EARTH'S RETRIBUTION
Steele Weir crossed the cabin to Janet's side.
"You are unhurt?" he asked, his eyes scanning her face anxiously.
"Yes. And, oh, how glad I am you came!" she cried, low. "I knew you
would not fail me if you but learned of my plight; but it's wonderful
you should be here so soon. I prayed every minute of my ride that
Juanita would find and tell you."
"I couldn't come half as fast as I wished." His smile assured and
cheered her. Then as his glance fell on her wrists, still red and
creased from being bound, he exclaimed, "What's this? Let me see." And
he caught and lifted her hands to look.
"He had you tied?" Weir's gaze moved away to Sorenson.
"Yes. Hands and feet."
"All the way? All the long ride?"
"Yes--look out!"
Janet's words, half a gasp, half a shriek, gave warning of Sorenson's
movement, though none was needed. While apparently neglecting to watch
the other, Weir had kept the man sharp in the corner of his eye. The
motion with which his hand darted to his hip and up again was a single
lightning-like sweep; and his weapon covered his enemy before the
latter's hand so much as got his revolver in grasp.
"Drop it; drop it on the floor!" the engineer ordered. The gun
clattered on the rough-hewn logs. "Now put your hands up and turn your
back this way." Sorenson obeyed, not without his eyes speaking the
disappointed wrath and hatred his tongue dared not utter. "I should
have allowed you to make a full draw and then killed you," Steele Weir
went on. "That would have been the simplest way to settle your case.
Only I don't like to kill bunglers, even when they deserve it."
He re-sheathed his own gun and strode forward, picking up the one on
the floor--a black, ugly-looking automatic. This he dropped into a
coat pocket.
"Now face about, you cur," he commanded. "I want a good look at a
man--no, I'll not call you a man--at a low-lived imitation of a man
who is such a sneaking, dirty beast that all he can do is to trap and
tie up a helpless girl. I don't know yet just what I shall do with
you, but I know what I ought to do--I ought to choke the miserable
life out of you! You're not fit to live. You soil the earth and
pollute the air. But you're of the same treacherous, underhanded,
scoundrelly breed as your father, same yellow flesh and blood, same
crooked mind and heart, same sort of poisonous snake, and since you
get it all from him I suppose it can't be helped. Nor changed, except
by killing and burying you. One thing is sure, when I'm done you won't
be trying any more deals like this. Bah, you slimy reptile, you belong
in a cess-pool!"
Under Steele Weir's biting speech Sorenson's face went red and pale by
turns. His lips twitched and worked, moving his mustache in little
angry lifts, while he breathed with short spasmodic intakes.
"First, you're after Mexican girls," Weir went on mercilessly. "Then
Mary Johnson, whom I pulled out of your vile fingers. And now it's--"
The engineer's fist arose suddenly above the other's head. "Why, I
ought to drop you dead in your tracks for so much as looking at Janet
Hosmer! Why don't you fight? Why don't you give me a chance, you
cowardly girl-robber? Haven't you a spark of--well, you haven't, I
see. I'll just tie you up and later figure out some way to make you
suffer for this night's work." And with a gesture of disgust Weir
turned away.
It was the moment Sorenson had been waiting for. As the engineer's
back came about, exposed in one instant of carelessness, the man
struck Weir full force on the neck, sending him staggering. Then
Sorenson leaped for the doorway.
Janet screamed. Weir recovered himself and whirled around, whipping
forth his revolver and firing two shots. But the bullets only buried
themselves in the door slammed shut after the escaping prisoner.
"I myself ought to be shot for this," Steele snapped out.
He ran across the cabin, flung the door open, sprang out. The
uselessness of seeking his enemy in the black wet gloom was only too
evident, but he would not give up. Gun in hand, he stood listening for
sound of fleeing footsteps.
A light hand gripped his arm. Janet had followed him out, was at his
side. Barely audible he heard her quick, excited breathing.
"Must you shoot him?" she whispered.
"Why spare him for more deviltry? But I'll not have the chance now."
"I can't bear to think of even his blood being on our hands. Let him
go," Janet said.
"He's gone without our permission, I'd say."
"Isn't it just as well? I'm not harmed, and he'll never dare show his
face in San Mateo again," she said. "He'll have to stay away; he'll
leave for good."
"Not until I see him first. I want that paper."
"Oh, the paper, I forgot it! And it's in his pocket," she cried, in
despair.
"Like the fool I was, I forgot it for the moment too," Steele said
bitterly. "When I could have had it at once I must go off ranting
about his meanness. It was thought of what he had done to you that
made me overlook the paper; that set me boiling. Lost my head."
Janet's answer was almost sufficient recompense for even such a
serious deprivation as that of the document.
"I'll never forget that you were angry in my behalf," she said,
softly. "But perhaps you can gain possession of the paper yet."
Before he could make a reply the sound of a motor engine startled
them. Sorenson was in his car, not far off. Weir immediately plunged
forward through the darkness in the direction of the noise, uttering a
shout for the man to stop or be shot. But after the taste of liberty
that he already had had Sorenson was prepared to take further chances;
the engine's roar burst into full volume and the car leaped ahead,
while its driver sent back a derisive curse to the cabin.
Weir fired again, fired two or three times at the sound. Perhaps
Sorenson was crouching safely out of range; at any rate, the bullets
did not reach him, for the automobile plunged away. Steele slowly went
back to the girl.
"How can he see without lights?" she questioned.
"He can't see, but he'd rather risk not seeing the road than drawing
my fire. There's a bad place there at the rock; he'd better turn on
his lamps if he wants to round that."
Sensing the danger that threatened Sorenson, both remained unmoving,
trying to penetrate the darkness, harkening to the automobile's
retreating murmur. A curiosity, a sort of detached suspense, rooted
them to the spot.
"Ah, he's snapped them on!" Janet said, almost with relief.
The powerful beam of the headlights had suddenly blazed forth. Either
feeling that he was safe from Weir's gun or realizing that he was on
the verge of a graver danger, Sorenson had chosen to make the light.
He was going at headlong speed; even where they watched, Steele and
Janet perceived that,--and only his fear of the peril behind which
made him heedless of the difficulties in front could account for that
reckless pace.
The light leaped out into the night. Something else too seemed to
spring forth within the circle of the glow, dark, sudden, imminent,
rushing at the machine. A frantic jerk this way and that of the beam
showed the driver's mad effort to avoid the towering wall of granite.
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 compassion 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
document 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 assassinate 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
assailant'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.