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

an audience at once. So it was that the plan craftily put in operation by Weir's enemies, to gather and inflame the people, under cover of whose pressure and excitement when the engineer was arrested he might be slain by a pretended rescue or popular demonstration, whichever should serve best, produced the expected result. During the afternoon wagons and horsemen and men on foot began to appear in town, to join already aroused relatives or friends at their adobe houses or to loaf along the main street in groups.

Outwardly there were few signs in the aspect of the Mexican folk of something extraordinary developing. But to the sheriff, Madden, aroused from an afternoon nap at his home by a telephoned message from the county attorney requesting him to come to the court house, the unwonted number in the town was in itself a significant fact.

"I didn't know this was a fiesta, Alvarez. What's up with you people?" he asked of one he met on the street.

"The fiesta is to be to-night, eh?" the man laughed. "Have you this engineer locked up yet?"

"What engineer?"

"The killer, the gun-man, that Weir. It is said he is already arrested and is to be hanged from the big cottonwood at dark beside the jail. It is also said he is still loose and bringing five hundred workmen to burn the town, rob the bank, kill the men and steal the girls."

"If he is to do either, it's news to me," Madden said, and proceeded to the office of Lucerio, the county attorney.

Madden was a blunt man, who for policy's sake might close his eyes to unimportant political influence as exercised by the Sorenson crowd. But he was no mere compliant tool. This was his first term in office. He had never yet crossed swords with the cattleman and the others associated with him, because the occasion had never arisen. When he had allowed himself to be nominated for sheriff, though Sorenson might imagine Madden to be at his orders, the latter had accepted the office with certain well-defined ideas of his duty.

"What do you want of me?" he asked Lucerio, for whom he had little liking.

"I desire to tell you, Madden, that at eight o'clock I'll have a warrant for you to serve on the engineer Weir. You'll go to the dam and arrest him and bring him in to the jail."

"Well, apparently the whole country except me knew this was to happen. The town's filling up as if it were going to be a bull-fight."

"I know nothing of that."

"All right; give me the warrant."

"At eight o'clock. I don't want it served before then."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons."

"Sorenson? And Vorse and Burkhardt? They've stirred up this charge against the man." Lucerio making an angry answer, he continued. "Well, everybody knows you jump when they pull the string. I'll have to serve the warrant, naturally. But I'm going to tell you what I think: you've faked the evidence you've got; we had the truth from Martinez and Janet Hosmer at the inquest; you're trying to railroad Weir to the gallows."

"Mr. Sorenson shall know what you've said. As for me"--the Mexican swelled with outraged dignity--"the evidence was placed in my hands. It warrants the engineer's arrest and trial. You attend to your department and I'll attend to mine."

"All to the good, Mr. County Attorney. I'll arrest him; he won't make me any trouble on that score. But you won't find it so easy to prove his guilt. And afterwards, just look out, for if he doesn't come gunning for you and fill your carcass full of lead, I miss my guess. You won't be able to hide behind Sorenson, either."

He left the county attorney at that, the latter unable despite all his efforts to hide his uneasiness and alarm. Madden reaching the street looked at his watch; it was half past five, so he started home for supper.

Some way before him he saw Martinez walking. The lawyer did not stop to converse with any of the loiterers along the street, but moved steadily along. He had come out of Vorse's saloon and was going towards his office. Just then the sound of an automobile caused Madden to turn his head in time to see Weir speed along but stop with a sudden application of brakes as he caught sight of the attorney.

A hail brought Martinez to the car. A few minutes' rapid speech there followed. Then the lawyer mounted beside Weir, the machine went on, turning into a side street and vanishing. To Madden there was nothing unusual in the circumstance, and he only noted the surprise and silence along the street at the engineer's passage. The Mexicans would know the man wasn't yet arrested at any rate, he thought. But he should like to learn what was the purpose in bringing them all to town! He would keep an eye open for any lynching nonsense if it were attempted.

Weir and Martinez were hastening to Judge Gordon's house, for shortly before the engineer had received an unexpected call from Pollock for him to join him there. Evidently the eastern lawyer had turned a card of some sort; and Weir had gone at once, wondering what the meeting might portend. The sight of Martinez, free and composed of hearing, walking along the street, further amazed him.

He perceived, however, when the lawyer stepped out to the car from Vorse's place that he was pale, his mouth tight-drawn and his eyes glittering.

"You got my message?" the latter asked, quickly.

"The telephone message, yes. Janet Hosmer got the paper also."

"They dragged me to Vorse's cellar," Martinez whispered fiercely. "They beat me with their fists, Vorse and Burkhardt. Then they tied me and squeezed my eyeballs till I could stand the pain no longer and told. I've been there ever since, bound and without food or water, the devils! Sorenson came with them last night, afterwards. And now he and Vorse came again--there they are back there in the bar yet--and gave me a draft on a Chicago bank for a thousand dollars and said to get out and stay out of New Mexico and never open my mouth about what had happened."

"Get in with me," Weir ordered.

At Judge Gordon's house the lawyer said:

"You are going in here? He's one of them."

"I know it. Come in, however. I may need you. You're not going to leave San Mateo, but there's no reason why you shouldn't cash the draft. That's only part of the damages you'll make them pay for what you underwent."

"It isn't money I want from them," Martinez replied, between his teeth.

Judge Gordon lived in a rambling adobe house two squares from the Hosmer dwelling. It was old but had been kept in good repair, and as he had never married he had lived comfortably enough with an old Mexican pair as servants. One of these, the woman, admitted the visitors at their knock and conducted them, as if expected, to the Judge's study, a long room lined with cases of books, mostly legal, and filled with old-fashioned furniture.

That something had occurred to change the Judge's aspect during the hours in which Pollock had been closeted with him was at once apparent. He looked older, broken, haggard of face, terrified.

"I met Mr. Martinez and brought him along," Weir said.

"Was that necessary?" Judge Gordon asked, heavily.

"He's my attorney, for one thing."

"And I've been a prisoner in Vorse's cellar for twenty-four hours for another, and you're one of those responsible for my being there and for the torture to which I was subjected," Martinez exclaimed, glaring.

"Mr. Martinez, I give you my word of honor that I knew nothing of your incarceration until this morning."

"That for your word of honor!" the lawyer cried, snapping his fingers in the air. "And in any case, you're an accessory after the fact. You let me stay."

Pollock stepped forward.

"Is this Mr. Martinez? Glad to meet you, sir. Mr. Weir has spoken very favorably of you and of your handling of legal matters for the irrigation company, of which I am a director. Pollock is my name. Are you a notary? Ah, that is good. There will be some papers to acknowledge and witness and so on."

He pointed at seats, seemingly having direction of matters, and the visitors sat down. Judge Gordon had sagged down in the padded leather chair in which he sat; his face was colorless, his eyes moving aimlessly to and fro, his white mustache and hair in disorder.

"Let us begin on business at once," Pollock stated, on his feet as was usual when entering a discussion and removing his eye-glasses. "I called on Judge Gordon this afternoon after my talk with you, Weir, and disclosed the evidence which has been gathered relative to the fraud perpetrated on your father and the crime against the man Dent. I assumed, and rightly, that to a man of the Judge's legal mind the facts we hold would prove the futility of resistance, and I set out to convince him of the wisdom of sparing himself a long losing fight, in which he would be opposing not only the evidence which was sure to convict him, and not only you, Mr. Weir, but our company which proposed to see the fight through. I went so far, Weir, as to promise him immunity from your wrath and from public prosecution."

Weir arose slowly.

"No," said he, "no."

"But, my dear fellow----"

"No. He made my father's life a hell for thirty years. Why should I spare him?"

"If granting him freedom from prosecution did actually spare him anything, I should say 'No' also, standing in your place. But with the facts made public as they will be, with Judge Gordon losing his legislative office and the esteem in which he had been held, with him relinquishing the bulk of his fortune as he agrees, with his finding it necessary to go elsewhere to live at his time of life, with the thought constantly in his mind of how low he has been brought, don't you think he will be suffering quite adequately? I should think so. He would probably die quicker in prison, but I believe he will suffer more outside. See, I don't hesitate to measure the alternatives, for the Judge and I have discussed and canvassed the whole situation, which was necessary, of course, in order to arrive at a clear understanding." And Pollock smiled genially.

"Does he admit my charges?"

"He hasn't denied them."

"Will he admit them?"

"I've outlined exactly what we must have--deeds to his property and an acknowledged statement of the Joseph Weir and James Dent affair, supplementing the Saurez affidavit, which by the way he at first thought we did not possess but which an account of what happened last night in the mountains and your recovery of the same"--Pollock's eyelid dropped for an instant towards Weir--"convinced him of. This statement is not to be produced as evidence against his associates except in the last extremity, and if not needed is always to be kept secret. We are to give him, when the papers are signed, a draft for ten thousand dollars. This will permit him to have something to live on. He states that he will want to go from San Mateo at once."

During this speech Weir's eyes had glanced to and fro between the lawyer ticking off his words with his glasses and the figure in