needed to direct him. He had also permitted Luis to mark himself for
another murder in the Medina family. Well, Luis was a conspirator, for
that matter; but he was a boy, and his judgment had not ripened. It
seemed a shame that a youngster like that should be drawn into such a
mess. Starr, determined to do what he could to protect Luis, had seen to
it that Luis was locked up, for the purely technical reason that he was
an important witness and they wanted to be sure of him; but really to
protect him from the wrath of Elfigo.
"And now," Starr's thoughts ran on, "I stand just where I stood before,
except that I know a whole heap more than I wish I knew. And if the thing
breaks loose before the trial, Elfigo will be in jail where he's got a
cast-iron alibi. The rest of the bunch must be strong enough to go on
without him, but I shore did hope they'd be stirred up some over this
shooting. They'll likely get together right away, hold a meeting and make
arrangements to do without Elfigo. If I knew where..."
He lifted the other foot to remove its boot, hesitated, and set it down
again. Surely the Alliance would have to adjust itself to the loss of
Elfigo. They would get together, and what buzzing they did would be
behind barred doors, since they had been too cunning to show themselves
at the hearing; that night, probably, since they knew now that Elfigo had
been bound over to the grand jury, and that he was held without bail.
Where would they meet? That was what Starr wished he knew.
He sat there rumpling his hair and studying the question. He could not
fix upon any particular place, unless it was the Sommers ranch; and that
was too far from town for any urgent business, and travelers to and from
the place would be taking too great a risk. For he was sure there would
be a dozen or more who would make up the Junta, and for so many men to be
traveling in one direction would excite curiosity from any one who saw
them leave town or return.
There was another possible meeting place--the office of _Las Nuevas_.
Starr thought of that rather hopelessly. Just as a common precaution,
they would guard the doors if the Junta met there, or they would have men
stationed on the stairs; that he would not be able to get up without
giving the alarm he knew as well as though he had tried and failed.
His thoughts went to that hidden, inner office where he had found the
pamphlets and the writing that pointed to Helen May as one of the band.
There, where there were no outside windows to betray a midnight
conference by any showing of light within; where eavesdropping was
absolutely impossible; where the men who met there might gain the yard by
various means, since it faced on three streets, and be practically safe
from observation, he became convinced would be the logical meeting place.
To be sure, he was only guessing. He had no evidence whatever save his
own reason that there would be a meeting, much less that it would be held
in the secret office room of _Las Nuevas_. But he put on the boot he had
taken off and reached for his coat. A half hour or so ought to prove him
right or wrong in his deductions, and Starr would not have grudged a full
night to satisfy himself on that point.
It was late, nearly midnight, to be exact, when he slipped out to the
shed, and watched from its shadow until he was sure that no one had seen
him, before he let himself down through the hole in the manger to the
arroyo bottom. He went hurriedly, but he was very careful not to show
himself without first making sure that the way was clear.
For that reason he escaped being seen by a tall young Mexican whom he
caught sight of lounging at the corner opposite the building that held
_Las Nuevas_. Ostensibly the fellow had merely stopped to light a
cigarette, but while Starr watched him he struck three matches in
succession, and immediately afterwards a shadow glided from the shelter
of a plumber's shop opposite, slipped down to the gate that was always
barred, and disappeared.
Starr circled warily to the rear of the yard to see what chance there
might be of getting over the wall unseen. He did not know what good it
would do him to get into the yard, but he hoped that he might be lucky
enough to see any one who entered the back door, which would be the
logical means of ingress.
He was standing back of the garage where he had found the cord tires,
when the quiet of the night was split with the shrill, nerve-racking
shriek of the fire whistle, four or five blocks away. In spite of
himself, he was startled with its suddenness, and he stood tensed and
waiting for the dismal hoots that would tell what ward the fire was
in. One--two--three, croaked the siren like a giant hoot-owl calling
in the night.
"Third ward--down around the depot, probably," he heard a voice say
guardedly on the other side of the fence. Another voice, more guarded
even than the first, muttered a reply which Starr could not catch.
Neither voice was recognizable, and the sentence he heard was so obvious
a remark as to be practically meaningless; probably a hundred persons in
town had said "Third ward," when the siren had tooted the number.
At any rate some one was there in the yard of _Las Nuevas_, and it would
not be wise for Starr to attempt getting over the wall. He waited
therefore until he heard careful footsteps moving away; whereupon he
himself stole quietly to the corner, thence down the side wall to the
front of the building, so that he could look across the street to where
the Mexican had revealed himself for a moment in the light of a distant
street lamp.
If the Mexican had been on watch there, he had left his post. In a minute
Starr saw him hurrying down the unused side street, toward the angry glow
that told where the fire had started. Too much temptation, Starr
interpreted the fellow's desertion of his post; or else no more men were
expected at _Las Nuevas_, and the outpost was no longer needed. Taking it
for granted that a meeting had been called here, Starr reasoned from that
assumption.
He waited another minute or two, watching and listening. There was
nothing at the front to break the quiet or spoil the air of desertion
that surrounds an empty office building at midnight. He went cautiously
to the rear corner and turned there to look back at the building,
watchful for any stray beam of light or any movement.
The upper story was dark as the rest of the yard and building, and Starr
could almost believe that he was on the wrong track entirely, and that
nothing was going on here. But he continued to stand there, loath to give
up and go home with nothing accomplished.
Close beside the building and back perhaps twenty feet from the front
corner, a telephone and electric light pole stood with outstretched arms,
holding aloft its faintly humming wires. Starr stood looking that way for
some time before it occurred to him that there was no street light near
enough to send that warm, yellow glow across the second bar from the
bottom. The rest of the pole was vague and shadowy, like everything else
in the immediate neighborhood. The bottom of the pole he could not see at
all from where he stood, it was so dark alongside the building. But that
second cross-arm was lighted as from a near-by window. Yet there was no
lighted window anywhere in the place.
Starr was puzzled. Being puzzled, he went slowly toward the pole, his
face turned upward. The nearest street lamp was a full block away, and it
would have lighted up the whole top of the pole evenly, if at all. At the
foot of the pole Starr stood for a minute, still staring upward. Then he
reached up, gripped the metal steps and began carefully to climb.
Before he had reached the lighted cross-arm he knew that the glow must
come from a skylight; and that the skylight must be the one that had
saved that hidden little office room from being dark. He was no lineman,
but he knew enough to be careful about the wires, so it took him several
minutes to work his way to where he could straddle a crosstree that had
few wires.
Just below him and no more than twelve or fifteen feet distant was the
skylight he had suspected, but before he gave that much attention, he
looked across to where the fire was sending up a column of crimson smoke
and bright, eddying sparks, four blocks or so away. The man left on guard
would find it difficult to tear himself away from all that excitement,
Starr thought satisfiedly; though if he came back he could scarcely help
seeing Starr on that lighted perch, and he would undoubtedly take a shot
at him if he were any man at all and had a spark of loyalty to his
fellows. For Starr's business up there could not be mistaken by the
stupidest greaser in the town.
With the fire to help his cause, Starr craned toward the building and
looked down through the skylight. It had been partly raised for
ventilation, which was needed in that little, inside room, especially
since twelve men were foregathered there, and since every man in the lot
was burning tobacco in some form.
Sommers was there, seated at the end of a table that had been moved
into the center of the room, which brought it directly under the
skylight. He sat facing Starr, and he was reading something to himself
while the others waited in silence until he had finished. His strong,
dark face was grave, his high forehead creased with the wrinkles of
deep thinking. He had a cigar in one corner of his mouth, and he was
absentmindedly chewing it rather than smoking. He looked the leader,
though his clothes were inclined to shabbiness and he sat slouched
forward in his chair. He looked the leader, and their leader those
others proclaimed him by their very silence, and by the way their faces
turned toward him while they waited.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT
Sommers took his cigar from his mouth and laid it carefully down upon the
edge of the table, although he was plainly unconscious of the movement.
He lifted his head with a little toss that threw back a heavy lock of his
jet-black hair. He glanced around the table, and his eyes dominated those
others hypnotically.
"I have here," he began in the sonorous voice and the measured
enunciation of the trained orator, "a letter from our esteemed--and
unfortunate--comrade and fellow worker, Elfigo Apodaca. Without taking
your valuable time by reading the letter through from salutation to
signature, I may say briefly that its context is devoted to our cause and
to the inconvenience which may be entailed because of our comrade's
present incarceration, the duration of which is as yet undetermined.
"Comrade Apodaca expresses great confidence in his ultimate release. He
maintains that young Medina is essentially a traitor, and that his
evidence at the preliminary hearing was given purely in the spirit of
revenge. That Comrade Apodaca will be exonerated fully of the charge of
murder, I myself can entertain no scintilla of doubt. We may therefore
dismiss from our minds any uneasiness we may, some of us, have
entertained on that score.
"The question we are foregathered here to decide to-night is whether the
date set for our public demonstration shall remain as it stands; whether
we shall seek permission to postpone that date, or whether it shall be
deemed expedient to set it forward to the earliest possible moment. As
you all are doubtless aware, our esteemed compatriots in Mexico are ready
and waiting our pleasure, like hounds straining at the leash. The work of
organization on this side of the line has of necessity been slow, because
of various adverse influences and a slothful desire for present ease and
safety, which we have been constrained to combat. Also the accumulation
of arms and ammunition in a sufficient quantity for our purpose without
exciting suspicion has required much tactful manipulation.
"But we have here assembled the trusted representatives from our twelve
districts in the State, and I trust that each one of you has come
prepared to furnish this Junta with the data necessary for an
intelligent action upon the question we have to decide to-night. Am I
right, gentlemen, in that assumption?"
Eleven men nodded assent and looked down at the slips of paper they had
produced from inner pockets and held ready in their hands.
"Then I shall ask you, compadres, to listen carefully to the report from
each district, so that you may judge the wisdom of foreshortening the
interval between to-night and the date set for the uprising.
"Each representative will give the number, in his district, of armed
members of the Alliance; the amount of ammunition at hand; the number of
agents secretly occupying positions of trust where they can give the most
aid to the movement; the number of Spanish-Americans who, like our
unfortunate neighbor, Estancio Medina, have refused thus far to come into
the Alliance; the number, in his district, who may be counted upon to
come in, once they see that the cause is not hopeless; who may be
expected to take the purely American side, and who may be safely depended
upon to remain neutral. I shall ask each of you to tell us also the
extent and nature of such opposition as your district must be prepared to
meet. There has been a rumor of some preparation for resistance to our
movement, and we shall want to know all that you can tell us of that
phase of the situation as observed in your district.
"These seemingly unimportant details are absolutely essential, gentlemen
of the Junta. For in this revolutionary movement you must bear in mind
that brother will rise up against brother, as it were. You will be called
upon, perchance, to slay the dearest friend of your school days; your
neighbor, if so be he is allied against you when the great day comes. We
must not weaken; we must keep our eyes fixed upon the ultimate good that
will come out of the turmoil. But we must know! We must not make the
irretrievable error of taking anything for granted. Keeping that in mind,
gentlemen, we will hear first the report from Bernalillo district."
A man at the right of Sommers unfolded his little slip of paper, cleared
his throat and began, in strongly accented English, to read. The eleven
who listened leaned forward, elbows on the table, and drank in the
terrible figures avidly. Sommers set down the figures in columns and made
notes on the pad before him, his lips pressed together in a straight line
that twisted now and then with a sinister kind of satisfaction.
"That, gentlemen, is how the Cause stands in the county that has the
largest population and approximately the smallest area of any county in
the State. While this report is not altogether new to me, yet I am
struck anew with the great showing that has been made in that county.
With the extensive yards and shops of the Santa Fe at Albuquerque seized
and held by our forces, together with the junction points and--"
Starr did not wait to hear any more, but edged hastily back to the pole
and began to climb down as though a disturbed hornets' nest hung above
him. The report that had so elated Sommers sent a chill down Starr's
back. If one county could show so appalling an insurrectory force, what
of the whole State? Yes, and the other States involved! And the thing
might be turned loose at any time!
He dropped to the ground, sending a scared glance for the watchman who
had gone to the fire. He was nowhere to be seen, and Starr, running to
the rear of the lot, skirted the high wall at a trot; crossed a narrow,
black alley, hurried down behind the next lots to the cross street,
walked as fast as he dared to the next corner, turned into the main
street, and made for the nearest public telephone booth.
He sweated there in the glass cage for a long ten minutes before he had
managed to get in touch with Sheriff O'Malley and the chief of police,
and to tell each in turn what he wanted and where they must meet him, and
how many minutes they might have to do it in. He came out feeling as
though he had been in there an hour, and went straight to the rendezvous
he had named, which was a shed near the building of _Las Nuevas_, only on
another street.
They came, puffing a little and a good deal mystified. Starr, not
daring to state his real business with them, had asked for men to
surround and take a holdup gang. All told, there were six of them when
all had arrived, and they must have been astounded at what Starr told
them in a prudent undertone and speaking swiftly. They did not say
anything much, but slipped away after him and came to the high wall
that hid so much menace.
"There was a hombre on guard across the street," Starr told the sheriff.
"He went off to the fire, but he's liable to come back. Put a man over
there in the shade of that junk shop to watch out for him and nab him
before he can give the alarm. This is ticklish work, remember. Any
Mexican in town would knife you if he knew what you're up to.
"Johnson, you can climb the pole and pull down on 'em through the
skylight, but wait till you see by their actions that they've got the tip
something's wrong, and don't shoot if you can help it. Remember this is
Secret Service work, and the quieter it's done, the better pleased
they'll be in Washington. There can't be any hullabaloo at all. You two
fellows watch the front and back gates, and the no-shooting rule goes
with you, too. If there's anything else you can do, don't shoot. But it's
better to fire a cannon than let a man get away. Sabe? Now, Chief, you
and the sheriff can come with me, and we'll bust up the meetin' for 'em."
He went up on the shoulder of the man who was to watch outside the rear
wall, and straddled the wall for a brief reconnoiter. Evidently the Junta
felt safe in their hidden little room, for no guard had been left in the
yard. The back door was locked, and Starr opened it as silently as he
could with his pass key. Close behind him came Sheriff O'Malley and the
chief of police, whose name was Whittier. They had left their shoes
beside the doorstep and walked in their socks, making no noise at all.
Starr did not dare use his searchlight, but felt his way down past the
press and the forms, to where the stairs went up to the second floor. On
the third step from the bottom, Starr, feeling his way with his hands,
touched a dozing watchman and choked him into submission before the
fellow had emitted more than a sleepy grunt of surprise. They left him
gagged and tied to the iron leg of some heavy piece of machinery, and
went on up the stairs, treading as stealthily as a prowling cat.
Starr turned to the right, found the door locked, and patiently turned
his key a hair's breadth at a time in the lock, until he slid the bolt
back. Behind him the repressed breathing of O'Malley fanned warmly the
back of his neck. He pushed the door open a half inch at a time, found
the outer office dark and silent, and crossed it stealthily to the closet
behind the stove. O'Malley and Whittier were so close behind that he
could feel them as they entered the closet and crept along its length.
Starr was reaching out before him with his hands, feeling for the door
into the secret office, when Sheriff O'Malley struck his foot against the
old tin spittoon, tried to cover the sound, and ran afoul of the brooms,
which tripped him and sent him lurching against Starr. There in that
small space where everything had been so deathly still the racket was
appalling. O'Malley was not much given to secret work; he forgot himself
now and swore just as full-toned and just as fluently as though be had
tripped in the dark over his own wheelbarrow in his own back yard.
Starr threw himself against the end of the closet where he knew the door
was hidden in the wall, felt the yielding of a board, and heaved against
it with his shoulder. He landed almost on top of a fat-jowled
representative from Santa Fé, but he landed muzzle foremost, as it were,
and he was telling the twelve to put up their hands even before he had
his feet solidly planted on the floor.
Holman Sommers sat facing him. He had been writing, and he still held his
pencil in his hand. He slowly crumpled the sheet of paper, his vivid eyes
lifted to Starr's face. Tragic eyes they were then, for beyond Starr they
looked into the stern face of the government he would have defied. They
looked upon the wreck of his dearest dream; upon the tightening chains of
the wage slaves he would have freed--or so he dreamed.
Starr stared back, his own mind visioning swiftly the havoc he had
wrought in the dream of this leader of men. He saw, not a political
outlaw caught before he could do harm to his country, but a man fated to
bear in his great brain an idea born generations too soon into a brawling
world of ideas that warred always with sordid circumstance. A hundred
years hence this man might be called great. Now he was nothing more than
a political outlaw chief, trapped with his band of lesser outlaws.
Sommers' eyes lightened impishly. His thin lips twisted in a smile at the
damnable joke which Life was playing there in that room.
"Gentlemen of the Junta," he said in his sonorous, public-platform
voice, "I find it expedient, because of untoward circumstances, to
advise that you make no resistance. From the unceremonious and
unheralded entry of our esteemed opponents, these political prostitutes
who have had the effrontery to come here in the employ of a damnable
system of political tyranny and frustrate our plans for the liberation
of our comrades in slavery, I apprehend the fact that we have been
basely betrayed by some foul Judas among us. I am left with no
alternative but to advise that you surrender your bodies to these
minions of what they please to call the law.
"Whether we part now, to spend the remaining years of our life in some
foul dungeon; whether to die a martyr's death on the scaffold, or whether
the workers of the land awake to their power and, under some wiser,
stronger leadership, liberate us to enjoy the fruits of the harvest we
have but sown, I cannot attempt to prophesy. We have done what we could
for our fellowmen. We have not failed, for though we perish, yet our
blood shall fructify what we have sown, that our sons and our sons' sons
may reap the garnered grain. Gentlemen, of the Junta, I declare our
meeting adjourned!"
Starr's eyes were troubled, but his gun did not waver. It pointed
straight at the breast of Holman Sommers, who looked at him measuringly
when he had finished speaking.
"I can't argue about the idea back of this business," Starr said gravely.
"All I can do is my duty. Put on these handcuffs, Mr. Sommers. They stand
for something you ain't big enough to lick--yet."
"Certainly," said Holman Sommers composedly. "You put the case like a
philosopher. Like a philosopher I yield to the power which, I grant you,
we are not big enough to lick--yet. In behalf of our Cause, however,
permit me to call your attention to the fact that we might have come
nearer to victory, had you not discovered and interrupted this meeting
to-night." Though his face was paler than was natural, he slipped on the
manacles as matter-of-factly as he would have put on clean cuffs, and
rose from his chair prepared to go where Starr directed.
"No, sit down again," said Starr brusquely. "Sheriff, gather up all those
pieces of paper for evidence against these men, and give them to me. Give
me a receipt for the men--I'll wait for it. I want you and Chief Whittier
to hold them here in this room till I come back. I won't be long--half an
hour, maybe." He took the slips of paper which the sheriff folded and
handed to him, and slipped them into his pocket.
He was gone a little longer than he said, for he had some trouble in
locating the railroad official he wanted, and in convincing that sleepy
official that he was speaking for the government when he demanded an
engine and day coach to be placed on a certain dark siding he mentioned,
ready for a swift night run to El Paso and a little beyond--to Fort
Bliss, in fact.
He got it, trust Starr for that! And he was only twenty minutes behind
the time he had named, though the sheriff and the chief of police
betrayed a nervous relief when he walked in upon them and announced that
he was ready now to move the prisoners.
They untied the terrified watchman and added him to the group. In the
dark, and by way of vacant lots and unlighted streets, he took them to a
certain point where an engine had just backed a single, unlighted day
coach on to a siding and stood there with air-pump wheezing and the
engineer crawling around beneath with his oil can. By the rear steps of
the coach a mystified conductor stood waiting with his lantern hidden
under his coat. A big man was the conductor; once a policeman and
therefore with a keen nose--don't laugh!--for mysteries.