Part 29 (2/2)
”You're right,” Sorenson exclaimed with sudden energy. ”The matter described happened so long ago that she won't probably attach as much importance to it as we've imagined she would. I'll ask her to bring it to me to see--and that will be all that's necessary, once it's in my fingers.”
”And what about him?” Burkhardt asked, striking the floor with his heel.
”Just leave him there for the present. To-morrow we'll have another talk with him,” the cattleman stated. ”Better offer him a couple of thousand to go to another state; he'll grab at the chance, I fancy.
Money heals most wounds. But, Vorse, keep your cellar locked and the bartender away from it. We can start Martinez away sometime to-morrow.”
”Don't know about that. To-morrow night will be our busy night,” the ex-sheriff said.
”We might let Gordon handle him,” Vorse suggested.
”I thought perhaps you intended to keep the Judge in ignorance of this Martinez matter. He seems to be getting sort of feeble.”
”He's not too feeble to take his share of the unpleasant jobs along with the rest of us,” Vorse answered, unfeelingly. ”I shall have him in here first thing in the morning and tell him what's happened and what we've done and what he has to do.”
”Sure,” said Burkhardt.
”Well, that's agreeable to me,” Sorenson stated, looking at his watch and rising: ”Time we were turning in, if there's nothing more.”
At the dam camp Meyers, the a.s.sistant chief engineer, and Atkinson, the superintendent, were still awake, smoking and talking in the office.
”I smelt enough booze on those fellows who came stringing in here to fill the reservoir,” the latter was saying. ”Some one's feeding it to them.”
”n.o.body drunk, though.”
”No. But who's giving it to them and why? I asked one fellow and he said he'd been to a birthday party, and wouldn't tell where. They were all feeling pretty lush, even if they weren't soused. And to-morrow's Sunday!”
”They'll all be idle, you mean?”
”Sure. If there's more liquor, they'll be after it. All day to drink in means a big celebration. The whiskey is sent up from town, of course, and I reckon sent just at this time to get us all in bad while Mr. Pollock's here.”
”We'll look up the bootlegging nest to-morrow,” Meyers said, with finality.
”What can we do if we do locate it? They're not selling the stuff, I judge, but giving it away. That clears their skirts and forces us to deal with the men themselves if there's any dealing done. Probably they hope to start a big row among us that way.”
”We'll await Weir's advice.”
”Well, I've waited all I'm going to to-night. Seems to me for a steady, quiet, self-respecting, dignified, unhooked, unmarried, unmortgaged, unromantic man he's skylarking and gallivanting around pretty late.”
On the rocky creek road the ranchman and his daughter Mary were driving up among the trees on their way to the cabin, a lantern swinging from the end of the wagon tongue, the horses straining against the grade. On Johnson's beard the moisture formed beads which from time to time he brushed away. From the trees collected drops of water fell on their hands and knees. All about as they proceeded the bushes and rocks appeared in shadowy outline, to disappear in the night once more, yielding to others.
”Isn't this cabin where we're going the one we drove to three years ago when you were hunting some cattle?” Mary asked.
”Yes.”
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