CHAPTER VIA JUDICIAL PUPPET
Bowling along over the new tracks toward Manti in a special car secured at Dry Bottom by Corrigan, one compartment of which was packed closely with books, papers, ledger records, legal documents, blanks, and even office furniture, Judge Lindman watched the landscape unfold with mingled feelings of trepidation, reluctance, and impotent regret. The Judge’s face was not a strong one—had it been he would not have been seated in the special car, talking with Corrigan. He was just under sixty-five years, and their weight seemed to rest heavily upon him. His eyes were slightly bleary, and had a look of weariness, as though he had endured much and was utterly tired. His mouth was flaccid, the lips pouting when he compressed his jaws, giving his face the sullen, indecisive look of the brooder lacking the mental and physical courage of independent action and initiative. The Judge could be led; Corrigan was leading him now, and the Judge was reluctant, but his courage had oozed, back in Dry Bottom, when Corrigan had mentioned a culpable action which the Judge had regretted many times.
Some legal records of the county were on the tablebetween the two men. The Judge had objected when Corrigan had secured them from the compartment where the others were piled.
“It isn’t regular, Mr. Corrigan,” he had said; “no one except a legally authorized person has the right to look over those books.”
“We’ll say that I am legally authorized, then,” grinned Corrigan. The look in his eyes was one of amused contempt. “It isn’t the only irregular thing you have done, Lindman.”
The Judge subsided, but back in his eyes was a slumbering hatred for this man, who was forcing him to complicity in another crime. He regretted that other crime; why should this man deliberately remind him of it?
After looking over the records, Corrigan outlined a scheme of action that made the Judge’s face blanch.
“I won’t be a party to any such scurrilous undertaking!” he declared when, he could trust his voice; “I—I won’t permit it!”
Corrigan stretched his legs out under the table, shoved his hands into his trousers’ pockets and laughed.
“Why the high moral attitude, Judge? It doesn’t become you. Refuse if you like. When we get to Manti I shall wire Benham. It’s likely he’ll feel pretty sore. He’s got his heart set on this. And I have no doubt that after he gets my wire he’ll jump the next train for Washington, and—”
The Judge exclaimed with weak incoherence, and a few minutes later he was bending over the records with Corrigan—the latter making sundry copies ona pad of paper, which he placed in a pocket when the work was completed.
At noon the special car was in Manti. Corrigan, the Judge, and Braman, carried the Judge’s effects and stored them in the rear room of the bank building. “I’ll build you a courthouse, tomorrow,” he promised the Judge; “big enough for you and a number of deputies. You’ll need deputies, you know.” He grinned as the Judge shrank. Then, leaving the Judge in the room with his books and papers, Corrigan drew Braman outside.
“I got hell from Benham for destroying Trevison’s check—he wired me to attend to my other deals and let him run the railroad—the damned old fool! You must have taken the cash to Trevison—I see the gang’s working again.”
“The cash went,” said the banker, watching Corrigan covertly, “but I didn’t take it. J. C. wired explicit orders for his daughter to act.”
Corrigan cursed viciously, his face dark with wrath as he turned to look at the private car, on the switch. The banker watched him with secret, vindictive enjoyment. Miss Benham had judged Braman correctly—he was cold, crafty, selfish, and wholly devoid of sympathy. He was for Braman, first and last—and in the interim.
“Miss Benham went to the cut—so I hear,” he went on, smoothly. “Trevison wasn’t there. Miss Benham went to the Diamond K.” His eyes gleamed as Corrigan’s hands clenched. “Trevison rode back to the car with her—which she had ordered taken to thecut,” went on the banker. “And this morning about ten o’clock Trevison came here with a led horse. He and Miss Benham rode away together. I heard her tell her aunt they were going to Blakeley’s ranch—it’s about eight miles from here.”
Corrigan’s face went white. “I’ll kill him for that!” he said.
“Jealous, eh?” laughed the banker. “So, that’s the reason—”
Corrigan turned and struck bitterly. The banker’s jaws clacked sharply—otherwise he fell silently, striking his head against the edge of the step and rolling, face down, into the dust.
When he recovered and sat up, Corrigan had gone. The banker gazed foolishly around at a world that was still reeling—felt his jaw carefully, wonder and astonishment in his eyes.
“What do you know about that?” he asked of the surrounding silence. “I’ve kidded him about women before, and he never got sore. He must be in love!”
Riding through a saccaton basin, the green-brown tips so high that they caught at their stirrups as they rode slowly along; a white, smiling sky above them and Blakeley’s still three miles away, Miss Benham and Trevison were chatting gayly at the instant the banker had received Corrigan’s blow.
Miss Benham had spent the night thinking of Trevison, and she had spent much of her time during the present ride stealing glances at him. She had discovered something about him that had eluded her theday before—an impulsive boyishness. It was hidden behind the manhood of him, so that the casual observer would not be likely to see it; men would have failed to see it, because she was certain that with men he would not let it be seen. But she knew the recklessness that shone in his eyes, the energy that slumbered in them ready to be applied any moment in response to any whim that might seize him, were traits that had not yet yielded to the stern governors of manhood—nor would they yield in many years to come—they were the fountains of virility that would keep him young. She felt the irresistible appeal of him, responsive to the youth that flourished in her own heart—and Corrigan, older, more ponderous, less addicted to impulse, grew distant in her thoughts and vision. The day before yesterday her sympathies had been with Corrigan—she had thought. But as she rode she knew that they were threatening to desert him. For this man of heroic mold who rode beside her was disquietingly captivating in the bold recklessness of his youth.
They climbed the far slope of the basin and halted their horses on the crest. Before them stretched a plain so big and vast and inviting that it made the girl gasp with delight.
“Oh,” she said, awed; “isn’t it wonderful?”
“I knew you’d like it.”
“The East has nothing like this,” she said, with a broad sweep of the hand.
“No,” he said.
She turned on him triumphantly. “There!” shedeclared; “you have committed yourself. You are from the East!”
“Well,” he said; “I’ve never denied it.”
Something vague and subtle had drawn them together during the ride, bridging the hiatus of strangeness, making them feel that they had been acquainted long. It did not seem impertinent to her that she should ask the question that she now put to him—she felt that her interest in him permitted it:
“You are an easterner, and yet you have been out here for about ten years. Your house is big and substantial, but I should judge that it has no comforts, no conveniences. You live there alone, except for some men, and you have male servants—if you have any. Why should you bury yourself here? You are educated, you are young. There are great opportunities for you in the East!”
She paused, for she saw a cynical expression in his eyes.
“Well?” she said, impatiently, for she had been very much in earnest.
“I suppose I’ve got to tell you,” he said, soberly. “I don’t know what has come over me—you seem to have me under a spell. I’ve never spoken about it before. I don’t know why I should now. But you’ve got to know, I presume.”
“Yes.”
“On your head rest the blame,” he said, his grin still cynical; “and upon mine the consequences. It isn’t a pretty story to tell; it’s only virtue is its brevity. I was fired out of college for fighting. The fellowsI licked deserved what they got—and I deserved what I got for breaking rules. I’ve always broken rules. I may have broken laws—most of us have. My father is wealthy. The last time I saw him he said I was incorrigible and a dunce. I admit the former, but I’m going to make him take the other back. I told him so. He replied that he was from Missouri. He gave me an opportunity to make good by cutting off my allowance. There was a girl. When my allowance was cut off she made me feel cold as an Eskimo. Told me straight that she had never liked me in the way she’d led me to believe she did, and that she was engaged to arealman. She made the mistake of telling me his name, and it happened to be one of the fellows I’d had trouble with at college. The girl lost her temper and told me things he’d said about me. I left New York that night, but before I hopped on the train I stopped in to see my rival and gave him the bulliest trimming that I had ever given anybody. I came out here and took up a quarter-section of land. I bought more—after a while. I own five thousand acres, and about a thousand acres of it is the best coal land in the United States. I wouldn’t sell it for love or money, for when your father gets his railroad running, I’m going to cash in on ten of the leanest and hardest and lonesomest years that any man ever put in. I’m going back some day. But I won’t stay. I’ve lived in this country so long that it’s got into my heart and soul. It’s a golden paradise.”
She did not share his enthusiasm—her thoughts were selfishly personal, though they included him.
“And the girl!” she said. “When you go back, would you—”
“Never!” he scoffed, vehemently. “That would convince me that I am the dunce my father said I was!”
The girl turned her head and smiled. And a little later, when they were riding on again, she murmured softly:
“Ten years of lonesomeness and bitterness to save his pride! I wonder if Hester Keyes knows what she has missed?”
CHAPTER VIITWO LETTERS GO EAST
After Agatha retired that night Rosalind sat for a long time writing at a little desk in the private car. She was tingling with excitement over a discovery she had made, and was yearning for a confidante. Since it had not been her habit to confide in Agatha, she did the next best thing, which was to indite a letter to her chum, Ruth Gresham. In one place she wrote:
“Do you remember Hester Keyes’ love affair of ten years ago? You certainly must remember it! If you cannot, permit me to brush the dust of forgetfulness away. You cannot forget the night you met William Kinkaid? Of course you cannot forget that, for when you are Mrs. Kinkaid—But there! I won’t poke fun at you. But I think every married person needs to treasure every shred of romance against inevitable hum-drum days. Isn’t that a sad sentiment? But I want to get ahead with my reminder.”
There followed much detail, having to do with Hester Keyes’ party, to which neither Rosalind nor Ruth Gresham had been invited, for reasons which Rosalind presently made obvious. She continued:
“Of course, custom does not permit girls of fourteen to figure prominently at ‘coming-out’ parties, butafter one is there and is relegated to a stair-landing, one may use one’s eyes without restriction. Do you remember my pointing out Hester Keyes’ ‘fellow’? But of course you didn’t pay much attention to him after Billy Kinkaid sailed into your vision! But I envied Hester Keyes her eighteen years—and Trevison Brandon! He had the blackest eyes and hair! And he simply adored Hester! It made me feel positively savage when I heard shortly afterward that she had thrown him over—after his father cut him off—to take up with that fellow Harvey—I never could remember his first name. And she married Harvey—and regretted it, until Harvey died.
“Ruth, Trevison Brandon is out here. He calls himself ‘Brand’ Trevison. I met him two days ago, and I did not recognize him, he has changed so much. He puzzled me quite a little; but not even when I heard his name did I connect him with the man I had seen at Hester’s party. Ten years issucha long time, isn’t it? And I never did have much of a memory for names. But today he went with me to a certain ranch—Blakeley’s—which, by the way,father is going to buy—and on the way we became very much acquainted, and he told me about his love affair. I placed him instantly, then, and why I didn’t keel over was, I suppose, because of the curious big saddles they have out here, with enormous woodenstirrupson them. I can hear you exclaim over that plural, but there are no side-saddles. That is how it came that I was unchaperoned—Agatha won’t take liberties with them, the saddles. Thank Heaven!”
There followed much more, with only one further reference to Trevison:
“He must be nearly thirty now, but he doesn’t look it, he’s so boyish. I gather, though, that he is regarded as amanout here, where, I understand, manhood is measured by something besides mere appearances. He owns acres and acres of land—some of it has coal on it; and he is sure to be enormously wealthy, some day. But I am twenty-four, myself.”
The startling irrelevance of this sentence at first surprised Ruth Gresham, and then caused her eyes to brighten understandingly, as she read the letter a few days later. She remarked, musingly:
“The inevitable hum-drum days, eh? And yet most people long for them.”
Another letter was written when the one to Ruth was completed. It was to J. Chalfant Benham.
“Dear Daddy:“The West is a golden paradise. I could live here many, many years. I visited Mr. Blakeley today. He calls his ranch the Bar B. We wouldn’t have to change the brand, would we? Trevison says the ranch is worth all Blakeley asks for it. Mr. Blakeley says we can take possession immediately, so I have decided to stay here. Mrs. Blakeley has invited me, and I am going to have my things taken over tomorrow. Since the Blakeley’s are anxious to sell out and return South, don’t you think you had better conclude the deal at once?“Lovingly,“Rosalind.”
“Dear Daddy:
“The West is a golden paradise. I could live here many, many years. I visited Mr. Blakeley today. He calls his ranch the Bar B. We wouldn’t have to change the brand, would we? Trevison says the ranch is worth all Blakeley asks for it. Mr. Blakeley says we can take possession immediately, so I have decided to stay here. Mrs. Blakeley has invited me, and I am going to have my things taken over tomorrow. Since the Blakeley’s are anxious to sell out and return South, don’t you think you had better conclude the deal at once?
“Lovingly,“Rosalind.”
“Lovingly,
“Rosalind.”
CHAPTER VIIITHE CHAOS OF CREATION
The West saw many “boom” towns. They followed in the wake of “gold strikes;” they grew, mushroom-like, overnight—garish husks of squalor, palpitating, hardy, a-tingle with extravagant hopes. A few, it is true, lived to become substantial cities buzzing with the American spirit, panting, fighting for progress with an energy that shamed the Old World, lethargic in its smug and self-sufficient superiority. But many towns died in their gangling youth, tragic monuments to hopes; but monuments also to effort, and to the pioneer courage and the dreams of an empire-building people.
Manti was destined to live. It was a boom town with material reasons for substantial growth. Behind it were the resources of a railroad company which would anticipate the development of a section of country bigger than a dozen Old-world states, and men with brains keen enough to realize the commercial possibilities it held. It had Corrigan for an advance agent—big, confident, magnetic, energetic, suave, smooth.
Manti had awaited his coming; he was the magic force, the fulfillment of the rumored promise. He had stayed away for three weeks, following his departureon the special car after bringing Judge Lindman, and when he stepped off the car again at the end of that time Manti was “humming,” as he had predicted. During the three weeks of his absence, the switch at Manti had never been unoccupied. Trains had been coming in regularly bearing merchandise, men, tools, machines, supplies. Engineers had arrived; the basin near Manti, choked by a narrow gorge at its westerly end (where the dam was to be built) was dotted with tents, wagons, digging implements, a miscellany of material whose hauling had worn a rutted trail over the plains and on the slope of the basin, continually active with wagon-train and pack horse, and articulate with sweating, cursing drivers.
“She’s a pippin!” gleefully confided a sleek-looking individual who might have been mistaken for a western “parson” had it not been for a certain sophisticated cynicism that was prominent about him, and which imparted a distasteful taint of his profession. “Give me a year of this and I’ll open a joint in Frisco! I cleaned out a brace of bull-whackers in thePlazalast night—their first pay. Afterward I stung a couple of cattlemen for a hundred each. Look at her hum!”
Notwithstanding that it was midday, Manti was teeming with life and action. Since the day that Miss Benham had viewed the town from the window of the private car, Manti had added more than a hundred buildings to its total. They were not attractive; they were ludicrous in their pitiful masquerade of substantial types. Here and there a three-story structure reared aloft, sheathed with galvanized iron, a garish aristocratseemingly conscious of its superiority, brazen, in its bid for attention; more modest buildings seemed dwarfed, humiliated, squatting sullenly and enviously. There were hotels, rooming-houses, boarding-houses, stores, dwellings, saloons—and others which for many reasons need not be mentioned. But they were pulsating with life, electric, eager, expectant. Taking advantage of the scarcity of buildings, an enterprising citizen had erected tents in rows on the street line, for whose shelter he charged enormously—and did a capacity business.
“A hundred came in on the last train,” complained the over-worked station agent. “God knows what they all expect to do here!”
Corrigan had kept his promise to build Judge Lindman a courthouse. It was a flat-roofed structure, one story high, wedged between a saloon and Braman’s bank building. A sign in the front window of Braman’s bank announced that Jefferson Corrigan, agent of the Land & Improvement Company, of New York, had office space within, but on the morning of the day following his return to Manti, Corrigan was seated at one side of a flat-top desk in the courthouse, talking with Judge Lindman, who sat at the other side.
“Got them all transcribed?” asked Corrigan.
The Judge drew a thin ledger from his desk and passed it over to Corrigan. As Corrigan turned the pages and his face lighted, the Judge’s grew correspondingly troubled.
“All right,” exulted Corrigan. “This purports to be an accurate and true record of all the land transactionsin this section from the special grant to the Midland Company, down to date. It shows no intermediate owners from the Midland Company to the present claimants. As a document arraigning carelessness on the part of land buyers it cannot be excelled. There isn’t a present owner that has a legal leg to stand on!”
“There is only one weak point in your case,” said the Judge, and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction, which he concealed by bowing his head. “It is that since these records show no sale of its property by the Midland Company, the Midland Company can come forward and re-establish its title.”
Corrigan laughed and flipped a legal-looking paper in front of the Judge. The latter opened it and read, showing eagerness. He laid it down after reading, his hands trembling.
“It shows that the Midland Company—James Marchmont, president—transferred to Jefferson Corrigan, on a date prior to these other transactions, one-hundred thousand acres of land here—the Midland Company’s entire holdings. Why, man, it is forgery!”
“No,” said Corrigan quietly. “James Marchmont is alive. He signed his name right where it is. He’ll confirm it, too, for he happens to be in something of the fix that you are in. Therefore, there being no records of any sales on your books—as revised, of course—” he laughed; “Jeff Corrigan is the legal possessor of one-hundred thousand acres of land right in the heart of what is going to be the boom section of the West!” He chuckled, lit a cigar, leaned backin his chair and looked at the Judge. “All you have to do now is to enter that transaction on your records.”
“You don’t expect the present owners to yield their titles without a fight, do you?” asked the Judge. He spoke breathlessly.
Corrigan grunted. “Sure; they’ll fight. But they’ll lose. I’ve got them. I’ve got the power—the courts—the law, behind me. I’ve got them, and I’ll squeeze them. It means a mint of money, man. It will make you. It’s the biggest thing that any man ever attempted to pull off in this country!”
“Yes, it’s big,” groaned the Judge; “it’s stupendous! It’s frightful! Why, man, if anything goes wrong, it would mean—” He paused and shivered.
Corrigan smiled contemptuously. “Where’s the original record?” he asked.
“I destroyed it,” said the Judge. He did not look at Corrigan. “How?” demanded the latter.
“Burned it.”
“Good.” Corrigan rubbed his palms together. “It’s too soon to start anything. Things are booming, and some of these owners will be trying to sell. Hold them off—don’t record anything. Give them any excuse that comes to your mind. Have you heard from Washington?”
“The establishment of the court here has been confirmed.”
“Quick work,” laughed Corrigan. He got up, murmuring something about having to take care of some leases. When he turned, it was to start and stand rigid, his jaws set, his face pale. A man stood in theopen doorway—a man of about fifty apparently, furtive-eyed, slightly shabby, though with an atmosphere about him that hinted of past dignity of carriage.
“Jim Marchmont!” said Corrigan. He stepped forward, threateningly, his face dark with wrath. Without speaking another word he seized the newcomer by the coat collar, snapping his head back savagely, and dragged him back of a wooden partition. Concealed there from any of the curious in the street, he jammed Marchmont against the wall of the building, held him there with one hand and stuck a huge fist into his face.
“What in hell are you doing here?” he demanded. “Come clean, or I’ll tear you apart!”
The other laughed, but there was no mirth in it, and his thin lips were curved queerly, and were stiff and white. “Don’t get excited, Jeff,” he said; “it won’t be healthy.” And Corrigan felt something hard and cold against his shirt front. He knew it was a pistol and he released his hold and stepped back.
“Speaking of coming clean,” said Marchmont. “You crossed me. You told me you were going to sell the Midland land to two big ranch-owners. I find that you’re going to cut it up into lots and make big money—loads of it. You handed me a measly thousand. You stand to make millions. I want my divvy.”
“You’ve got your nerve,” scoffed Corrigan. “You got your bit when you sold the Midland before. You’re a self-convicted crook, and if you make a peep out here I’ll send you over the road for a thousand years!”
“Another thousand now,” said Marchmont: “andten more when you commence to cash in. Otherwise, a thousand years or not, I’ll start yapping here and queer your game.”
Corrigan’s lips were in an ugly pout. For an instant it seemed he was going to defy his visitor. Then without a word to him he stepped around the partition, walked out the door and entered the bank. A few minutes later he passed a bundle of greenbacks to Marchmont and escorted him to the front door, where he stood, watching, his face unpleasant, until Marchmont vanished into one of the saloons.
“That settlesyou, you damned fool!” he said.
He stepped down into the street and went into the bank. Braman fawned on him, smirking insincerely. Corrigan had not apologized for striking the blow, had never mentioned it, continuing his former attitude toward the banker as though nothing had happened. But Braman had not forgiven him. Corrigan wasted no words:
“Who’s the best gun-man in this section?”
Braman studied a minute. “Clay Levins,” he said, finally.
“Can you find him?”
“Why, he’s in town today; I saw him not more than fifteen minutes ago, going into theElk!”
“Find him and bring him here—by the back way,” directed Corrigan.
Braman went out, wondering. A few minutes later he returned, coming in at the front door, smiling with triumph. Shortly afterward Corrigan was opening the rear door on a tall, slender man of thirty-five, with athin face, a mouth that drooped at the corners, and alert, furtive eyes. He wore a heavy pistol at his right hip, low, the bottom of the holster tied to the leather chaps, and as Corrigan closed the door he noted that the man’s right hand lingered close to the butt of the weapon.
“That’s all right,” said Corrigan; “you’re perfectly safe here.”
He talked in low tones to the man, so that Braman could not hear. Levins departed shortly afterwards, grinning crookedly, tucking a piece of paper into a pocket, upon which Corrigan had transcribed something that had been written on the cuff of his shirt sleeve. Corrigan went to his desk and busied himself with some papers. Over in the courthouse, Judge Lindman took from a drawer in his desk a thin ledger—a duplicate of the one he had shown Corrigan—and going to the rear of the room opened the door of an iron safe and stuck the ledger out of sight under a mass of legal papers.
When Marchmont left Corrigan he went straight to thePlaza, where he ordered a lunch and ate heartily. After finishing his meal he emerged from the saloon and stood near one of the front windows. One of the hundred dollar bills that Corrigan had given him he had “broke” in thePlaza, getting bills of small denomination in change, and in his right trousers’ pocket was a roll that bulked comfortably in his hand. The feel of it made him tingle with satisfaction, as, except for the other thousand that Corrigan had given him somemonths ago, it was the only money he had had for a long time. He knew he should take the next train out of Manti; that he had done a hazardous thing in baiting Corrigan, but he was lonesome and yearned for the touch and voice of the crowds that thronged in and out of the saloons and the stores, and presently he joined them, wandering from saloon to saloon, drinking occasionally, his content and satisfaction increasing in proportion to the quantity of liquor he drank.
And then, at about three o’clock, in the barroom of thePlaza, he heard a discordant voice at his elbow. He saw men crowding, jostling one another to get away from the spot where he stood—crouching, pale of face, their eyes on him. It made him feel that he was the center of interest, and he wheeled, staggering a little—for he had drunk much more than he had intended—to see what had happened. He saw Clay Levins standing close to him, his thin lips in a cruel curve, his eyes narrowed and glittering, his body in a suggestive crouch. The silence that had suddenly descended smote Marchmont’s ears like a momentary deafness, and he looked foolishly around him, uncertain, puzzled. Levins’ voice shocked him, sobered him, whitened his face:
“Fork over that coin you lifted from me in theElk, you light-fingered hound!” said Levins.
Marchmont divined the truth now. He made his second mistake of the day. He allowed a flash of rage to trick him into reaching for his pistol. He got it into his hand and almost out of the pocket before Levins’ first bullet struck him, and before he coulddraw it entirely out the second savage bark of the gun in Levins’ hand shattered the stillness of the room. Soundlessly, his face wreathed in a grin of hideous satire, Marchmont sank to the floor and stretched out on his back.
Before his body was still, Levins had drawn out the bills that had reposed in his victim’s pocket. Crumpling them in his hand he walked to the bar and tossed them to the barkeeper.
“Look at ’em,” he directed. “I’m provin’ they’re mine. Good thing I got the numbers on ’em.” While the crowd jostled and crushed about him he read the numbers from the paper Corrigan had given him, grinning coldly as the barkeeper confirmed them. A deputy sheriff elbowed his way through the press to Levins’ side, and the gun-man spoke to him, lightly: “I reckon everybody saw him reach for his gun when I told him to fork the coin over,” he said, indicating his victim. “So you ain’t got nothin’ on me. But if you’re figgerin’ that the coin ain’t mine, why I reckon a guy named Corrigan will back up my play.”
The deputy took him at his word. They found Corrigan at his desk in the bank building.
“Sure,” he said when the deputy had told his story; “I paid Levins the money this morning. Is it necessary for you to know what for? No? Well, it seems that the pickpocket got just what he deserved.” He offered the deputy a cigar, and the latter went out, satisfied.
Later, Corrigan looked appraisingly at Levins, who still graced the office.
“That was rather an easy job,” he said. “Marchmont was slow with a gun. With a faster man—a man, say—” he appeared to meditate “—like Trevison, for instance. You’d have to be pretty careful—”
“Trevison’s my friend,” grinned Levins coldly as he got to his feet. “There’s nothin’ doin’ there—understand? Get it out of your brain-box, for if anything happens to ‘Firebrand,’ I’ll perforate you sure as hell!”
He stalked out of the office, leaving Corrigan looking after him, frowningly.
CHAPTER IXSTRAIGHT TALK
Ten years of lonesomeness, of separation from all the things he held dear, with nothing for his soul to feed upon except the bitterness he got from a contemplation of the past; with nothing but his pride and his determination to keep him from becoming what he had seen many men in this country become—dissolute irresponsibles, drifting like ships without rudders—had brought into Trevison’s heart a great longing. He was like a man who for a long time has been deprived of the solace of good tobacco, and—to use a simile that he himself manufactured—he yearned to capture someone from the East, sit beside him and fill his lungs, his brain, his heart, his soul, with the breath, the aroma, the spirit of the land of his youth. The appearance of Miss Benham at Manti had thrilled him. For ten years he had seen no eastern woman, and at sight of her the old hunger of the soul became acute in him, aroused in him a passionate worship that made his blood run riot. It was the call of sex to sex, made doubly stirring by the girl’s beauty, her breeziness, her virile, alluring womanhood—by the appeal she made to the love of the good and the true in his character. His affection for Hester Keyes, he had long known, hadbeen merely the vanity-tickling regard of the callow youth—the sex attraction of adolescence, the “puppy” love that smites all youth alike. For Rosalind Benham a deeper note had been struck. Its force rocked him, intoxicated him; his head rang with the music it made.
During the three weeks of her stay at Blakeley’s they had been much together. Rosalind had accepted his companionship as a matter of course. He had told her many things about his past, and was telling her many more things, as they sat today on an isolated excrescence of sand and rock and bunch grass surrounded by a sea of sage. From where they sat they could see Manti—Manti, alive, athrob, its newly-come hundreds busy as ants with their different pursuits.
The intoxication of the girl’s presence had never been so great as it was today. A dozen times, drunken with the nearness of her, with the delicate odor from her hair, as a stray wisp fluttered into his face, he had come very near to catching her in his arms. But he had grimly mastered the feeling, telling himself that he was not a savage, and that such an action would be suicidal to his hopes. It cost him an effort, though, to restrain himself, as his flushed face, his burning eyes and his labored breath, told.
His broken wrist had healed. His hatred of Corrigan had been kept alive by a recollection of the fight, by a memory of the big man’s quickness to take advantage of the banker’s foul trick, and by the passion for revenge that had seized him, that held him in a burning clutch. Jealousy of the big man he would not have admitted; but something swelled his chest when hethought of Corrigan coming West in the same car with the girl—a vague, gnawing something that made his teeth clench and his facial muscles cord.
Rosalind had not told him that she had recognized him, that during the ten years of his exile he had been her ideal, but she could close her eyes at this minute and imagine herself on the stair-landing at Hester Keyes’ party, could feel the identical wave of thrilling admiration that had passed over her when her gaze had first rested on him. Yes, it had survived, that girlhood passion, but she had grown much older and experienced, and she could not let him see what she felt. But her curiosity was keener than ever; in no other man of her acquaintance had she felt this intense interest.
“I remember you telling me the other day that your men would have used their rifles, had the railroad company attempted to set men to work in the cut. I presume you must have given them orders to shoot. I can’t understand you. You were raised in the East, your parents are wealthy; it is presumed they gave you advantages—in fact, you told me they had sent you to college. You must have learned respect for the law while there. And yet you would have had your men resist forcibly.”
“I told you before that I respected the law—so long as the law is just and the fellow I’m fighting is governed by it. But I refuse to fight under a rule that binds one of my hands, while my opponent sails into me with both hands free. I’ve never been a believer in the doctrine of ‘turn the other cheek.’ We are madewith a capacity for feeling, and it boils, unrestrained, in me. I never could play the hypocrite; I couldn’t say ‘no’ when I thought ‘yes’ and make anybody believe it. I couldn’t lie and evade and side-step, even to keep from getting licked. I always told the truth and expressed my feelings in language as straight, simple, and direct as I could. It wasn’t always the discreet way. Perhaps it wasn’t always the wise way. I won’t argue that. But it was the only way I knew. It caused me a lot of trouble—I was always in trouble. My record in college would make a prize fighter turn green with envy. I’m not proud of what I’ve made of my life. But I haven’t changed. I do what my heart prompts me to do, and I say what I think, regardless of consequences.”
“That would be a very good method—if everybody followed it,” said the girl. “Unfortunately, it invites enmity. Subtlety will take you farther in the world.” She was smitten with an impulse, unwise, unconventional. But the conventions! The East seemed effete and far. Besides, she spoke lightly:
“Let us be perfectly frank, then. I think that perhaps you take yourself too seriously. Life is a tragedy to the tragic, a joke to the humorous, a drab canvas to the unimaginative. It all depends upon what temperament one sees it through. I dare say that I see you differently than you see yourself. ’O wad some power the giftie gi’e us to see oursel’s as ithers see us’,” she quoted, and laughed at the queer look in his eyes, for his admiration for her had leaped like a living thing at her bubbling spirits, and he was, figuratively,forced to place his heel upon it. “I confess it seems to me that you take a too tragic view of things,” she went on. “You are like D’Artagnan, always eager to fly at somebody’s throat. Possibly, you don’t give other people credit for unselfish motives; you are too suspicious; and what you call plain talk may seem impertinence to others—don’t you think? In any event, people don’t like to hear the truth told about themselves—especially by a big, earnest, sober-faced man who seems to speak with conviction, and, perhaps, authority. I think you look for trouble, instead of trying to evade it. I think, too,” she said, looking straight at him, “that you face the world in a too physical fashion; that you place too much dependence upon brawn and fire. That, following your own method of speaking your mind, is what I think of you. I tremble to imagine what you think of me for speaking so plainly.”
He laughed, his voice vibrating, and bold passion gleamed in his eyes. He looked fairly at her, holding her gaze, compelling it with the intensity of his own, and she drew a deep, tremulous breath of understanding. There followed a tense, breathless silence. And then—
“You’ve brought it on yourself,” he said. “I love you. You are going to marry me—someday. That’s what I think of you!”
“YOU ARE GOING TO MARRY ME—SOME DAY. THAT’S WHAT I THINK OF YOU!”
“YOU ARE GOING TO MARRY ME—SOME DAY. THAT’S WHAT I THINK OF YOU!”
She got to her feet, her cheeks flaming, confused, half-frightened, though a fierce exultation surged within her. She had half expected this, half dreaded it, and now that it had burst upon her in such volcanic fashion she realized that she had not been entirely prepared.She sought refuge in banter, facing him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dancing.
“‘Firebrand,’” she said. “The name fits you—Mr. Carson was right. I warned you—if you remember—that you placed too much dependence on brawn and fire. You are making it very hard for me to see you again.”
He had risen too, and stood before her, and he now laughed frankly.
“I told you I couldn’t play the hypocrite. I have said what I think. I want you. But that doesn’t mean that I am going to carry you away to the mountains. I’ve got it off my mind, and I promise not to mention it again—until you wish it. But don’t forget that some day you are going to love me.”
“How marvelous,” said she, tauntingly, though in her confusion she could not meet his gaze, looking downward. “How do you purpose to bring it about?”
“By loving you so strongly that you can’t help yourself.”
“With your confidence—” she began. But he interrupted, laughing:
“We’re going to forget it, now,” he said. “I promised to show you thatPueblo, and we’ll have just about time enough to make it and back to the Bar B before dark.”
And they rode away presently, chatting on indifferent subjects. And, keeping his promise, he said not another word about his declaration. But the girl, stealing glances at him, wondered much—and reached no decision.
When they reached the abandoned Indian village, many of its houses still standing, he laughed. “That would make a dandy fort.”
“Always thinking of fighting,” she mocked. But her eyes flashed as she looked at him.
CHAPTER XTHE SPIRIT OF MANTI
The Benham private car had clacked eastward over the rails three weeks before, bearing with it as a passenger only the negro autocrat. At the last moment, discovering that she could not dissuade Rosalind from her mad decision to stay at Blakeley’s ranch, Agatha had accompanied her. The private car was now returning, bearing the man who had poetically declared to his fawning Board of Directors: “Our railroad is the magic wand that will make the desert bloom like the rose. We are embarked upon a project, gentlemen, so big, so vast, that it makes even your president feel a pulse of pride. This project is nothing more nor less than the opening of a region of waste country which an all-wise Creator has permitted to slumber for ages, for no less purpose than to reserve it to the horny-handed son of toil of our glorious country. It will awaken to the clarion call of our wealth, our brains, and our genius.” He then mentioned Corrigan and the Midland grant—another reservation of Providence, which a credulous and asinine Congress had bestowed, in fee-simple, upon a certain suave gentleman, named Marchmont—and disseminated such other details as a servile board of directors need know; andthen he concluded with a flowery peroration that left his hearers smirking fatuously.
And today J. Chalfant Benham was come to look upon the first fruits of his efforts.
As he stepped down from the private car he was greeted by vociferous cheers from a jostling and enthusiastic populace—for J. C. had very carefully wired the time of his arrival and Corrigan had acted accordingly, knowing J. C. well. J. C. was charmed—he said so, later, in a speech from a flimsy, temporary stand erected in the middle of the street in front of thePlaza—and in saying so he merely told the truth. For, next to money-making, adulation pleased him most. He would have been an able man had he ignored the latter passion. It seared his intellect as a pernicious habit blasts the character. It sat on his shoulders—extravagantly squared; it shone in his eyes—inviting inspection; his lips, curved with smug complacence, betrayed it as, sitting in Corrigan’s office after the conclusion of the festivities, he smiled at the big man.
“Manti is a wonderful town—awonderfultown!” he declared. “It may be said that success is lurking just ahead. And much of the credit is due to your efforts,” he added, generously.
Corrigan murmured a polite disclaimer, and plunged into dry details. J. C. had a passion for dry details. For many hours they sat in the office, their heads close together. Braman was occasionally called in. Judge Lindman was summoned after a time. J. C. shook the Judge’s hand warmly and then resumed his chair, folding his chubby hands over his corpulent stomach.
“Judge Lindman,” he said; “you thoroughly understand our position in this Midland affair.”
The Judge glanced at Corrigan. “Thoroughly.”
“No doubt there will be some contests. But the present claimants have no legal status. Mr. — (here J. C. mentioned a name that made the Judge’s eyes brighten) tells me there will be no hitch. There could not be, of course. In the absence of any court record of possible transfers, the title to the land, of course, reverts to the Midland Company. As Mr. Corrigan has explained to me, he is entirely within his rights, having secured the title to the land from Mr. Marchmont, representing the Midland. You have no record of any transfers from the Midland to the present claimants or their predecessors, have you? There is no such record?”
The Judge saw Corrigan’s amused grin, and surmised that J. C. was merely playing with him.
“No,” he said, with some bitterness.
“Then of course you are going to stand with Mr. Corrigan against the present claimants?”
“I presume so.”
“H’m,” said J. C. “If there is any doubt about it, perhaps I had better remind you—”
The Judge groaned in agony of spirit. “It won’t be necessary to remind me.”
“So I thought. Well, gentlemen—” J. C. arose “—that will be all for this evening.”
Thus he dismissed the Judge, who went to his cot behind a partition in the courthouse, while Corrigan and J. C. stepped outside and walked slowly towardthe private car. They lingered at the steps, and presently J. C. called and a negro came out with two chairs. J. C. and Corrigan draped themselves in the chairs and smoked. Dusk was settling over Manti; lights appeared in the windows of the buildings; a medley of noises reached the ears of the two men. By day Manti was lively enough, by night it was a maelstrom of frenzied action. A hundred cow-ponies were hitched to rails that skirted the street in front of store and saloon; cowboys from ranches, distant and near, rollicked from building to building, touching elbows with men less picturesquely garbed; the strains of crude music smote the flat, dead desert air; yells, shouts, laughter filtered through the bedlam; an engine, attached to a train of cars on the main track near the private car, wheezed steam in preparation for its eastward trip, soon to begin.
Benham had solemn thoughts, sitting there, watching.
“That crowd wouldn’t have much respect for law. They’re living at such a pitch that they’d lose their senses entirely if any sudden crisis should arise. I’d feel my way carefully, Corrigan—if I were you.”
Corrigan laughed deeply. “Don’t lose any sleep over it. There are fifty deputy marshals in that crowd—and they’re heeled. The rear room in the bank building is a young arsenal.”
Benham started. “How on earth—” he began.
“Law and order,” smiled Corrigan. “A telegram did it. The territory wants a reputation for safety.”
“By the way,” said Benham, after a silence; “Ihadto take that Trevison affair out of your hands. Wedon’t want to antagonize the man. He will be valuable to us—later.”
“How?”
“Carrington, the engineer I sent out here to look over the country before we started work, did considerable nosing around Trevison’s land while in the vicinity. He told me there were unmistakable signs of coal of a good quality and enormous quantity. We ought to be able to drive a good bargain with Trevison one of these days—if we handle him carefully.”
Corrigan frowned and grunted. “His land is included in that of the Midland grant. He shall be treated like the others. If that is your only objection—”
“It isn’t,” said Benham. “I have discovered that ‘Brand’ Trevison is really Trevison Brandon, the disgraced son of Orrin Brandon, the millionaire.”
The darkness hid Corrigan’s ugly pout. “How did you discover that?” he said, coolly, after a little.
“My daughter mentioned it in one of her letters to me. I confirmed, by quizzing Brandon, senior. Brandon is powerful and obstinate. If he should discover what our game is he would fight us to the last ditch. The whole thing would go to smash, perhaps.”
“You didn’t tell him about his son being out here?”
“Certainly not!”
“Good!”
“What do you mean?”
“That it’s my land; that I’m going to take it away from Trevison, father or no father. I’m going to break him. That’s what I mean!” Corrigan’s bighands were clenched on the arms of his chair; his eyes gleamed balefully in the semi-darkness. J. C. felt a tremor of awed admiration for him. He laughed, nervously. “Well,” he said, “if you think you can handle it—”
They sat there for a long time, smoking in silence. One thought dominated Corrigan’s mind: “Three weeks, and exchanging confidences—damn him!”
A discordant note floated out of the medley of sound in palpitating Manti, sailed over the ridiculous sky line and smote the ears of the two on the platform. The air rocked an instant later with a cheer, loud, pregnant with enthusiasm. And then a mass of men, close-packed, undulating, moved down the street toward the private car.
Benham’s face whitened and he rose from his chair. “Good God!” he said; “what’s happened?” He felt Corrigan’s hand on his shoulder, forcing him back into his chair.
“It can’t concern us,” said the big man; “wait; we’ll know pretty soon. Something’s broke loose.”
The two men watched—Benham breathless, wide-eyed; Corrigan with close-set lips and out-thrust chin. The mass moved fast. It passed thePlaza, far up the street, receiving additions each second as men burst out of doors and dove to the fringe; and grew in front as other men skittered into it, hanging to its edge and adding to the confusion. But Corrigan noted that the mass had a point, like a wedge, made by three men who seemed to lead it. Something familiar in the statureand carriage of one of the men struck Corrigan, and he strained his eyes into the darkness the better to see. He could be sure of the identity of the man, presently, and he set his jaws tighter and continued to watch, with bitter malignance in his gaze, for the man was Trevison. There was no mistaking the broad shoulders, the set of the head, the big, bold and confident poise of the man. At the point of the wedge he looked what he was—the leader; he dominated the crowd; it became plain to Corrigan as the mass moved closer that he was intent on something that had aroused the enthusiasm of his followers, for there were shouts of: “That’s the stuff! Give it to them! Run ’em out!”
For an instant as the crowd passed theElksaloon, its lights revealing faces in its glare, Corrigan thought its destination was the private car, and his hand went to his hip. It was withdrawn an instant later, though, when the leader swerved and marched toward the train on the main track. In the light also, Corrigan saw something that gave him a hint of the significance of it all. His laugh broke the tension of the moment.
“It’s Denver Ed and Poker Charley,” he said to Benham. “It’s likely they’ve been caught cheating and have been invited to make themselves scarce.” And he laughed again, with slight contempt, at Benham’s sigh of relief.
The mass surged around the rear coach of the train. There was some laughter, mingled with jeers, and while this was at its height a man broke from the mass and walked rapidly toward Corrigan and Benham. It was Braman. Corrigan questioned him.
“It’s two professional gamblers. They’ve been fleecing Manti’s easy marks with great facility. Tonight they had Clay Levins in the back room of theBelmont. He had about a thousand dollars (the banker looked at Corrigan and closed an eye), and they took it away from him. It looked square, and Levins didn’t kick. Couldn’t anyway—he’s lying in the back room of theBelmontnow, paralyzed. I think that somebody told Levins’ wife about him shooting Marchmont yesterday, and Mrs. Levins likely sent Trevison after hubby—knowing hubby’s appetite for booze. Levins isn’t giving the woman a square deal, so far as that is concerned,” went on the banker; “she and the kids are in want half the time, and I’ve heard that Trevison’s helped them out on quite a good many occasions. Anyway, Trevison appeared in town this afternoon, looking for Levins. Before he found him he heard these two beauties framing up on him. That’s the result—the two beauties go out. The crowd was for stringing them up, but Trevison wouldn’t have it.”
“Marchmont?” interrupted Benham. “It isn’t possible—”
“Why not?” grinned Corrigan. “Yes, sir, the former president of the Midland Company was shot to death yesterday for pocket-picking.”
“Lord!” said Benham.
“So Levins’ wife sent Trevison for hubby,” said Corrigan, quietly. “She’sthatthick with Trevison, is she?”
“Get that out of your mind, Jeff,” returned the banker, noting Corrigan’s tone. “Everybody thatknows of the case will tell you that everything’s straight there.”
“Well,” Corrigan laughed, “I’m glad to hear it.”
The train steamed away as they talked, and the crowd began to break up and scatter toward the saloons. Before that happened, however, there was a great jam around Trevison; he was shaking hands right and left. Voices shouted that he was “all there!” As he started away he was forced to shove his way through the press around him.
Benham had been watching closely this evidence of Trevison’s popularity; he linked it with some words that his daughter had written to him regarding the man, and as a thought formed in his mind he spoke it.
“I’d reconsider about hooking up with that man Trevison, Corrigan. He’s one of those fellows that win popularity easily, and it won’t do you any good to antagonize him.”
“That’s all right,” laughed Corrigan, coldly.