AN OLD ADOBE HOUSE
Revenge Weir had. But even in death Judge Gordon, true to his evasive,
contriving character, had tricked him; and the irony lay in the fact
that in this last act the trick was unpremeditated, unconscious,
unintentional. Instead of the signed confession, necessary above
everything else, which seemed almost in his fingers, the man had left
a little poison vial.
Night had settled over the earth when the three men, after directing
the Mexican servants to bring the undertaker, went out of the house,
for considerable time had been occupied in the discussion and the
preparation of papers preceding Judge Gordon's tragic end. With him
Mr. Pollock carried the documents pertaining to the property
restitution. These, considered in connection with the suicide, would
constitute something like a confession, he grimly asserted.
Avoiding the main street of San Mateo they drove out of the town for
camp. The first part of the ride was pursued in silence, for each was
busy with his own thoughts in consequence of the sudden shocking
termination of the meeting. When about half way to camp, however,
their attention was taken from the subject by a sight wholly
unexpected, a scene of high colors and of a spirit that mocked at what
had just happened.
Some way off from the road, at one side, two bonfires burned brightly
before an adobe house, the flames leaping upward in the darkness and
lighting the long low-roofed dwelling and the innumerable figures of
persons. At the distance the place was from the highway, perhaps two
hundred yards, one could make out only the shadowy forms of men--of a
considerable number of men, at that.
"I never saw any one at that old tumble-down house before, Martinez,"
Weir remarked, lessening the speed of the car. "Always supposed it
empty."
"No one does live there. The ground belongs to Vorse, who leases it
for farming to Oterez. Perhaps Oterez is giving a party there. They
are dancing."
Weir brought the machine to a full stop, with suspicion rapidly
growing in his mind. The place was owned by Vorse, for one thing, and
the number about the house was too large for an ordinary Mexican
family merry-making, for another. In view of what had occurred the
previous night all "parties" in the neighborhood of the dam deserved
inquiry, and this house was but a mile from camp.
They could now hear the sound of music, the shrill quick scrap of a
pair of fiddles and the notes of guitars. Against the fire-light too
they could distinguish the whirl of skirts.
"Just run over there, will you, Martinez, and have a look at that
dance?" Weir said. "See how much whiskey is there, and who the people
are."
The Mexican jumped down, climbed through the barb-wire fence bordering
the field and disappeared towards the house.
"I told you about some one giving the men booze last night," the
engineer addressed his remaining companion. "We found the place off
south along the hills where that business happened, and stationed a
man there to warn us if another attempt was made to use the spot. But
I shouldn't be surprised if this is the location used for to-night;
it has all the signs. We suspected that this evening would be the real
blow-out and if the men are going there I shall send down the foremen
and engineers to break it up. Vorse's owning this house and his being
the source of the liquor is almost proof. I met Atkinson returning to
the dam when you sent him back from town and he'll know something is
up if the workmen have been melting away from camp. This is simply
another damnably treacherous move of the gang against us to interfere
with our work, starting a big drunk and perhaps a row. We'll stop it
right at the beginning."
"Are the officials of this county so completely under Sorenson and his
crowd's thumbs that they won't move in a case like this?" Pollock
questioned.
"Yes."
"Then we must act on our own initiative, as you say."
"That's our only recourse. Giving whiskey isn't actually an illegal
act--and they're giving it away, not trying to sell it here without a
government licence."
"The thing's illegal if it's part of a conspiracy to disrupt our work,
and if we can secure proof that such is the fact it will but add one
more item to the score to be settled with these San Mateo outlaws."
"There are more men going there. See them?" Weir asked. "You hear them
on the road ahead of us. They're ducking through the fence and
crossing to the house. Our workmen. The thing's plain now; they had
word there would be another 'party' to-night, but they didn't know
just where until they received word this evening. I suppose the whole
camp except a few men will be here."
"Won't they turn ugly if you interfere?"
"Can't help that. I'll send men down with axes and when the booze is
poured on the ground it makes no difference then; the men will be kept
sober. If they are stubborn, I'll run a new bunch in and fire these
fellows. But I don't imagine they will quit work, however surly, for
they know whiskey's no excuse. Men usually cool down after a night's
sleep."
From where they sat and since Weir had turned out his car lamps, they
could see the steady string of men emerging from the darkness of the
field and approaching the house, to quickly dissolve in the gathering
already there. In their lively steps, as well as in the eager voices
occasionally raised along the dark road, the men's desire to join in
the debauch was apparent.
With the swelling of the crowd the scraping of the fiddles became
louder, the dancing more furious, shouts and yells more frequent,
while a dense line of men passing and jamming in and out of the door
pointed only too plainly that inside the house liquor flowed. This
would be no matter of a few drinks per man, but a big drunk if not
stopped.
Martinez confirmed this opinion on his return.
"There are two barrels inside and a couple of fellows are dipping it
up in tin cups like water," said he. "They're not even troubling to
draw the stuff; the barrels have been placed on end and the heads
knocked out. It will be the biggest spree San Mateo ever saw, with
plenty of fighting after awhile. Women, you know, always start fights
during a spree."
"Those surely are not women from town," Weir exclaimed.
"Oh, no. I never saw them before. Brought in here from somewhere--Santa
Fé perhaps, El Paso more likely. You know the kind who would mix with
that crowd--tough girls. They're wearing low necks and short skirts,
red stockings and all that. You know the kind. Out of joints and dives
somewhere. There's only a dozen, but they keep circulating and dancing
with different ones. I just put my head through a window to look inside,
which is lighted by a big kerosene lamp hanging from the roof; and I
tell you, gentlemen, it made me sick the way those two fellows were
dipping up whiskey and the crowd drinking it down."
"And more men coming all the time," Weir stated.
"And more coming, yes. It will be very bad there by midnight. Vorse
and Burkhardt and Sorenson are managing the thing, of course."
Martinez lighted a cigarette and stepped into the car. "No mistake
about that, for Vorse's bartender is one of the men at the barrels.
And I imagine Judge Gordon knew this thing was coming off though he
made no mention of it."
"Since we were ignorant of the matter, he naturally wouldn't inform
us," Pollock remarked, dryly.
"Time to put a stop to the show before it grows bad," Weir stated
resolutely. And he started the machine.
"If it can be stopped," Martinez replied.
That was the question, whether or not now it would be possible even to
reach and destroy the barrels inside the house, what with the numbers
who would oppose the move and what with the state of intoxication that
must rapidly prevail at the place.
For as they drove away they could already detect in the mad revel
about the old adobe dwelling a faster beat in the sharp shrieking
music, a wilder abandon in the movements of the figures about the
flames, a more reckless, fiercer note in the cries and oaths.
"This is deviltry wholesale," Pollock said. "On a grand scale, one
might put it."
So thought a horseman who approached and halted almost at the same
spot where the car had rested. This was Madden who with a warrant for
Weir's arrest in his pocket had arrived opposite the house a moment
after the automobile's departure. He had secured the warrant at eight
o'clock according to the county attorney's request, but he had taken
his own time about setting off to serve it.
For a quarter of a mile he had been interested in the evidences of
unwonted hilarity at the usually untenanted structure. Now he sat in
his saddle, silent and motionless, observing the distant scene. He
easily guessed the men were from the construction camp and that liquor
was running.
"I can almost smell it here, Dick," he addressed his horse.
But two circumstances puzzled him. One was that there had been no news
in town of such a big affair impending for the night; the second, that
there were women present--for no Mexican, however ignorant, would take
or allow his women folks to attend such a howling show. Coming on top
of the crowd in town, he wondered if this business might not be linked
up with Weir's affairs. These were his workmen and this was Vorse's
farm-house and very likely Vorse's liquor. After he had arrested the
engineer he would look into the thing.
Fifteen minutes later, when he had gone on, other passers-by paused
for a minute on the road to stare at the amazing picture across the
field. These were Dr. Hosmer and Janet, Johnson and his daughter Mary:
the two men being in the doctor's car, the two girls in Janet's
runabout.
"What on earth is going on there!" Janet exclaimed, when the two
machines had pulled up.
The two fires, fed by fresh fuel, were leaping higher than ever,
bringing out in strong relief the long squat building, the dark,
restless, noisy throng, and the space of illuminated earth. Against
the night the flames and building and mob of hundreds of men seemed a
crimson vision from some inferno to an accompaniment of mad music.
"The camp's gone on a tear; drive ahead," her father said. "This isn't
a sight for you girls to look at."
And with that the two cars sped forward towards the dam, where on this
night so much was converging. For their occupants already had had an
experience that had started them at once to seek the man around whose
figure were swirling a hundred passions and dark currents of destiny.