e done with him, something was to happen to
him. He had been arrested, or was to be arrested; he had confessed, or
was about to confess the murder; he was going to kill other Mexicans,
or had killed other Mexicans; he was about to raid San Mateo with his
workmen and slay the town; he was to be hanged;--and so on eternally.
Uncertain as was everything else, what was sure apparently was that
something would happen at San Mateo that night.

Families visiting about in wagons spread the news. Horsemen were at
pains to ride to outlying Mexican ranch houses, for what messenger is
so welcome as he who brings tales of great doings? He might be sure of
an audience at once. So it was that the plan craftily put in operation
by Weir's enemies, to gather and inflame the people, under cover of
whose pressure and excitement when the engineer was arrested he might
be slain by a pretended rescue or popular demonstration, whichever
should serve best, produced the expected result. During the afternoon
wagons and horsemen and men on foot began to appear in town, to join
already aroused relatives or friends at their adobe houses or to loaf
along the main street in groups.

Outwardly there were few signs in the aspect of the Mexican folk of
something extraordinary developing. But to the sheriff, Madden,
aroused from an afternoon nap at his home by a telephoned message from
the county attorney requesting him to come to the court house, the
unwonted number in the town was in itself a significant fact.

"I didn't know this was a fiesta, Alvarez. What's up with you people?"
he asked of one he met on the street.

"The fiesta is to be to-night, eh?" the man laughed. "Have you this
engineer locked up yet?"

"What engineer?"

"The killer, the gun-man, that Weir. It is said he is already arrested
and is to be hanged from the big cottonwood at dark beside the jail.
It is also said he is still loose and bringing five hundred workmen to
burn the town, rob the bank, kill the men and steal the girls."

"If he is to do either, it's news to me," Madden said, and proceeded
to the office of Lucerio, the county attorney.

Madden was a blunt man, who for policy's sake might close his eyes to
unimportant political influence as exercised by the Sorenson crowd.
But he was no mere compliant tool. This was his first term in office.
He had never yet crossed swords with the cattleman and the others
associated with him, because the occasion had never arisen. Wh