Janet suddenly jerked herself free and stepped back, her head held high and proud.

"You'll never touch me again, you coward. Look behind you," she exclaimed.

Involuntarily Sorenson turned head on shoulder. The frown still darkened his liquor-flushed face and the sneer yet twisted his lips so that his mustache was drawn back from his teeth. Thus he remained as if changed to stone.

What he saw was the man he most dreaded, with a shadow of a smile on his lips, his figure motionless, his hand ready, like an avenging Nemesis from out of the night. A perceptible shudder shook the fellow.

Weir it was--"Cold Steel," whose counter-stroke against one man already had been swift and deadly, whom nothing checked or turned or terrified, who now for a second time was plucking away the fruit of Sorenson's efforts, who probably on this occasion would shoot him outright.

For a moment Steele Weir regarded him in silence. But at last he spoke:

"Stand away from that lady, you skunk!"

Sorenson moved hastily aside.

CHAPTER XVII

EARTH'S RETRIBUTION

Steele Weir crossed the cabin to Janet's side.

"You are unhurt?" he asked, his eyes scanning her face anxiously.

"Yes. And, oh, how glad I am you came!" she cried, low. "I knew you would not fail me if you but learned of my plight; but it's wonderful you should be here so soon. I prayed every minute of my ride that Juanita would find and tell you."

"I couldn't come half as fast as I wished." His smile a.s.sured and cheered her. Then as his glance fell on her wrists, still red and creased from being bound, he exclaimed, "What's this? Let me see." And he caught and lifted her hands to look.

"He had you tied?" Weir's gaze moved away to Sorenson.

"Yes. Hands and feet."

"All the way? All the long ride?"

"Yes--look out!"

Janet's words, half a gasp, half a shriek, gave warning of Sorenson's movement, though none was needed. While apparently neglecting to watch the other, Weir had kept the man sharp in the corner of his eye. The motion with which his hand darted to his hip and up again was a single lightning-like sweep; and his weapon covered his enemy before the latter's hand so much as got his revolver in grasp.

"Drop it; drop it on the floor!" the engineer ordered. The gun clattered on the rough-hewn logs. "Now put your hands up and turn your back this way." Sorenson obeyed, not without his eyes speaking the disappointed wrath and hatred his tongue dared not utter. "I should have allowed you to make a full draw and then killed you," Steele Weir went on. "That would have been the simplest way to settle your case.

Only I don't like to kill bunglers, even when they deserve it."

He re-sheathed his own gun and strode forward, picking up the one on the floor--a black, ugly-looking automatic. This he dropped into a coat pocket.

"Now face about, you cur," he commanded. "I want a good look at a man--no, I'll not call you a man--at a low-lived imitation of a man who is such a sneaking, dirty beast that all he can do is to trap and tie up a helpless girl. I don't know yet just what I shall do with you, but I know what I ought to do--I ought to choke the miserable life out of you! You're not fit to live. You soil the earth and pollute the air. But you're of the same treacherous, underhanded, scoundrelly breed as your father, same yellow flesh and blood, same crooked mind and heart, same sort of poisonous snake, and since you get it all from him I suppose it can't be helped. Nor changed, except by killing and burying you. One thing is sure, when I'm done you won't be trying any more deals like this. Bah, you slimy reptile, you belong in a cess-pool!"

Under Steele Weir's biting speech Sorenson's face went red and pale by turns. His lips twitched and worked, moving his mustache in little angry lifts, while he breathed with short spasmodic intakes.

"First, you're after Mexican girls," Weir went on mercilessly. "Then Mary Johnson, whom I pulled out of your vile fingers. And now it's--"

The engineer's fist arose suddenly above the other's head. "Why, I ought to drop you dead in your tracks for so much as looking at Janet Hosmer! Why don't you fight? Why don't you give me a chance, you cowardly girl-robber? Haven't you a spark of--well, you haven't, I see. I'll just tie you up and later figure out some way to make you suffer for this night's work." And with a gesture of disgust Weir turned away.

It was the moment Sorenson had been waiting for. As the engineer's back came about, exposed in one instant of carelessness, the man struck Weir full force on the neck, sending him staggering. Then Sorenson leaped for the doorway.

Janet screamed. Weir recovered himself and whirled around, whipping forth his revolver and firing two shots. But the bullets only buried themselves in the door slammed shut after the escaping prisoner.

"I myself ought to be shot for this," Steele snapped out.

He ran across the cabin, flung the door open, sprang out. The uselessness of seeking his enemy in the black wet gloom was only too evident, but he would not give up. Gun in hand, he stood listening for sound of fleeing footsteps.

A light hand gripped his arm. Janet had followed him out, was at his side. Barely audible he heard her quick, excited breathing.

"Must you shoot him?" she whispered.

"Why spare him for more deviltry? But I'll not have the chance now."

"I can't bear to think of even his blood being on our hands. Let him go," Janet said.

"He's gone without our permission, I'd say."

"Isn't it just as well? I'm not harmed, and he'll never dare show his face in San Mateo again," she said. "He'll have to stay away; he'll leave for good."

"Not until I see him first. I want that paper."

"Oh, the paper, I forgot it! And it's in his pocket," she cried, in despair.

"Like the fool I was, I forgot it for the moment too," Steele said bitterly. "When I could have had it at once I must go off ranting about his meanness. It was thought of what he had done to you that made me overlook the paper; that set me boiling. Lost my head."

Janet's answer was almost sufficient recompense for even such a serious deprivation as that of the doc.u.ment.

"I'll never forget that you were angry in my behalf," she said, softly. "But perhaps you can gain possession of the paper yet."

Before he could make a reply the sound of a motor engine startled them. Sorenson was in his car, not far off. Weir immediately plunged forward through the darkness in the direction of the noise, uttering a shout for the man to stop or be shot. But after the taste of liberty that he already had had Sorenson was prepared to take further chances; the engine's roar burst into full volume and the car leaped ahead, while its driver sent back a derisive curse to the cabin.

Weir fired again, fired two or three times at the sound. Perhaps Sorenson was crouching safely out of range; at any rate, the bullets did not reach him, for the automobile plunged away. Steele slowly went back to the girl.

"How can he see without lights?" she questioned.

"He can't see, but he'd rather risk not seeing the road than drawing my fire. There's a bad place there at the rock; he'd better turn on his lamps if he wants to round that."

Sensing the danger that threatened Sorenson, both remained unmoving, trying to penetrate the darkness, harkening to the automobile's retreating murmur. A curiosity, a sort of detached suspense, rooted them to the spot.

"Ah, he's snapped them on!" Janet said, almost with relief.

The powerful beam of the headlights had suddenly blazed forth. Either feeling that he was safe from Weir's gun or realizing that he was on the verge of a graver danger, Sorenson had chosen to make the light.

He was going at headlong speed; even where they watched, Steele and Janet perceived that,--and only his fear of the peril behind which made him heedless of the difficulties in front could account for that reckless pace.

The light leaped out into the night. Something else too seemed to spring forth within the circle of the glow, dark, sudden, imminent, rushing at the machine. A frantic jerk this way and that of the beam showed the driver's mad effort to avoid the towering wall of granite.