In the Shadow of the Hills by George C. Shedd (the best ebook reader for android txt) 📕

make a last appeal to your decency and manhood--if you have either," she said, sitting motionless.

"Rot," he answered. Half dragging her, half lifting her, he removed her from the machine. Slipping a hand within her arm he led her inside the log house.

"Sit there," he ordered.

Janet dropped upon the seat, a rude plank bench against the wall farthest from the door. Indeed, fatigue and the numbness of her limbs rendered her incapable of standing.

"When I've touched off this fire and set out some grub, then I'll untie your hands," he continued. "A snug little cabin, eh? Just the place for us, what? See all the stuff I've brought up here to make you warm and happy and comfortable. Regular nest. Lot of work on my part, I want to say."

He touched a match to the wood already laid in the fireplace, flung off his rain coat and stood to warm his hands at the blaze. Lighting a cigarette, he began placing from a box of supplies plates and food on the table in the middle of the room, but paused to reproduce his flask. With a sardonic grin he lifted the bottle, bowed to Janet and drank the liquor neat. When he had finished, he turned the bottle upside down to show it was empty, then tossed it into a corner. Again he fixed his drunken, mocking smile upon her.

"Can't preach to me about booze here, can you, honey?" he said. "Ought to take a swallow yourself; warm you up. I have plenty. Guess I better untie your hands now." He advanced towards her, swaying slightly. "You're going to love me from this time on, ain't you, girlie?" He untied the handkerchief and dropped it at his feet. "No nonsense now about trying to get away; I'll rope you for good if you try to start anything. Hello, what's that?"

"No; give it to me!" she cried, in alarm as he pulled the folded sheets of paper from her stiffened fingers.

"Something I ought to see, maybe." Then he added harshly, "Sit down, if you don't care to have me teach you a thing or two. I'm master here."

He stepped to the table and drawing a box beside him settled upon it, pulled the candle-stick nearer and began to read the document. Janet glanced swiftly about the room for a weapon. Escape past him she could not, for by a single spring he could bar the way; but could she lay hand on a stick of wood she might fight her way out. None was nearer than the fire, and again he could interpose.

He read on and on, with a darkening brow and an evil glint showing in his eyes. Page by page he perused Saurez' deposition until he reached the end. Then he got to his feet, shaking the paper at her head.

"You were in on this," he snarled. "This is what you were in Martinez' office to get. You're wise to this cursed scheme to help Weir make my father and Vorse and Burkhardt and Judge Gordon out a gang of swindlers. So they trimmed _his_ father of something--at least I fancy they did, and I hope to God they did, the coward! And you were in with them! You're not quite the little white angel you'd have people believe, are you? Not quite so innocent and simple as you've made me think, anyway. Well, I'll square all that. That slippery snake, Martinez, I'll twist his neck the minute I get back to town. I'll bet a thousand it was framed up to use this when Weir was arrested--but he'll never use it now!"

He glared at the girl with a face distorted by rage.

"We'll just burn it here and now," he continued. "Then we'll be sure it won't be used."

Janet gripped her hands tightly, while her lips opened to utter a wild protest at this desecration. What the document contained she did not yet know, except that it was evidence that fixed upon the men named guilt for some past deed in which Weir had suffered and which would bring them to account. But something more than protest was needed, she saw in a flash, to deflect the man from his purpose and save the sheets from the flame.

She shut her lips for an instant to choke the cry, then said with an assumption of unconcern:

"Go ahead. I didn't want your father to see it, in any case."

The paper had almost reached the candle, but the hand that held it paused. Sorenson stared at it, and from it to her. At last a malignant curl of his lips uncovered his teeth.

"Oh, you didn't want him to see it," he sneered. "If that's so, I'll just save it. He'll be interested in reading what your friends have prepared to destroy his good name and reputation."

He folded the document and slipped it into his inner coat pocket. Then he walked towards her. At the look on his face Janet sprang to her feet.

"I've changed my mind about the marriage matter, just as you did," he said. "I agree with you now; there won't be any marriage. But I'll have your arms about my neck just the same."

And he seized her wrist.

"Let me go, let----" The words ceased on her lips.

Her eyes were riveted on the cabin door; she scarcely felt the man's loathsome touch on her arm. How had the door come unlatched? And was it only the wind that slowly moved it open?


CHAPTER XVI

WEIR TAKES UP THE HUNT

On leaving the construction camp Steele Weir had whirled away down the river road for San Mateo with a feeling both of satisfaction and of enmity--satisfaction at Martinez' success in at last having secured the evidence ardently desired, as betokened by his words; enmity at whoever was laying violent hands on the lawyer. Unfortunately when yet half a mile from town his car suffered one of the common misadventures of automobiles:--ping-g-g! sang a tire in a shrill dying whine.

Weir did not stop to change and inflate the tube, but pushed ahead on his mission though at slackened speed. He brought his car to rest before Doctor Hosmer's house. The windows were lighted, yet at his knock there was no response; so brushing conventionalities aside he entered and called Janet's name. Only echoes and a following silence greeted his call.

Doubtful whether to remain awaiting the girl's return or go at once to Martinez' office in the hope of still finding her, he finally chose the latter course leaving his car where it stood and proceeding on foot, as a result of which he passed in the darkness Juanita hurrying home in a fright. A bad choice and valuable time lost, he afterwards discovered. At Martinez' office he stepped inside, called the lawyer by name, called Janet Hosmer, stood for a little while in the black room harkening and thinking, then went forth into the street.

This time chance fell his way. He had but come out when he heard footsteps and two men in low-toned talk as they approached; and he withdrew further into the concealing darkness of the street. The new visitors, striking matches at the entrance, walked inside. The men were Vorse and Burkhardt.

"If you had been here, we could have nailed him at once as soon as I had Saurez' story," the former said. "Martinez had half an hour and more to get the thing into somebody else's hands."

"Well, I was looking after those men up in the hills," was the growled answer. "Had to feed 'em and have 'em ready for to-morrow night. If we don't find the document here, we'll screw its hiding-place out of that dirty greaser if we have to use a cord on his head Indian-fashion. Anyway it ought to be about this office. Martinez didn't know you had learned about it from Saurez. He'd never let go a paper like that until he had to."

"I think you're right there," Vorse said. "He'd want to sell it for all it was worth. Better shut and lock the door while we're searching. Don't care to have any of his friends sticking in their heads while we're here."

Burkhardt, who had lighted the lamp, now closed the door, cutting off so far as Steele Weir was concerned both a view of the men and their conversation. However he had learned if not enough, at least considerable. They had not yet gained possession of the paper. They knew nothing of Janet's part in the affair. They had so far not succeeded in unlocking Martinez' lips, but undoubtedly they would be able to wring from the lawyer when they went about it the real truth regarding the document. Very likely Martinez had anticipated that, had known his powers were such as not to be greatly able to resist physical torture and had planned to get the evidence into the engineer's hands before he should be subjected to pains of the flesh. That would be remembered to his credit, along with all the rest. Where Martinez was being held prisoner was the additional information Weir should have liked to glean before the door was shut.

Postponing for the time the hunt along this line, he returned to the Hosmer dwelling. In answer to his knock and call on this visit the trembling Juanita appeared, immediately pouring forth a recital of the happenings at the office as affecting her mistress.

"You've told no one else?" he demanded.

"No, senor. She said I was to say nothing of her being there for the paper, and I was waiting for her father to come. But she informed me Mr. Martinez and you knew she was there, so I've told you."

"And you saw nothing of this man who cast the blanket over her head and seized her?"

"It was dark; we had just come out of the office. But--but the car sounded like Ed Sorenson's. I've heard it start from here many times with the same loud noise. They had quarreled, Senor Weir, and were no longer engaged."

"I know. Which way did he drive off?"

"East, down the lower end of the street."

"Bring a lamp out to my car, so I can fix my tire."

With the girl holding the light by his side the engineer worked with concentrated energy in stripping the wheel, in inserting a new tube, replacing the tire and pumping it up. The thin drizzle glistened on his face, but for all that it was none the less determined, stern.

"You need not be afraid for yourself; no one but us knows you were there," he said to her, climbing into his machine. "Nor for Miss Janet, either. I'll bring her home safely. When Dr. Hosmer returns, tell him everything. Also ask him to await our coming. Be sure and say to him that I'll bring her home unharmed and that I advise silence in regard to the matter until I have talked with him. You will remain quiet, of course. This isn't a thing to be gossiped about."

"No, senor."

Away the automobile shot under the impulsion of the gas. Minutes, golden minutes, had been wasted in taking up the pursuit because of his going to Martinez' office and because of the flat tire. Sorenson now would be miles away with his prisoner.

Sweeping out of town with the car's headlights illuminating the road, Steele Weir blessed the drizzling mist that dampened the dust so as to leave a tire's imprint. Almost at once he picked up the