In the Shadow of the Hills Part 27

Then a scream rang back to the man and girl before the cabin. Followed instantly a crash, an extinguishment of the light, darkness, silence, and finally a thin quivering flame at the base of the ledge, delicate and blue, like a dancing chimera.

Janet's hand reached out and closed in Steele Weir's, and he covered it with his other hand.

"Oh, how terrible!" she gasped. "Did you see? The rock seemed to smite him!"

"Yes."

"He must be dead."

"You remain here and I'll go find out."

He led her into the cabin and to a stool by the table, where resting her elbows on the board she pressed her hands over her eyes as if to blot out the sight she had just witnessed. After all she had suffered, the climax of this dreadful spectacle left her unnerved, weak, shuddering.

"Don't stay long," she whispered. "Come back as quick as you can. This cabin, this whole spot in the mountains, is awful. I can almost feel him hovering over me."

"You mustn't permit such thoughts." He gave her shoulder an encouraging pat. "It will take but a few minutes to see if he's still alive and then we'll start home. You've been the bravest girl going and will continue to be, I know. Everything is over; nothing can happen to you now."

Weir went out. He perceived that the wrecked car was fully afire by this time, its flames illuminating the granite ledge and the ground about. Evidently the machine's fuel tank had been smashed under the impact and the gasoline had escaped, preventing an explosion but fiercely feeding the blaze. He ran towards the place.

At first he did not find Sorenson, so that he supposed him buried beneath the wreckage, but presently he discovered his crumpled form lying jammed between the base of the ledge and a boulder. Weir lifted the limp figure from its resting place and bore it to open ground, where he made an examination of the still form. Clearly Sorenson had been pitched free of the car and crushed against the rock wall. His cap was missing; his coat was ripped up the back and a part of it gone as if caught and held by some obstruction in the car when he had been shot forth; blood and a great bruise marked one cheek; and the way his legs dragged when he was lifted up indicated some serious injury to those members. But the man still breathed.

"Miracles haven't ceased," Weir muttered, when he had made sure of the fact. "But his chance is slim at best."

It would be false to say that the engineer felt compa.s.sion at the other's sudden catastrophe; he experienced none. On the contrary he had a sense of justice fittingly executed, as if, escaping bullets and man's blows, Sorenson had been felled by a more certain power, by the inevitable consequences of his own deeds and sins, by a wall of evil he himself had raised as much as by a wall of stone.

He searched the man's breast pocket, then hunted for the missing doc.u.ment among the stones and bushes. At last he gave up for the time further seeking, with a conviction that the vital paper was gone for good, destroyed in the fire of the burning car. But for his own over-confidence, his belief he had Sorenson a safe prisoner back there in the cabin, the sheets might be secure in his pocket. Well, it was too late now.

He again lifted the unconscious man in his arms and returned to the log house. Inside he laid him on the rude bed which Sorenson himself had spread with sheets and blankets.

"He's alive?" Janet asked, awed.

"Alive, but badly hurt."

"You'll leave him here?"

"Yes, while I take you away. We could do nothing for him in any case; his injuries are grave and need a doctor's help. The best service we can perform in his behalf is to start your father or some other physician here as quickly as possible. He may live or he may die; that isn't in our hands. He's unconscious and not suffering, and probably will not feel pain for some hours if he does live, so we can go without feeling that we're robbing him of any of his chances of recovery. Your conscience may rest quite easy on that point. Come, we'll start at once. The quicker we reach your father, the quicker he will arrive here."

When they were in his car he wrapped a robe about her against the sharp chill.

"I am cold; my teeth are chattering," she said.

"You've been under a great strain. Just lie back and rest and think of something else than what has happened, if you can," he urged.

"I'll try to."

The lamps blazed out at his touch of the switch and the car began to move. She closed her eyes. She did not wish to see the scene of the smash, with the leaping fire and the horrible pile of crushed metal.

Indeed, she drew the robe before her face, where she kept it for some time.

"Are we past the place?" she asked, finally.

"A long way past."

"Thank heaven! Nothing shall ever drag me up this road again!"

"It will not take us long to reach Johnson's and be off this trail altogether, for it's down-hill going all the way."

"You said nothing about the paper? Did you get it?"

"No; it wasn't on him. I'll return for another look, but it fell in the fire, I think, and burned."

"Do you know what was in it, Mr. Weir?"

"No. But I can guess."

"I know a little of its contents, from what he said before you entered. It was a statement, something about his father and others doing dishonest acts, I think. He didn't seem to be quite clear what it was about either, but he spoke of your father and declared he hoped the others had swindled him, which he inferred had happened. I didn't know your father ever had been in this country. That's the reason you hate those men, Mr. Sorenson and Mr. Vorse and Mr.

Burkhardt; because of some injury they worked your father."

"That's the reason. And that too is why they're trying to get rid of me one way or another. But they didn't hire the Mexican to attempt to shoot me; Ed Sorenson employed him. Martinez, when you told me the man's name, telegraphed around the country from Bowenville till he got track of the fellow. He also secured evidence that a white man resembling Ed Sorenson had been seen talking with him at the place he came from. So we can draw our conclusions."

"Then he hired the man to a.s.sa.s.sinate you!"

"Looks like it. Because I took Mary Johnson away from him, and from fear. He was afraid you might learn of the matter, I suppose, and decided to get rid of me. He's a coward at heart, but none the less a criminal by instinct, so he hired another to do what he dared not attempt himself. A crook like his father, but with less nerve."

Janet was silent while the car wound its way down the creek road, through the misty darkness and among the invisible peaks. The full danger that she had escaped was but now making itself clear to her mind.

"If he would go so far as to try to murder you," she faltered, "I surely could have expected no pity from him."

"Now listen to me," he said. "I'm going to give you a little scolding: you must forget all this business; it just makes you fearful and unhappy. The past is over, and he's out of your life for good. Look at it that way. Consider the thing as a bad dream, done with and no more important. That's 'the right view to take'"--he paused, then added softly--"Janet."

"How strong-souled you are!" she whispered.

Strong, in truth, he seemed. Ignoring danger he had come swift on Sorenson's track and rescued her, saved her, kept her clean from her a.s.sailant's infamous brutishness. The one was a knave and a beast; but he, Steele Weir, was a man, clear to see, quick to act, hard towards enemies, gentle to friends. Every particle a man--sure of himself, and fearless, and true-hearted, and firm of soul.

She pressed her hands tight against her breast. He was a man one could love and honor. "Cold Steel" Weir they called him--and, she divined, his love if ever given would be as lasting as hoops of steel.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE NIGHT WATCHES

A light still burned in the Johnson ranch house, late as was the hour, when the car swung round a copse of aspens and brought it in view.

Johnson himself came forth at sound of the automobile, with a sleepy Mary following.

"I wouldn't go to bed, of course, knowing you were to come back," said he. But his true reason appeared in his added words, "I was just about ready to saddle a horse and head up there myself. Mighty glad to see you safe back, Miss Hosmer. Mary has had some coffee on the fire ever since Weir went along, knowing you'd be cold and worn out."

"Just the thing!" Steele exclaimed. "We're both chilled. Come, Janet."