“I’m old enough to know from lookin’ at a mon whether he manes business or not, an’ Trevison wasn’t foolin’. So I got the bhoys away, an’ here we are. If you’re in charge, it’s up to you to smooth things out. Though from the looks av your mug ‘Firebrand’s’ been maulin’ you some, too!”
Corrigan’s answer was a cold glare. “You quit without a fight, eh?” he taunted; “you let one man bluff half a hundred of you!”
Carson’s eyes brightened. “My recollection is that ‘Firebrand’ is still holdin’ the forrt. Whin I got me last look at him he was sittin’ on the top av the cut, like he was intendin’ to stay there indefinite. If ye think he’s bluffin’, mebbe it’d be quite an idee for you to go out there yourself, an’ call it. I’d be willin’ to give ye me moral support.”
“I’ll call him when I get ready.” Corrigan went to the desk and sat in the chair, ignoring Carson, who watched him narrowly. Presently he turned and spoke to the man:
“Put your men at work trueing up the roadbed on the next section back, until further orders.”
“An’ let ‘Firebrand’ hold the forrt?”
“Do as you’re told!”
Carson went out to his men. Near the station platform he turned and looked back at the bank building, grinning. “There’s two bulldogs comin’ to grips in this deal or I’m a domn poor prophet!” he said.
When Braman returned from his errand he found Corrigan staring out of the window. The banker announced that Miss Benham had received Corrigan’s message with considerable equanimity, and was rewarded for his levity with a frown.
“What’s Carson and his gang doing in town?” he queried.
Corrigan told him, briefly. The banker whistled in astonishment, and his face grew long. “I told you he is a tough one!” he reminded.
Corrigan got to his feet. “Yes—he’s a tough one,” he admitted. “I’m forced to alter my plans a little—that’s all. But I’ll get him. Hunt up something to eat,” he directed; “I’m hungry. I’m going to the station for a few minutes.”
He went out, and the banker watched him until he vanished around the corner of a building. Then Braman shook his head. “Jeff’s resourceful,” he said. “But Trevison—” His face grew solemn. “What a damned fool I was to trip him with that broom!” He drew a pistol from a pocket and examined it intently, then returned it to the pocket and sat, staring with unseeing eyes beyond the station at the two lines of steel that ran out upon the plains and stopped in the deep cut on the crest of which he could see a man on a black horse.
Down at the station Corrigan was leaning on a rough wooden counter, writing on a yellow paper pad. When he had finished he shoved the paper over to the telegrapher, who had been waiting:
J. Chalfant Benham, B— Building, New York.
Unexpected opposition developed. Trevison. Give Lindman removal order immediately. Communicate with me at Dry Bottom tomorrow morning. Corrigan.
Corrigan watched the operator send the message and then he returned to the bank building, where he found Braman setting out a meager lunch in the rear room. The two men talked as they ate, mostly about Trevison, and the banker’s face did not lose its worried expression. Later they smoked and talked and watched while the afternoon sun grew mellow; while the somber twilight descended over the world and darkness came and obliterated the hill on which sat the rider of the black horse.
Shortly after dark Corrigan sent the banker on another errand, this time to a boarding-house at the edge of town. Braman returned shortly, announcing: “He’ll be ready.” Then, just before midnight Corrigan climbed into the cab of the engine which had brought the private car, and which was waiting, steam up, several hundred feet down the track from the car.
“All right!” said Corrigan briskly, to the engineer, as he climbed in and a flare from the fire-box suffused his face; “pull out. But don’t make any fuss about it—I don’t want those people in the car to know.” And shortly afterwards the locomotive glided silently away into the darkness toward that town in which a judge of the United States Court had, a few hours before, received orders which had caused him to remark, bitterly: “So does the past shape the future.”
* * *
CHAPTER V
A TELEGRAM AND A GIRL
Banker Braman went to bed on the cot in the back room shortly after Corrigan departed from Manti. He stretched himself out with a sigh, oppressed with the conviction that he had done a bad day’s work in antagonizing Trevison. The Diamond K owner would repay him, he knew. But he knew, too, that he need have no fear that Trevison would sneak about it. Therefore he did not expect to feel Trevison at his throat during the night. That was some satisfaction.
He dropped to sleep, thinking of Trevison. He awoke about dawn to a loud hammering on the rear door, and he scrambled out of bed and opened the door upon the telegraph agent. That gentleman gazed at him with grim reproof.
“Holy Moses!” he said; “you’re a hell of a tight sleeper! I’ve been pounding on this door for an age!” He shoved a sheet of paper under Braman’s nose. “Here’s a telegram for you.”
Braman took the telegram, scanning it, while the agent talked on, ramblingly. A sickly smile came over Braman’s face when he finished reading, and then he listened to the agent:
“I got a wire a little after midnight, asking me if that man, Corrigan, was still in Manti. The engineer told me he was taking Corrigan back to Dry Bottom at midnight, and so I knew he wasn’t here, and I clicked back ‘No.’ It was from J. C. He must have connected with Corrigan at Dry Bottom. That guy Trevison must have old Benham’s goat, eh?”
Braman re-read the telegram; it was directed to him:
Send my daughter to Trevison with cash in amount of check destroyed by Corrigan yesterday. Instruct her to say mistake made. No offense intended. Hustle. J. C. Benham.
Braman slipped his clothes on and ran down the track to the private car. He had known J. C. Benham several years and was aware that when he issued an order he wanted it obeyed, literally. The negro autocrat of the private car met him at the platform and grinned amply at the banker’s request.
“Miss Benham done tol’ me she am not to be disturbed till eight o’clock,” he objected. But the telegram in Braman’s hands had instant effect upon the black custodian of the car, and shortly afterward Miss Benham was looking at the banker and his telegram in sleepy-eyed astonishment, the door of her compartment open only far enough to permit her to stick her head out.
Braman was forced to do much explaining, and concluded by reading the telegram to her. She drew everything out of him except the story of the fight.
“Well,” she said in the end, “I suppose I shall have to go. So his name is ‘Brand’ Trevison. And he won’t permit the men to work. Why did Mr. Corrigan destroy the check?”
Braman evaded, but the girl thought she knew. Corrigan had yielded to an impulse of obstinacy provoked by Trevison’s assault on him. It was not good business—it was almost childish; but it was human to feel that way. She felt a slight disappointment in Corrigan, though; the action did not quite accord with her previous estimate of him. She did not know what to think of Trevison. But of course any man who would deliberately and brutally ride another man down, would naturally not hesitate to adopt other lawless means of defending himself.
She told Braman to have the money ready for her in an hour, and at the end of that time with her morocco handbag bulging, she emerged from the front door of the bank and climbed the steps of the private car, which had been pulled down to a point in front of the station by the dinky engine, with Murphy presiding at the throttle.
Carson was standing on the platform when Miss Benham climbed to it, and he grinned and greeted her with:
“If ye have no objections, ma’am, I’ll be ridin’ down to the cut with ye. Me name’s Patrick Carson, ma’am.”
“I have no objection whatever,” said the lady, graciously. “I presume you are connected with the railroad?”
“An’ wid
the ginneys that’s buildin’ it, ma’am,” he supplemented. “I’m the construction boss av this section, an’ I’m the mon that had the unhappy experience av lookin’ into the business end av ‘Firebrand’s’ six-shooter yisterday.”
“‘Firebrand’s’?” she said, with a puzzled look at him.
“Thot mon, Trevison, ma’am; that’s what they call him. An’ he fits it bedad—beggin’ your pardon.”
“Oh,” she said; “then you know him.” And she felt a sudden interest in Carson.
“Enough to be certain he ain’t to be monkeyed with, ma’am.”
She seemed to ignore this. “Please tell the engineer to go ahead,” she told him. “And then come into the car—I want to talk with you.”
A little later, with the car clicking slowly over the rail-joints toward the cut, Carson diffidently followed the negro attendant into a luxurious compartment, in which, seated in a big leather-covered chair, was Miss Benham. She motioned Carson to another chair, and in the conversation that followed Miss Benham received a comprehensive estimate of Trevison from Carson’s viewpoint. It seemed unsatisfying to her—Carson’s commendation did not appear to coincide with Trevison’s performances.
“Have you heard what happened in Manti yesterday?” she questioned. “This man, Trevison, jumped his horse against Mr. Corrigan and knocked him down.”
“I heard av it,” grinned Carson. “But I didn’t see it. Nor did I see the daisy scrap that tuk place right after.”
“Fight?” she exclaimed.
Carson reddened. “Sure, ye haven’t heard av it, an’ I’m blabbin’ like a kid.”
“Tell me about it.” Her eyes were aglow with interest.
“There’s devilish little to tell—beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. But thim that was in at the finish is waggin’ their tongues about it bein’ a dandy shindy. Judgin’ from the talk, nobuddy got licked—it was a fair dhraw. But I sh’ud judge, lookin’ at Corrigan’s face, that it was a darlin’ av a scrap.”
She was silent, gazing contemplatively out of the car window. Corrigan had returned, after escorting her to the car, to engage in a fight with Trevison. That was what had occupied him; that was why he had gone away without seeing her. Well, Trevison had given him plenty of provocation.
“Trevison’s horse knockin’ Corrigan down was what started it, they’ve been tellin’ me,” said Carson. “But thim that know Trevison’s black knows that Trevison wasn’t to blame.”
“Not to blame?” she asked; “why not?”
“For the simple rayson thot in a case like thot the mon has no control over the baste, ma’am. ‘Firebrand’ told me only yisterday mornin’ thot there was no holdin’ the black whin somebuddy tried to shoot wid him on his back.”
The girl remembered how Trevison had tried to speak to her immediately after the upsetting of Corrigan, and she knew now, that he had wanted to explain his action. Reviewing the incident in the light of Carson’s explanation, she felt that Corrigan was quite as much at fault as Trevison. Somehow, that knowledge was vaguely satisfying.
She did not succeed in questioning Carson further about Trevison, though there were many points over which she felt a disturbing curiosity, for Agatha came in presently, and after nodding stiffly to Carson, seated herself and gazed aloofly out of a window.
Carson, ill at ease in Agatha’s presence, soon invented an excuse to go out upon the platform, leaving Rosalind to explain his presence in the car.
“What on earth could you have to say to a section boss—or he to you?” demanded Agatha. “You are becoming very—er—indiscreet, Rosalind.”
The girl smiled. It was a smile that would have betrayed the girl had Agatha possessed the physiognomist’s faculty of analyzation, for in it was much relief and renewed faith. For the rider of the black horse was not the brutal creature she had thought him.
* * *
When the private car came to a stop, Rosalind looked out of the window to see the steep wall of the cut towering above her. Aunt Agatha still sat near, and when Rosalind got up Agatha rose also, registering an objection:
“I think your father might have arranged to have some man meet this outlaw. It is not, in my opinion, a proper errand for a girl. But if you are determined to go, I presume I shall have to follow.”
“It won’t be necessary,” said Rosalind. But Agatha set her lips tightly. And when the girl reached the platform Agatha was close behind her.
But both halted on the platform as they were about to descend the steps. They heard Carson’s voice, loud and argumentative:
“There’s a lady aboored, I tell ye! If ye shoot, you’re a lot of damned rapscallions, an’ I’ll come up there an’ bate the head off ye!”
“Stow your gab an’ produce the lady!” answered a voice. It came from above, and Rosalind stepped down to the floor of the cut and looked upward. On the crest of the southern wall were a dozen men—cowboys—armed with rifles, peering down at the car. They shifted their gaze to her when she stepped into view, and one of them laughed.
“Correct, boys,” he said; “it’s a lady.” There was a short silence; Rosalind saw the men gather close—they were talking, but she could not hear their voices. Then the man who had spoken first stepped to the edge of the cut and called: “What do you want?”
The girl answered: “I want to speak with Mr. Trevison.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” came back the voice; “but Trevison ain’t here—he’s at the Diamond K.”
Rosalind reached a decision quickly. “Aunty,” she said; “I am going to the Diamond K.”
“I forbid you!” said Agatha sternly. “I would not trust you an instant with those outlaws!”
“Nonsense,” smiled Rosalind. “I am coming up,” she called to the man on the crest; “do you mind?”
The man laughed. “I reckon not, ma’am.”
Rosalind smiled at Carson, who was watching her admiringly, and to the smile he answered, pointing eastward to where the slope of the hill melted into the plains: “You’ll have to go thot way, ma’am.” He laughed. “You’re perfectly safe wid thim min, ma’am—they’re Trevison’s—an’ Trevison wud shoot the last mon av thim if they’d harm a hair av your pretty head. Go along, ma’am, an’ God bless ye! Ye’ll be savin’ a heap av throuble for me an’ me ginneys, an’ the railroad company.” He looked with bland derision at Agatha who gave him a glance of scornful reproof as she followed after her charge.
The girl was panting when she reached the crest of the cut. Agatha was a little white, possibly more from apprehension than from indignation, though that emotion had its influence; but their reception could not have been more formal had it taken place in an eastern drawing-room. For every hat was off, and each man was trying his best to conceal his interest. And when men have not seen a woman for a long time, the appearance of a pretty one makes it rather hard to maintain polite poise. But they succeeded, which spoke well for their manliness. If they exchanged surreptitious winks over the appearance of Agatha, they are to be excused, for that lady’s demeanor was one of frigid haughtiness, which is never quite impressive to those who live close to nature.
In an exchange of words, brief and pointed, Rosalind learned that it was three miles to the Diamond K ranchhouse, and that Trevison had given orders not to be disturbed unless the railroad company attempted to continue work at the cut. Could she borrow one of their horses, and a guide?
“You bet!” emphatically returned the spokesman who, she learned later, was Trevison’s foreman. She should have the gentlest “cayuse” in the “bunch,” and the foreman would do the guiding, himself. At which word Agatha, noting the foreman’s enthusiasm, glared coldly at him.
But here Agatha was balked by the insurmountable wall of convention. She had ridden horses, to be sure, in her younger days; but when the foreman, at Rosalind’s request, offered her a pony, she sniffed scornfully and marched down the slope toward the private car, saying that if Rosalind was determined to persist she might persist without her as
sistance. For there was no side-saddle in the riding equipment of the outfit. And Rosalind, quite aware of the prudishness exhibited by her chaperon, and not unmindful of the mirth that the men were trying their best to keep concealed, rode on with the foreman, with something resembling thankfulness for the temporary freedom tugging at her heart.
* * *
Trevison had camped all night on the crest of the cut. It was only at dawn that Barkwell, the foreman who had escorted Rosalind, had appeared at the cut on his way to town, and discovered him, and then the foreman’s plans were changed and he was dispatched to the Diamond K for reinforcements. Trevison had ridden back to the Diamond K to care for his arm, which had pained him frightfully during the night, and at ten o’clock in the morning he was stretched out, fully dressed and wide awake on the bed in his room in the ranchhouse, frowningly reviewing the events of the day before.
He was in no good humor, and when he heard Barkwell hallooing from the yard near the house, he got up and looked out of a window, a scowl on his face.
Rosalind was not in the best of spirits, herself, for during the ride to the ranchhouse she had been sending subtly-questioning shafts at the foreman—questions that mostly concerned Trevison—and they had all fell, blunted and impotent, from the armor of Barkwell’s reticence. But a glance at Trevison’s face, ludicrous in its expression of stunned amazement, brought a broad smile to her own. She saw his lips form her name, and then she waited demurely until she saw him coming out of the ranchhouse door toward her.
Firebrand Trevison Page 5
