The Bells of San Juan by Jackson Gregory (notion reading list txt) 📕

The second day found him registered at Struve's hotel. The following morning he presented himself with a sheaf of credentials at the bank, asking for John Engle. With him came Ignacio Chavez in the rôle of interpreter. Del Rio spoke absolutely no English and had informed himself that Engle's Spanish was inadequate for the occasion.

"He is Señor Don Enrique del Rio," explained Ignacio, touched by the spell of the other's munificence and immaculate clothes. "He would like to shake the hand of Señor Engle to become acquainted and then friends. . . . He brings papers to tell who and what he is in Mexico City, whence he has departed because of too damn much fight down there; he wishes to put some money here in the banco, which he can take away again to buy a big ranch and many cattle and horses. He has the other money in a banco in New York, where he sent it out from Mexico two, three months ago."

And so on, while Engle gravely listened and shrewdly, after his fashion in business hours, probed for the inner man under the outer polish, while del Rio nodded and smiled and never withdrew his night-black eyes from Engle's face.

Del Rio, it appeared, had gone first to the Casa Blanca because he had heard of Jim Galloway as one of the most influential men of the county. Since arriving in San Juan, however, he had heard this and that, mere rumors, which caused him to come to Engle. He, a stranger, could ill afford in the beginning to have his name coupled with that of any man not known for his spotless integrity. Señor Engle understood? . . . Later, when del Rio had found the properties to his liking and had builded a home, his wife and two daughters would arrive. Now they travelled in California.

In the end Engle accepted the Mexican's deposits, which amounted to approximately a thousand dollars, and which were to be drawn against merely as an expense account until del Rio found his ranch. And the first item of expense was the purchase from Engle himself of a fine saddle-animal, a pure-blooded, clean-limbed young mare, sister to Persis. After which the Mexican spent a great deal of his time riding about the country, looking at ranches. He visited Engle's two places, called upon Norton at Las Flores, ferreting out prices, looking at water and feed, examining soil.

It was a bare fortnight after the coming of del Rio when out of Las Palmas came word of fresh lawlessness. The superintendent of the three Quigley mines had been surprised the night before pay-day, forced at the point of a revolver to open his own safe, and robbed of several thousand dollars. A man on horseback rushed word to San Juan, found Tom Cutter, who located Norton the same afternoon at his ranch at Las Flores.

"Rod, old man," cried Cutter angrily, "this damned thing has got to stop! You haven't a much better friend than I am, I guess, and I'm telling you straight that the whole county is getting sore on you. They will talk more than ever now, saying that it's up to you to get results and that you don't get them."

"The stick-up was last night?" asked the sheriff coolly.

"Yes," snapped Cutter.

"You were in San Juan?"

"Yes."

"Where was Jim Galloway? Was he in town?"

"No, he wasn't. I don't know where he was. But I do know where he ought to be. . . ."

"Was that Mexican gent, del Rio, in town?"

Cutter opened his eyes.

"No. I don't think so. You haven't got anything on him, have you?"

"Only what you told me. Remember that his first day in San Juan he went to Galloway like a homing pigeon."

Norton went for his horse, saddled, and rode swiftly to Las Palmas. In the mining-camp he went immediately to the office of Nate Kemble, the superintendent, whom he found cursing volubly.

"It's up to you," were the sharp words of greeting as Kemble wheeled upon the sheriff. "What the hell do you think you're for, anyway? Good Lord, man, if you can't cut the mustard, why don't you crawl out and let a man who can wear your star?"

"Easy there, Kemble," said Norton quietly. "You can do your raring and pitching after I'm gone. Tell me about it. What time did it happen?"

"It was hardly dark."

"How many men jumped you?"

"Just one. But . . ."

"Just one, eh?" He pondered the information. "That isn't the usual brand of Galloway work, is it? Get a good slant at him?"

"At his clothes," growled Kemble, slamming himself down dejectedly in his chair. "His face was hid, of course."

"Ever see a Mexican named del Rio?"

Like Cutter before him, Kemble started.

"Don't ask me what I mean," Norton cut him short. "Del Rio is a pretty big man for a Mexican; was this highwayman about his size?"

Kemble hesitated.

"It's hard to say just how big a man is when he comes in on you like that," he said at last. "At a guess I'd say that the man who stuck me up was a little taller than del Rio. But I wouldn't swear to it."

"It might have been del Rio himself, then?" Norton insisted.

"Yes. Or it might have been the Devil's grandmother. I don't . . ."

"See anything of del Rio the last few days?"

"Saw him yesterday. He was in camp. Was talking mines."

"See anything of Galloway hereabouts of late?"

"No. Haven't seen him for a month or two."

Norton asked a few other questions, kept his own thoughts to himself, and rode away. Less than a mile from the camp he met Jim Galloway riding a sweat-wet horse. The two men reined in sharply, each man's eyes matching the other's for hardness. Galloway's face was red, the fiery red of anger.

"Going back for what you forgot, Jim?" asked Norton.

For a moment Galloway, staring back at him, seemed utterly speechless in the grip of his wrath. Norton did not remember ever having seen such blazing anger in the prominent eyes.

"Between you and me, Rod Norton," muttered Galloway at last, "I have turned a trick or two in my time. But this job is none of my doing and if I wise up as to who put it over he'll go under the sand or into the pen, and I'll put him there."

Norton laughed.

"In other words, some free-lance has made a bid to break your corner on the crime market, eh?" he jeered. "Put one over on you without your knowledge and consent? And without splitting two ways? That what you mean?"

"I mean that I'd pay five hundred dollars out of my own pocket right now for the dead-wood on the man who robbed Kemble."

"Kid Rickard is around once more; sure he didn't do it?"

"Yes, I am. Kid Rickard didn't do it."

Norton eased himself in the saddle, thoughtfully regarding Galloway. And then, very abruptly:

"How about your friend, del Rio?"

It was the third time that he had mentioned del Rio's name in this connection and to the third man. And now, but slightly different in degree only, he saw the same look in Galloway's eyes which he had brought into Cutter's and Kemble's.

"Del Rio?" repeated Galloway frowningly. "What makes you say that?"

"I'll collect your five hundred later," was Norton's laughing response. Swerving out a little as he passed, he rode on.

CHAPTER XVII (A STACK OF GOLD PIECES)

 

John Engle rapidly came to assume the nature and proportions of a stubborn bulwark standing sturdily between Roderick Norton and the fires of criticism, which, springing from little, scattered flames were now a wide-spread blaze amply fed with the dry fuel of many fields. Again there had been a general excitement over a crime committed, much talk, various suspicions, and, in the end, no arrest made. Men who had stood by the sheriff until now began to lose faith in him. They recalled how, after the fight in the Casa Blanca, he had let Galloway go and with him Antone and the Kid; their memories trailed back to the killing of Bisbee of Las Palmas and the evidence of the boots. They began to admit, at first reluctantly, then with angry eagerness, that Norton was not the man his father had been before him, not the man they had taken him to be. And all of this hurt Norton's stanch friend, John Engle. All the more that he, too, saw signs of hesitancy which he found it hard to condone.

"Let him alone," he said many a time. "Give him his chance and a free hand. He knows what he is doing."

From that point he began to make excuses, first to himself and then to others. People were forgetting that only a short time ago the sheriff had lain many days at the point of death; that his system had been overtaxed; that not yet had his superb strength come back to him. Wait until once more he was physically fit.

It was merely an excuse, and at the outset no man knew it better than the banker himself. But as time went by without bringing results and tongues grew sharper and more insistent everywhere, Engle grew convinced that there was a grain of truth in his trumped-up argument. He invited Norton to his home, had him to dinner, watched him keenly, and came to the conclusion that Norton was riding on his nerves, that he had not taken sufficient time to recuperate before getting his feet back into the official stirrups, that the strain of his duties was telling on him, that he needed a rest and a change or would go to pieces.

But Norton, the subject broached, merely shook his head.

"I'm all right, John," he said a little hurriedly and nervously. "I am run down at the heels a bit, I'll admit. But I can't stop to rest right now. One of these days I'll quit this job and go back to ranching. Until then . . . Well, let them talk. We can't stop them very well."

Suspicion of the Quigley mines robbery had turned at first toward del Rio. But he had established an alibi. So had Galloway. So had Antone and the Kid.

"There is nothing to do but wait," Norton insisted. "It won't be long now."

Engle, having less than no faith in Patten's ability, went to Virginia Page. She saw Norton often; what did she think? Was he on the verge of a collapse? Was he physically fit?

"All of this criticism hurts him," said the banker thoughtfully. "I know Rod and how he must take it, though he only shrugs. It's gall and wormwood to him. He's up against a hard proposition, as we all know; if he is half-sick, I wonder if the proposition isn't going to be too much for him? Can't you advise him, persuade him to knock off for a couple of weeks and clear out? Get into a city somewhere and forget his work. Why, it's the most pitiful thing in the world to see a man like him lose his grip."

"He is not quite himself," she admitted slowly. "He is more nervous, inclined to be short and irritable, than he used to be. You may be right; or it may be simply that his continued failure to stop these crimes is