CHAPTER IV
A SECRET CONFERENCE
On a certain afternoon Felipe Martinez, the lean and restless attorney who had acted as the Mexican workmen’s mouthpiece, observed through the broad plate-glass window of the San Mateo Cattle Company’s office an incident that greatly interested him. For the moment he forgot the resentment kindled by Sorenson’s abrupt refusal and brutal words when he asked for the nomination for county attorney. The election was in the autumn; the nomination was equivalent to election; and Felipe considered that he had too long been kept apart from that particular spoil.
Martinez had once had a slight difference with the banker, and now outrageously Sorenson had recalled it. He had stated that Martinez should hold no political office; he gave offices only to men who did exactly as he advised; his exact words were that the Mexican was “tricky and no good.” And picking up his hat Sorenson who had that day returned home from the east went out of the bank, leaving Martinez to stare out of the window and meditatively twist a point of his silky black mustache.
It was before the window that there occurred the meeting between Sorenson and the manager of the dam. Martinez perceived the two men glance at each other and pass, but after a step or two both men halted. As if worked by a single wire, they slowly swung about for 43 a second look. The Mexican’s nimble brain calculated that they could not have previously met and in consequence their behavior bespoke something out of the ordinary.
The pair stood exactly where they had turned, three or four paces apart, he noted. The Mexican’s mind palpitated with a slight thrill of excitement. The manner of each of the men was that of a fighting animal looking over another animal of the same sort: neither uttering a word, nor stirring a finger, nor yielding a particle in his fixed unwinking gaze. Martinez could almost feel the exchanged challenge, the cold antagonism, the hostile curiosity, the matching of wills, the instant hate, between the men.
Though they had not met before, to be sure, nevertheless they were enemies. Was it because of the discharge of the workmen? Then Martinez’ mind flashed back to the scene in Vorse’s saloon when Gordon had showed such sudden emotion at the engineer’s name and his enigmatical reference to some event in the past. That was it! Something which had occurred thirty years ago, probably something crooked. Men committed deeds in those early days that they would now like to forget. He, Martinez, would look into the matter.
Sorenson passed out of sight, and Weir likewise proceeded on his way. Thereupon the lawyer sauntered over to the court house, where presently he became engrossed in a pile of tomes in the register’s office. As examining records is a part of a lawyer’s regular work, it never excites curiosity or arouses suspicion.