In the Shadow of the Hills Part 29

"Juanita told you? Oh, it was dreadful! But Mr. Weir has brought me home safe."

Dr. Hosmer too agitated to speak reached out and grasped the engineer's hand, pressing it fervently.

At about that moment three men sat in the rear of Vorse's saloon. The shades were drawn and the front part of the long room was dark. Only a dull light burned where they sat. They were talking in low tones, with long pauses, with worried but determined, savage faces--Vorse, Burkhardt, Sorenson.

"Where the devil is she, that's what I want to know!" Burkhardt growled. "I've been over twice and looked through a window. Doc was there."

"She's in bed and asleep, probably," Sorenson said.

"I don't believe it. The old man would be in the sheets himself if that were the case. Didn't I call up twice by 'phone too? She was out, they said."

"Couldn't do much with her father there, anyway. We've got to get the paper by soft talk," Vorse commented. "I still half believe Martinez was lying when he said it had been in that old chair. She couldn't have got to the office and away in the hour or two before he told without some one seeing her, and no one did so far as we can learn. We locked the door too the second time we went back and it hasn't been opened since; and we were there ten minutes after our first visit when we learned the papers weren't among those in his pocket. I think he's got it cached away somewhere still."

"Then we'll give him another dose of our medicine."

"If I know anything about men, he told the truth," Sorenson said.

"Well, if the girl has it, we've got to get it from her if I have to wring her neck to do it." It was Burkhardt's inflamed utterance.

A pause followed.

"Sorenson, your boy is engaged to her," Vorse stated.

"Yes."

"Then it's up to him to get it first thing in the morning. Maybe it goes against the grain to let him know about this business of the past, but it ain't going to knock him over; he's no fool, he's a wise bird, he understands that a good many things are done in business that aren't advertised. He knows we weren't missionaries in the old days.

And she'll hand it over for him when she might not for any one else."

"That's right, Sorenson," Burkhardt affirmed, his scowling face visibly clearing.

"Ed went away somewhere this evening, that's the only drawback to your scheme. Said something about Bowenville and catching the night train to Santa Fe, and that he might be gone maybe a couple of days and maybe a week."

"h.e.l.l!" Burkhardt exploded, in consternation.

Vorse however remained cool.

"Then you must start telegrams to head him off, start them the instant you get home. Telephone to Bowenville the message you want sent and have the operator dispatch it to all trains going both ways since early evening, in order to make sure. If you can reach him within two or three hours, wherever he is, he can hop off, catch a train back and be here by to-morrow evening. Make your message urgent. And meanwhile we'll do what we can to get hold of that paper. At any rate we can keep her from seeing Weir. If we have to watch her we'll do it; and if we have to stop her from going to the dam we'll do that someway too. You might invite her over to-morrow to spend the day at your house."

"Do you think she'll be likely to come if she reads that doc.u.ment?"

the banker inquired coldly.

"Why not? Tell her right off the bat that the thing is a lie and a forgery and that you want to explain about how it was made. She might fall for that and carry the doc.u.ment to you. She's always had a good opinion of you, hasn't she?"

"Yes."

"Then why should she change at a mere story."

"You're right," Sorenson exclaimed with sudden energy. "The matter described happened so long ago that she won't probably attach as much importance to it as we've imagined she would. I'll ask her to bring it to me to see--and that will be all that's necessary, once it's in my fingers."

"And what about him?" Burkhardt asked, striking the floor with his heel.

"Just leave him there for the present. To-morrow we'll have another talk with him," the cattleman stated. "Better offer him a couple of thousand to go to another state; he'll grab at the chance, I fancy.

Money heals most wounds. But, Vorse, keep your cellar locked and the bartender away from it. We can start Martinez away sometime to-morrow."

"Don't know about that. To-morrow night will be our busy night," the ex-sheriff said.

"We might let Gordon handle him," Vorse suggested.

"I thought perhaps you intended to keep the Judge in ignorance of this Martinez matter. He seems to be getting sort of feeble."

"He's not too feeble to take his share of the unpleasant jobs along with the rest of us," Vorse answered, unfeelingly. "I shall have him in here first thing in the morning and tell him what's happened and what we've done and what he has to do."

"Sure," said Burkhardt.

"Well, that's agreeable to me," Sorenson stated, looking at his watch and rising: "Time we were turning in, if there's nothing more."

At the dam camp Meyers, the a.s.sistant chief engineer, and Atkinson, the superintendent, were still awake, smoking and talking in the office.

"I smelt enough booze on those fellows who came stringing in here to fill the reservoir," the latter was saying. "Some one's feeding it to them."

"n.o.body drunk, though."

"No. But who's giving it to them and why? I asked one fellow and he said he'd been to a birthday party, and wouldn't tell where. They were all feeling pretty lush, even if they weren't soused. And to-morrow's Sunday!"

"They'll all be idle, you mean?"

"Sure. If there's more liquor, they'll be after it. All day to drink in means a big celebration. The whiskey is sent up from town, of course, and I reckon sent just at this time to get us all in bad while Mr. Pollock's here."

"We'll look up the bootlegging nest to-morrow," Meyers said, with finality.

"What can we do if we do locate it? They're not selling the stuff, I judge, but giving it away. That clears their skirts and forces us to deal with the men themselves if there's any dealing done. Probably they hope to start a big row among us that way."

"We'll await Weir's advice."

"Well, I've waited all I'm going to to-night. Seems to me for a steady, quiet, self-respecting, dignified, unhooked, unmarried, unmortgaged, unromantic man he's skylarking and gallivanting around pretty late."

On the rocky creek road the ranchman and his daughter Mary were driving up among the trees on their way to the cabin, a lantern swinging from the end of the wagon tongue, the horses straining against the grade. On Johnson's beard the moisture formed beads which from time to time he brushed away. From the trees collected drops of water fell on their hands and knees. All about as they proceeded the bushes and rocks appeared in shadowy outline, to disappear in the night once more, yielding to others.

"Isn't this cabin where we're going the one we drove to three years ago when you were hunting some cattle?" Mary asked.

"Yes."