II

AN OLD ADOBE HOUSE

Revenge Weir had. But even in death Judge Gordon, true to his evasive,
contriving character, had tricked him; and the irony lay in the fact
that in this last act the trick was unpremeditated, unconscious,
unintentional. Instead of the signed confession, necessary above
everything else, which seemed almost in his fingers, the man had left
a little poison vial.

Night had settled over the earth when the three men, after directing
the Mexican servants to bring the undertaker, went out of the house,
for considerable time had been occupied in the discussion and the
preparation of papers preceding Judge Gordon's tragic end. With him
Mr. Pollock carried the documents pertaining to the property
restitution. These, considered in connection with the suicide, would
constitute something like a confession, he grimly asserted.

Avoiding the main street of San Mateo they drove out of the town for
camp. The first part of the ride was pursued in silence, for each was
busy with his own thoughts in consequence of the sudden shocking
termination of the meeting. When about half way to camp, however,
their attention was taken from the subject by a sight wholly
unexpected, a scene of high colors and of a spirit that mocked at what
had just happened.

Some way off from the road, at one side, two bonfires burned brightly
before an adobe house, the flames leaping upward in the darkness and
lighting the long low-roofed dwelling and the innumerable figures of
persons. At the distance the place was from the highway, perhaps two
hundred yards, one could make out only the shadowy forms of men--of a
considerable number of men, at that.

"I never saw any one at that old tumble-down house before, Martinez,"
Weir remarked, lessening the speed of the car. "Always supposed it
empty."

"No one does live there. The ground belongs to Vorse, who leases it
for farming to Oterez. Perhaps Oterez is giving a party there. They
are dancing."

Weir brought the machine to a full stop, with suspicion rapidly
growing in his mind. The place was owned by Vorse, for one thing, and
the number about the house was too large for an ordinary Mexican
family merry-making, for another. In view of what had occurred the
previous night all "parties" in the neighborhood of the dam deserved
inquiry, and this house was but a mile from camp.

They could now hear the sound of music, the shrill quick scrap of a
pair of fiddles and the notes of guitars