IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE PRINCESS OF FORGE
THE ISLE OF STRIFE
THE INCORRIGIBLE DUKANE
THE LADY OF MYSTERY HOUSE
THE INVISIBLE ENEMY
IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS
IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS
BY
GEORGE C. SHEDD
AUTHOR OF
"THE LADY OF MYSTERY HOUSE," ETC.
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
Copyright, 1919, By THE MACAULAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE FRANK A. MUNSEY CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I IN A HOSTILE COUNTRY 11
II A COMEDY--AND SOMETHING ELSE 23
III THE ENEMY'S SPAWN 34
IV A SECRET CONFERENCE 42
V A SHOT IN THE DARK 53
VI JANET HOSMER 64
VII IN THE COIL 75
VIII THE GATHERING STORM 83
IX AN UNEXPECTED ALLY 91
X BY RIGHT OF POSSESSION 99
XI JANET AND MARY 107
XII THE PLOT 116
XIII THE CURRENT OF EVENTS 121
XIV OLD SAUREZ' DEPOSITION 135
XV THE MASK DROPPED 145
XVI WEIR TAKES UP THE HUNT 158
XVII EARTH'S RETRIBUTION 167
XVIII IN THE NIGHT WATCHES 177
XIX A QUEER PAPER 189
XX ANXIETIES 197
XXI THE WEAK LINK 209
XXII AN OLD ADOBE HOUSE 219
XXIII WITH FANGS BARED 226
XXIV THE ALARM 238
XXV NO QUARTER 248
XXVI THE THUNDERBOLT 256
XXVII WEIR STRIKES WHILE THE IRON IS HOT 261
XXVIII VORSE 270
XXIX THE FOURTH MAN 279
XXX THE VICTOR 286
XXXI A FINAL CHALLENGE 294
XXXII THE RECLUSE 304
XXXIII UNDER THE MOON 314
IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS
CHAPTER I
IN A HOSTILE COUNTRY
Eastward out of the Torquilla Range the Burntwood River emerged from a
gorge, flowing swift and turbulent during the spring months, shallow
and murmurous the rest of the year, to pass through a basin formed by
low mountains and break forth at last from a canyon and wind away over
the mesa. In the canyon was being erected the huge reservoir dam which
was in the future to store water for irrigating the broad acres
spreading from its base.
The construction camp rested on one of the hillsides above the dam.
And here one summer afternoon a man stepped forth from the long low
tar-papered shack that served as headquarters, directing his gaze down
the road across the mesa at a departing automobile. He was Steele
Weir, the new chief, a tall, strong, tanned man of thirty-five, with
lean smooth-shaven face, a straight heavy nose, mouth that by habit
was set in grim lines, and heavy brows under which ruled cold, level,
insistent, gray eyes. He had come suddenly, unexpectedly, returning
with Magney, the engineer in charge, when the latter had been summoned
east for a conference with the company's directors. He had replaced
Magney, who was now whirling away to the nearest railway point,
Bowenville, thirty-five miles distant.
He thoughtfully watched the car, a black spot in a haze of dust,
speeding towards the New Mexican town of San Mateo, on the Burntwood
River two miles below camp, its cluster of brown adobe houses showing
indistinctly through the cottonwoods that embowered the place. For
Magney he felt a certain amount of sympathy, for the engineer was
leaving with a recognition of defeat; he was a likeable man, as Steele
Weir had discovered during their brief acquaintance, a good
theoretical engineer, but lacking in the prime quality of a successful
chief--fighting spirit and an indomitable will.
Under Magney the work of construction had been inaugurated the
previous summer, but progress had not been as rapid as desired; there
had been delays, labor difficulties, local opposition during the
months since; and Weir had been chosen to succeed Magney. In his
profession Weir had a reputation, built on relentless toil and sound
ideas and daring achievements--a reputation enhanced by a character of
mystery, for the man was unmarried, reserved, without intimates or
even friends, locking his lips about his life, and welcoming and
executing with grim indifference to risk engineering commissions of
extreme hazard, on which account he had acquired the soubriquet of
"Cold Steel" Weir.
Who first bestowed upon Weir that name is not known. But it was not
misapplied. Cold steel he had proved himself to be a score of times in
critical moments when other men would have broken: in pushing bridges
over mountain chasms, in mine disasters, in strikes, in almost
hopeless fights against bandits in Mexico. And it was this ability to
handle difficulties that had brought about the decision of the
directors of the company to put him in charge, as the man best
qualified, at San Mateo, where the situation was unsatisfactory,
costly, baffling.
Since his arrival a week before he had been consulting with Magney,
studying maps and blue-prints, examining the work and analyzing
general conditions. What had been accomplished had been well done; he
had no criticism to offer on that score. It was the delay; the work
was considerably behind schedule, which of course meant excessive
cost; and this had undermined the spirit of the enterprise. In a dozen
places, in a dozen ways, Magney, his predecessor, had been hampered,
checked, defeated--and the main contributing cause was poor workmen,
inefficient work. On that sore Weir's skillful finger fell at once.
Standing there before the low office building he watched Magney
depart. He, Steele Weir, had now taken over full charge of the camp
and assumed full responsibility for the project's failure or success.
His eye passed beyond the distant automobile to the town of San
Mateo--a new town for him, but a town like many he had seen in the
southwest and in Mexico. And aside from its connection with the
construction work, it held a fascinating interest, a profound interest
for the man, the interest that any spot would which has at a distance
cast a black and sinister shadow over one's life. San Mateo--the name
lay like a smoldering coal in his breast!
At length he turned and strode down the hillside to the dam site in
the canyon. The time had come to shut his hand about the work and let
his hold be felt. He located the superintendent directing the pouring
of concrete in the frames of the dam core, Atkinson, a man of fifty
with a stubby gray mustache, a wind-bitten face and a tall angular
frame. When Weir joined him he was observing with speculative eyes the
indolent movements of a group of Mexican laborers.
"Those _hombres_ don't appear to be breaking any speed records, I
see," Weir remarked, quietly.
"Humph," Atkinson grunted.
"What do they think this is? A rest cure?"
The superintendent's silence suddenly gave way.
"I ought to land on 'em with an ax-handle and put the fear of God in
their lazy souls," he exclaimed, bitterly.
"Well, do it."
"What!"
"Do it."
"Say, am I hearing right?" Atkinson swung fully about to stare at the
new chief. Then he went on, "They'd quit to a man if made to do a
man's work; I supposed that Magney had told you that. A dozen times
I've been ready to throw up my job from self-respect; I'm ashamed to
boss work where men can loaf and I must keep my tongue between my
teeth. I was considering just now the matter of leaving."
"No need, Atkinson. From this time these men will work or get their
dismissal."
The other pushed his hat atilt and rubbed his head in surprise.
"What about that 'company policy' of hiring nothing but local labor to
keep the community friendly which Magney was always kicking about?" he
asked. "That was what made him sorer than anything else, and beat him.
He said the directors had tied his hands by promising that no workmen
should be imported. If they promised that, they sure bunkoed
themselves. Friendly, huh."
"The people haven't been friendly, eh?" Weir said.
"Does it look like it when these Mexicans won't work enough to earn
their salt? They openly boast that we dare neither make them work
nor fire them. They say Sorenson and his bunch will pull every man off
the works if we lift a finger; and they all know about that fool
promise of the directors. Friendly? Just about as friendly as a
bunch of wildcats. This whole section, white men and Mexicans, are
putting a knife into this project whenever they can. Do you think they
want all that mesa fenced up and farmed? This is a range country;
they propose to keep it range; they don't want any more people
coming here--farmers, store-keepers, and white people generally."
"That's always the case in a range country before it's opened up,"
Weir said. "But they have to swallow the pill."
"Let me tell you something; they don't intend to swallow it here. They
figure on keeping this county just as it is, for only themselves and
their cattle and woolies, and everybody else keep out. The few big
sheep and cattle men, white and Mex, have their minds made up to that,
and they're the only ones who count; all the rest are poor Mexicans
with nothing but fleas, children, goats and votes to keep Sorenson and
his gang in control. They've set out to bust this company, or tire it
out till it throws up the sponge. They've spiked Magney, and they'll
try to spike you next, and every manager who comes. That's plain talk
I'm giving you, Mr. Weir, but it's fact; and if it doesn't sound nice
to your ears, you can have my resignation any minute."
"I've been hoping to hear it. From now on drive this crowd of
coffee-colored loafers. Put the lash on their backs."
A gleam of unholy joy shone in Atkinson's eyes as he heard Weir's
words.
"All right; that goes," he said. "But I'm warning you that they'll
quit. You'll see 'em stringing out of camp for home to-night, and
those who hang out till to-morrow will leave then for sure. By
to-morrow night the dam will be as quiet as a church week-days.
They'll not show up again, either, until you send word for them to
come back--and then they'll know you've surrendered. Magney tried it
once, just once. And that's why you found me chewing tobacco so
lamb-like and saying nothing."
"Turn your gat loose," Weir said. And turning on his heel, he went
back to headquarters.
Before Atkinson fired a volley at the unsuspecting workmen he crossed
the canyon to where a cub engineer was peering through a transit. The
superintendent had overheard a scrap of gossip among the staff one
evening before Weir's arrival when they were discussing the advent of
the new chief.
"What was that name you fellows were saying Weir was called by?" he
asked.
The boy straightened up.
"'Cold Steel'--'Cold Steel' Weir. Anyway that's what Fergueson says,"
was the answer. "I never heard it before myself. His first name's
Steele, you know, and he looks cold enough to be ice when he's asking
questions about things, boring into a fellow with his eyes. But he's
up against a hard game here."
"Maybe. But a man doesn't get a name like that for just parting his
hair nice," Atkinson remarked. "He told me to stretch 'em"--a horny
thumb jerked towards the workmen--"and you'll see some real work
hereabouts for the rest of the afternoon."
"And to-morrow will be Sunday three days ahead of time."
"Sure."
"What then?"
"You know as much about that as I do. Make your own guess." With which
the speaker started off.
The morrow was "Sunday" with a vengeance. The majority of the laborers
demanded their pay checks the minute work ceased at the end of the
afternoon; Atkinson tightened orders, and by noon next day the last of
the Mexicans had quit. The fires in the stationary engines were
banked; the concrete mixers did not revolve; the conveyers were still;
the dam site wore an air of abandonment. In headquarters the engineers
worked over tracings or notes; and in the commissary store the
half-dozen white foremen gathered to smoke and yarn. That was the
extent of the activity.
Two days passed. After dinner Weir held a terse long-distance
telephone conversation, the only incident of the second day; and it
was overheard by no one. On the fourth day this was repeated. At dawn
of the fifth he despatched all of the foremen, enginemen and engineers
with wagons to Bowenville; and about the middle of the afternoon,
accompanied by his assistant, Meyers, and Atkinson, he sped in the
manager's car down the river for San Mateo, two miles below the camp.
Of the town Steele Weir had had but a glimpse as he flashed through on
his way to the dam the morning of his arrival twelve days earlier. It
had but a single main street, from which littered side streets and
alleys ran off between mud walls of houses. The county court house sat
among cottonwood trees in an open space. A few pretentious dwellings,
homes of white men and the well-to-do Mexicans, arose among long low
adobe structures that were as brown and characterless as the sun-dried
bricks of which they were built. That was San Mateo.
Before doors and everywhere along the street workmen from the dam were
idling. As Meyers brought the automobile to a stop before the court
house, news of Weir's visit spread miraculously and Mexicans began to
saunter forward to hear the engineer's words of surrender, couched in
the form of a suave invitation to return to work. While the crowd
gathered the three Americans sat quietly in the car. Then Steele Weir
stood up.
"Who can speak for these men?" he demanded.
A lean Mexican with a long shiny black mustache and a thin neck
protruding from a soiled linen collar elbowed a way to the front.
"I'm authorized to speak for them," he announced, disclosing his white
teeth in an engaging smile.
"Are you one of the workmen?"
"No. I'm a lawyer and represent them in this controversy. By your
favor therefore let us proceed. You've come to persuade them to resume
work, and that is well. But there are conditions to be agreed upon
before they return, which with your permission I shall state--first,
no harsh driving of the workmen by foremen; second, full wages for the
days they have been idle; third, no Sunday work."
The engineer regarded the speaker without change of countenance.
"Have you finished?" he asked.
"Yes. There are minor matters, but they can be adjusted later. These
are the important points."
"Very well, this is my reply: I, not the workmen, make the terms for
work on this job--I, not these men, name the conditions on which they
may return. And they are as follows: no pay for the idle days; if the
workmen return they agree to work as ordered by superintendent and
foremen; and last, they must start for the dam within an hour or not
at all."
Incredulity, amazement rested on the Mexican spokesman's face as he
listened to this curt rejoinder.
"Preposterous, impossible, absurd!" he exclaimed. Then revolving on
his heels so as to face the crowd he swiftly repeated in Spanish what
Weir had said.
An angry stir followed, murmurs, sullen looks, a number of oaths and
jeers. The lawyer turned again to the engineer, spreading his hands in
a wide gesture and lifting his brows with exaggerated significance.
"You see, Mr. Weir, your position is hopeless," he remarked.
"Ask them if they definitely refuse."
The lawyer put the question to the crowd. A chorus of shouts
vehemently gave affirmation--a refusal immediate, disdainful,
unanimous.
"We'll now discuss the men's terms," the lawyer remarked politely and
with an air of satisfaction.
"There's nothing more to discuss. The matter is settled. They have
refused; they need not seek work at the dam again. Start the car,
Meyers."
The roar of the machine drowned the indignant lawyer's protest, the
crowd hastened to give an opening and the conference was at an end.
"Drive to Vorse's saloon; I want a look at Vorse," said Weir. "I see
the place a short way ahead."
When they entered the long low adobe building an anemic-appearing
Mexican standing at the far end of the bar languidly started forward
to serve them, but a bald-headed, hawk-nosed man seated at a desk
behind the cigar-case laid aside his newspaper, arose and checked the
other by a sidewise jerk of his head.
He received their orders for beer and lifted three dripping bottles
from a tub of water at his feet. His eyes passed casually over Steele
Weir's face, glanced away, then came back for a swift unblinking
scrutiny. The eyes his own met were as hard, stony and inscrutable as
his own. Finally Vorse, the saloon-keeper, turned his gaze towards the
window and extracting a quill tooth-pick from a vest pocket began
thoughtfully to pick his teeth.
"You're the new manager at the dam?" he asked presently, still
considering the street through the window.
"I am."
"And your name is Weir?"
"You've got it right."
The questions ended there. The three men from camp slowly consumed
their beer and exchanged indifferent remarks. At the end of five
minutes the Mexican lawyer, clutching the arm of an elderly,
gray-mustached man, entered the saloon.
They lined up at the bar nearby the others. The older of the pair
regarded the trio shrewdly, laid a calf-bound book that he carried
under his arm upon the counter and ordered "a little bourbon." When he
had swallowed this, he addressed the men from the engineering camp.
"Which of you is Mr. Weir?"
"I am he," Steele replied.
"Mr. Martinez here has solicited me, Mr. Weir, to use my offices in
explaining to you the workmen's point of view in the controversy that
exists relative to the work. I'm Senator Gordon, a member of the state
legislature, and I have no interest in the matter beyond seeing an
amicable and just arrangement effected."
Steele Weir fixed his eyes on the speaker with an intentness, a cold
penetration, that seemed to bore to the very recesses of his mind. In
that look there was something questioning and something menacing.
"There's no controversy and hence no need of your services. The men
stopped work, refused to return, and now the case is closed."
"My dear sir, let us talk it over," said the Senator, bringing forth a
pair of spectacles and setting the bow upon his nose.
The engineer's visage failed to relax at this pacific proposal.
"I gave them their chance and they declined; they'll have no other,"
he stated. "Those men have browbeaten the company long enough. They
refused, and as I anticipated that refusal I made preparations
accordingly; a hundred and fifty white workmen arrived at Bowenville
from Denver this morning and a hundred and fifty more will come
to-morrow. They will do the work."
The Senator's lips quivered and the upper one lifted in a movement
like a snarl, showing tobacco-stained teeth.
"The matter isn't closed, understand that," he snapped out. "We have
the directors' promise no outside labor shall be brought in here for
this job, and the promise shall be kept."
"The new men go to work in the morning," Weir said.
"You'll repent of this action, young man, you'll repent of it." The
Senator seized the whisky bottle and angrily poured himself a second
drink. "You'll repent of it as sure as your name is--is--whatever it
is."
The engineer took a step nearer the older man. His face now was as
hard as granite.
"Weir is my name," he said. "Did you ever hear it before?"
"Weir--Weir?" came in a questioning mutter.
"Yes, Weir."
The speaker's eyes held the Senator's in savage leash, and a slight
tremble presently began to shake the old man. Atkinson and Meyers and
even the volatile Mexican lawyer, Martinez, remained unstirring, for
in the situation they suddenly sensed something beyond their ken, some
current of deep unknown forces, some play of fierce, obscure and
fateful passion.
A shadow of gray stole over Gordon's lineaments.
"You are--are the son of----" came gasping forth.
"I am. His son."
"And--and----"
"And I know what happened thirty years ago in this selfsame room!"
The whisky that the Senator had poured into his glass suddenly slopped
over his fingers; his figure all at once appeared more aged, hollow,
bent. Without further word, with his hand still shaking, he set the
glass on the bar, mechanically picked up the law book and walked
feebly towards the door.
Steele Weir turned his gaze on the saloon-keeper, Vorse. The man's
right hand was under the bar and he seemed to be awaiting the
engineer's next move, taut, tight-lipped, malignant.
"That was for you too, Vorse," was flung at him. "One Weir went out of
here, but another has returned."
And he led his companions away.