Part 28 (1/2)
”Sure,” said Bromley, quietly; and then, with the big Irish contractor's shadow fairly darkening the door: ”You'll do the same for me, Breckenridge, won't you? Because--oh, confound it all!--I'm in the same boat with you; without a ghost of a show, you understand.”
Ballard put his back squarely to Michael Fitzpatrick sc.r.a.ping his feet on the puncheon-floored porch of the bungalow, and gripped Bromley's hand across the table.
”It's a bargain,” he declared warmly. ”We'll take the long chance and stand by her together, old man. And if she chooses the better part in the end, I'll try not to act like a jealous fool. Now you turn in and lie down a while. I've got to go with Michael.”
This time it was Bromley who saved the situation. ”What a pair of luminous donkeys we are!” he laughed. ”She calls you 'dear friend,' and me 'little brother.' If we're right good and tractable, we may get cards to her wedding--with Wingfield.”
XIX
IN THE LABORATORY
Ballard had a small shock while he was crossing the stone yard with Fitzpatrick. It turned upon the sight of the handsome figure of the Craigmiles ranch foreman calmly rolling a cigarette in the shade of one of the cutting sheds.
”What is the Mexican doing here?” he demanded abruptly of Fitzpatrick; and the Irishman's manner was far from rea.s.suring.
”'Tis you he'll be wanting to see, I'm thinking. He's been hanging 'round the office f'r the betther part of an hour. Shall I run him off the riservation?”
”Around the office, you say?” Ballard cut himself instantly out of the contractor's company and crossed briskly to the shed where the Mexican was lounging. ”You are waiting to see me?” he asked shortly, ignoring the foreman's courtly bow and sombrero-sweep.
”I wait to h-ask for the 'ealth of Senor Bromley. It is report' to me that he is recover from hees sobad h-accident.”
”Mr. Bromley is getting along all right. Is that all?”
The Mexican bowed again.
”I bring-a da message from the Senorita to da Senor Wingfiel'. He is som'where on da camp?”
”No; he has gone back to the upper valley. You have been waiting some time? You must have seen him go.”
For the third time the Mexican removed his hat. ”I'll have been here one, two, t'ree little minute, Senor Ballar',” he lied smoothly. ”And now I make to myself the honour of saying to you, _Adios_.”
Ballard let him go because there was nothing else to do. His presence in the construction camp, and the ready lie about the length of his stay, were both sufficiently ominous. What if he had overheard the talk in the office? It was easily possible that he had. The windows were open, and the adobe was only a few steps withdrawn from the busy cutting yard. The eavesdropper might have sat unremarked upon the office porch, if he had cared to.
The Kentuckian was deep in the labyrinth of reflection when he rejoined Fitzpatrick; and the laying-out of the new side-track afterward was purely mechanical. When the work was done, Ballard returned to the bungalow, to find Bromley sleeping the sleep of pure exhaustion on the blanket-covered couch. Obeying a sudden impulse, the Kentuckian took a field-gla.s.s from its case on the wall, and went out, tip-toeing to avoid waking Bromley. If Manuel had overheard, it was comparatively easy to prefigure his next step.
”Which way did the Mexican go?” Ballard asked of a cutter in the stone-yard.
”The last I saw of him he was loungin' off towards the Elbow. That was just after you was talkin' to him,” said the man, lifting his cap to scratch his head with one finger.
”Did he come here horseback?”
”Not up here on the mesa. Might 'a' left his nag down below; but he wa'n't headin' that way when I saw him.”
Ballard turned away and climbed the hill in the rear of the bungalow; the hill from which the table-smas.h.i.+ng rock had been hurled. From its crest there was a comprehensive view of the upper valley, with the river winding through it, with Castle 'Cadia crowning the island-like knoll in its centre, with the densely forested background range billowing green and grey in the afternoon sunlight.
Throwing himself flat on the brown hilltop, Ballard trained his gla.s.s first on the inner valley reaches of a bridle-path leading over the southern hogback. There was no living thing in sight in that field, though sufficient time had elapsed to enable the Mexican to ride across the bridge and over the hills, if he had left the camp mounted.
The engineer frowned and slipped easily into the out-of-door man's habit of thinking aloud.