Part 37 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.x

They were waiting in the sheriff's office in the court house in Bartolo. They were waiting for Mr. Menocal. Wins.h.i.+p had sent a messenger for him. At one place in the room, handcuffed and tied, sat the evil-eyed Alvarez; at another sat Charlie Menocal, silent and apprehensive and with a sickly pallor showing under his dusky skin; and between them lounged Morgan. The sheriff and Bryant stood across the room conversing of the storm.

”I thought your goose was cooked when that blizzard hit us,” Wins.h.i.+p was saying.

”Froze, you mean,” was Lee's smiling reply. ”I thought so myself for a while. We've hammered along, however. To-night the last dirt goes out.”

”That was an idea now--powder.”

”It was Carrigan's, not mine. It saved us. The old man has forgotten more than I ever knew. Here's the banker now.”

The door swung open, admitting Menocal, blinking from the snow's sheen. He bade the sheriff and the engineer good day, glanced sharply at them and then at the others. When his look encountered his son, his eyebrows went up.

”So you're home finally,” he addressed him. ”After two weeks' time!”

His regard moved about from one to another of the trio. ”What does this mean, Charlie? Who is that fellow wearing handcuffs?” He paused, staring steadily at his son. ”What have you been doing to bring you into Wins.h.i.+p's office?” As Charlie continued to sit silent, he turned to the sheriff.

”I'll explain, Mr. Menocal, but what I have to say won't be pleasant hearing for you,” Lee stated, at a nod from Wins.h.i.+p. ”Take this chair, if you please.”

The banker sat down, heavily. He sighed, while his fat cheeks shook with a slight tremble.

”What has he done?” he asked, with his eyes fixed on an ink-well on the sheriff's desk.

Briefly and without temper Bryant related the circ.u.mstance of seeing Alvarez in Kennard one day during the previous summer, when the man appeared to be watching him. Charlie was also in town on that day.

Alvarez was the man who had attempted to make the workmen drunk in camp on Christmas Eve, but he had escaped on that occasion. He had stolen into camp again on the afternoon preceding the blizzard and two hours after sundown had been captured seeking to fire the commissary tent. When made a prisoner, he had been searched. On his person were found several checks for sums ranging from fifty to one hundred dollars. Bryant drew the leather sack from his pocket, extracted the checks, and handed them to the banker.

”You see they are given by your son,” said he. ”I've questioned this Alvarez and he has finally admitted that he was employed by Charlie and instructed by him what to do. Your son, therefore, is the instigator of the attempted crime, and Alvarez, an ignorant and brutal outlaw from Mexico, was merely his tool. I pa.s.s over the matter of the whisky and the petty inconveniences earlier caused me and my men. But here is an act of a different character, Mr. Menocal. The man's endeavour to fire our camp, had it been successful, would perhaps have resulted in the death of scores of men, as the storm broke shortly after and they would have been without shelter.”

Charlie Menocal sprang to his feet.

”Before G.o.d, I didn't know he would choose that night!” he cried, pa.s.sionately. ”I meant only to stop their work!”

His father shook his head sadly.

”That makes no difference, my son; you planned a wicked deed,” he said, in a barely audible voice.

Morgan pushed the young man back upon his chair and Bryant went on. As he proceeded, he had found it harder and harder to address the parent; and his task was no easier now. The eyes of the father had gone to the slender, sagging figure of his son and seemed to be the eyes of an expiring man; his plump cheeks were working under an excess of emotion; then his head went down suddenly as under the blow of a club.

”Because of the character of the act,” Lee said, ”it wasn't only a stroke at me but at every animal and man in the entire south camp. I want to make this clear in order to show how black and dastardly the thing was. Whether Charlie understood or intended the destruction of all the lives and property there is no excuse; it was a deed that would have carried terrible results in its train. I don't even let my mind conceive them. All this has followed, Mr. Menocal, from the single fact that your son disliked me in the beginning. To that may be added an idea that I was depriving you of something to which I had no right, namely, the t.i.tle to the Perro Creek ca.n.a.l appropriation.

And there, I think, responsibility for his course touches you.”

He paused to gaze at the Mexican, whose face had become drained of colour.

”Mr. Menocal, the water is mine,” he continued, ”and to-night some time it will be mine beyond all dispute, for then the ditch will be finished. So much for that. Some days ago we had a talk that, I believe, led us each to a better opinion of the other. I think that as a leader here in Bartolo and around about you're a force for good; you believe in law, order, and education; and I know, from what I've learned, that you carry many of the people on store accounts for long periods when crops are bad or when they are distressed by sickness.

I'm confident you're endeavouring to elevate them so far as possible; and I admit frankly that I've modified very greatly my first estimation of you. That weighs in the scale against Charlie's actions.

”Then there's one kindness Charlie himself has done me, though he may not be aware of the fact. I'll not say what it is; let it suffice that it is the case. A very great kindness it was, indeed! I count that likewise in the opposite scale. And then there are other things to consider, one among them that after all no harm has come to me. The enmity he's held for me has simply recoiled upon his own head. All he has to show for it after months of hating and contriving is his position here in this room to-day--and a dead dog. Surely it must make plain to him that his course has been not only futile but foolish.”