Revenge Weir had. But even in death Judge Gordon, true to his evasive, contriving character, had tricked him; and the irony lay in the fact that in this last act the trick was unpremeditated, unconscious, unintentional. Instead of the signed confession, necessary above everything else, which seemed almost in his fingers, the man had left a little poison vial.

Night had settled over the earth when the three men, after directing the Mexican servants to bring the undertaker, went out of the house, for considerable time had been occupied in the discussion and the preparation of papers preceding Judge Gordon’s tragic end. With him Mr. Pollock carried the documents pertaining to the property restitution. These, considered in connection with the suicide, would constitute something like a confession, he grimly asserted.

Avoiding the main street of San Mateo they drove out of the town for camp. The first part of the ride was pursued in silence, for each was busy with his own thoughts in consequence of the sudden shocking termination of the meeting. When about half way to camp, however, their attention was taken from the subject by a sight wholly unexpected, a scene of high colors and of a spirit that mocked at what had just happened.

Some way off from the road, at one side, two bonfires burned brightly before an adobe house, the flames leaping 220 upward in the darkness and lighting the long low-roofed dwelling and the innumerable figures of persons. At the distance the place was from the highway, perhaps two hundred yards, one could make out only the shadowy forms of men––of a considerable number of men, at that.

“I never saw any one at that old tumble-down house before, Martinez,” Weir remarked, lessening the speed of the car. “Always supposed it empty.”

“No one does live there. The ground belongs to Vorse, who leases it for farming to Oterez. Perhaps Oterez is giving a party there. They are dancing.”

Weir brought the machine to a full stop, with suspicion rapidly growing in his mind. The place was owned by Vorse, for one thing, and the number about the house was too large for an ordinary Mexican family merry-making, for another. In view of what had occurred the previous night all “parties” in the neighborhood of the dam deserved inquiry, and this house was but a mile from camp.

They could now hear the sound of music, the shrill quick scrap of a pair of fiddles and the notes of guitars. Against the fire-light too they could distinguish the whirl of skirts.

“Just run over there, will you, Martinez, and have a look at that dance?” Weir said. “See how much whiskey is there, and who the people are.”

The Mexican jumped down, climbed through the barb-wire fence bordering the field and disappeared towards the house.

“I told you about some one giving the men booze last night,” the engineer addressed his remaining companion. “We found the place off south along the hills where that business happened, and stationed a man there to warn us if another attempt was made to use the spot. But I 221 shouldn’t be surprised if this is the location used for to-night; it has all the signs. We suspected that this evening would be the real blow-out and if the men are going there I shall send down the foremen and engineers to break it up. Vorse’s owning this house and his being the source of the liquor is almost proof. I met Atkinson returning to the dam when you sent him back from town and he’ll know something is up if the workmen have been melting away from camp. This is simply another damnably treacherous move of the gang against us to interfere with our work, starting a big drunk and perhaps a row. We’ll stop it right at the beginning.”

“Are the officials of this county so completely under Sorenson and his crowd’s thumbs that they won’t move in a case like this?” Pollock questioned.

“Yes.”

“Then we must act on our own initiative, as you say.”

“That’s our only recourse. Giving whiskey isn’t actually an illegal act––and they’re giving it away, not trying to sell it here without a government licence.”

“The thing’s illegal if it’s part of a conspiracy to disrupt our work, and if we can secure proof that such is the fact it will but add one more item to the score to be settled with these San Mateo outlaws.”

“There are more men going there. See them?” Weir asked. “You hear them on the road ahead of us. They’re ducking through the fence and crossing to the house. Our workmen. The thing’s plain now; they had word there would be another ‘party’ to-night, but they didn’t know just where until they received word this evening. I suppose the whole camp except a few men will be here.”

“Won’t they turn ugly if you interfere?”

“Can’t help that. I’ll send men down with axes and 222 when the booze is poured on the ground it makes no difference then; the men will be kept sober. If they are stubborn, I’ll run a new bunch in and fire these fellows. But I don’t imagine they will quit work, however surly, for they know whiskey’s no excuse. Men usually cool down after a night’s sleep.”

From where they sat and since Weir had turned out his car lamps, they could see the steady string of men emerging from the darkness of the field and approaching the house, to quickly dissolve in the gathering already there. In their lively steps, as well as in the eager voices occasionally raised along the dark road, the men’s desire to join in the debauch was apparent.

With the swelling of the crowd the scraping of the fiddles became louder, the dancing more furious, shouts and yells more frequent, while a dense line of men passing and jamming in and out of the door pointed only too plainly that inside the house liquor flowed. This would be no matter of a few drinks per man, but a big drunk if not stopped.

Martinez confirmed this opinion on his return.

“There are two barrels inside and a couple of fellows are dipping it up in tin cups like water,” said he. “They’re not even troubling to draw the stuff; the barrels have been placed on end and the heads knocked out. It will be the biggest spree San Mateo ever saw, with plenty of fighting after awhile. Women, you know, always start fights during a spree.”

“Those surely are not women from town,” Weir exclaimed.

“Oh, no. I never saw them before. Brought in here from somewhere––Santa FÉ perhaps, El Paso more likely. You know the kind who would mix with that crowd––tough girls. They’re wearing low necks and 223 short skirts, red stockings and all that. You know the kind. Out of joints and dives somewhere. There’s only a dozen, but they keep circulating and dancing with different ones. I just put my head through a window to look inside, which is lighted by a big kerosene lamp hanging from the roof; and I tell you, gentlemen, it made me sick the way those two fellows were dipping up whiskey and the crowd drinking it down.”

“And more men coming all the time,” Weir stated.

“And more coming, yes. It will be very bad there by midnight. Vorse and Burkhardt and Sorenson are managing the thing, of course.” Martinez lighted a cigarette and stepped into the car. “No mistake about that, for Vorse’s bartender is one of the men at the barrels. And I imagine Judge Gordon knew this thing was coming off though he made no mention of it.”

“Since we were ignorant of the matter, he naturally wouldn’t inform us,” Pollock remarked, dryly.

“Time to put a stop to the show before it grows bad,” Weir stated resolutely. And he started the machine.

“If it can be stopped,” Martinez replied.

That was the question, whether or not now it would be possible even to reach and destroy the barrels inside the house, what with the numbers who would oppose the move and what with the state of intoxication that must rapidly prevail at the place.

For as they drove away they could already detect in the mad revel about the old adobe dwelling a faster beat in the sharp shrieking music, a wilder abandon in the movements of the figures about the flames, a more reckless, fiercer note in the cries and oaths.

“This is deviltry wholesale,” Pollock said. “On a grand scale, one might put it.”

So thought a horseman who approached and halted almost at the same spot where the car had rested. This was Madden who with a warrant for Weir’s arrest in his pocket had arrived opposite the house a moment after the automobile’s departure. He had secured the warrant at eight o’clock according to the county attorney’s request, but he had taken his own time about setting off to serve it.

For a quarter of a mile he had been interested in the evidences of unwonted hilarity at the usually untenanted structure. Now he sat in his saddle, silent and motionless, observing the distant scene. He easily guessed the men were from the construction camp and that liquor was running.

“I can almost smell it here, Dick,” he addressed his horse.

But two circumstances puzzled him. One was that there had been no news in town of such a big affair impending for the night; the second, that there were women present––for no Mexican, however ignorant, would take or allow his women folks to attend such a howling show. Coming on top of the crowd in town, he wondered if this business might not be linked up with Weir’s affairs. These were his workmen and this was Vorse’s farm-house and very likely Vorse’s liquor. After he had arrested the engineer he would look into the thing.

Fifteen minutes later, when he had gone on, other passers-by paused for a minute on the road to stare at the amazing picture across the field. These were Dr. Hosmer and Janet, Johnson and his daughter Mary: the two men being in the doctor’s car, the two girls in Janet’s runabout.

“What on earth is going on there!” Janet exclaimed, when the two machines had pulled up.

The two fires, fed by fresh fuel, were leaping higher than ever, bringing out in strong relief the long squat building, the dark, restless, noisy throng, and the space of illuminated earth. Against the night the flames and building and mob of hundreds of men seemed a crimson vision from some inferno to an accompaniment of mad music.

“The camp’s gone on a tear; drive ahead,” her father said. “This isn’t a sight for you girls to look at.”

And with that the two cars sped forward towards the dam, where on this night so much was converging. For their occupants already had had an experience that had started them at once to seek the man around whose figure were swirling a hundred passions and dark currents of destiny.