nwhile Janet Hosmer was driving slowly down the canyon, oblivious
that opportunity to unlock the whole mystery had been hers, never
dreaming that she had just missed by the slenderest margin what Steele
Weir would have given the world to know.

For an instant Fate had placed the key in her hand. She knew it not;
it was withdrawn again and the door remained closed and locked while
the threads of Destiny continued to be spun.

CHAPTER XII

THE PLOT

In Vorse's saloon, where in the past so many evil ideas for the
acquisition of money or power had sprouted, the scheme had its
inception. It had been of slow growth, with innumerable suggestions
considered, tested, discarded. The intended arrest and trial of Weir
had been the first aim; but this had expanded until at last the plot
had become of really magnificent proportions, cunning yet daring,
devilish enough even to satisfy the hate and greed of its originators,
consummate in design, absolutely safe and conclusive.

It was Sorenson who conceived the notion of pulling the irrigation
project down in ruins at the moment of Weir's own fall. Judge Gordon a
few days later had pieced out the method, which was either to corrupt
the workmen to wreck dam and camp or to place them in the equivocal
position of having done so apparently though others did it in fact.
Vorse and Burkhardt devised the details. Weir should be left free
until the blow had fallen on the camp, whereupon he should be
immediately clapped into jail on the murder charge, which, coming on
top of the "riot," would paralyze all company action and work. From
such a crushing double-blow no concern could quickly recover, if
indeed the loss did not result in total cessation of construction.

Thus shedding their coats of expedient lawfulness, they reverted
under the menace of Steele Weir's presence to the men they were in an
earlier age--an age when a few white land and cattle "barons"
dominated the region, predatory, arrogant, masterful and despotic; the
age just ceasing when the elder Weir and Dent arrived; the age of
their youth forty years before, the age when railroads and telegraphs
and law were remote, and chicanery and force were the common agents,
and "guns" the final arbiters.

To them Weir was like a reincarnated spirit of that age. He guessed if
he did not know their past. He had appeared in order to challenge
their supremacy, end their rule, avenge his father's dispossession at
their hands. He