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 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.