“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. When he had allowed himself to be nominated for sheriff, though Sorenson might imagine Madden to be at his orders, the latter had accepted the office with certain well-defined ideas of his duty.
“What do you want of me?” he asked Lucerio, for whom he had little liking.
“I desire to tell you, Madden, that at eight o’clock I’ll have a warrant for you to serve on the engineer Weir. You’ll go to the dam and arrest him and bring him in to the jail.”
“Well, apparently the whole country except me knew this was to happen. The town’s filling up as if it were going to be a bull-fight.”