'Firebrand' Trevison
She spoke quietly, though color stained her cheeks. "Not 'are,' Jeff--what
I was. That would be bad enough. But have no fear--I shall do as you ask.
For I want him--I have wanted him all the time--even during the time I was
chained to that little beast, Harvey. I wouldn't have been what I
am--if--if--"
"Cut it out!" he advised brutally; "the man always gets the blame,
anyway--so it's no novelty to hear that sort of stuff. So you understand,
eh? You choose your own method--but get results--quick! I want to get that
damned fool away from here!" He got up and paced back and forth in the
room. "If he takes Rosalind Benham away from me I'll kill him! I'll kill
him, anyway!"
"Has it gone very far between them?" The concern in her voice brought a
harsh laugh from Corrigan.
"Far enough, I guess. He's been riding with her; every day for three
weeks, her aunt told me. He's a fiery, impetuous devil!"
"Don't worry," she consoled. "And now," she directed; "get out of here.
I've been on the go for days and days, and I want to sleep. I shall go out
to see Rosalind tomorrow--to surprise her, Jeff--to surprise her. Ha,
ha!"
"I'll have a rig here for you at nine o'clock," said Corrigan. "Take your
trunks--she won't order you away. Tell her that Trevison sent for
you--don't mention my name; and stick to it! Well, pleasant dreams," he
added as he went out.
As the door closed the woman stood looking at it, a sneer curving her
lips.
CHAPTER XVI
WHEREIN A WOMAN LIES
"Aren't you going to welcome me, dearie?"
From the porch of the Bar B ranchhouse Rosalind had watched the rapid
approach of the buckboard, and she now stood at the edge of the step
leading to the porch, not more than ten or fifteen feet distant from the
vehicle, shocked into dumb amazement.
"Why, yes--of course. That is--Why, what on earth brought you out here?"
"A perfectly good train--as far as your awfully crude town of Manti; and
this--er--spring-legged thing, the rest of the way," laughed Hester
Harvey. She had stepped down, a trifle flushed, inwardly amused, outwardly
embarrassed--which was very good acting; but looking very attractive and
girlish in the simple dress she had donned for the occasion--and for the
purpose of making a good impression. So attractive was she that the
contemplation of her brought a sinking sensation to Rosalind that drooped
her shoulders, and caused her to look around, involuntarily, for something
to lean upon. For there flashed into her mind at this instant the
conviction that she had herself to blame for this visitation--she had
written to Ruth Gresham, and Ruth very likely had disseminated the news,
after the manner of all secrets, and Hester had heard it. And of course
the attraction was "Brand" Trevison! A new emotion surged through Rosalind
at this thought, an emotion so strong that it made her gasp--jealousy!
She got through the ordeal somehow--with an appearance of pleasure--though
it was hard for her to play the hypocrite! But so soon as she decently
could, without cutting short the inevitable inconsequential chatter which
fills the first moments of renewed friendships, she hurried Hester to a
room and during her absence sat immovable in her chair on the porch
staring stonily out at the plains.
It was not until half an hour later, when they were sitting on the porch,
that Hester delivered the stroke that caused Rosalind's hands to fall
nervelessly into her lap, her lips to quiver and her eyes to fill with a
reflection of a pain that gripped her hard, somewhere inside. For Hester
had devised her method, as suggested by Corrigan.
"It may seem odd to you--if you know anything of the manner of my breaking
off with Trevison Brandon--but he wrote me about a month ago, asking me to
come out here. I didn't accept the invitation at once--because I didn't
want him to be too sure, you know, dearie. Men are always presuming and
pursuing, dearie."
"Then you didn't hear of Trevison's whereabouts from Ruth Gresham?"
"Why, no, dearie! He wrote directly to me."
Rosalind hadn't _that_ to reproach herself with, at any rate!
"Of course, I couldn't go to his ranch--the Diamond K, isn't it?--so,
noting from one of the newspapers that you had come here, I decided to
take advantage of _your_ hospitality. I'm just wild to see the dear boy!
Is his ranch far? For you know," she added, with a malicious look at the
girl's pale face; "I must not keep him waiting, now that I am here."
"You won't find him prosperous." It hurt Rosalind to say that, but the
hurt was slightly offset by a savage resentment that gripped her when she
thought of how quickly Hester had thrown Trevison over when she had
discovered that he was penniless. And she had a desperate hope that the
dismal aspect of Trevison's future would appall Hester--as it would were
the woman still the mercenary creature she had been ten years before. But
Hester looked at her with grave imperturbability.
"I heard something about his trouble. About some land, isn't it? I didn't
learn the particulars. Tell me about it--won't you, dearie?"
Rosalind's story of Trevison's difficulties did not have the effect that
she anticipated.
"The poor, dear boy!" said Hester--and she seemed genuinely moved.
Rosalind gulped hard over the shattered ruins of this last hope and got
up, fighting against an inhospitable impulse to order Hester away. She
made some slight excuse and slipped to her room, where she stayed long,
elemental passions battling riotously within her.
She realized now how completely she had yielded to the spell that the
magnetic and impetuous exile had woven about her; she knew now that had he
pressed her that day when he had told her of his love for her she must
have surrendered. She thought, darkly, of his fiery manner that day, of
his burning looks, his hot, impulsive words, of his confidences. Hypocrisy
all! For while they had been together he must have been thinking of
sending for Hester! He had been trifling with her! Faith in an ideal is a
sacred thing, and shattered, it lights the fires of hate and scorn, and
the emotions that seethed through Rosalind's veins as in her room she
considered Trevison's unworthiness, finally developed into a furious
vindictiveness. She wished dire, frightful calamities upon him, and then,
swiftly reacting, her sympathetical womanliness forced the dark passions
back, and she threw herself on the bed, sobbing, murmuring: "Forgive me!"
Later, when she had made herself presentable, she went downstairs again,
concealing her misery behind a steady courtesy and a smile that sometimes
was a little forced and bitter, to entertain her guest. It was a long,
tiresome day, made almost unbearable by Hester's small talk. But she got
through it. And when, rather late in the afternoon, Hester inquired the
way to the Diamond K, announcing her intention of visiting Trevison
immediately, she gave no evidence of the shocked surprise that seized her.
She coolly helped Hester prepare for the trip, and when she drove away in
the buckboard, stood on the ground at the edge of the porch, watching as
the buckboard and its occupant faded into the shimmering haze of the
plains.
CHAPTER XVII
JUSTICE VS. LAW
Impatience, intolerable and vicious, gripped Trevison as he rode homeward
after his haunting vigil at Manti. The law seemed to him to be like a
house with many doors, around and through which one could play hide and
seek indefinitely, with no possibility of finding one of the doors locked.
Judge Graney had warned him to be cautious, but as he rode into the dusk
of the plains the spirit of rebellion seized him. Twice he halted Nigger
and wheeled him, facing Manti, already agleam and tumultuous, almost
yielding to his yearning to return and force his enemy to some sort of
physical action, but each time he urged the horse on, for he could think
of no definite plan. He was half way to the Diamond K when he suddenly
started and sat rigid and erect in the saddle, drawing a deep breath, his
nerves tingling from excitement. He laughed lowly, exultingly, as men
laugh when under the stress of adversity they devise sudden, bold plans of
action, and responding to the slight knee press Nigger turned, reared, and
then shot like a black bolt across the plains at an angle that would not
take him anywhere near the Diamond K.
Half an hour later, in a darkness which equaled that of the night on which
he had carried the limp and drink-saturated Clay Levins to his wife,
Trevison was dismounting at the door of the gun-man's cabin. A little
later, standing in the glare of lamplight that shone through the open
doorway, he was reassuring Mrs. Levins and asking for her husband. Shortly
afterward, he was talking lowly to Levins as the latter saddled his pony
out at the stable.
"I'll do it--for you," Levins told him. And then he chuckled. "It'll seem
like old times."
"It's Justice versus Law, tonight," laughed Trevison; "it's a case of 'the
end justifying the means.'"
Manti never slept. At two o'clock in the morning the lights in the
gambling rooms of the _Belmont_ and the _Plaza_ were still flickering
streams out into the desert night; weak strains of discord were being
drummed out of a piano in a dance hall; the shuffling of feet smote the
dead, flat silence of the night with an odd, weird resonance. Here and
there a light burned in a dwelling or store, or shone through the wall of
a tent-house. But Manti's one street was deserted--the only peace that
Manti ever knew, had descended.
Two men who had dismounted at the edge of town had hitched their horses in
the shadow of a wagon shed in the rear of a store building, and were
making their way cautiously down the railroad tracks toward the center of
town. They kept in the shadows of the buildings as much as possible--for
space was valuable now and many buildings nuzzled the railroad tracks; but
when once they were forced to pass through a light from a window their
faces were revealed in it for an instant--set, grim and determined.
"We've got to move quickly," said one of the men as they neared the
courthouse; "it will be daylight soon. Damn a town that never sleeps!"
The other laughed lowly. "I've said the same thing, often," he whispered.
"Easy now--here we are!"
They paused in the shadow of the building and whispered together briefly.
A sound reached their ears as they stood. Peering around the corner
nearest them they saw the bulk of a man appear. He walked almost to the
corner of the building where they crouched, and they held their breath,
tensing their muscles. Just when it seemed they must be discovered, the
man wheeled, walked away, and vanished into the darkness toward the other
side of the building. Presently he returned, and repeated the maneuver. As
he vanished the second time, the larger man of the two in wait, whispered
to the other:
"He's the sentry! Stand where you are--I'll show Corrigan--"
The words were cut short by the reappearance of the sentry. He came close
to the corner, and wheeled, to return. A lithe black shape leaped like a
huge cat, and landed heavily on the sentry's shoulders, bringing a pained
grunt from him. The grunt died in a gurgle as iron fingers closed on his
throat; he was jammed, face down, into the dust and held there,
smothering, until his body slacked and his muscles ceased rippling. Then a
handkerchief was slipped around his mouth and drawn tightly. He was rolled
over, still unconscious, his hands tied behind him. Then he was borne away
into the darkness by the big man, who carried him as though he were a
child.
"Locked in a box-car," whispered the big man, returning: "They'll get him;
they're half unloaded."
Without further words they returned to the shadow of the building.