Part 18 (1/2)
”No more, I want to hear no more,” she gasped. ”Let me go home. I'm sick.”
”It all makes me sick, too,” he answered. ”Sick and sore, both. But it's the truth. I'm sorry if it's been a bad pill to swallow, but it's the G.o.d's truth, girl. I'm sorry it couldn't be any other way, but I wouldn't see you marry that scoundrel if I lost a hand stopping you.
Mary felt sick at first, too; she's over it now. You'll not feel bad long. Better stay for dinner with us.”
”I couldn't swallow a bite. Thank you for your kindness in asking me--and for telling me what I wanted to know, too. Father never knew, or he would have warned me. People saw I was engaged to Ed Sorenson and would say nothing to father, of course. I shall always count you as one of my best friends, Mr. Johnson. And you too, Mary; you must come down and stay with me sometime, for I imagine you get lonely here. No, another day I'll remain to dinner--and I want to be alone now.”
They pressed her no further, seeing her wretchedness of spirit. But they walked with her to the car and shook hands with her when she was in and urged her to come again.
When she had disappeared in the aspens among which the trail led, Mary said to her father:
”You said they killed a man named Dent.”
”They did. I saw the killing.”
”And nothing was ever done about it?”
”No. n.o.body but me knew of the happening and I'd of had a bullet through my heart if I'd talked. I might yet even now, so see that you keep your mouth shut.”
”You told her.”
”I was mad, so mad I could say anything. But she isn't the kind to repeat the story; I'm not afraid on that score. She's clean strain all through.”
”Did you know the man whom Sorenson and the others killed?” Mary questioned, in some awe.
”I knew of him, but I was only a lad then. I saw it all through the back door of Vorse's saloon where it happened, but I've never breathed about it to a soul. I didn't want to be murdered some dark night.
Those four men would see that the job was done quick even now, I'm saying, if they were on to the fact. I know 'em, if n.o.body else does.”
Mary's skin crawled with p.r.i.c.kles of fear.
”They must be awful bad.”
”They were devils then, and I don't think they've changed to angels to-day, though they try to appear decent. I know 'em; I know what they'll do once they start. You can't make sheep out of wolves just by giving 'em a fleece.”
”You said they robbed another man at the same time they killed that Dent.”
”Yes; and it only goes to show the h.e.l.lish crooks they are. It was another man in the saloon. He was drunk. They made him believe he had killed Dent. Then said they'd help him to get away if he gave them his property. He was a rich fellow who had come out from the east and gone to ranching, a tenderfoot. They took his stuff and he skipped the country with his wife. That was the last of him, and I reckon he believes to this day that he's a murderer. And that's how they got the start of their wealth, or a big part of it, Sorenson and Vorse and the other two. They've got the San Mateo Cattle Company, with fifty thousand head of steers, and ten or twenty bands of sheeps and ranches, and the bank, and all the rest, and they walk around like honest men. But they're thieves and murderers, Mary, thieves and murderers! I'd rather be the man I am, poor and with nothing but this little mortgaged piece of ground and my few cattle, than them, who robbed Dent and killed him and then robbed and drove out Weir.”
”Was that the other man's name?”
”Yes.”
”That's funny. The same as the man who brought me home.”
”There are lots of Weirs, like the Johnsons.”
”Not so many, I guess. Maybe they're related. Did the man who skipped have any children?”
”No. None I ever heard of, though I didn't know much about him. Just him and his wife, I think.”
Johnson had perceived no resemblance between the engineer and the vanished man of whom he spoke. As for that, however, he had no clear recollection of the elder Weir's face; he was but twelve years old at the time of the dramatic event, thirty years before.