'Firebrand' Trevison
the look of reckless abandon in the otherwise serene eyes that held
Murphy's steadily, convinced the engineer that the man had merely
responded to a dare-devil impulse. There was something in Trevison's
appearance that suggested an entire disregard of fear. The engineer had
watched the face of a brother of his craft one night when the latter had
been driving a roaring monster down a grade at record-breaking speed into
a wall of rain-soaked darkness out of which might thunder at any instant
another roaring monster, coming in the opposite direction. There had been
a mistake in orders, and the train was running against time to make a
switch. Several times during the ride Murphy had caught a glimpse of the
engineer's face, and the eyes had haunted him since--defiance of death,
contempt of consequences, had been reflected in them. Trevison's eyes
reminded him of the engineer's. But in Trevison's eyes was an added
expression--cold humor. The engineer of Murphy's recollection would have
met death dauntlessly. Trevison would meet it no less dauntlessly, but
would mock at it. Murphy looked long and admiringly at him, noting the
deep chest, the heavy muscles, the blue-black sheen of his freshly-shaven
chin and jaw under the tan; the firm, mobile mouth, the aggressive set to
his head. Murphy set his age down at twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Murphy
was sixty himself--the age that appreciates, and secretly envies, the
virility of youth. Carson was complimenting Trevison on his descent of the
wall of the cut.
"You're a daisy rider, me bhoy!"
"Nigger's a clever horse," smiled Trevison. Murphy was pleased that he was
giving the animal the credit. "Nigger's well trained. He's wiser than some
men. Tricky, too." He patted the sleek, muscular neck of the beast and the
animal whinnied gently. "He's careful of his master, though," laughed
Trevison. "A man pulled a gun on me, right after I'd got Nigger. He had
the drop, and he meant business. I had to shoot. To disconcert the fellow,
I had to jump Nigger against him. Since then, whenever Nigger sees a gun
in anyone's hand, he thinks it's time to bowl that man over. There's no
holding him. He won't even stand for anyone pulling a handkerchief out of
a hip pocket when I'm on him." Trevison grinned. "Try it, Carson, but get
that boulder between you and Nigger before you do."
"I don't like the look av the baste's eye," declined the Irishman. "I
wudn't doubt ye're worrud for the wurrold. But he wudn't jump a mon divvil
a bit quicker than his master, or I'm a sinner!"
Trevison's eyes twinkled. "You're a good construction boss, Carson. But
I'm glad to see that you're getting more considerate."
"Av what?"
"Of your men." Trevison glanced back; he had looked once before, out of
the tail of his eye. The laborers were idling in the cut, enjoying the
brief rest, taking advantage of Carson's momentary dereliction, for the
last car had been filled.
"I'll be rayported yet, begob!"
Carson waved his hands, and the laborers dove for the flat-cars. When the
last man was aboard, the engine coughed and moved slowly away. Carson
climbed into the engine-cab, with a shout: "So-long bhoy!" to Trevison.
The latter held Nigger with a firm rein, for the animal was dancing at the
noise made by the engine, and as the cars filed past him, running faster
now, the laborers grinned at him and respectfully raised their hats. For
they had come from one of the Latin countries of Europe, and for them, in
the person of this heroic figure of a man who had ridden his horse down
the steep wall of the cut, was romance.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH HATRED IS BORN
For some persons romance dwells in the new and the unusual, and for other
persons it dwells not at all. Certain of Rosalind Benham's friends would
have been able to see nothing but the crudities and squalor of Manti,
viewing it as Miss Benham did, from one of the windows of her father's
private car, which early that morning had been shunted upon a switch at
the outskirts of town. Those friends would have seen nothing but a new
town of weird and picturesque buildings, with more saloons than seemed to
be needed in view of the noticeable lack of citizens. They would have
shuddered at the dust-windrowed street, the litter of refuse, the dismal
lonesomeness, the forlornness, the utter isolation, the desolation. Those
friends would have failed to note the vast, silent reaches of green-brown
plain that stretched and yawned into aching distances; the wonderfully
blue and cloudless sky that covered it; they would have overlooked the
timber groves that spread here and there over the face of the land, with
their lure of mystery. No thoughts of the bigness of this country would
have crept in upon them--except as they might have been reminded of the
dreary distance from the glitter and the tinsel of the East. The
mountains, distant and shining, would have meant nothing to them; the
strong, pungent aroma of the sage might have nauseated them.
But Miss Benham had caught her first glimpse of Manti and the surrounding
country from a window of her berth in the car that morning just at dawn,
and she loved it. She had lain for some time cuddled up in her bed,
watching the sun rise over the distant mountains, and the breath of the
sage, sweeping into the half-opened window, had carried with it something
stronger--the lure of a virgin country.
Aunt Agatha Benham, chaperon, forty--maiden lady from choice--various
uncharitable persons hinted humorously of pursued eligibles--found
Rosalind gazing ecstatically out of the berth window when she stirred and
awoke shortly after nine. Agatha climbed out of her berth and sat on its
edge, yawning sleepily.
"This is Manti, I suppose," she said acridly, shoving the curtain aside
and looking out of the window. "We should consider ourselves fortunate not
to have had an adventure with Indians or outlaws. We have _that_ to be
thankful for, at least."
Agatha's sarcasm failed to penetrate the armor of Rosalind's unconcern--as
Agatha's sarcasms always did. Agatha occupied a place in Rosalind's
affections, but not in her scheme of enjoyment. Since she _must_ be
chaperoned, Agatha was acceptable to her. But that did not mean that she
made a confidante of Agatha. For Agatha was looking at the world through
the eyes of Forty, and the vision of Twenty is somewhat more romantic.
"Whatever your father thought of in permitting you to come out here is a
mystery to me," pursued Agatha severely, as she fussed with her hair. "It
was like him, though, to go to all this trouble--for me--merely to satisfy
your curiosity about the country. I presume we shall be returning
shortly."
"Don't be impatient, Aunty," said the girl, still gazing out of the
window. "I intend to stretch my legs before I return."
"Mercy!" gasped Agatha; "such language! This barbaric country has affected
you already, my dear. Legs!" She summoned horror into her expression, but
it was lost on Rosalind, who still gazed out of the window. Indeed, from a
certain light in the girl's eyes it might be adduced that she took some
delight in shocking Agatha.
"I shall stay here quite some time, I think," said Rosalind. "Daddy said
there was no hurry; that he might come out here in a month, himself. And I
have been dying to get away from the petty conventionalities of the East.
I am going to be absolutely human for a while, Aunty. I am going to 'rough
it'--that is, as much as one can rough it when one is domiciled in a
private car. I am going to get a horse and have a look at the country. And
Aunty--" here the girl's voice came chokingly, as though some deep emotion
agitated her "--I am going to ride 'straddle'!"
She did not look to see whether Agatha had survived this second shock--but
Agatha had survived many such shocks. It was only when, after a silence of
several minutes, Agatha spoke again, that the girl seemed to remember
there was anybody in the compartment with her. Agatha's voice was laden
with contempt:
"Well, I don't know what you see in this outlandish place to compensate
for what you miss at home."
The girl did not look around. "A man on a black horse, Aunty," she said.
"He has passed here twice. I have never seen such a horse. I don't
remember to have ever seen a man quite like the rider. He looks
positively--er--_heroish_! He is built like a Roman gladiator, he rides
the black horse as though he had been sculptured on it, and his head has a
set that makes one feel he has a mind of his own. He has furnished me with
the only thrill that I have felt since we left New York!"
"He hasn't seen _you_!" said Agatha, coldly; "of course you made sure of
_that_?"
The girl looked mischievously at the older woman. She ran her fingers
through her hair--brown and vigorous-looking--then shaded her eyes with
her hands and gazed at her reflection in a mirror near by. In deshabille
she looked fresh and bewitching. She had looked like a radiant goddess to
"Brand" Trevison, when he had accidentally caught a glimpse of her face at
the window while she had been watching him. He had not known that the lady
had just awakened from her beauty sleep. He would have sworn that she
needed no beauty sleep. And he had deliberately ridden past the car again,
hoping to get another glimpse of her. The girl smiled.
"I am not so positive about that, Aunty. Let us not be prudish. If he saw
me, he made no sign, and therefore he is a gentleman." She looked out of
the window and smiled again. "There he is now, Aunty!"
It was Agatha who parted the curtains, this time. The horseman's face was
toward the window, and he saw her. An expression of puzzled astonishment
glowed in his eyes, superseded quickly by disappointment, whereat Rosalind
giggled softly and hid her tousled head in a pillow.
"The impertinent brute! Rosalind, he dared to look directly at me, and I
am sure he would have winked at me in another instant! A gentleman!" she
said, coldly.
"Don't be severe, Aunty. I'm sure he is a gentleman, for all his
curiosity. See--there he is, riding away without so much as looking
back!"
Half an hour later the two women entered the dining-room just as a big,
rather heavy-featured, but handsome man, came through the opposite door.
He greeted both ladies effusively, and smilingly looked at his watch.
"You over-slept this morning, ladies--don't you think? It's after ten.
I've been rummaging around town, getting acquainted. It's rather an
unfinished place, after the East. But in time--" He made a gesture,
perhaps a silent prophecy that one day Manti would out-strip New York, and
bowed the ladies to seats at table, talking while the colored waiter moved
obsequiously about them.
"I thought at first that your father was over-enthusiastic about Manti,
Miss Benham," he continued. "But the more I see of it the firmer becomes
my conviction that your father was right. There are tremendous
possibilities for growth. Even now it is a rather fertile country. We
shall make it hum, once the railroad and the dam are completed. It is a
logical site for a town--there is no other within a hundred miles in any
direction."
"And you are to anticipate the town's growth--isn't that it, Mr.
Corrigan?"
"You put it very comprehensively, Miss Benham; but perhaps it would be
better to say that I am the advance agent of prosperity--that sounds
rather less mercenary. We must not allow the impression to get abroad that
mere money is to be the motive power behind our efforts."
"But money-making is the real motive, after all?" said Miss Benham,
dryly.
"I submit there are several driving forces in life, and that money-making
is not the least compelling of them."
"The other forces?" It seemed to Corrigan that Miss Benham's face was very