Shortly after, the two other directors left to catch a train at Bowenville, Pollock planning to stay with Weir to formulate a report during the next day or two for presentation to the entire directorate at its next meeting. Sorenson caught a glimpse of the car whirling through town, with Weir at the wheel, who with Pollock accompanied the departing men that certain unsettled points might be discussed up to the last moment. As Weir and Pollock were returning, the latter eyed the engineer and laughed. "You've evidently brushed these fellows', Sorenson's and Gordon's, fur the wrong way to please them. But they'll probably leave us alone from now on." "They'll not leave me alone." "Eh? How's that?" "Well, I have, as it happens, a little trouble with them on my own hook. A private matter antedating the building of the dam. They're after me. I had to put a piece of lead into a fellow who tried to kill me from the dark one night. I speak of it in case you should be told and wonder; otherwise I should not have mentioned the thing. I'm not popular in San Mateo, in consequence." "Ah, I had heard nothing of that. It interests me. You were not touched." "My hat, that was all." "Very interesting, very interesting, indeed," was Pollock's only comment. But if his tone was casual, his eyes were busy in sidelong study of the engineer, making a new appraisal and drawing fresh conclusions. Meanwhile several knots were being tied in the web of circumstance. Sorenson took his telephone and conversed briefly with Vorse, passing the information that he had just seen the three directors leaving for the east. So they were out of the way. In reply the saloon-keeper stated that he would start the whisky end of the game that evening. By the morrow, Sunday, when the camp was at rest, the workmen would all be "celebrating." Burkhardt had reported the last load of "southern cattle" shipped in and driven on the range the previous evening--a seemingly innocent statement that Sorenson understood perfectly. Up in the hills, safely hidden in the timber, lay the fifty men brought from Mexico to make the assault on the dam the next night, men whose instruments of destruction would be fire and dynamite. Twenty-four hours more would bring the moment of action. Ignorant of all this Ed Sorenson had been forming a little individual scheme that would promote his own affairs, chief of which was to win Janet Hosmer. Drinking heavily ever since his rebuff, he had sunk into a condition of evil determination and recklessness that made him fit for any desperate act. After much meditation fed by whisky, he had evolved a plan that would bring him success. Thereupon he had loaded his car with a quantity of selected stuff and made a mysterious journey at night. "She'll learn I meant business," was his frequent soliloquy.