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 bloody 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 passed 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 hell," a huge Irishman, one of half a dozen standing at
Vorse's bar on Saturday 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 assistant, 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 amusement 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 hell, 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 gods 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.