“He’s attending the wounded Mexicans in the store.”
Steel alighted and tossing his hat upon the car seat gazed out over the mesa, misty in the moonlight.
“There will be no more trouble,” said he. “Sorenson and Burkhardt are Madden’s prisoners, and on their way to a place of safe-keeping in another county. Vorse is dead. The people in town have a fairly good understanding of matters now, I think.”
“How in the world did such a change of opinion occur?” Janet exclaimed.
“I had a little talk with the crowd and made explanations. The feeling for me was almost friendly when I left; what enmity remains will soon die out, I’m sure.”
Though unaware from Steele Weir’s laconic statement of what had actually occurred, the girl divined that his words concealed vastly more than their surface purport. With the general hostility against the engineer that had existed, for him to swing the community to his side meant a dramatic moment and a remarkable moral conquest.
“Your friends have always known you would win,” she said, smiling up at him.
He seated himself on the rock beside her.
“It’s but a short time ago, Janet, that I had no friends, or so few they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Business acquaintances, yes. Professional companions, yes. Men who perhaps respected my ability as an engineer, yes. But real friends, scarcely one. And now I think I have gained some, which is the greatest satisfaction I have from all that has happened. After years the pendulum has swung to my side. Do you know the hour my luck changed?”
Janet shook her head wonderingly.