And while these strands were being knit into the skein Martinez was producing another. Quietly, carefully, persuasively, he had been pursuing his own particular course of eliciting history for use in his "Chronicle," as he named it,--and for another use concerning which he was as still as death. That he was successful in obtaining what he had been after was made known to Weir about dusk that evening while he was talking with Pollock in his office. But that he had not been so lucky in covering his tracks was likewise apparent. The telephone rang. Steele took down the receiver. "See Janet Hosmer at once," Felipe Martinez' terrified voice came over the wire. "She'll have it, the paper--the one you want. They've learned I got it; they're after me now. Hammering on the door. If you don't hurry----" His words ceased abruptly in an anguished quaver. At the same time Weir heard carried to him the sound of a crash as of a door smashed. Excusing himself hurriedly, Steele Weir seized his holster from a nail and buckled on the belt. Then snatching his hat, he ran outside the building to his car. "Now, who is he gunning for?" Pollock asked himself aloud, "I rather wish he had invited me along." But neither he nor Weir himself, nor any soul in San Mateo, knew that at last the furious torrent of events had burst upon the community. Weir sensed something. But Sorenson brooding on the morrow thought the moment had not yet come. His son was occupied with his own treacherous scheme. Even Vorse and Burkhardt smashing their way into Martinez' office saw nothing beyond the immediate necessity. Yet the flood was bearing down on all. CHAPTER XIV OLD SAUREZ' DEPOSITION In order to understand why Vorse and Burkhardt were attacking Martinez' office it is necessary to trace the lawyer's movements and the incidents which precipitated that act. Martinez had, as stated, not been idle. Following the clue obtained from the woman who had worked in the elder Weir's household, he visited the old Mexican named as having been used as roustabout by Vorse in early days. This was old Saurez, whom he knew. The wrinkled old fellow seldom came to town now, spending most of the time sitting against the sunny side of his son's house on Pina Creek, twenty miles south, where he lived. Martinez in the ten days that had elapsed since informing Weir he had learned of Saurez' possible knowledge of the past had proceeded to make himself agreeable to the gray-headed old man. He had explained his "history." He exercised all the arts of graciousness and flattery. Beginning at the present he worked back through the past to the killing of Jim Dent and the flight of Joseph Weir, extracting tales of early fights, raids, accidents, big storms, violent deaths and killings, making elaborate notes, winning the narrator's confidence and gradually drawing forth the facts he really sought.