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

his savage utterance.

"I'll drive you and your father out of this town and this state," he exclaimed. "They shall know here in San Mateo, and wherever you go if it's in my power to reach there, what sort of a pretending, double-faced, disreputable wanton----"

"You coward!" Janet burst out.

Then she turned to flee out of the room to arouse her father. But Sorenson was too quick for her; he sprang forward and seized one of her wrists.

"No you don't, you perfumed wench!" he growled.

A scream formed on Janet's lips. The heavy, rage-crimsoned face bent over her as if to kill her by its very nearness. Brute the man was, and as a brute he appeared determined she should feel his power. She pulled back, jerking to free herself, and shrieked.

Intervention came from an unexpected quarter. Rushing into the room came the rancher Johnson, followed by his daughter.

"Let go of her," the man ordered, harshly.

Sorenson looked about over his shoulder.

"Keep out of this, and get out," he answered.

Johnson leaped forward and struck the other on the jaw. The cattleman releasing his hold on Janet staggered back, at the same time thrusting a hand under his coat.

But the rancher's pistol was whipped forth first.

"You'd try that game, would you?" Johnson said, with his ragged beard out-thrust and stiff. "Put up your hands; I want to see how they look sticking up over your head."

Sorenson though now holding them in sight did not at once comply.

"Johnson, you're butting into something that doesn't concern you," he said, endeavoring to speak calmly.

"You've made one mistake in striking me; don't make another by keeping that gun pointed at my head. Remember I've a mortgage on your place that you'll wish renewed one of these days."

The expression of scorn on the rancher's face was complete.

"Trying that line, are you?" he sneered. "Think you can play the money-lender now and scare me? You didn't look much like a banker reaching for your gun; you just looked like a killer then, a plain bar-room killer--but I beat you to the draw. You've got fat and slow, haven't you, since early days when you use to put lead into poor devils whose stuff you wanted. And you didn't look like a banker to me, either, trying to bulldoze Janet when I came in; you looked like the big dirty coward you are. Aha, here's the doctor! Now just tell him how it comes you can order me out of his house, and why you were threatening Janet and making her scream."

The physician turned a white, angry countenance to Sorenson.

"I heard the scream. Is it true you were abusing my daughter?" he demanded, stepping in front of the man.

"I came here because I learned my son Ed had been broken to bits through her trickery and damnable----"

The words were cut off by the doctor's hand which smote the blasphemous lips uttering them.

Even more than Johnson's blow did this slap upon the mouth enrage the cattleman. His face became congested, his shoulders heaved, but behind the doctor was the revolver still directed at his head.

"You've come here uninvited and you've said too much," Doctor Hosmer stated in cold even tones. "You may be the town magnate, but you're only a ruffian and a crook after all. You can't bluff or bully us. More than that, you've insulted my daughter and me beyond any future reparation. As for your son, he got less than he deserved." He turned to the rancher. "You came just in time, it seems. Please see that he leaves the house."

Johnson waved with his gun significantly towards the door.

"Move right along lively," he added. "And I'll go along with you to see that you don't hamstring my horses, which I don't put past an underhanded cattle-thief like you."

Sorenson seemed striving for words that would adequately blast those before him, but they appeared lacking. With a last malignant glare he walked out upon the veranda and down across the yard, with his guard following him.

When Johnson returned after Sorenson's departure in his car, he was grinning sardonically.

"I shouldn't want him running among my cattle; he'd bite 'em and give 'em the rabies," he remarked.

Janet caught and pressed his toil-roughened hand.

"You'll never know how much I thank you for coming in just when you did," she cried.

"Pshaw, your father would have showed up and stopped him."

"I'm not so sure. Father has no weapon, and that man did have one. It was the sight of your pistol that made him cower. You couldn't have chosen a more lucky minute to arrive."

"Well, it was a little bit timely, as it turned out. Considering too that we were coming to see you anyway, it was just as well to walk in when we could do some good. Mary has something for you to read, if you read Spanish."

"Yes, I do."

"That's good. Show 'em what you have, daughter."

Mary drew a knotted handkerchief from her bosom and undid the knots. Appeared the doubled paper she had found. This she passed to Janet.

"Why,--why, this is the document I had!" the latter exclaimed, joyfully. "Where did you find it?"

"Up by the smashed automobile, when father and I were at the cabin." She exchanged a guarded look with her father. "There are names in it that made me think it might be valuable. So when father came back from Bowenville I showed it to him. But neither of us could read it. We thought we'd better bring it to you to read."

"It is valuable, very valuable. I had it when I was seized by Ed Sorenson and he took it away from me. Evidently, then, it fell from his pocket at the time of the accident. Yes, indeed, it's important. It means everything to certain parties. I'll read it, but you understand what it tells is private at present."

"We understand--and I think I know what it's going to say," Johnson remarked, grimly.

Thereupon while the others listened Janet read a translation of the long document. To her and her father the facts were not new, for Weir had already related such as he knew of the happenings in Vorse's saloon on that eventful day thirty years previous. Nor for that matter were they strange to Johnson and his daughter, though of course neither Janet nor her father were aware of the rancher's more intimate knowledge of the subject.

"A pretty good story as far as it goes, but like all lawyers' papers long-winded," Johnson stated, critically.

"What do you mean, far as it goes?" Janet asked, curiously. "Did you know this old Mexican? Did you ever hear him tell about the thing?"

"I knew he was there at the time, but he never told me anything."

Here Dr. Hosmer spoke.

"Saurez died yesterday. It must have been shortly after he made this deposition. He died in Vorse's saloon, which gives a color of suspicion to his death. In addition, Martinez, as you know, was dragged away somewhere."

"Then Vorse learned old Saurez had blabbed, and killed him," Johnson said, in a convinced tone. "Vorse is a bad bird, I want to say. But so are all of them, Sorenson, Burkhardt and Judge Gordon as well."

Janet brought the talk back to the subject.

"You make me still wonder, Mr. Johnson," she said. "You seemed to think there's more to the account than is told in this paper."

Again the rancher and his daughter glanced at each other, hesitatingly.

"Tell them, father," Mary broke forth all at once. "They know this much, and you know you can trust them."

The man, however, shook his head with a certain dogged purpose.

"If this is just a paper in some trifling lawsuit or other, it will be better if I keep my own counsel," he stated. "I've riled Sorenson considerable as it is now, and I don't care particularly about having him gunning on my trail active-like. If it really mattered----"

"It does matter; it matters everything," Janet cried, "if you really know something more!"

"Why?"

"Because it concerns Mr. Weir. The Joseph Weir described and named in this affidavit was his father. He believes these men robbed his father; this paper proves it, but not absolutely, for Mexican evidence here in this country doesn't carry as much weight against white men--especially men as rich and strong as these named--as it would in other places perhaps. You know that. This paper was obtained for Mr. Weir."

"Oho, so that's the way of it!" Johnson said, with a long drawn-out tone.

He regarded the paper in silence for a time, busy with his thoughts, absently twisting his beard, until at length a look of satisfaction grew on his face.

"Well, well, this is fine," he went on presently. "I never thought I should be able to pay the obligation I owe him, and I won't fully at that, but this will help. No, that paper doesn't tell all, for I reckon Saurez didn't see all." He glanced triumphantly at the doctor and the girl. "But I did."

"You!" both exclaimed.

But before he could explain, the memory of the cattleman's threat recurred to Janet to banish thoughts of aught else than Weir's danger from her mind.

"Mr. Sorenson said he was going up to the dam to shoot Mr. Weir," she exclaimed. "We must give warning."

"Did he say he was going himself?" Johnson asked.

"To get the paper, yes." Then Janet continued anxiously. "But the paper isn't all. His son told him what occurred in the mountains and I believe the man wants to harm Mr. Weir as well as to obtain the paper. Perhaps he plans on gaining the document first, then killing him. In any case, we must put Mr. Weir on guard."

"I'll just drive up there and tell the engineer," Johnson stated. "Shouldn't be surprised if I got a chance yet to use my gun. You girls can stay here."

Janet gazed at him with a flushing face.

"The man could go to the dam and kill Mr. Weir and get safely home while you're starting with your team," said she. "No, we must drive there in a car. Father, you take Mr. Johnson in yours, and I'll carry Mary in mine. We'll go along of course, for we'll not remain here in the cottage alone with such terrible things happening in San Mateo."

And to this there was no dissent.


CHAPTER XXIV

THE ALARM

At the dam Weir found Meyers and Atkinson anxiously waiting his return. The sudden concerted melting away of workmen from camp had been warning to his subordinates that the danger of a general spree had taken definite form, which the report of a pair of young engineers confirmed when they followed a group of laborers to the old adobe house and beheld the beginning of the debauch.

"Get out all the staff, Meyers, and you, Atkinson, all the foremen and sober men left, then go down the road and put that joint out of business, taking axes and whatever is necessary."

"And if they fight?" Meyers asked.

"Try first to placate them. If that fails, some of you draw them off in order to permit the others to enter the house and destroy the whiskey. It's a tough job, but you may succeed. If the crowd turns