Bunch Grass Part 25

"And then----"

"The rest is in the dear Lord's hands."

She adjusted the thick veil which Southern Californian women wear to keep the thick dust from their faces, and together we returned to Leveson's office. Pa.s.sing the door, I could hear the typewriters still clicking. Mrs. Panel sat down under a tree in the empty lot, and for the first time since we had met that day spoke in her natural tones.

"I come away without feeding the chickens," she said.

I looked at my watch; it was nearly six. One hour of daylight remained. Leveson, I happened to know, was in the habit of dining about half-past six. He often returned to the office after dinner.

Between the Hotel Paloma, which lay just outside the town and the office ran a regular service of street cars. Leveson was the last man in the world to walk when he could drive. It seemed reasonably certain that Jaspar, failing to see Leveson at the office, would try to speak to him at the hotel. From my knowledge of the man's temperament and character, I was certain that he would not shoot down his enemy without warning. So I walked up to the hotel feeling easier in my mind. The clerk, whom I knew well, a.s.signed me a room. I saw several men in the hall, but not Uncle j.a.p.

"Does Mr. Leveson dine about half-past six?" I asked.

The clerk raised his brows.

"That's queer," he said. "You're the second man to ask that question within an hour. Old man Panel asked the same thing."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Mr. Leveson don't dine till seven. He goes to the church first."

If the man had said that Leveson went to Heaven I could not have been more surprised. Then I remembered what I had read in the local papers.

I had not seen the church yet. I had not wished to see it, knowing that every stone in it was paid for with the sweat--as Uncle j.a.p had put it--of other men's souls.

"Where is this church?"

"You don't know? Third turning to the left after pa.s.sing the Olive Branch Saloon."

"Leveson owns that too, doesn't he?"

The clerk yawned. "I dare say. He owns most of the earth around here, and most of the people on it."

I walked quickly back towards the town, wondering what took Leveson to the church. No doubt he wanted to see if he were getting his money's worth, to note the day's work, perhaps to give the lie to the published statement that he built churches and never entered them.

Nearly half-an-hour had pa.s.sed since I left Mrs. Panel.

When I reached the third turning to the left I saw the church, certainly the handsomest in San Lorenzo. It stood in a large lot, littered with builders' materials. The workmen had left it at six. The building had an indescribably lifeless aspect. An hour before men had been busy within and without it, now not a soul was to be seen. I had time to walk round it, to note that the doors were locked, to note also, quite idly, that the window of the vestry was open. I could see no signs of Uncle j.a.p.

Coming round to the front, I saw in the distance a portly figure approaching, followed by a thin, dust-coloured wraith of a woman. I slipped behind a tree and waited. Leveson strolled up, bland and imposing. He stood still for a moment, staring intently at the outside of his church now completed. Then, taking a key from his pocket, he opened the vestry door and entered the building, closing the door behind him. I went to meet Mrs. Panel.

"Seen Jaspar?"

"I haven't."

"What's that feller," she always spoke of Leveson as a 'feller,'

"doin' in a church?"

"It's his church. He built it."

"Good Land o' Peter! What's he doin' in it anyway?"

"Not praying, I think."

"Shush-h-h-h."

Mrs. Panel touched my arm, thrusting out her lean face in an att.i.tude of intense attention. I strained my own ears, fairly good ones, but heard nothing.

"Jaspar's in there," said his wife. "I hear his voice."

She trembled with excitement. Obviously, Jaspar had concealed himself somewhere in the vestry. No time was to be lost.

Turning the north-east corner of the building, where the vestry is situated, I crawled under the window, followed by Mrs. Panel. The two men were within a few feet of us. Uncle j.a.p's slightly high-pitched tones fell sharply upon the silence.

"This is a leetle surprise party, ain't it?" he was saying.

Leveson answered thickly: "What are you doing here, sir?"

Although I risked discovery at an inopportune moment, I could not resist the temptation to raise my eyes level with the sill of the window. So did Uncle j.a.p's Lily. We both peered in. Uncle j.a.p was facing Leveson; in his hand he held the long-barrelled six-shooter; in his eyes were tiny pin-point flashes of light such as you see in an opal on a frosty morning. Terror had spread a grim mask upon the other; his complexion was the colour of oatmeal, his pendulous lips were quivering, his huge body seemed of a sudden to be deflated. He might have been an empty gas bag, not a man.

"I'm goin' to tell ye that," continued Uncle j.a.p mildly, "I come here to hev a leetle talk with you. Sinse I've bin in San Lorenzy County two men hev tried to ruin me: one left the county in a hurry; you're the other."

"I give you my word of honour, Mr. Panel----"

"That's about all _you_ would give, an' it ain't wuth takin'."

"Do you mean to kill me?"

"Ef I hev to, 't won't keep me awake nights."

In my ear I heard his Lily's attenuated whisper: "Nor me neither, if Jaspar ain't caught."

And I had thought that solicitude for Jaspar's soul had sent his Lily, hot-foot to prevent the crime of--murder! I learnt something about women then which I shall not forget.

"You propose to blackmail me, I suppose?"

"Ugly word, that, but it's yours, not mine. I prefer to put it this way. I propose to consecrate this yere church with an act o' justice."

"Go on!"

"This county wan't big enough for the other feller an' me, so he had to go; it ain't big enough to-day for you an' me, but this time, I'm a-goin', whether you stay in it or _under_ it."

At the word "under" Uncle j.a.p's Lily nudged me. I looked at her. Her face was radiant. Her delight in her husband at such a moment, her conviction that he was master of the situation, that he had regained by this audacious move all the prestige which he had in her estimation, lost--these things rejuvenated her.

"It's a question of dollars, of course?"

"That's it. Before you ask for credit with the angel Gabriel, you've got to squar' up with Jaspar Panel."

"With the dear Lord's help, Jaspar has found a way," whispered the joyful voice in my ear.

"How much?" demanded Leveson. His colour was coming back.