In the Shadow of the Hills

“Go on, I say,” he exclaimed.

But the other did not retreat before him or indeed move at all. A sneer lifted his gray mustache.

“You have a gun; you’re a killer; here I am unarmed and in your power,” he said. “You intend to take me in; I propose to stay here. If I go to San Mateo, it will be as a dead man. I’ll see whether you have the nerve to shoot me down where I now stand. If you have, go to it. You can then take my body to town, but I’ll not have paid the price you name and I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I beat you at the last––in that, at least. Your bragging will be empty. Start your shooting any time you please.” The tone spoke complete contempt.

Weir said nothing. The defiance, the supreme audacity of this assertion, coming so unexpectedly, surprised him and left him at a loss. He would not kill an unresisting man, even Sorenson, his worst enemy. Sorenson in his place probably would not have hesitated to do so, for he had no fine scruples in such matters; but for Steele Weir the thing was no more possible than striking a woman or a child.

It was not a question of nerve, as the other had stated. It was a test of brutality and consciencelessness. To shoot a man while escaping is one thing; to kill him while a prisoner, however contemptuous and brazen, was another. But there are means other than bullets for handling obstinate prisoners.

Weir shifted his weapon so as to grasp the barrel and have the butt free.

“I’ll leave your execution to the proper officials, if an execution is what you want,” he said. “Now will you go?” he demanded, threateningly.

Weir braced himself to resist the man’s effort to force him down. Strong arms the other had, now doubly strengthened by hate and a belief in victory. All the power of Sorenson’s great body was exerted to lift him off his feet, crush him in a terrific bear-hug, put him on his back and render him helpless; and Weir in his turn was tensing his muscles and arching his frame with every ounce of his lean, iron-like frame.

Thus they swayed and struggled in the moonlight, without witnesses. A sinister silent fight, marked only by their fierce breathing and fiercer heart-beats. The pistol had dropped from Steele Weir’s hand; instead of attempting to break the other’s hold he had yielded to it and pushing his own arms forward had clasped his hands behind Sorenson’s back in the wrestler’s true defense to such an attack.

Once Sorenson almost had him on his knees, but by a quick powerful upthrust of his legs he regained his upright position. However, it had been a close shave for Weir, for he well knew that his opponent would use any tactics, fair or foul, to kill him if he once lay on his back.

Venomous and impassioned, all the hate in the man’s heart flowed forth in a fuming stream. For hate and murderous desire was all that was left him in the wreck of life caused by the engineer. If he could no longer rule, he could at least destroy.

Weir had made no response to the fierce imprecations. He was working his hands upward, straining his arms so as to reach Sorenson’s head.

“When the coyotes are gnawing your skull,” Sorenson went on, raging, “when the worms are feeding on you–––”

The words died in a gurgle of pain. Weir’s hands had closed about his temples, a finger sunk in each eye, forcing his head back. Sorenson shook himself frantically to break the torturing hold. His head went farther and farther back as if it seemed his neck would snap; his mouth opened to gasp, “Oh, God!” and all at once his hug slipped apart.

Instantly Weir tripped him, falling on top. Reaching out like a flash he seized his pistol lying on the ground and brought it down on the head of his enemy, who momentarily blinded and suffering could not resist. Sorenson went limp. From the savage beast of a minute before he had been changed to a huge, motionless, sprawling figure, with face upturned to the moon.

And on that face the victor of the life and death struggle could still behold, through the contorted lines stamped by pain, the man’s brutal passion and fixed malevolence.

Weir arose.

“You felt the hound of hell’s teeth,” he muttered.

With thongs from one of the saddles he bound Sorenson’s hands, pulling the knots tight and hard. The prostrate man moaned, opened his eyes. Weir jerked him dazed and staggering to his feet.

“Up into the saddle with you if you don’t want another rap on the head,” Steele ordered, bruskly. “And go straight this time. From now on I’ll take you at your word and put a hole through your black heart if you try any more tricks.”

When his prisoner was mounted, he fastened his ankles together by another thong under the belly of the pony. Weir was taking no chances. Up into his own saddle then he swung himself.

No exultant curses now came from his captive’s lips.

The hour was drawing near midnight when Weir and his prisoner entered the town. Most of the women and children of the crowd of Mexicans had gone to their homes, but men yet remained before the court house and in the street, discussing and arguing the exciting events of the night.

In some mysterious manner knowledge that Burkhardt and not Weir was the prisoner in the jail, together with news of Judge Gordon’s suicide and Vorse’s death, had spread from mouth to mouth. Amazement and incredulity had been followed by an aroused feeling of anger, for to the Mexicans it appeared that the crushing blow dealt the leaders of the town was the arbitrary act of the man they believed a lawless gun-man. Were not Weir’s foremen and engineers guarding the jail? Men who were strangers, not even citizens of the county?

But though an undercurrent of feeling ran among the talking groups, gradually increasing as the time passed, yet was there no active desire on the part of all or a concerted movement to drive away the seeming invaders of the law. For any such attempt a strong leader was necessary. There was none: Madden frowned upon them, only saying as he moved about that he was executing the law; Sorenson, the dominating figure of the town, and Burkhardt’s, Vorse’s and Gordon’s friend, was strangely absent.

The determined guard about the jail was in itself a deterrent to mob action. Meyers had brought twenty or more men from camp, armed and alert, who with those already about the building constituted a force to make any crowd of Mexicans, however angry, think twice before seeking to rescue prisoners. But the wish and the spirit were not lacking. Employees of the plotters, men who had received favors from Sorenson or Vorse or Burkhardt, Mexicans of a naturally vicious and unruly temper, were all for rushing the jail. The great number of the people, however, peaceful and indolent, preferred to content themselves with satisfying their curiosity by talk instead of seeking a taste of blood. And so as a result of this divided opinion the hostility for Weir had not expressed itself in an effort to assail the keepers of the jail.

When he was discovered to have returned to town, this angry feeling assumed a menacing form. He approached the court house by the side street, Sorenson riding at his side, for it was his plan to lodge his prisoner in the Jail with as much secrecy as possible. Nevertheless in this he was disappointed; men saw him arrive, assist his prisoner to alight and climb the board fence about the yard; and drawn by the expectation of new events the nearer groups hastened forward.

Weir impelled his man towards the jail.

“Stand back,” he commanded the Mexicans.

The latter at first stared in astonishment at beholding the pair, one of whom was San Mateo’s foremost citizen, now sullenly advancing with wrists bound. Exclamations burst from their lips.

At that a flash of hope filled Sorenson’s breast.

“To my rescue, friends!” he cried, beginning to struggle.

Weir jerked him ahead fiercely and cast fiercer looks at the Mexicans.

“This man is under arrest. And remember I can still shoot straight,” he warned.

Towards him came Madden running, who in Weir’s disappearance earlier in the night he had guessed a pursuit of the cattleman and had therefore returned to the jail. He placed himself at Sorenson’s right.

“Whoever tries to take Sorenson from the hands of the law does so at his own peril,” he exclaimed.

A few mocking shouts resulted. These were gradually increased until the Mexicans, now being joined by scores of others from the street, became a howling, cursing, hysterical mob, crying Sorenson and Burkhardt’s innocence, calling down imprecations on the heads of the sheriff and the engineer, stirred by certain lawless spirits to wilder and wilder passion.

Weir and Madden had not been standing still, for the crowd was not yet numerous enough at first or bold enough to attack. Moreover the two men held their pistols well in view. Forcing Sorenson ahead, driving apart those who blocked their way, they pushed across the yard until but a few paces from the jail.

One Mexican, a ranch hand from one of Vorse’s ranches, wearing a great high-peaked felt hat and chaps, insolently thrust himself before the trio, spitting at Weir’s face and in Spanish begging companions to help him release Sorenson. His right hand was resting on his holster as if but awaiting an excuse to use his gun.

“Get to one side,” was Weir’s harsh order.

The man’s answer was a string of foul curses. Like a panther the engineer leaped forward and struck the fellow on the side of his head with revolver barrel, dropping him where he stood.

As the crowd remained suddenly mute, unmoving, their howls checked by this swift reprisal, Weir spoke to Madden:

“Quick! To the door!”

Each with an arm in Sorenson’s, they made a run for the jail, passed through the line of armed guards and for the moment were safe. The sheriff lost no time in dragging the prisoner inside and when presently he stepped forth again, locking the door after him, he showed a relieved face.

“I put irons on him, hands and feet,” he informed Weir. “He’s out of the way at any rate if we’re in for a row.”

That was exactly what appeared in prospect. Only the rifles in the grip of the two dozen men about the jail kept the now thoroughly aroused mob from rushing forward. From yelling it had changed to low fierce murmurs that bespoke a more desperate mood.

“We ought to move the men somewhere else,” Steele Weir stated. “Pretty soon they’ll go for arms and then we’ll have real trouble.”

“I arranged while you were gone to transfer them to the county seat in the next county,” Madden said. “Telephoned the sheriff; he’s expecting them. To-morrow we can take them to Santa Fé, out of this part of the country till time for their trial. I placed the automobile your man brought Burkhardt in from the dam and another machine back in the alley; they are there now in the shadow.”

“Good. The quicker you take them, the better. They ought to be gagged when brought out. Get them here to the door; the men who are to drive should have the cars ready, engines going–––”

“That’s fixed. Your superintendent will drive one car and one of the engineers the other; they can slip back there at once. Six more of the guards are to go with us.”

“All right. You know whom you want. Station them here at the door to rush the prisoners back the instant you’re ready. Have them go round to the rear on the dark side of the jail; they should gain a good start before they’re discovered.”

Madden called from the line Atkinson and the men whom he had chosen to accompany him on the night ride. A brief parley followed. Then he and two of the engineers went inside the jail, while the superintendent and one young fellow stole away in the shadows towards the spot where stood the cars.

Meanwhile the throng had grown until it filled all the space about the rear of the court house and formed a mass of human bodies on which the checkered moonlight played reaching to within half a dozen paces of the jail. A shot rang out and a bullet struck the jail. It was like a match lighted near powder, that if allowed to burn would set off an explosion. One shot would lead to others from reckless spirits, to a volley and in the end to an onslaught.

Perhaps that was the reasoning and the purpose of the man who had fired. In any case, it must not be repeated.

Weir strode forward towards the crowd.

“If that man, or any of you, want to shoot this out with me, let him show himself,” he said, threateningly and swinging the muzzle of his weapon along the line of faces.

“If you try any more shots,” he continued, speaking in Spanish as before, “those rifles will open fire.” He paused to allow this information to have full effect. “Finally, if you attempt wrecking this jail, the three hundred workmen from the dam will march down to San Mateo and teach you proper observance of the law. If you’re really looking for trouble, those three hundred men will give this town trouble that will be remembered for twenty years.”

Standing there in the moonlight between the two parties, between the thin line of sentinels about the jail and the dense mob in front, Steele Weir’s action seemed the height of rashness. A rush of the Mexicans and he would be overwhelmed, a cowardly shot from somewhere in the rear and he might be killed. It was like inviting disaster.

If, however, he recognized his danger, he gave no sign of it. By the power of his gun and sheer boldness he faced them, calm, fearless, masterful. His unexpected advance had surprised the Mexicans, left them confused and uncertain. Wild and sinister tales concerning his prowess magnified him in their eyes notwithstanding their animosity. Now they seemed to feel his iron will beating against their faces.

During the pause that ensued Weir heard the jail door open. Madden was preparing to take his prisoners out.

That was a happy inspiration. Had Weir stated the whole category of Sorenson’s and Burkhardt’s crimes, including murder and dynamiting, he could not have struck so shrewdly as in naming the sin of cattle-stealing. For this was a cattle country and even the most ignorant Mexican grasped the significance of this charge.

A visible stir answered the statement.

“For stealing cattle from other men”––he did not trouble to mention the fact the crime had occurred thirty years previous––“and for that and other things Sheriff Madden has arrested them. Because they are rich, their guilt is all the worse. Perhaps they have taken cattle belonging to you, who knows? That may come out in their trial; if they have taken them, you shall have them back.”

From the rear of the grounds came the low sounds of automobile engines being started. Weir dared not look about to learn if Madden and his party were safely on their way thither. As for the Mexicans, the speaker’s words had created a sensation. For men were there who owned small herds now feeding on the range, and from anger their minds yielded to sudden anxiety; each saw himself a possible sufferer from cattle depredations; and in the minds of these, at least, thought of loss supplanted thought of Sorenson and Burkhardt.

A man all at once pushed forth from the crowd, wrathfully elbowing his way among neighbors. He was Naharo, the Mexican who had chatted once with Martinez in the latter’s office.

“It is true,” he shouted, facing his countrymen. “I, Naharo, vow it the truth. For I saw this engineer take a young girl away from Ed Sorenson in the restaurant at Bowenville that the scoundrel intended to seduce. It is so, the truth; the engineer saved her. And are there not men among you”––his voice gained a savage, rasping note––“whose girls have been betrayed by the cattle-stealing Sorenson’s son?”

“Where is he––where is he now?” some one shouted, angrily. It might have been a father who stood in Naharo’s case.

“He lies crippled,” Weir stated. “Last night he tried to steal yet another girl from San Mateo, and fleeing when overtaken was pitched from his car and crushed against a rock. He will steal no more daughters of San Mateo.”

With half of his attention Weir was harkening for the sound of starting automobiles. He had heard the scuffle of feet when the party slipped away from the jail door into the shadows. He had almost measured their passage to the alley. Ah, and now! There was a quick grind of gears, the pop of exhausts, then a dying of the sounds as the cars left the grounds.

“You wished to kill me when you came here, but I had not then and have not now any intention of dying,” he stated. “For I have work to do––and work for you if you want it. Instead of stealing your cattle and daughters as the Sorensons did, I’ll give you jobs. We are about to begin digging canals and ditches on the mesa; I want men and teams––you and yours at good pay for a good day’s work. Our quarrel of the past need not be remembered. I have never been your enemy, only the enemy of the four men who deceived and oppressed you. And now they are gone, two dead and two off to be tried for their crimes.”

Weir stood for a moment silent, while they as silently stared at him.

“Ha, bueno, we shall work!” Naharo exclaimed.

“We shall work and build your ditches, señor,” cried a score of voices.

Then the cry swelled to a noisy chorus. The crowd began to stir and disintegrate and break into groups, gesticulating, talking, discussing all the astonishing items of news given by the engineer, from the particulars of the Sorensons’ depravity to announcement of renewed hire.

“Señor, we hold you in greatest respect,” said a man to Weir, smiling in friendly fashion.

“And also your pistol,” said a companion, laughing.

“No one will need to wear pistols here in San Mateo from now on,” was the answer. And he politely bade them good-night.

His belief was sincere. San Mateo had gained an end of violence, and henceforth his weapon would gather dust. He had triumphed. Not only had he subdued his enemies, but he had won the good will of the people.

One thing more alone remained to be won to bring him utter happiness.

As Weir drove his car homeward through the moonlight, he knew that at last the dark shadow upon his life had passed forever. Memories poignant and sad, memories bitter and stern, returned again and again to his mind; but these henceforth with time would soften and change. Of these his last visit to his father was most vivid, that day in spring that had proved their last together....

He had been there with his father for a week, and now must go. He was chopping wood that morning, with his father looking on. Steele had cast a measuring glance at the pile of wood cut, then wiped the fine dew of perspiration from his brow, buried the ax blade in the chopping-log and seated himself upon a sawn block. A smile shaped itself upon his lips. Though he never chopped wood now except on these rare visits to his recluse father’s cabin here on the forested mountain side, his tall lean figure was as tough and wiry as ever, his arm as tireless, his eye as true to cut the exact line. There was yet no softening of his fibers or fat on his ribs, and there would be neither if he had anything to say about it.

What that secret might be he had for years not allowed himself to speculate. Unbidden at times the memory of certain revealing looks or acts of his father’s floated into his mind:––a dread if not terror that on occasion dilated the elder man’s eyes, and a steadfast driving of himself at work as if to obliterate painful and despairing thoughts, and an uneasy, furtive vigilance when forced to visit town. Once when a stranger, a short heavy-set bearded man, had unexpectedly appeared at the door, his father had leaped for the revolver hanging in its holster on the wall.

On catching a second view of the chance visitor he had exclaimed, “Not Burkhardt after all!” With which he burst into a wild laugh, the shrill mirthless laugh of a man suddenly freed of a terrible fear. However, as he returned the gun-belt to its place, his hand shook so that he pawed all around the nail on which it was accustomed to hang.

On his own life the mystery had left its gloomy impress. A solitary and joyless boyhood, overhung by he knew not what danger, haunted by a parent’s lurking fear and anguish, had made him a silent, cold, ever watchful man, never entirely free from the expectation that his father’s sealed past at some instant would open and confront him with the terrible facts. For that reason he felt that the success he had gained as an engineer, a success won by relentless toil and solid ability, rested on a quicksand. For that cause he had welcomed engineering projects full of danger and by his indifference to that danger gained his name “Cold Steel.”

Now on this day with his father he once again put the question he always asked on his visits, and with no more hope of a consenting reply than before.

“I must be going to-morrow. Won’t you come along with me this time, father? I want you to live with me, so that I can look after you and be with you. We can fix up a good cabin at the engineering camp. You’re not so strong as you were; you could fall sick here and die and never a person know it. I doubt if you spend, making yourself comfortable, one dollar in ten of the money I send you. You would be interested in the building of this big irrigation project I’m to direct.”

His father appeared to shudder.

“No, no,” he muttered. “I’ve lived here and I’ll die here.”

“No. I’ll remain, my son.”

That was conclusive. It was the answer of not only thirty years of living at the spot, but of his secret dread. Steele saw once more the stark fear in his eyes, the fear of contact with men, of venturing out into the world, of precipitating fate.

For a time his father plucked his white unkempt beard with unsteady hand.

“Where’s the place you’re going this time?” he presently inquired, without real interest.

“New Mexico.”

On the elder’s face appeared suddenly a gray shadow as if the blood were ebbing from his heart.

“Where in New Mexico?” he whispered.

“The town of San Mateo.”

His father struggled to his feet. With one hand he clutched the doorframe for support. The skin of his cheeks had gone a sickly white.

“San Mateo––San Mateo!” he gasped. “Not there, not there, Steele! Keep away, keep away, keep away! My God, not San Mateo––you!”

He swayed as if about to fall full length, gesturing blindly before his face as if to sweep away the thought, while his son ran towards him.

“Father, you’re sick,” Steele exclaimed, putting an arm about the other. And, in truth, the elder man seemed fainting, ready to collapse. “Come, let me help you in so you can lie down. I must bring a doctor.”

Steele almost carried him to the bed. On it his father sank, remaining with closed eyes and scarcely breathing.

“No doctor; bring no doctor,” he said painfully, at last. “I feel––I feel as if dying.”

“I must bring a doctor. And I have a flask of whiskey; let me pour you a little to revive your heart.”

The change the words wrought from passivity to action was startling. The elder Weir arose suddenly on elbow, glaring fiercely.

“Whiskey, never! It brought me to this, it damned my life. If it had not been for whiskey–––” Without finishing the words he fell back on the bed.

The loathing, the hatred, the utter horror of his exclamation, banished from his son’s mind further thought of using this stimulant.

“But the doctor?” he inquired, gently.

“No use, Steele. I’ve been the same as a dead man for days. Just ashes. I want to die; I want to lie by your mother there under the big pine. And maybe I’ll have peace––peace.”

Steele took in his own the wasted hand hanging from the bed. He held it tight, with a feeling of infinite tragedy.

“You’ll be yourself again soon,” he said comfortingly, though without faith in the assurance.

His father’s lips moved in a whisper.

“No; my time is here at last,” said he. “But don’t go to San Mateo, Steele,––don’t go, don’t go. Oh, my God, spare me that!”

“Would you have me break my word? I never have to any man, father. I accepted this offer and signed a contract. I’m morally bound; these men are depending on me. Were you ever at San Mateo? Was it something that happened there that makes you fearful to have me go? San Mateo is a thousand miles from here.”

“I see you now as you are, a man, stronger than I ever was,” he murmured. “I lived in fear, but my fear was not for myself. Had I been alone, nothing would have mattered after your mother died. But my fear was for you––and of you. I was afraid your life would be blasted; I was in terror lest you should hate and despise me when you learned the truth. So I sought to conceal it.”

“You had no need to fear that.”

“I see it now. Tell me everything or nothing as you wish about your going to San Mateo to work; it will frighten me no longer.”

Steele briefly spoke of his new work there, of the magnitude of the project and the desire he had had that his father might be with him.

“I’m proud of you,” his father said. “God knows I have not been the parent I would or should have been.”

“It’s enough for me if your heart’s easy now.”

“I feel as if I were gaining peace at last and––and I must speak. In San Mateo––ah, Steele, you will hear of me there,––you may have to fight the damning influence of my name and past, but I know now you’ll come through it. And all I pray for is that you can retain a little love for me despite everything.”

“Whatever it is I shall hear of my father, I should rather hear it from his lips than from strangers’.”

“I’m a branded murderer,” he said at last, gasping.

“But you never killed a man out of mere wanton desire to slay,” Steele responded firmly. “I too have killed men in fights in Mexico. That fact doesn’t weight my mind.”

“In the line of your duty, in the line of your duty. But I was drunk. He was a friend. When I became sober, I saw him with a bullet hole in his head.”

“Do you remember nothing of shooting him?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“How do you know you killed him?” his son demanded with inexorable logic. “What is the proof?”

A low groan escaped his father.

“Men said I had killed him. But my own mind was blank.”

“Who were the men? Were they present at the time?”

“They were four––Sorenson, Vorse, Gordon, Burkhardt.”

“Were you arrested and tried?”

“No. They helped me to escape. Because of your mother, they said, and because they said they were my friends. But I never felt they were really friends. For they were always against new-comers and wanted to keep things in their own hands. You were only three or four years old at that time, Steele, so you wouldn’t remember anything about matters there.”

“What were you doing at San Mateo, father?”

“I was ranching,” was the low answer. “I had come to San Mateo two years before from the east, bringing you and your mother and considerable money. I bought a ranch and stocked it with cattle; I was doing well, in spite of the fact I was new to the country and the business. Also I was making friends, and I had been nominated for the legislature of the Territory to run against Gordon. But I had taken to drinking with the men I met, other cattlemen, because I fancied no harm in it. And then while in a drunken stupor I killed Jim Dent.”

“Had you quarreled with him?”

“Never, never––till that moment I killed Jim. They said I quarreled with him then. But I remember nothing. Jim was my best friend; I would have trusted him with my life. Even now I can’t make it seem real I shot him, though it must be true by those four witnesses.”

“What of your ranch? Your political nomination?”

“I withdrew from the latter; that was one of the terms made by Gordon on which they were to help me escape instead of turning me over for prosecution. And my ranch and cattle, I had to deed them over to the four men too.”

“Then their friendship wasn’t disinterested,” Steele said quickly, with suspicion dawning on his face.

“They weren’t really friends, I knew that.”

“How were they to arrange your escape?”

The senior Weir seemed to shudder at the question.

“What’s the last thing you remember of the circumstance previous to learning Dent was dead?” he asked.

“Ah, though I had been drinking I can remember clearly up to the time I stopped playing poker with Jim and the four men, for we were losing and I felt they were working a crooked deal on us somehow. I asked Jim to quit also, for though I hadn’t lost much he was losing fast and playing recklessly. But he wouldn’t drop out of the game, and when Vorse and Sorenson cursed me and said for me to mind my own business I went back to a table near the rear door and laid my head on my arms and went to sleep. When I was awake again, Vorse and Gordon were holding me up by their table and Jim was dead on the floor. I had come forward, they said, begun a big row with Dent and finally shot him.”

“Then the only witnesses were these four men who were gambling with him, who cursed you when you attempted to persuade him to drop his cards,” Steele proceeded, “one of whom was your political adversary, men who were old-timers and opposed to new-comers, who pretended to be your friends but took your ranch and cattle. It begins to look to me as if they not only killed your friend Dent but double-crossed you in the bargain. Did you look in your gun afterwards?”

“No. I was sick with the horror of the accusation, I tell you, Steele. I had no way to deny it; it seemed indeed as if I must have killed him. And from that day until this I’ve never had the courage of soul to reload my pistol, or even clean it. It hangs there on the wall with the very shells, two empty, the rest unfired, that it carried that day in San Mateo.”

Weir sprang up and crossed to the nail where hung the weapon. The latter he drew from the holster and broke open, so that the cartridges were ejected into his hand. For an instant he stared at them, but at length walked to the bed before which he extended his palm.

“Look––look for yourself!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “You never killed Jim Dent; drunk or sober, you never killed any one. You’re not a murderer. You’re the innocent victim of those four infamous scoundrels; they deceived you, they ruined your life; and their damnable fraud not only killed my mother in her youth, as I guess, by grief and despair, but has brought you now to your death too.”

His father had raised himself on an arm to gaze incredulously at the six unfired cartridges lying in Weir’s palm. Then all at once his bearded lips trembled and a great light of joy flashed upon his face.

“Innocent––innocent!” he whispered. “Steele, my son,––Helen, my wife! No stain on my soul!”

As he sank back Steele’s arms caught him. He did not speak again, but his eyes rested radiantly on his boy’s before they glazed in death. Fear had passed from them, forever.

Lights still were burning at headquarters when Steele Weir slowly drove his runabout up the hillside slope to the dam camp. The men who had acted as guards about the jail, except those who went with Madden, were somewhere on the road behind him, returning home in the wagons. A reaction of mind and body had set in for Weir; after the previous night’s loss of sleep and prolonged exertions, after the swift succession of dramatic events, after the tremendous call that had been made upon his brain power, nervous force and will, he experienced a strange unrest of spirit. His triumph seemed yet incomplete, somehow unsatisfying.

It was as he approached the camp that he saw a slender girlish figure sitting on a rock in the moonlight. He swung his car off the road beside the spot where Janet Hosmer sat.

“What, you are still awake?” he asked, with a smile.

“Could I sleep while not knowing what was happening or what danger you might be in?” she returned. “Mr. Pollock said we must not think of returning home until quiet was restored in San Mateo. One of the engineer’s houses was given to us by Mr. Meyers before he left, where Mary and I could sleep. But I could not close my eyes. So much had happened, so much was yet going on! So I came out here to be alone and to think and watch.”

“And your father?”

“He’s attending the wounded Mexicans in the store.”

Steel alighted and tossing his hat upon the car seat gazed out over the mesa, misty in the moonlight.

“There will be no more trouble,” said he. “Sorenson and Burkhardt are Madden’s prisoners, and on their way to a place of safe-keeping in another county. Vorse is dead. The people in town have a fairly good understanding of matters now, I think.”

“How in the world did such a change of opinion occur?” Janet exclaimed.

“I had a little talk with the crowd and made explanations. The feeling for me was almost friendly when I left; what enmity remains will soon die out, I’m sure.”

Though unaware from Steele Weir’s laconic statement of what had actually occurred, the girl divined that his words concealed vastly more than their surface purport. With the general hostility against the engineer that had existed, for him to swing the community to his side meant a dramatic moment and a remarkable moral conquest.

“Your friends have always known you would win,” she said, smiling up at him.

He seated himself on the rock beside her.

“It’s but a short time ago, Janet, that I had no friends, or so few they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Business acquaintances, yes. Professional companions, yes. Men who perhaps respected my ability as an engineer, yes. But real friends, scarcely one. And now I think I have gained some, which is the greatest satisfaction I have from all that has happened. After years the pendulum has swung to my side. Do you know the hour my luck changed?”

Janet shook her head wonderingly.

“No, I can’t even guess,” said she.

“Well, it was that afternoon, and that moment, I found you sitting in your stalled car in the creek down there. That was the beginning. From that time things began to run in my favor and they haven’t ceased to do so for a moment since, I now see looking back over events. You brought good luck to me that day in your car.”

“What an extraordinary idea! Then at bottom you’re superstitious,” Janet replied. “I shall have to give you a new name; I must no longer call you ‘Cold Steel.’”

“I really never liked that name,” Weir said quickly. “Perhaps I was cold steel once, but I have changed along with everything else. And you’re responsible for that too.”

Janet leaned forward and looked into his eyes.

“You were never truly harsh to any one except those who deserved it,” she said. “I know! You would never have been so quick to help Mary Johnson or me, or others who needed help, if your heart was not always generous and sympathetic. Only against evil were you as steel, and in moments requiring supreme courage and sacrifice. And that’s how you gained the name before you ever came here.”

“Anyway I’ve changed,” said he. “I’m out from under the cloud which I felt always hung above me. As I say, you brought me good luck that day––and I see clearly that I shall continue to be superstitious.”

“Why, all occasion for that is past now.”

“No,” said Steele Weir. “No, less than ever. For I’m certain you hold my good fortune in your hand yet, and will continue to hold it. And that means–––”

“Yes?” she managed to say.

“It means my happiness, now and for all time to come,” he went on. “See, I shall have accomplished what I set out to do and what in justice had to be done, bringing these men to punishment––to punishment in one form or another. I shall have given my employer, the company, service worthy of the hire. I shall have rid you and San Mateo of an unscrupulous parasite in the person of Ed Sorenson, though my persecution of him now shall stop and I shall leave him enough out of the property recovered from his father to live in comfort somewhere with his mother.

“Mr. Pollock states I shall have no trouble in getting legal title and possession of most of the wealth of these four men,––I and any relatives of the dead Jim Dent who can be found. For thirty years’ accumulated interest charges owing me will swallow up all the men’s properties. That, however, is only a material victory. I shall have relieved Johnson of fear of financial constraint; and saved his daughter from a serious mistake. I shall have started Martinez on the road to success––and I should not be surprised if he prospered, became the leading attorney in this county, was elected judge and so on.

“I see all this,” he concluded. “It pleases me; it gives me cause for satisfaction. But it doesn’t give me the happiness I want, or the love. That is alone in your hands to bestow.”

Janet felt herself trembling; she could not speak.

“I think I felt the stirring of love from the moment I saw you there at the ford,” he exclaimed. “Last night when I knew that wretch had carried you off to the mountains, I could have torn him limb from limb. That was my love speaking, Janet. If I should have to go through life without you––oh, the thought is too bitter to dwell on!––then I should think life not worth living. But I have imagined that you might have for me a little–––”

Janet swiftly clasped his hand with her own.

“I love you,” she cried softly. “I was sitting here when you came because I loved you. If I am necessary to your happiness, you also are necessary to mine. I honor you for what you have done and love you for what you are, a strong true heart.”

“Ah, Janet, you give me the greatest joy in the world,” he whispered. “Love––that is more than all.”

His arms drew her to his breast. Her lips went to his in consecration of that love. Their hearts beat the rapture of that love.

THE END