Part 28 (1/2)

And he stepped from the machine.

Without demur the girl placed her hand in the one he offered and descended stiffly. Mary ran back into the house to attend to the coffee-pot and the visitors presently were seated at the kitchen table at places already laid, with cups of steaming strong coffee and plates of food before them.

Janet contented herself with the hot, reviving drink, but Weir ate heartily as well. Coming and going, forty miles of driving a rough mountain road had given him a laborer's appet.i.te.

”It's late, one o'clock,” Mary said to Janet. ”Why don't you stay with us the rest of the night? I wish you would.”

Janet put up an arm and drew down the face of the girl at her side and kissed her.

”You're a good friend, Mary, to be so thoughtful,” she answered. ”But father will be terribly anxious every minute I'm away. I must reach home as quickly as possible to ease his mind.”

Of Sorenson nothing had been spoken, though a repressed curiosity on the part of the ranchman and his daughter had been evident from the instant of Weir's and Janet's return.

At this point Johnson jerked his head in the direction of the creek.

”What did you do to him, Weir?” he growled.

”Not as much as I intended at first. But he made up for it himself.

Ran his car against that granite ledge before the cabin while trying to get away, and smashed himself up badly. I carried him into the hut and left him there; he was alive when we drove off, but he may be dead by now. Bad eggs like him are hard to kill, however. I'll start a doctor up there when I arrive in San Mateo; probably one from Bowenville.”

”Father won't attend him now, so long as there's another physician who can, I know,” Janet stated.

”I should say not!” Johnson a.s.severated. ”If that young hound Sorenson had his deserts, we'd just leave him there and forget all about him.”

”That's where our civilized notions handicap us,” Steele Weir said, with a slight smile. ”But at that, if he were the only person concerned, I'd do no more than inform a doctor where he was and what had happened to him, and wash my hands of the affair. There are other things, though, to consider. Janet's position, primarily. Her case is similar to that of Mary's awhile ago, and we must prevent talk.”

”Yes, of course.”

”The worst of the doings of a scoundrel like him that involve innocent people is the talk. There are always some people low enough to ascribe evil to the girl as well as the man in such a circ.u.mstance as this. I propose to see that Janet doesn't suffer that. We avoided it in Mary's case and we'll do so in this, though the situation is more difficult.

I've been thinking the matter over on the way down and have a plan that will work out, I believe, but it requires your help, Johnson.”

”I reckon you know you'll not have to ask me twice for anything,” the rancher remarked.

”And we may have to shuffle the facts a bit.”

”All right. I'll do all the lying necessary and never bat an eye.”

”It won't require much decorating, the story. But you will have to go up and get him, starting at once.” Then he concluded, ”I hate to have to ask you to make that drive late at night and in the darkness.”

”Never mind that. Glad to do it, if that's what you want.”

”Take your wagon and fill the box with hay and bring him down. By coming back slowly he won't be jarred, and he has to be brought out anyway. If he's dead, well, bring his body just the same. A doctor should be easily at your house by the time you arrive; and your story is that a sheepherder found him lying by his wrecked car, carried him into the cabin and then came down and told you of the accident, on which you went and brought him in, not knowing, of course, in the dark who he was or what he was doing up there or how the smash-up had occurred. You might suggest that he was camping there by himself to fish, and stop at that.”

Johnson nodded.

”I'll say just enough and no more,” he remarked.

”If you start at once, you'll be there by daylight if not before. That will get you back here by nine or ten o'clock. I don't want him taken to San Mateo; that would stir up a swarm of inquiries and might even send some of the curious up to the spot. Let the trail get cold, so to speak. People aren't half as curious about a thing three or four days after it happens as at the moment.”

”I've noticed that myself.”