Brandon of the Engineers Part 30

Jake took out a cigarette and was lighting it when he heard a swift, stealthy step close behind him. He dropped the match as he swung round, pushing back his canvas chair, and found his eyes dazzled by the sudden darkness. Still he thought he saw a shadow flit across the veranda and vanish into the mist. Next moment there were heavier footsteps, and a crash as a man fell over the projecting legs of the chair. The fellow rolled down the shallow stairs, dropping a pistol and then hurriedly got up.

"Stop right there, Pepe!" he shouted. "What were you doing in that room?"

n.o.body answered and Jake turned to the man, who was rubbing his leg.

"What's the trouble, Payne?" he asked.

"He's lit out, but I reckon I'd have got him if you'd been more careful how you pushed your chair around."

"Whom did you expect to get?"

"Well," said Payne, "it wasn't Pepe."

"Then why did you call him?"

"I wanted the fellow I was after to think I'd made a mistake."

Jake could understand this, though the rest was dark. Pepe was an Indian boy who brought water and domestic stores to the shack, but would have no excuse for entering it at night.

"I allow he meant to dope the coffee," Payne resumed.

This was alarming, and Jake abruptly glanced at the table. The intruder must have been close to it and behind him when he heard the step, and might have accomplished his purpose and stolen away had he not struck the match.

"He hadn't time," he answered. "We had better see what he was doing in the house."

Payne put away his pistol and they entered d.i.c.k's room. Nothing seemed to have been touched, until Jake placed the lamp on a writing-table where d.i.c.k sometimes worked at night. The drawers beneath it were locked, but Payne indicated a greasy finger-print on the writing-pad.

"I guess that's a dago's mark. Mr. Brandon would wash his hands before he began to write."

Jake agreed, and picking up the pad thought the top sheet had been hurriedly removed, because a torn fragment projected from the leather clip. The sheet left was covered with faint impressions, but it rather looked as if these had been made by the ink running through than by direct contact. Jake wrote a few words on a sc.r.a.p of paper and pressing it on the pad noted the difference.

"This is strange," he said. "I don't get the drift of it."

Payne looked at him with a dry smile. "If you'll come out and let me talk, I'll try to put you wise."

Jake nodded and they went back to the veranda.

CHAPTER XX

DON SEBASTIAN

When they returned to the veranda Payne sat down on the steps. Jake picked up his chair and looked at him thoughtfully.

"Now," he said, "I want to know why you have been prowling about the shack at night. You had better begin at the beginning."

"Very well. I guess you know I was put off this camp soon before you came?"

"I heard something about it," Jake admitted.

Payne grinned as if he appreciated his tact, and then resumed: "In the settlement where I was raised, the old fellow who kept the store had a cheat-ledger. When somebody traded stale eggs and garden-truck for good groceries, and the storekeeper saw he couldn't make trouble about it without losing a customer, he said nothing but scored it down against the man. Sometimes he had to wait a long while, but sooner or later he squared the account. Now that's my plan with Don Ramon Oliva."

"I see," said Jake. "What have you against him?"

"To begin with, he got me fired. It was a thing I took my chances of and wouldn't have blamed him for; but I reckon now your father's cement wasn't all he was after. He wanted a pull on me."

"Why?"

"I haven't got that quite clear, but I'm an American and could do things he couldn't, without being suspected."

"Go on," said Jake, in a thoughtful tone.

"Well, for a clever man, he made a very poor defense when your partner spotted his game; seemed to say if they reckoned he'd been stealing, he'd let it go at that. Then, when he'd got me and found I wasn't the man he wanted, he turned me down. Left me to live with breeds and n.i.g.g.e.rs!"

"What do you mean by your not being the man he wanted?"

Payne smiled in a deprecatory way. "I allow that I was willing to make a few dollars on the cement, but working against white men in a dago plot is a different thing."

"Then there is a plot?"

"Well," said Payne quietly, "I don't know much about it, but something's going on."

Jake lighted a cigarette while he pondered. He was not surprised that Payne should talk to him with confidential familiarity, because the situation warranted it, and the American workman is not, as a rule, deferential to his employer. The fellow might be mistaken, but he believed that Oliva had schemed to get him into his power and work upon his wish for revenge. Jake could understand Oliva's error. Payne's moral code was rudimentary, but he had some racial pride and would not act like a treacherous renegade.

"I begin to see how your account against Oliva stands," he remarked. "But is that the only entry in your book?"

"I guess not," Payne replied. "Mr. Brandon's name is there, but the entry is against myself. It was a straight fight when he had me fired, and he took me back when he found I was down and out."

Jake nodded. "You have already warned Brandon that he might be in some danger in the town."

"That's so. Since then, I reckoned that they were getting after him _here_, but we were more likely to hold them up if they didn't know we knew. That's why I called out to show I thought it was Pepe who was in the shack."

"Very well," said Jake. "There's nothing more to be done in the meantime, but you'd better tell me if you find out anything else."

Payne went away and when d.i.c.k came in Jake took him into his room and indicated the blotter.

"Have you torn off the top sheet in the last few days?"

"I don't remember doing so, but now I come to look, it has been torn off."

"What have you been writing lately?"

"Orders for small supplies, specifications of material, and such things."

"Concrete, in short?" Jake remarked. "Well, it's not an interesting subject to outsiders and sometimes gets very stale to those who have to handle it. Are you quite sure you haven't been writing about anything else?"