forward towards the dam, where on this night so much was converging. For their occupants already had had an experience that had started them at once to seek the man around whose figure were swirling a hundred passions and dark currents of destiny.
That Sunday afternoon Janet Hosmer had awakened about sunset from an after-dinner sleep, rested and refreshed, with her mind continuing to be occupied by thoughts of Steele Weir about whom had eddied her dreams. The man was no longer the mystery he had been, since now she knew all the circumstances of his life, and on that account was nearer, more human, and yet as compelling.
That on his part his interest went beyond mere friendship she had recognized from his voice and eyes when they were together. Ah, in truth, how his tones deepened and his look betrayed his feelings! At the thought Janet’s heart beat faster and her cheeks grew warm and an indefinable joy seemed to fill her breast. She would not deny it: his presence, his touch gave her a greater happiness than she had ever known. At a single stride, as it were, he had come into the middle of her life and dominated her mind and changed her whole outlook.
How he too had changed and grown in the coming! From the avaricious, calculating, heartless manager of the construction work, as she seeing through colored San Mateo eyes had believed him to be, he now stood forth a figure of power, undaunted by difficulties, undismayed by enemies however numerous, fearless to a fault, stern perhaps––but who would not have been made stern in his place?––and determined, cool, resourceful, 227 alert, and of an integrity as firm and upright as a marble shaft. Yet beneath this exterior his heart was quick and tender for those who needed sympathy or help, and his hand swift to aid.
More than once a hot flush burned on Janet’s face, as sitting there on the vine-hung veranda in the gathering dusk, recollection assailed her with memories of wasted kindnesses given the infamous Ed Sorenson, of trust bestowed and of love plighted. That passage in her life seemed to leave her contaminated forever. It burned in her soul like a disgrace or a dishonorable act. But Steele Weir––and she swam in glorious ether at the thought––did not appear to view it in that light.
Juanita running in the twilight to the house interrupted her introspection.
“I came to tell you,” the Mexican girl exclaimed panting before Janet.
“Tell me what?” For Juanita’s reappearance in itself was unusual, as Sunday afternoon and evening were her own to spend at home.
“People are saying Mr. Weir is to be arrested and hanged from a tree in the court house yard! Everybody has come to town to see. Three uncles and aunts and nine cousins of ours have already come to our house from where they live four miles down the river. All the town is talking about it. But though I said nothing, I knew how Mr. Weir had saved you and that he had done nothing to be hanged for. If anybody is to be killed it ought to be that Ed Sorenson.”
“Are you sure of this, Juanita?”
“Yes, yes, Miss Janet. It is so.”
“Then this is part of the plot against him; let me think. They might arrest him but they would never dare try to hang him, unless they could pretend–––”
What they might pretend Janet never stated, as at that instant a motor car dashed up and stopped before the gate. Even in the gloom she made out that the figure garbed in a gray dust coat was Sorenson’s. Springing out of the machine, he jerked the gate open and strode towards the house, while a premonition of a fresh and unpleasant turn of affairs quivered in Janet’s mind.
“I’ve come back again, you see,” he said. “Step inside where you can hear what I have to say.”
The words were like an order; the man’s manner, indeed, was overbearing and brutal. But the girl concealing her resentment, preceded him into the house and bade Juanita light a lamp.
“And now you get out!” Sorenson commanded the servant in so savage a tone that she fled to the kitchen without waiting to consult Janet’s eyes. “I see your father isn’t here,” he continued, addressing Janet.
The latter made no reply. To be sure, Dr. Hosmer was not in the room but he was in the house, sleeping. Let the cattleman think him absent if he wished.
“So much the better; if he’s not about, he won’t try to interfere,” the man went on. “Now, my girl, I’ve learned all about your tricks, and–––”
“Sir, you talk like that to me in my own house!” Janet broke in, with a flash of eyes. “You will walk out of that door this instant and never set foot here again.”
“Will I, you slippery young Jezebel? I’ll do nothing of the kind until I’m ready, which will be when you’ve handed over that paper. Don’t try to deny that you have it or Weir has it; I suppose he has now, and I’ll be forced to go shoot him down as he deserves. But I came here first to make sure. It would be just like the 229 rest of the schemes of you two to have you keep it, thinking I’d be fooled. I have half a notion to wring your white neck for lying to me to-day––lying, while all the time you knew my son was hanging between life and death.”
So savage was his voice, so threatening his visage and air that Janet retreated a step. His hands worked as if he actually felt her soft throat in his clutch; his huge body and big beefy head swayed towards her ominously; while his eyes carried a baleful light that revealed in full intensity the man’s real brutal soul. Hitherto carefully coated in an appearance of respectability fitted to a station of wealth, influence and prominence, he now stood as he truly was, domineering, repellant, lawless. Janet could at that minute measure the close kinship of father and son.
“Fortunately a man in Bowenville recognized Ed, or I should never have known he had been injured,” Sorenson went on. “So your little scheme to keep me in ignorance went wrong. The doctor ’phoned me about five and I took my wife and we rushed there, and I have just this instant returned. Do you know what the doctor says? Ed will live, but be a life cripple, a useless wreck, a bundle of smashed bones, always sitting in a chair, always eating out his heart. And all because of you and that engineer! Ed was conscious; he told me the real story about which you lied,–––”
“I did not lie,” Janet stated, firmly.
Sorenson made an angry gesture as if to sweep aside this declaration.
“He told me how you promised to slip away with him to spend a week in the mountains, and how you warned this Weir so that the two of you could trick my son and get him out of the way. You, who always pretended to 230 be so innocent and virtuous! And then Weir caused the accident up there in the hills that has crippled my boy for life! Did it to get him out of the path to you, and you helped, like the traitress you are; and the two of you took the paper.”
Janet’s form had stiffened at these insulting speeches.
“Your son is the liar,” said she. “Did he tell you how he flung a blanket over my head as Juanita and I were coming out of Martinez’ office? How he tied my hands and feet and carried me off like a victim––and victim he intended me to be! Yes, Mr. Weir rescued me because Juanita met and told him what had happened and he followed. Your son was drunk. He tried to commit a crime because I had rejected him a week before, on learning that during our engagement he had endeavored to mislead another girl. A drunkard and a criminal both, that’s your son. And he alone brought on his accident by his drunken, reckless driving. Now I’ve told you the truth; leave the house!”
“You can’t put that kind of a story over on me,” he snarled. “I believe what Ed said. Even if he has had affairs with other girls, that makes no difference now. You tried to double-cross him; you’ve wrecked his body and life; and you shall pay for it.”
Neither of the pair in their intense excitement had heard a wagon drive to a stop before the house. Whether in fact they would have heard a peal of thunder might be a question. Sorenson, enraged by his son’s injury and burning for revenge, was oblivious to all else but his passion, while Janet Hosmer, divided between contempt and fear, had but the single thought of ridding herself of the man.
“You cannot injure me,” she said, in reply to his savage utterance.
“I’ll drive you and your father out of this town and this state,” he exclaimed. “They shall know here in San Mateo, and wherever you go if it’s in my power to reach there, what sort of a pretending, double-faced, disreputable wanton–––”
“You coward!” Janet burst out.
Then she turned to flee out of the room to arouse her father. But Sorenson was too quick for her; he sprang forward and seized one of her wrists.
“No you don’t, you perfumed wench!” he growled.
A scream formed on Janet’s lips. The heavy, rage-crimsoned face bent over her as if to kill her by its very nearness. Brute the man was, and as a brute he appeared determined she should feel his power. She pulled back, jerking to free herself, and shrieked.
Intervention came from an unexpected quarter. Rushing into the room came the rancher Johnson, followed by his daughter.
“Let go of her,” the man ordered, harshly.
Sorenson looked about over his shoulder.
“Keep out of this, and get out,” he answered.
Johnson leaped forward and struck the other on the jaw. The cattleman releasing his hold on Janet staggered back, at the same time thrusting a hand under his coat.
But the rancher’s pistol was whipped forth first.
“You’d try that game, would you?” Johnson said, with his ragged beard out-thrust and stiff. “Put up your hands; I want to see how they look sticking up over your head.”
Sorenson though now holding them in sight did not at once comply.
“Johnson, you’re butting into something that doesn’t concern you,” he said, endeavoring to speak calmly.
“You’ve made one mistake in striking me; don’t make another by keeping that gun pointed at my head. Remember I’ve a mortgage on your place that you’ll wish renewed one of these days.”
The expression of scorn on the rancher’s face was complete.
“Trying that line, are you?” he sneered. “Think you can play the money-lender now and scare me? You didn’t look much like a banker reaching for your gun; you just looked like a killer then, a plain bar-room killer––but I beat you to the draw. You’ve got fat and slow, haven’t you, since early days when you use to put lead into poor devils whose stuff you wanted. And you didn’t look like a banker to me, either, trying to bulldoze Janet when I came in; you looked like the big dirty coward you are. Aha, here’s the doctor! Now just tell him how it comes you can order me out of his house, and why you were threatening Janet and making her scream.”
The physician turned a white, angry countenance to Sorenson.
“I heard the scream. Is it true you were abusing my daughter?” he demanded, stepping in front of the man.
“I came here because I learned my son Ed had been broken to bits through her trickery and damnable–––”
The words were cut off by the doctor’s hand which smote the blasphemous lips uttering them.
Even more than Johnson’s blow did this slap upon the mouth enrage the cattleman. His face became congested, his shoulders heaved, but behind the doctor was the revolver still directed at his head.
“You’ve come here uninvited and you’ve said too much,” Doctor Hosmer stated in cold even tones. “You may be the town magnate, but you’re only a ruffian and a crook after all. You can’t bluff or bully us. More than 233 that, you’ve insulted my daughter and me beyond any future reparation. As for your son, he got less than he deserved.” He turned to the rancher. “You came just in time, it seems. Please see that he leaves the house.”
Johnson waved with his gun significantly towards the door.
“Move right along lively,” he added. “And I’ll go along with you to see that you don’t hamstring my horses, which I don’t put past an underhanded cattle-thief like you.”
Sorenson seemed striving for words that would adequately blast those before him, but they appeared lacking. With a last malignant glare he walked out upon the veranda and down across the yard, with his guard following him.
When Johnson returned after Sorenson’s departure in his car, he was grinning sardonically.
“I shouldn’t want him running among my cattle; he’d bite ’em and give ’em the rabies,” he remarked.
Janet caught and pressed his toil-roughened hand.
“You’ll never know how much I thank you for coming in just when you did,” she cried.
“Pshaw, your father would have showed up and stopped him.”
“I’m not so sure. Father has no weapon, and that man did have one. It was the sight of your pistol that made him cower. You couldn’t have chosen a more lucky minute to arrive.”
“Well, it was a little bit timely, as it turned out. Considering too that we were coming to see you anyway, it was just as well to walk in when we could do some good. Mary has something for you to read, if you read Spanish.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s good. Show ’em what you have, daughter.”
Mary drew a knotted handkerchief from her bosom and undid the knots. Appeared the doubled paper she had found. This she passed to Janet.
“Why,––why, this is the document I had!” the latter exclaimed, joyfully. “Where did you find it?”
“Up by the smashed automobile, when father and I were at the cabin.” She exchanged a guarded look with her father. “There are names in it that made me think it might be valuable. So when father came back from Bowenville I showed it to him. But neither of us could read it. We thought we’d better bring it to you to read.”
“It is valuable, very valuable. I had it when I was seized by Ed Sorenson and he took it away from me. Evidently, then, it fell from his pocket at the time of the accident. Yes, indeed, it’s important. It means everything to certain parties. I’ll read it, but you understand what it tells is private at present.”
“We understand––and I think I know what it’s going to say,” Johnson remarked, grimly.
Thereupon while the others listened Janet read a translation of the long document. To her and her father the facts were not new, for Weir had already related such as he knew of the happenings in Vorse’s saloon on that eventful day thirty years previous. Nor for that matter were they strange to Johnson and his daughter, though of course neither Janet nor her father were aware of the rancher’s more intimate knowledge of the subject.
“A pretty good story as far as it goes, but like all lawyers’ papers long-winded,” Johnson stated, critically.
“What do you mean, far as it goes?” Janet asked, 235 curiously. “Did you know this old Mexican? Did you ever hear him tell about the thing?”
“I knew he was there at the time, but he never told me anything.”
Here Dr. Hosmer spoke.
“Saurez died yesterday. It must have been shortly after he made this deposition. He died in Vorse’s saloon, which gives a color of suspicion to his death. In addition, Martinez, as you know, was dragged away somewhere.”
“Then Vorse learned old Saurez had blabbed, and killed him,” Johnson said, in a convinced tone. “Vorse is a bad bird, I want to say. But so are all of them, Sorenson, Burkhardt and Judge Gordon as well.”
Janet brought the talk back to the subject.
“You make me still wonder, Mr. Johnson,” she said. “You seemed to think there’s more to the account than is told in this paper.”
Again the rancher and his daughter glanced at each other, hesitatingly.
“Tell them, father,” Mary broke forth all at once. “They know this much, and you know you can trust them.”
The man, however, shook his head with a certain dogged purpose.
“If this is just a paper in some trifling lawsuit or other, it will be better if I keep my own counsel,” he stated. “I’ve riled Sorenson considerable as it is now, and I don’t care particularly about having him gunning on my trail active-like. If it really mattered–––”
“It does matter; it matters everything,” Janet cried, “if you really know something more!”
“Why?”
“Because it concerns Mr. Weir. The Joseph Weir 236 described and named in this affidavit was his father. He believes these men robbed his father; this paper proves it, but not absolutely, for Mexican evidence here in this country doesn’t carry as much weight against white men––especially men as rich and strong as these named––as it would in other places perhaps. You know that. This paper was obtained for Mr. Weir.”
“Oho, so that’s the way of it!” Johnson said, with a long drawn-out tone.
He regarded the paper in silence for a time, busy with his thoughts, absently twisting his beard, until at length a look of satisfaction grew on his face.
“Well, well, this is fine,” he went on presently. “I never thought I should be able to pay the obligation I owe him, and I won’t fully at that, but this will help. No, that paper doesn’t tell all, for I reckon Saurez didn’t see all.” He glanced triumphantly at the doctor and the girl. “But I did.”
“You!” both exclaimed.
But before he could explain, the memory of the cattleman’s threat recurred to Janet to banish thoughts of aught else than Weir’s danger from her mind.
“Mr. Sorenson said he was going up to the dam to shoot Mr. Weir,” she exclaimed. “We must give warning.”
“Did he say he was going himself?” Johnson asked.
“To get the paper, yes.” Then Janet continued anxiously. “But the paper isn’t all. His son told him what occurred in the mountains and I believe the man wants to harm Mr. Weir as well as to obtain the paper. Perhaps he plans on gaining the document first, then killing him. In any case, we must put Mr. Weir on guard.”
“I’ll just drive up there and tell the engineer,” Johnson 237 stated. “Shouldn’t be surprised if I got a chance yet to use my gun. You girls can stay here.”
Janet gazed at him with a flushing face.
“The man could go to the dam and kill Mr. Weir and get safely home while you’re starting with your team,” said she. “No, we must drive there in a car. Father, you take Mr. Johnson in yours, and I’ll carry Mary in mine. We’ll go along of course, for we’ll not remain here in the cottage alone with such terrible things happening in San Mateo.”
And to this there was no dissent.