"Sure," said Bromley, quietly; and then, with the big Irish contractor"s shadow fairly darkening the door: "You"ll do the same for me, Breckenridge, won"t you? Because--oh, confound it all!--I"m in the same boat with you; without a ghost of a show, you understand."
Ballard put his back squarely to Michael Fitzpatrick sc.r.a.ping his feet on the puncheon-floored porch of the bungalow, and gripped Bromley"s hand across the table.
"It"s a bargain," he declared warmly. "We"ll take the long chance and stand by her together, old man. And if she chooses the better part in the end, I"ll try not to act like a jealous fool. Now you turn in and lie down a while. I"ve got to go with Michael."
This time it was Bromley who saved the situation. "What a pair of luminous donkeys we are!" he laughed. "She calls you "dear friend," and me "little brother." If we"re right good and tractable, we may get cards to her wedding--with Wingfield."
XIX
IN THE LABORATORY
Ballard had a small shock while he was crossing the stone yard with Fitzpatrick. It turned upon the sight of the handsome figure of the Craigmiles ranch foreman calmly rolling a cigarette in the shade of one of the cutting sheds.
"What is the Mexican doing here?" he demanded abruptly of Fitzpatrick; and the Irishman"s manner was far from rea.s.suring.
""Tis you he"ll be wanting to see, I"m thinking. He"s been hanging "round the office f"r the betther part of an hour. Shall I run him off the riservation?"
"Around the office, you say?" Ballard cut himself instantly out of the contractor"s company and crossed briskly to the shed where the Mexican was lounging. "You are waiting to see me?" he asked shortly, ignoring the foreman"s courtly bow and sombrero-sweep.
"I wait to h-ask for the "ealth of Senor Bromley. It is report" to me that he is recover from hees sobad h-accident."
"Mr. Bromley is getting along all right. Is that all?"
The Mexican bowed again.
"I bring-a da message from the Senorita to da Senor Wingfiel". He is som"where on da camp?"
"No; he has gone back to the upper valley. You have been waiting some time? You must have seen him go."
For the third time the Mexican removed his hat. "I"ll have been here one, two, t"ree little minute, Senor Ballar"," he lied smoothly. "And now I make to myself the honour of saying to you, _Adios_."
Ballard let him go because there was nothing else to do. His presence in the construction camp, and the ready lie about the length of his stay, were both sufficiently ominous. What if he had overheard the talk in the office? It was easily possible that he had. The windows were open, and the adobe was only a few steps withdrawn from the busy cutting yard. The eavesdropper might have sat unremarked upon the office porch, if he had cared to.
The Kentuckian was deep in the labyrinth of reflection when he rejoined Fitzpatrick; and the laying-out of the new side-track afterward was purely mechanical. When the work was done, Ballard returned to the bungalow, to find Bromley sleeping the sleep of pure exhaustion on the blanket-covered couch. Obeying a sudden impulse, the Kentuckian took a field-gla.s.s from its case on the wall, and went out, tip-toeing to avoid waking Bromley. If Manuel had overheard, it was comparatively easy to prefigure his next step.
"Which way did the Mexican go?" Ballard asked of a cutter in the stone-yard.
"The last I saw of him he was loungin" off towards the Elbow. That was just after you was talkin" to him," said the man, lifting his cap to scratch his head with one finger.
"Did he come here horseback?"
"Not up here on the mesa. Might "a" left his nag down below; but he wa"n"t headin" that way when I saw him."
Ballard turned away and climbed the hill in the rear of the bungalow; the hill from which the table-smashing rock had been hurled. From its crest there was a comprehensive view of the upper valley, with the river winding through it, with Castle "Cadia crowning the island-like knoll in its centre, with the densely forested background range billowing green and grey in the afternoon sunlight.
Throwing himself flat on the brown hilltop, Ballard trained his gla.s.s first on the inner valley reaches of a bridle-path leading over the southern hogback. There was no living thing in sight in that field, though sufficient time had elapsed to enable the Mexican to ride across the bridge and over the hills, if he had left the camp mounted.
The engineer frowned and slipped easily into the out-of-door man"s habit of thinking aloud.
"It was a bare chance, of course. If he had news to carry to his master, he would save time by walking one mile as against riding four. h.e.l.lo!"
The exclamation emphasised a small discovery. From the hilltop the entrance to the colonel"s mysterious mine was in plain view, and for the first time in Ballard"s observings of it the ma.s.sive, iron-bound door was open. Bringing the gla.s.s to bear on the tunnel-mouth square of shadow, Ballard made out the figures of two men standing just within the entrance and far enough withdrawn to be hidden from prying eyes on the camp plateau. With the help of the gla.s.s, the young engineer could distinguish the shape of a huge white sombrero, and under the sombrero the red spark of a cigarette. Wherefore he rolled quickly to a less exposed position and awaited developments.
The suspense was short. In a few minutes the Mexican foreman emerged from the gloom of the mine-mouth, and with a single swift backward glance for the industries at the canyon portal, walked rapidly up the path toward the inner valley. Ballard sat up and trained the field-gla.s.s again. Why had Manuel gone out of his way to stop at the mine? The answer, or at least one possible answer, was under the foreman"s arm, taking the shape of a short-barrelled rifle of the type carried by express messengers on Western railways.
Ballard screwed the gla.s.s into its smallest compa.s.s, dropped it into his pocket, and made his way down to the camp mesa. The gun meant nothing more than that the Mexican had not deemed it advisable to appear in the construction camp armed. But, on the other hand, Ballard was fully convinced that he was on his way to Colonel Craigmiles as the bearer of news.
It was an hour later when Otto, the colonel"s chauffeur, kicked out the clutch of the buzzing runabout before the door of the office bungalow and announced that he had come to take the convalescent back to Castle "Cadia. Bromley was still asleep; hence there had been no opportunity for a joint discussion of the latest development in the little war. But when Ballard was helping him into the mechanician"s seat, and Otto had gone for a bucket of water to cool the hissing radiator, there was time for a hurried word or two.
"More trouble, Loudon--it turned up while you were asleep. Manuel was here, in the camp, while we were hammering it out with Wingfield. It is measurably certain that he overheard all or part of the talk. What he knows, the colonel doubtless knows, too, by this time, and----"
"Oh, good Lord!" groaned Bromley. "It was bad enough as it stood, but this drags Wingfield into it, neck and heels! What will they do to him?"
Ballard knitted his brows. "As Manuel could very easily make it appear in his tale-bearing, anything that might happen to Wingfield would be a pretty clear case of self-defence for Colonel Craigmiles. Wingfield knows too much."
"A great deal too much. If I dared say ten words to Elsa----"
"No," Ballard objected; "she is the one person to be shielded and spared. It"s up to us to get Wingfield away from Castle "Cadia and out of the country--before anything does happen to him."
"If I were only half a man again!" Bromley lamented. "But I know just how it will be; I sha"n"t have a shadow of chance at Wingfield this evening. As soon as I show up, Miss Cauffrey and the others will scold me for overstaying my leave, and chase me off to bed."
"That"s so; and it"s right," mused Ballard. "You"ve no business to be out of bed this minute; you"re not fit to be facing a ten-mile drive in this jig-wagon. By Jove: that"s our way out of it! You climb down and let me go in your place. I"ll tell them we let you overdo yourself; that you were too tired to stand the motor trip--which is the fact, if you"d only admit it. That will give me a chance at Wingfield; the chance you wouldn"t have if you were to go. What do you say?"
"I"ve already said it," was the convalescent"s reply; and he let Ballard help him out of the mechanic"s seat and into the bungalow.
This is how it chanced that the chauffeur, coming back from Garou"s kitchen barrel with the second bucket of water, found his fares changed and the chief engineer waiting to be his pa.s.senger over the ten miles of roundabout road. It was all one to the Berliner. He listened to Ballard"s brief explanation with true German impa.s.siveness, cranked the motor, pulled himself in behind the pilot-wheel, and sent the little car bounding down the mesa hill to the Boiling Water bridge what time the hoister whistles were blowing the six-o"clock quitting signal. The Kentuckian looked at his watch mechanically, as one will at some familiar reminder of the time. Seven o"clock was the Castle "Cadia dinner hour: thirty minutes should suffice for the covering of the ten miles of country road, and with the fates propitious there would be an empty half-hour for the cajoling or compelling of Wingfield, imperilled in his character of overcurious delver into other people"s affairs.
So ran the reasonable prefiguring; but plans and prefigurings based upon the performance of a gasolene motor call for a generous factor of safety. Five miles from a tool-box in either direction, the engines of the runabout set up an ominous knocking. A stop was made, and Ballard filled and lighted his pipe while the chauffeur opened the bonnet and tapped and pried and screwed and adjusted. Ten minutes were lost in the testing and trying, and then the German named the trouble, with an emphatic "_Himmel!_" for a foreword. A broken bolt-head had dropped into the crank-case, and it would be necessary to take the engines to pieces to get it out. Ballard consulted his watch again. It lacked only a quarter of an hour of the Castle "Cadia dinner-time; and a five-mile tramp over the hills would consume at least an hour. Whatever danger might be threatening the playwright (and the farther Ballard got away from the revelations of the early afternoon, the more the entire fabric of accusation threatened to crumble into the stuff nightmares are made of), a delay of an hour or two could hardly bring it to a crisis. Hence, when Otto lighted the lamps and got out his wrenches, his pa.s.senger stayed with him and became a very efficient mechanic"s helper.
This, as we have seen, was at a quarter before seven. At a quarter before nine the broken bolt was replaced, the last nut was screwed home, and the engines of the runabout were once more in commission.
"A handy bit of road repairing, Otto," was Ballard"s comment. "And we did it five miles from a lemon. How long will it take us to get in?"
The Berliner did not know. With no further bad luck, fifteen or twenty minutes should be enough. And in fifteen minutes or less the little car was racing up the maple-shaded avenue to the Castle "Cadia carriage entrance.
Ballard felt trouble in the air before he descended from the car. The great portico was deserted, the piano was silent, and the lights were on in the upper rooms of the house. At the mounting of the steps, the Forestry man met him and drew him aside into the library, which was as empty as the portico.
"I heard the car and thought it would be Mr. Bromley," Bigelow explained; adding: "I"m glad he didn"t come. There has been an accident."
"To--to Wingfield?"
"Yes. How did you know? It was just after dinner. The colonel had some experimental mixture cooking in his electric furnace, and he invited us all down to the laboratory to see the result. Wingfield tangled himself in the wires in some unaccountable way and got a terrible shock. For a few minutes we all thought he was killed, but the colonel would not give up, and now he is slowly recovering."
Ballard sat down in the nearest chair and held his head in his hands.