"Well, the Judge used to handle company matters, you know." The smile on Pollock's lips was inscrutable. "I used to have frequent conferences with him when I was here at the inception of our project. He is very shrewd in certain ways, but he impressed me as being not exactly--what shall I say?--'cold steel', for instance." And still wearing the thin smile, he went out. If Weir had not had so many things to make his mind grave, from a missing paper and a missing lawyer to mysterious whiskey and fierce enemies, he would have leaned back and laughed. CHAPTER XXI THE WEAK LINK Though the sun was bright that day, unseen forces were gathering in the sky above town, mesa and mountains, not of weather but of fate, to loose their lightnings. Sunday peace seemed to reign, the languid summer Sunday peace of tranquil nature. Yet even through this there was a faint breath of impending events, a quiver or excitement in the air, an increasing expectation on the part of men, who sensed but did not realize what was to come. All day whispers and hints had passed among the people in San Mateo and out to isolated farms and up nearby creeks, kindling in the ignorant, brown-skinned Mexicans a lively interest and an exorbitant curiosity. Nothing was said definitely; nothing was promised outright. So in consequence speculation ran wild and rumors wilder. The hints had to do with the manager of the dam who had shot the strange Mexican: something was to be done with him, something was to happen to him. He had been arrested, or was to be arrested; he had confessed, or was about to confess the murder; he was going to kill other Mexicans, or had killed other Mexicans; he was about to raid San Mateo with his workmen and slay the town; he was to be hanged;--and so on eternally. Uncertain as was everything else, what was sure apparently was that something would happen at San Mateo that night. Families visiting about in wagons spread the news. Horsemen were at pains to ride to outlying Mexican ranch houses, for what messenger is so welcome as he who brings tales of great doings? He might be sure of an audience at once. So it was that the plan craftily put in operation by Weir's enemies, to gather and inflame the people, under cover of whose pressure and excitement when the engineer was arrested he might be slain by a pretended rescue or popular demonstration, whichever should serve best, produced the expected result. During the afternoon wagons and horsemen and men on foot began to appear in town, to join already aroused relatives or friends at their adobe houses or to loaf along the main street in groups. Outwardly there were few signs in the aspect of the Mexican folk of something extraordinary developing. But to the sheriff, Madden, aroused from an afternoon nap at his home by a telephoned message from the county attorney requesting him to come to the court house, the unwonted number in the town was in itself a significant fact.