CHAPTER VIII
THE GATHERING STORM
At the inquest next morning no outward sign indicated what Weir’s enemies might be at. Indeed, none of them was present. The engineer made a statement; the two witnesses, Janet Hosmer and Felipe Martinez, were briefly interrogated, and the finding was returned that the unknown Mexican had met death from two bullet wounds while attempting to kill Steele Weir.
One spectator there was who took a strong interest in proceedings, Ed Sorenson. When, however, Janet Hosmer was notified by her father, who was in charge, that she could withdraw, the young fellow hastened to lead her away, with an audible remark that it was a shame she had had to be “dragged into this disreputable gun-man’s bloody show.” Meaning Steele Weir, naturally.
That feeling was being intensified against him was only too apparent in the hostile manner of the crowd and in the silence with which it received the finding. There was his former unpopularity, to begin with; there was now added a race resentment, for the slain man, stranger though he was, was Mexican; and finally, he knew not what distilled poison of lies concerning his innocence in the night fray. Nothing more was needed to reveal the swelling hate which secret fear of Weir but increased than a volley of curses and abuse hurled 84 at his head from a native saloon doorway as he passed in his car on his way home.
During the following week the engineer was too occupied with dam work to have time for other matters. He pushed the concrete construction and inspired his men with something of his own indomitable spirit, who had learned of the cowardly attack in San Mateo and rallied to his standard with a zeal and ardor for which the fact of employment alone did not account. He had become a leader as well as their “boss.” From Meyers down to the humblest workman the camp had for him a new admiration, a new respect and a new loyalty, which he could not help but feel; he had proved that he could deliver the “goods”; and if the Mexicans wanted war, the Americans here would be glad to oblige them. Nor did they wait to let San Mateo know the fact.
“We’re wid ‘Cold Steel’ Weir, our boss, four hundred of us, till ye can skate on hell,” a huge Irishman, one of half a dozen standing at Vorse’s bar on Saturday night, remarked when the saloon-man uttered a sneer at the manager. “Say that agin and we’ll tear your rotten booze joint to pieces and make ye eat it! And if another stinkin’ greaser tries to wing him from the dark, we’ll come down here and wipe your dirty little town off the map! That goes both ways from the jack!” He snapped his fingers under the other’s nose by way of added insult.
A petty series of hostile acts against the company developed. Teamsters were stoned by boys, which left them raging and murderous to discover the men who set them on. Half a carload of cement in sacks was ripped open and emptied on the earth at Bowenville. After Meyers, Weir’s assistant, found his automobile tires slashed to bits on coming out of the post-office in 85 San Mateo, it became necessary always to go in pairs, one man to remain on watch. Weir himself just avoided a serious accident one evening at dusk while a mile from the dam when he instinctively ducked in his car as something grazed the top of his wind-shield. A wire had been stretched across the road from a telephone pole to a tree, at just the height to strike him at the throat.