They were waiting in the sheriff's office in the court house in
Bartolo. They were waiting for Mr. Menocal. Winship had sent a
messenger for him. At one place in the room, handcuffed and tied, sat
the evil-eyed Alvarez; at another sat Charlie Menocal, silent and
apprehensive and with a sickly pallor showing under his dusky skin;
and between them lounged Morgan. The sheriff and Bryant stood across
the room conversing of the storm.
"I thought your goose was cooked when that blizzard hit us," Winship
was saying.
"Froze, you mean," was Lee's smiling reply. "I thought so myself for a
while. We've hammered along, however. To-night the last dirt goes
out."
"That was an idea now--powder."
"It was Carrigan's, not mine. It saved us. The old man has forgotten
more than I ever knew. Here's the banker now."
The door swung open, admitting Menocal, blinking from the snow's
sheen. He bade the sheriff and the engineer good day, glanced sharply
at them and then at the others. When his look encountered his son, his
eyebrows went up.
"So you're home finally," he addressed him. "After two weeks' time!"
His regard moved about from one to another of the trio. "What does
this mean, Charlie? Who is that fellow wearing handcuffs?" He paused,
staring steadily at his son. "What have you been doing to bring you
into Winship's office?" As Charlie continued to sit silent, he turned
to the sheriff.
"I'll explain, Mr. Menocal, but what I have to say won't be pleasant
hearing for you," Lee stated, at a nod from Winship. "Take this chair,
if you please."
The banker sat down, heavily. He sighed, while his fat cheeks shook
with a slight tremble.
"What has he done?" he asked, with his eyes fixed on an ink-well on
the sheriff's desk.
Briefly and without temper Bryant related the circumstance of seeing
Alvarez in Kennard one day during the previous summer, when the man
appeared to be watching him. Charlie was also in town on that day.
Alvarez was the man who had attempted to make the workmen drunk in
camp on Christmas Eve, but he had escaped on that occasion. He had
stolen into camp again on the afternoon preceding the blizzard and two
hours after sundown had been captured seeking to fire the commissary
tent. When made a prisoner, he had been searched. On his person were
found several checks for sums ranging from fifty to one hundred
dollars. Bryant drew the leather sack from his pocket, extracted the
checks, and handed them to the banker.
"You see they are given by your son," said he. "I've questioned this
Alvarez and he has finally admitted that he was employed by Charlie
and instructed by him what to do. Your son, therefore, is the
instigator of the attempted crime, and Alvarez, an ignorant and brutal
outlaw from Mexico, was merely his tool. I pass over the matter of the
whisky and the petty inconveniences earlier caused me and my men. But
here is an act of a different character, Mr. Menocal. The man's
endeavour to fire our camp, had it been successful, would perhaps have
resulted in the death of scores of men, as the storm broke shortly
after and they would have been without shelter."
Charlie Menocal sprang to his feet.
"Before God, I didn't know he would choose that night!" he cried,
passionately. "I meant only to stop their work!"
His father shook his head sadly.
"That makes no difference, my son; you planned a wicked deed," he
said, in a barely audible voice.
Morgan pushed the young man back upon his chair and Bryant went on. As
he proceeded, he had found it harder and harder to address the parent;
and his task was no easier now. The eyes of the father had gone to the
slender, sagging figure of his son and seemed to be the eyes of an
expiring man; his plump cheeks were working under an excess of
emotion; then his head went down suddenly as under the blow of a club.
"Because of the character of the act," Lee said, "it wasn't only a
stroke at me but at every animal and man in the entire south camp. I
want to make this clear in order to show how black and dastardly the
thing was. Whether Charlie understood or intended the destruction of
all the lives and property there is no excuse; it was a deed that
would have carried terrible results in its train. I don't even let my
mind conceive them. All this has followed, Mr. Menocal, from the
single fact that your son disliked me in the beginning. To that may
be added an idea that I was depriving you of something to which I had
no right, namely, the title to the Perro Creek canal appropriation.
And there, I think, responsibility for his course touches you."
He paused to gaze at the Mexican, whose face had become drained of
colour.
"Mr. Menocal, the water is mine," he continued, "and to-night some
time it will be mine beyond all dispute, for then the ditch will be
finished. So much for that. Some days ago we had a talk that, I
believe, led us each to a better opinion of the other. I think that as
a leader here in Bartolo and around about you're a force for good; you
believe in law, order, and education; and I know, from what I've
learned, that you carry many of the people on store accounts for long
periods when crops are bad or when they are distressed by sickness.
I'm confident you're endeavouring to elevate them so far as possible;
and I admit frankly that I've modified very greatly my first
estimation of you. That weighs in the scale against Charlie's actions.
"Then there's one kindness Charlie himself has done me, though he may
not be aware of the fact. I'll not say what it is; let it suffice that
it is the case. A very great kindness it was, indeed! I count that
likewise in the opposite scale. And then there are other things to
consider, one among them that after all no harm has come to me. The
enmity he's held for me has simply recoiled upon his own head. All he
has to show for it after months of hating and contriving is his
position here in this room to-day--and a dead dog. Surely it must make
plain to him that his course has been not only futile but foolish."
The engineer glanced at the young fellow. He sat in an attitude of
despair that almost equalled his father's.
"Well, that brings me to the point," Bryant said. "You've been too
indulgent with Charlie, Mr. Menocal, as you once acknowledged to me.
You've given him too much money, too much admiration, too much head,
and it has led him up against the bars of the state prison. The
question is whether or not I shall open the gate and push him in, as
at first I determined to do on securing the proof in this leather
sack. If I thought he would keep on along his present line, I should
say yes, merely as a matter of public policy, but I've had several
days to think the thing over and have come to the conclusion he'll
soon realize his folly, if he doesn't now. And another restraint
should be the good name and the happiness of his father. I'm not
vindictive, Mr. Menocal, and less on this day than I've ever been. I
don't believe in causing people misery merely for the pleasure of
inflicting it or because I happen to have the power. We all have
enough to contend with, as it is. I don't propose to ruin your
position here, and end your influence, and blast your life, by sending
your son to the penitentiary. That would make me no happier, and would
make a number of people infinitely wretched, while perhaps starting
Charlie on the road to hell. Very likely so. I much prefer to see
everyone cheerful and at work. Suppose we ship this fellow yonder back
to Mexico--Winship can arrange that--and destroy the checks, and tear
up this sheet of Charlie's record, so to speak. Only one or two
persons besides ourselves know of the matter and I'll ask them to
forget it."
Lee struck a match and ignited the checks, holding them while they
burned until at last he dropped them on the floor, where they blazed,
curled up in strips of black ash, and were no more. He glanced about
at the others. Winship was picking his teeth with a quill toothpick,
with his mind apparently far away on other matters. Morgan stolidly
chewed tobacco and kept a wary eye on the bandit, Alvarez. Charlie sat
pale, limp, gazing at nothing. The elder Menocal had lifted his eyes
to Bryant, at whom he looked mistily; he appeared to have aged
astonishingly, his cheeks having gone flabby, slack, and gray, while a
slight tremour shook his head.
"That's all, I guess," Bryant said, briskly. "We'll just consider our
relations established on the same footing they were before this
occurrence."
He put out a hand, smiling. The banker struggled to his feet and
clasped it in both of his.
"They shall not be on the same footing, but on a better one, Mr.
Bryant, if it's in my power to make them so," he exclaimed, in a
choked voice.
"That suits me right down to the ground, Mr. Menocal."
The Mexican was silent. His lips parted, quivered, and shut again. His
hold on the engineer's hand tightened.
"I--I can't talk now, can't say what I wish to say," he said, mastered
by feeling. "When I'm more myself, when I can talk--another time----"
He ceased, but presently finished, "Another time I'll tell the
gratitude in my heart. Now my shame for my son and for myself----Come,
Charlie, take me home."
They went out. Winship came to life and crossing the room dragged the
outlaw Mexican to his feet, then pushed him over the floor and into
the hall on his way to the cells in the basement. Morgan pulled on his
hat. Bryant glanced at the paper ashes on the floor, then did
likewise. It was time to get back to camp.