'Firebrand' Trevison
imagination. He was at the door of the shed in a dozen strides.
The lock had been forced; the hasp was hanging, suspended from a twisted
staple. Carson had no pistol--it would have been useless, anyway.
Carson hesitated, vacillating between two courses. Should he return for
help, or should he secrete himself somewhere and watch? The utter
foolhardiness of attempting the capture of the prowler single handed
assailed him, and he decided on retreat. He took one step, and then stood
rigid in his tracks, for a voice filtered thinly through the doorway,
hoarse, vibrant:
"Don't forget the fuses."
Carson's lips formed the word: "Trevison!"
Carson's breath came easier; his thoughts became more coherent, his
recollection vivid; his sympathies leaped like living things. When his
thoughts dwelt upon the scene at the butte during Trevison's visit while
the mining machinery was being erected--the trap that Corrigan had
prepared for the man--a grim smile wreathed his face, for he strongly
suspected what was meant by Trevison's visit to the dynamite shed.
He slipped cautiously around a corner of the shed, making no sound in the
deep dust surrounding it, and stole back the way he had come, tingling.
"Begob, I'll slape now--a little while!"
As Carson vanished down the tracks a head was stuck out through the
doorway of the shed and turned so that its owner could scan his
surroundings.
"All clear," he whispered.
"Get going, then," said another voice, and two men, their faces muffled
with handkerchiefs, bearing something that bulked their pockets oddly,
slipped out of the door and fled noiselessly, like gliding shadows, down
the track toward the cut.
* * * * *
Rosalind had been asleep in the rocker. A cool night breeze, laden with
the strong, pungent aroma of sage, sent a shiver over her and she awoke,
to see that the lights of Manti had vanished. An eerie lonesomeness had
settled around her.
"Why, it must be nearly midnight!" she said. She got up, yawning, and
stepped toward the door, wondering why Agatha had not called her. But
Agatha had retired, resenting the girl's manner.
Almost to the door, Rosalind detected movement in the ghostly semi-light
that flooded the plains between the porch and the picturesque spot, more
than a mile away, on which Levins' cabin stood. She halted at the door and
watched, and when the moving object resolved into a horse, loping swiftly,
she strained her eyes toward it. At first it seemed to have no rider, but
when it had approached to within a hundred yards of her, she gasped,
leaped off the porch and ran toward the horse. An instant later she stood
at the animal's head, voicing her astonishment.
"Why, it's Chuck Levins! Why on earth are you riding around at this hour
of the night?"
"Sissy's sick. Maw wants you to please come an' see what you can do--if it
ain't too much trouble."
"Trouble?" The girl laughed. "I should say not! Wait until I saddle my
horse!"
She ran to the porch and stole silently into the house, emerging with a
small medicine case, which she stuck into a pocket of her coat. Once
before she had had occasion to use her simple remedies on Sissy--an
illness as simple as her remedies; but she could feel something of Mrs.
Levins' concern for her offspring, and--and it was an ideal night for a
gallop over the plains.
It was almost midnight by the Levins' clock when she entered the cabin,
and a quick diagnosis of her case with an immediate application of one of
her remedies, brought results. At half past twelve Sissy was sleeping
peacefully, and Chuck had dozed off, fully dressed, no doubt ready to
re-enact his manly and heroic role upon call.
It was not until Rosalind was ready to go that Mrs. Levins apologized for
her husband's rudeness to his guest.
"Clay feels awfully bitter against Corrigan. It's because Corrigan is
fighting Trevison--and Trevison is Clay's friend--they've been like
brothers. Trevison has done so much for us."
Rosalind glanced around the cabin. She had meant to ask Chuck why his
father had not come on the midnight errand, but had forebore. "Mr. Levins
isn't here?"
"Clay went away about nine o'clock." The woman did not meet Rosalind's
direct gaze; she flushed under it and looked downward, twisting her
fingers in her apron. Rosalind had noted a strangeness in the woman's
manner when she had entered the cabin, but she had ascribed it to the
child's illness, and had thought nothing more of it. But now it burst upon
her with added force, and when she looked up again Rosalind saw there was
an odd, strained light in her eyes--a fear, a dread--a sinister something
that she shrank from. Rosalind remembered the killing of Marchmont, and
had a quick divination of impending trouble.
"What is it, Mrs. Levins? What has happened?"
The woman gulped hard, and clenched her hands. Evidently, whatever her
trouble, she had determined to bear it alone, but was now wavering.
"Tell me, Mrs. Levins; perhaps I can help you?"
"You can!" The words burst sobbingly from the woman. "Maybe you can
prevent it. But, oh, Miss Rosalind, I wasn't to say anything--Clay told me
not to. But I'm so afraid! Clay's so hot-headed, and Trevison is so
daring! I'm afraid they won't stop at anything!"
"But what is it?" demanded Rosalind, catching something of the woman's
excitement.
"It's about the machinery at the butte--the mining machinery. My God,
you'll never say I told you--will you? But they're going to blow it up
tonight--Clay and Trevison; they're going to dynamite it! I'm afraid there
will be murder done!"
"Why didn't you tell me before?" The girl stood rigid, white, breathless.
"Oh, I ought to," moaned the woman. "But I was afraid you'd
tell--Corrigan--somebody--and--and they'd get into trouble with the law!"
"I won't tell--but I'll stop it--if there's time! For your sake. Trevison
is the one to blame."
She inquired about the location of the butte; the shortest trail, and then
ran out to her horse. Once in the saddle she drew a deep breath and sent
the animal scampering into the flood of moonlight.
* * * * *
Down toward the cut the two men ran, and when they reached a gully at a
distance of several hundred feet from the dynamite shed they came upon
their horses. Mounting, they rode rapidly down the track toward the butte
where the mining machinery was being erected. They had taken the
handkerchiefs off while they ran, and now Trevison laughed with the hearty
abandon of a boy whose mischievous prank has succeeded.
"That was easy. I thought I heard a noise, though, when you backed against
the door and shoved it open."
"Nobody usually monkeys around a dynamite shed at night," returned Levins.
"Whew! There's enough of that stuff there to blow Manti to Kingdom
Come--wherever that is."
They rode boldly across the level at the base of the butte, for they had
reconnoitered after meeting on the plains just outside of town, and knew
Corrigan had left no one on guard.
"It's a cinch," Levins declared as they dismounted from their horses in
the shelter of a shoulder of the butte, about a hundred yards from where
the corrugated iron building, nearly complete, loomed somberly on the
level. "But if they'd ever get evidence that we done it--"
Trevison laughed lowly, with a grim humor that made Levins look sharply at
him. "That abandoned pueblo on the creek near your shack is built like a
fortress, Levins."
"What in hell has this job got to do with that dobie pile?" questioned the
other.
"Plenty. Oh, you're curious, now. But I'm going to keep you guessing for a
day or two."
"You'll go loco--give you time," scoffed Levins.
"Somebody else will go crazy when this stuff lets go," laughed Trevison,
tapping his pockets.
Levins snickered. They trailed the reins over the heads of their horses,
and walked swiftly toward the corrugated iron building. Halting in the
shadow of it, they held a hurried conference, and then separated, Trevison
going toward the engine, already set up, with its flimsy roof covering it,
and working around it for a few minutes, then darting from it to a small
building filled with tools and stores, and to a pile of machinery and
supplies stacked against the wall of the butte. They worked rapidly,
elusive as shadows in the deep gloom of the wall of the butte, and when
their work was completed they met in the full glare of the moonlight near
the corrugated iron building and whispered again.
* * * * *
Lashing her horse over a strange trail, Rosalind Benham came to a thicket
of gnarled fir-balsam and scrub oak that barred her way completely. She
had ridden hard and her horse breathed heavily during the short time she
spent looking about her. Her own breath was coming sharply, sobbing in her
throat, but it was more from excitement than from the hazard and labor of
the ride, for she had paid little attention to the trail, beyond giving
the horse direction, trusting to the animal's wisdom, accepting the risks
as a matter-of-course. It was the imminence of violence that had aroused
her, the portent of a lawless deed that might result in tragedy. She had
told Mrs. Levins that she was doing this thing for _her_ sake, but she
knew better. She _did_ consider the woman, but she realized that her
dominating passion was for the grim-faced young man who, discouraged,
driven to desperation by the force of circumstances--just or not--was
fighting for what he considered were his rights--the accumulated results
of ten years of exile and work. She wanted to save him from this deed,
from the results of it, even though there was nothing but condemnation in
her heart for him because of it.
"To the left of the thicket is a slope," Mrs. Levins had told her. She
stopped only long enough to get her bearings, and at her panting, "Go!"
the horse leaped. They were at the crest of the slope quickly, facing the
bottom, yawning, deep, dark. She shut her eyes as the horse took it,
leaning back to keep from falling over the animal's head, holding tightly
to the pommel of the saddle. They got down, someway, and when she felt the
level under them she lashed the horse again, and urged him around a
shoulder of the precipitous wall that loomed above her, frowning and
somber.
She heard a horse whinny as she flashed past the shoulder, her own beast
tearing over the level with great catlike leaps, but she did not look
back, straining her eyes to peer into the darkness along the wall of the
butte for sight of the buildings and machinery.
She saw them soon after passing the shoulder, and exclaimed her thanks
sharply.
* * * * *
"All set," said one of the shadowy figures near the corrugated iron
building. A match flared, was applied to a stick of punk in the hands of
each man, and again they separated, each running, applying the glowing
wand here and there.
Trevison's work took him longest, and when he leaped from the side of a
mound of supplies Levins was already running back toward the shoulder
where they had left their horses. They joined, then split apart, their
weapons leaping into their hands, for they heard the rapid drumming of
horse's hoofs.
"They're coming!" panted Trevison, his jaws setting as he plunged on
toward the shoulder of the butte. "Run low and duck at the flash of their
guns!" he warned Levins.
A wide swoop brought the oncoming horse around the shoulder of the butte
into full view. As the moonlight shone, momentarily, on the rider,
Trevison cried out, hoarsely:
"God, it's a woman!"
He leaped, at the words, out of the shadow of the butte into the moonlight