In the Shadow of the Hills Part 13

Their looks met, held for an instant, dropped. Each read the thought of the other: the motive for the attack on the engineer was clear. But some convictions are better not expressed.

"I should have liked to see Senor Weir do the shooting," Naharo stated. "Dios, such shooting! Two shots, two hits. And in the dark!"

Martinez' grinned.

"It will not please--whoever hired the dead man. He was hired for the job, of course."

"Unquestionably, senor," was the reply.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GATHERING STORM

At the inquest next morning no outward sign indicated what Weir's enemies might be at. Indeed, none of them was present. The engineer made a statement; the two witnesses, Janet Hosmer and Felipe Martinez, were briefly interrogated, and the finding was returned that the unknown Mexican had met death from two bullet wounds while attempting to kill Steele Weir.

One spectator there was who took a strong interest in proceedings, Ed Sorenson. When, however, Janet Hosmer was notified by her father, who was in charge, that she could withdraw, the young fellow hastened to lead her away, with an audible remark that it was a shame she had had to be "dragged into this disreputable gun-man's b.l.o.o.d.y show." Meaning Steele Weir, naturally.

That feeling was being intensified against him was only too apparent in the hostile manner of the crowd and in the silence with which it received the finding. There was his former unpopularity, to begin with; there was now added a race resentment, for the slain man, stranger though he was, was Mexican; and finally, he knew not what distilled poison of lies concerning his innocence in the night fray.

Nothing more was needed to reveal the swelling hate which secret fear of Weir but increased than a volley of curses and abuse hurled at his head from a native saloon doorway as he pa.s.sed in his car on his way home.

During the following week the engineer was too occupied with dam work to have time for other matters. He pushed the concrete construction and inspired his men with something of his own indomitable spirit, who had learned of the cowardly attack in San Mateo and rallied to his standard with a zeal and ardor for which the fact of employment alone did not account. He had become a leader as well as their "boss." From Meyers down to the humblest workman the camp had for him a new admiration, a new respect and a new loyalty, which he could not help but feel; he had proved that he could deliver the "goods"; and if the Mexicans wanted war, the Americans here would be glad to oblige them.

Nor did they wait to let San Mateo know the fact.

"We're wid 'Cold Steel' Weir, our boss, four hundred of us, till ye can skate on h.e.l.l," a huge Irishman, one of half a dozen standing at Vorse's bar on Sat.u.r.day night, remarked when the saloon-man uttered a sneer at the manager. "Say that agin and we'll tear your rotten booze joint to pieces and make ye eat it! And if another stinkin' greaser tries to wing him from the dark, we'll come down here and wipe your dirty little town off the map! That goes both ways from the jack!" He snapped his fingers under the other's nose by way of added insult.

A petty series of hostile acts against the company developed.

Teamsters were stoned by boys, which left them raging and murderous to discover the men who set them on. Half a carload of cement in sacks was ripped open and emptied on the earth at Bowenville. After Meyers, Weir's a.s.sistant, found his automobile tires slashed to bits on coming out of the post-office in San Mateo, it became necessary always to go in pairs, one man to remain on watch. Weir himself just avoided a serious accident one evening at dusk while a mile from the dam when he instinctively ducked in his car as something grazed the top of his wind-shield. A wire had been stretched across the road from a telephone pole to a tree, at just the height to strike him at the throat.

He halted and removed the deadly contrivance. Men on watch of his movements could have prepared it against his return; and, indeed, he thought he detected a pair of flitting shadows behind a row of willow bushes lining a Mexican irrigation ditch, but in the dusk he could not be sure. On running thither, he found no one.

The camp was not of a temper, however, to allow the attacks to be all on one side. Atkinson, the superintendent, came to Weir one morning towards the end of the week and informed him workmen were drifting down to San Mateo nightly in hope of trouble.

"They'll get a knife put into them," Steele Weir replied, with a frown that did not entirely hide his satisfaction at this evidence of support.

"Maybe; and again maybe not," the superintendent stated, grinning. "A bunch jumped some of our boys last night and I guess when the dust settled there were a couple of Mexicans beaten nearly to death."

"Call the men all together this noon," Weir ordered.

At that hour he gave them a talk for what he called their long-eared cussedness, and laid down a little law and wound up with a number of reasonable explanations for the same. Every man who went out hunting trouble was a camp liability, and would be fired. He did not propose to give the town authorities a chance to jail workmen and impair the dam work, just the thing they were waiting to do. The men should keep away from San Mateo, or at least avoid disputes and rows. If they spent no money there whatever it would sting the town where it would hurt the most, in its pocket-book; and he himself was transferring the company bank account to Bowenville, by way of example. If any man felt the need of change from camp, he could have two days off at the end of the month to spend at Bowenville. But keep away from the Mexicans!

"And if they come up here huntin' us when we show up no more?" yelled the same big Irishman who had paid his respects to Vorse.

"In that case, tear their heads off," was the reply. "But put on your gloves first or you'll dirty your fingers." Which bit of rough humor caught the crowd's fancy and won a roar of laughter.

Later as the crowd dispersed to eat Atkinson said to Meyers, "The boss knows how to handle men all right, all right; he put sugar on the pill. The gang went off grinning. They know they've got to be good--but only up to a limit."

Meantime Felipe Martinez had not been idle. He rode up to engineering headquarters on his pony one evening and carried Weir out into the open where their words would not be overheard. He reported that he was quietly working for information of Weir's father among the older Mexicans who would be likely to remember him, but proceeding cautiously so that no one would suspect his purpose. He represented himself to them as undertaking to write a history of San Mateo County; he must depend upon them for data of early days; it would be a fine book bound in leather, in which their names and possibly their pictures would appear;--which never failed to flatter the parties with whom he talked. And the lawyer laughed with amus.e.m.e.nt as he related the success of his method.

"I have already seen some thirty or forty people, a few of whom recalled your father, but no more. But this afternoon," he continued, "I discovered a woman who worked at the Weir ranch house." Martinez perceived the engineer's attention quicken. "She said the Weirs had a little boy of four years of age, perhaps five. You, Mr. Weir, of course. They suddenly paid and discharged her one day, packed a trunk and drove hurriedly off; and the next morning Sorenson took possession of the ranch and she went home. They drove off in a great haste--there was no railroad anywhere near here then--and that was the last she ever saw or heard of them."

"Yes."

"One thing more there was: she said there was a story that went around for awhile afterwards that Weir and another had lost their ranches and cattle gambling. For that reason Weir left the country; and for that reason, too, the other man, Dent, by name, committed suicide in Vorse's saloon where they had gambled. She said Saurez, an old man living with his son up a little creek, would know about that, for he used to clean out Vorse's bar-room in those days."

Steele Weir grasped Martinez's shoulder in a quick grip.

"He did! Get everything he knows out of him," he commanded.

"Leave it to me, Mr. Weir. I understand how to wheedle facts out of these old fellows."

But it was doubtful if the engineer heard his words. He had dropped his hand, stood opening and shutting his fingers, while on his face grew the hard implacable look that always whetted the attorney's curiosity.

Weir walked up on the hillside when Martinez had ridden away and there sat down on a rock. It was a rift, though but a faint rift, that this news made in the blank dark wall he had to confront; and he wished to think. Proof as well as knowledge of what had happened in his father's case was what he must have. Acting on intuition he had been able to put fear into the hearts of the four men responsible for making his father's life a h.e.l.l, but proof of their guilt was necessary to make them suffer in a similar fashion, to reveal their crime to the world, to destroy them. Now at last, here was a possibility. If this former roustabout of the saloon knew anything!

Well, he must be patient--the mill of the G.o.ds grinds slowly. But when finally he had gained all the strands and woven the net! Unconsciously his hands arose before his face like talons closing on prey and shut on air, until their veins swelled. That was how he would serve them, those men. Though they might fall on their knees and implore mercy, not one beat of pity should move his heart.

It was almost dark when he arose. Behind him the great peaks soared against the last greenish twilight. In the shacks the camp lamps were showing at windows. At one side and in the canyon the concrete core of the dam appeared white in the gloom, like a bank of snow. The murmur of voices, an occasional distant laugh, came from men's quarters.

Presently he slanted down the hillside past the camp, until he struck into a road leading towards town, where he began to walk forward, hatless and without coat, through the soft dusk. He was disinclined for work as yet, the work always piled on his desk; he desired yet for a little to rest his spirit in the evening calm.

His thoughts had softened and turned to Janet Hosmer. He had not seen her since the morning at the court house. He had not spoken with her since that interview upon her veranda, which had terminated with his shocked utterance. That he had thus given away to his feeling he had a hundred times repented; and that he had so bruskly departed he was profoundly chagrined. But what could he have done? No explanation was possible. The situation in which he had been allowed of but one thing, escape.

With the rising tide of emotion reflected by memory of that moment his steps had quickened. All at once he discovered before him the rippling sheen of water. He was at Chico Creek, a mile from camp, where he first had met Janet Hosmer. Engaged with his tangled problem, he had been unaware of the distance covered.

Pausing but an instant he waded through, smiling to himself at thought of that afternoon's spirited encounter with the girl. She had not dreamed then, nor he, that events would fling them together in a more dramatic second meeting at Martinez' door.

Suddenly he perceived a white-clad figure before him, standing motionless, leaning forward to peer his way as he walked forth from the ford.

"It's you, Mr. Weir?" came in soft inquiry.

"Yes. How in the world do you happen to be here, Janet Hosmer?"

She laughed.

"I thought I recognized you marching through the stream, so I wasn't alarmed."

"No one would think of harming you, I'm sure."

"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.