CHAPTER XXXIII
UNDER THE MOON
Lights still were burning at headquarters when Steele Weir slowly drove his runabout up the hillside slope to the dam camp. The men who had acted as guards about the jail, except those who went with Madden, were somewhere on the road behind him, returning home in the wagons. A reaction of mind and body had set in for Weir; after the previous night’s loss of sleep and prolonged exertions, after the swift succession of dramatic events, after the tremendous call that had been made upon his brain power, nervous force and will, he experienced a strange unrest of spirit. His triumph seemed yet incomplete, somehow unsatisfying.
It was as he approached the camp that he saw a slender girlish figure sitting on a rock in the moonlight. He swung his car off the road beside the spot where Janet Hosmer sat.
“What, you are still awake?” he asked, with a smile.
“Could I sleep while not knowing what was happening or what danger you might be in?” she returned. “Mr. Pollock said we must not think of returning home until quiet was restored in San Mateo. One of the engineer’s houses was given to us by Mr. Meyers before he left, where Mary and I could sleep. But I could not close my eyes. So much had happened, so much was yet going on! So I came out here to be alone and to think and watch.”
“And your father?”