Part 25 (1/2)

”If you had been here, we could have nailed him at once as soon as I had Saurez' story,” the former said. ”Martinez had half an hour and more to get the thing into somebody else's hands.”

”Well, I was looking after those men up in the hills,” was the growled answer. ”Had to feed 'em and have 'em ready for to-morrow night. If we don't find the doc.u.ment here, we'll screw its hiding-place out of that dirty greaser if we have to use a cord on his head Indian-fas.h.i.+on.

Anyway it ought to be about this office. Martinez didn't know you had learned about it from Saurez. He'd never let go a paper like that until he had to.”

”I think you're right there,” Vorse said. ”He'd want to sell it for all it was worth. Better shut and lock the door while we're searching.

Don't care to have any of his friends sticking in their heads while we're here.”

Burkhardt, who had lighted the lamp, now closed the door, cutting off so far as Steele Weir was concerned both a view of the men and their conversation. However he had learned if not enough, at least considerable. They had not yet gained possession of the paper. They knew nothing of Janet's part in the affair. They had so far not succeeded in unlocking Martinez' lips, but undoubtedly they would be able to wring from the lawyer when they went about it the real truth regarding the doc.u.ment. Very likely Martinez had antic.i.p.ated that, had known his powers were such as not to be greatly able to resist physical torture and had planned to get the evidence into the engineer's hands before he should be subjected to pains of the flesh.

That would be remembered to his credit, along with all the rest. Where Martinez was being held prisoner was the additional information Weir should have liked to glean before the door was shut.

Postponing for the time the hunt along this line, he returned to the Hosmer dwelling. In answer to his knock and call on this visit the trembling Juanita appeared, immediately pouring forth a recital of the happenings at the office as affecting her mistress.

”You've told no one else?” he demanded.

”No, senor. She said I was to say nothing of her being there for the paper, and I was waiting for her father to come. But she informed me Mr. Martinez and you knew she was there, so I've told you.”

”And you saw nothing of this man who cast the blanket over her head and seized her?”

”It was dark; we had just come out of the office. But--but the car sounded like Ed Sorenson's. I've heard it start from here many times with the same loud noise. They had quarreled, Senor Weir, and were no longer engaged.”

”I know. Which way did he drive off?”

”East, down the lower end of the street.”

”Bring a lamp out to my car, so I can fix my tire.”

With the girl holding the light by his side the engineer worked with concentrated energy in stripping the wheel, in inserting a new tube, replacing the tire and pumping it up. The thin drizzle glistened on his face, but for all that it was none the less determined, stern.

”You need not be afraid for yourself; no one but us knows you were there,” he said to her, climbing into his machine. ”Nor for Miss Janet, either. I'll bring her home safely. When Dr. Hosmer returns, tell him everything. Also ask him to await our coming. Be sure and say to him that I'll bring her home unharmed and that I advise silence in regard to the matter until I have talked with him. You will remain quiet, of course. This isn't a thing to be gossiped about.”

”No, senor.”

Away the automobile shot under the impulsion of the gas. Minutes, golden minutes, had been wasted in taking up the pursuit because of his going to Martinez' office and because of the flat tire. Sorenson now would be miles away with his prisoner.

Sweeping out of town with the car's headlights illuminating the road, Steele Weir blessed the drizzling mist that dampened the dust so as to leave a tire's imprint. Almost at once he picked up the track, for not more than twenty or twenty-five minutes had elapsed since Sorenson's flight and not even a horseman had since been over the way.

Though he knew it not, the interval of time had been reduced by the stop made by the first machine, a mile or so out of town, when the abductor removed the blanket from Janet Hosmer's head to announce his evil scheme. From the main road leading to Bowenville Weir saw the car's trail turn aside into a mesa track pointing obliquely for Terry Creek canyon; and he suspected that Sorenson was making a long drive northward, skirting the mountain range and working away from the railroad-tapped region.

Once he thought he caught a flash of light far ahead of him, but knew this was an illusion. Through this rainy darkness no car's beam, however powerful, would show half a mile. The mist beat against his face in a steady stream as he rushed forward in the night, his eyes immovable on the wet twin tire-marks stamped on the road, his iron grip on the wheel, his ears filled with the steady hum of the engine.

If Sorenson had driven fast, Steele Weir drove faster.

At Terry Creek he plunged down the bank, across the water and up on the other side without a change of gears, rocking and lurching. Once on the smooth trail again the car seemed to stretch itself like a greyhound for the race northward. But on a sudden he brought the automobile to an abrupt halt. The surface of the road was undisturbed; nothing had pa.s.sed here.

Swinging back again on the way he had come, Weir recrossed the creek and slowly retraced his course. Then with an exclamation of satisfaction he picked up the track where it turned up the canyon trail. But why was the man going to the Johnson ranch? Mystified by this baffling procedure on Sorenson's part, he nevertheless headed up the stream with no lessening of his purpose to overtake the other.

At the ranch house, whose kitchen window was lighted, he stopped and leaped out. Johnson and Mary both answered his thumping knock.

”Is Janet Hosmer here?” he questioned, while his eyes darted about the kitchen. Then he made his own reply, ”I see she's not. Ed Sorenson kidnapped her to-night and drove to this canyon. Did you hear a car?”

Mary faced her father.