'Firebrand' Trevison
killed at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain. I have kept his memory fresh in
my heart, and last night when I looked at Trevison it seemed to me that he
must be the reincarnation of the only man I ever loved. There must be
something terribly wrong to make him act the way he does, my dear. And he
loves you."
The girl bit her lips to repress the swelling emotions which clamored in
wild response to this sympathetic understanding. She looked at Agatha, to
see tears in her eyes, and she wheeled impulsively and threw her arms
around the other's neck.
"Oh, I know exactly how you feel, Aunty. But--" she gulped "--he doesn't
love me."
"I saw it in his eyes, my dear." Agatha's smile was tender and
reminiscent. "Don't you worry. He will find a way to let you know--as he
will find a way to beat Corrigan--if Corrigan is trying to defraud him!
He's that kind, my dear!"
In spite of her aunt's assurances the girl's heart was heavy as she began
her ride to Manti. Trevison might love her,--she had read that it was
possible for a man to love two women--but she could never return his love,
knowing of his affair with Hester. He should have justice, however, if
they were trying to defraud him of his rights!
Long before she reached Manti she saw the train from Dry Bottom, due at
Manti at six o'clock, gliding over the plains toward the town, and when
she arrived at the station its passengers had been swallowed by Manti's
buildings and the station agent and an assistant were dragging and bumping
trunks and boxes over the station platform.
The agent bowed deferentially to her and followed her into the telegraph
room, clicking her message over the wires as soon as she had written it.
When he had finished he wheeled his chair and grinned at her.
"See the courthouse and the bank?"
She had--all that was left of them--black, charred ruins with two iron
safes, red from their baptism of fire, standing among them. Also two other
buildings, one on each side of the two that had been destroyed, scorched
and warped, but otherwise undamaged.
"Come pretty near burning the whole town. It took _some_ work to confine
_that_ fire--coal oil. Trevison did a clean job. Robbed the safe in the
bank. Killed Braman--guzzled him. An awful complete job, from Trevison's
viewpoint. The town's riled, and I wouldn't give a plugged cent for
Trevison's chances. He's sloped. Desperate character--I always thought
he'd rip things loose--give him time. It was him blowed up Corrigan's
mine. I ain't seen Corrigan since last night, but I heard him and twenty
or thirty deputies are on Trevison's trail. I hope they get him." He
squinted at her. "There's trouble brewing in this town, Miss Benham. I
wouldn't advise you to stay here any longer than is _absolutely_
necessary. There's two factions--looks like. It's about that land deal.
Lefingwell and some more of them think they've been given a raw decision
by the court and Corrigan. Excitement! Oh, Lord! This town is fierce. I
ain't had any sleep in--Your answer? I can't tell. Mebbe right away. Mebbe
in an hour."
Rosalind went out upon the platform. The agent's words had revived a
horror that she had almost forgotten--that she wanted to forget--the
murder of Braman.
She walked to the edge of the station platform, tortured by thoughts in
which she could find no excuse for Trevison. Murderer and robber! A
fugitive from justice--the very justice he had been demanding! Her
thoughts made her weak and sick, and she stepped down from the platform
and walked up the track, halting beside a shed and leaning against it.
Across the street from her was the _Castle_ hotel. A man in boots,
corduroy trousers, and a flannel shirt and dirty white apron, his sleeves
rolled to the elbows, was washing the front windows and spitting streams
of tobacco juice on the board walk. She shivered. A grocer next to the
hotel was adjusting a swinging shelf affixed to the store-front,
preparatory to piling his wares upon it; a lean-faced man standing in a
doorway in the building adjoining the grocery was inspecting a six-shooter
that he had removed from the holster at his side. Rosalind shivered again.
Civilization and outlawry were strangely mingled here. She would not have
been surprised to see the lean-faced man begin to shoot at the others.
Filled with sudden trepidation she took a step away from the shed,
intending to return to the station and wait for her answer.
As she moved she heard a low moan. She started, paling, and then stood
stock still, trembling with dread, but determined not to run. The sound
came again, seeming to issue from the interior of the shed, and she
retraced her step and leaned again against the wall of the building,
listening.
There was no mistaking the sound--someone was in trouble. But she wanted
to be certain before calling for help and she listened again to hear an
unmistakable pounding on the wall near her, and a voice, calling
frenziedly: "Help, help--for God's sake!"
Her fears fled and she sprang to the door, finding it locked. She rattled
it, impotently, and then left it and ran across the street to where the
window-washer stood. He wheeled and spat copiously, almost in her face, as
she rapidly told him her news, and then deliberately dropped his brush and
cloth into the dust and mud at his feet and jumped after her, across the
street.
"Who's in here?" demanded the man, hammering on the door.
"It's I--Judge Lindman! Open the door! Hurry! I'm smothering--and hurt!"
In what transpired within the next few minutes--and indeed during the
hours following--the girl felt like an outsider. No one paid any attention
to her; she was shoved, jostled, buffeted, by the crowd that gathered,
swarming from all directions. But she was intensely interested.
It seemed to her that every person in Manti gathered in front of the
shed--that all had heard of the abduction of the Judge. Some one secured
an iron bar and battered the lock off the door; a half-dozen men dragged
the Judge out, and he stood in front of the building, swaying in the hands
of his supporters, his white hair disheveled, his lips blood-stained and
smashed, where Corrigan had hit him. The frenzy of terror held him, and he
looked wildly around at the tiers of faces confronting him, the cords of
his neck standing out and writhing spasmodically. Twice he opened his lips
to speak, but each time his words died in a dry gasp. At the third effort
he shrieked:
"I--I want protection! Don't let him touch me again, men! He means to kill
me! Don't let him touch me! I--I've been attacked--choked--knocked
insensible! I appeal to you as American citizens for protection!"
It was fear, stark, naked, cringing, that the crowd saw. Faces blanched,
bodies stiffened; a concerted breath, like a sigh, rose into the flat,
desert air. Rosalind clenched her hands and stood rigid, thrilling with
pity.
"Who done it?" A dozen voices asked the question.
"Corrigan!" The Judge screamed this, hysterically. "He is a thief and a
scoundrel, men! He has plundered this county! He has prostituted your
court. Your judge, too! I admit it. But I ask your mercy, men! I was
forced into it! He threatened me! He falsified the land records! He wanted
me to destroy the original record, but I didn't--I told Trevison where it
was--I hid it! And because I wouldn't help Corrigan to rob you, he tried
to kill me!"
A murmur, low, guttural, vindictive, rippled over the crowd, which had now
swelled to such proportions that the street could not hold it. It fringed
the railroad track; men were packed against the buildings surrounding the
shed; they shoved, jostled and squirmed in an effort to get closer to the
Judge. The windows of the _Castle_ hotel were filled with faces, among
which Rosalind saw Hester Harvey's, ashen, her eyes aglow.
The Judge's words had stabbed Rosalind--each like a separate knife-thrust;
they had plunged her into a mental vacuum in which her brain, atrophied,
reeled, paralyzed. She staggered--a man caught her, muttered something
about there being too much excitement for a lady, and gruffly ordered
others to clear the way that he might lead her out of the jam. She
resisted, for she was determined to stay to hear the Judge to the end, and
the man grinned hugely at her; and to escape the glances that she could
feel were directed at her she slipped through the crowd and sought the
front of the shed, leaning against it, weakly.
A silence had followed the murmur that had run over the crowd. There was a
breathless period, during which every man seemed to be waiting for his
neighbor to take the initiative. They wanted a leader. And he appeared,
presently--a big, broad-shouldered man forced his way through the crowd
and halted in front of the Judge.
"I reckon we'll protect you, Judge. Just spit out what you got to say.
We'll stand by you. Where's Trevison?"
"He came to the courthouse last night to get the record. I told him where
it was. He forced me to go with him to an Indian pueblo, and he kept me
there yesterday. He left me there last night with Clay Levins, while he
came here to get the record."
"Do you reckon he got it?"
"I don't know. But from the way Corrigan acted last night--"
"Yes, yes; he got it!"
The words shifted the crowd's gaze to Rosalind, swiftly. The girl had
hardly realized that she had spoken. Her senses, paralyzed a minute
before, had received the electric shock of sympathy from a continued study
of the Judge's face. She saw remorse on it, regret, shame, and the birth
of a resolution to make whatever reparation that was within his power, at
whatever cost. It was a weak face, but it was not vicious, and while she
had been standing there she had noted the lines of suffering. It was not
until the girl felt the gaze of many curious eyes on her that she realized
she had committed herself, and her cheeks flamed. She set herself to face
the stares; she must go on now.
"It's Benham's girl!" she heard a man standing near her whisper hoarsely,
and she faced them, her chin held high, a queer joy leaping in her heart.
She knew at this minute that her sympathies had been with Trevison all
along; that she had always suspected Corrigan, but had fought against the
suspicion because of the thought that in some way her father might be
dragged into the affair. It had been a cowardly attitude, and she was glad
that she had shaken it off. As her brain, under the spur of the sudden
excitement, resumed its function, her thoughts flitted to the agent's
babble during the time she had been sending the telegram to her father.
She talked rapidly, her voice carrying far:
"Trevison got the record last night. He stopped at my ranch and showed it
to me. I suppose he was going to the pueblo, expecting to meet Levins and
Lindman there--"
"By God!" The big, broad-shouldered man standing at Judge Lindman's side
interrupted her. He turned and faced the crowd. "We're damned fools,
boys--lettin' this thing go on like we have! Corrigan's took his deputies
out, trailin' Trevison, chargin' him with murderin' Braman, when his real
purpose is to get his claws on that record! Trevison's been fightin' our
fight for us, an' we've stood around like a lot of gillies, lettin' him do
it! It's likely that a man who'd cook up a deal like the Judge, here, says
Corrigan has, would cook up another, chargin' Trevison with guzzlin' the
banker. I've knowed Trevison a long time, boys, an' I don't believe he'd
_guzzle_ anybody--he's too square a man for that!" He stood on his toes,
raising his clenched hands, and bringing them down with a sweep of furious
emphasis.
The crowd swayed restlessly. Rosalind saw it split apart, men fighting to
open a pathway for a woman. There were shouts of: "Open up, there!" "Let
the lady through!" "Gangway!" "She's got somethin' to say!" And the girl