'Firebrand' Trevison by Charles Alden Seltzer (ebook reader library TXT) 📖

The Benham private car had clacked eastward over the rails three weeks before, bearing with it as a passenger only the negro autocrat. At the last moment, discovering that she could not dissuade Rosalind from her mad decision to stay at Blakeley’s ranch, Agatha had accompanied her. The private car was now returning, bearing the man who had poetically declared to his fawning Board of Directors: “Our railroad is the magic wand that will make the desert bloom like the rose. We are embarked upon a project, gentlemen, so big, so vast, that it makes even your president feel a pulse of pride. This project is nothing more nor less than the opening of a region of waste country which an all-wise Creator has permitted to slumber for ages, for no less purpose than to reserve it to the horny-handed son of toil of our glorious country. It will awaken to the clarion call of our wealth, our brains, and our genius.” He then mentioned Corrigan and the Midland grant—another reservation of Providence, which a credulous and asinine Congress had bestowed, in fee-simple, upon a certain suave gentleman, named Marchmont—and disseminated such other details as a servile board of directors need know; and then he concluded with a flowery peroration that left his hearers smirking fatuously.

And today J. Chalfant Benham was come to look upon the first fruits of his efforts.

As he stepped down from the private car he was greeted by vociferous cheers from a jostling and enthusiastic populace—for J. C. had very carefully wired the time of his arrival and Corrigan had acted accordingly, knowing J. C. well. J. C. was charmed—he said so, later, in a speech from a flimsy, temporary stand erected in the middle of the street in front of the Plaza—and in saying so he merely told the truth. For, next to money-making, adulation pleased him most. He would have been an able man had he ignored the latter passion. It seared his intellect as a pernicious habit blasts the character. It sat on his shoulders—extravagantly squared; it shone in his eyes—inviting inspection; his lips, curved with smug complacence, betrayed it as, sitting in Corrigan’s office after the conclusion of the festivities, he smiled at the big man.

“Manti is a wonderful town—a wonderful town!” he declared. “It may be said that success is lurking just ahead. And much of the credit is due to your efforts,” he added, generously.

Corrigan murmured a polite disclaimer, and plunged into dry details. J. C. had a passion for dry details. For many hours they sat in the office, their heads close together. Braman was occasionally called in. Judge Lindman was summoned after a time. J. C. shook the Judge’s hand warmly and then resumed his chair, folding his chubby hands over his corpulent stomach.

“Judge Lindman,” he said; “you thoroughly understand our position in this Midland affair.”

The Judge glanced at Corrigan. “Thoroughly.”

“No doubt there will be some contests. But the present claimants have no legal status. Mr. — (here J. C. mentioned a name that made the Judge’s eyes brighten) tells me there will be no hitch. There could not be, of course. In the absence of any court record of possible transfers, the title to the land, of course, reverts to the Midland Company. As Mr. Corrigan has explained to me, he is entirely within his rights, having secured the title to the land from Mr. Marchmont, representing the Midland. You have no record of any transfers from the Midland to the present claimants or their predecessors, have you? There is no such record?”

The Judge saw Corrigan’s amused grin, and surmised that J. C. was merely playing with him.

“No,” he said, with some bitterness.

“Then of course you are going to stand with Mr. Corrigan against the present claimants?”

“I presume so.”

“H’m,” said J. C. “If there is any doubt about it, perhaps I had better remind you—”

The Judge groaned in agony of spirit. “It won’t be necessary to remind me.”

“So I thought. Well, gentlemen—” J. C. arose “—that will be all for this evening.”

Thus he dismissed the Judge, who went to his cot behind a partition in the courthouse, while Corrigan and J. C. stepped outside and walked slowly toward the private car. They lingered at the steps, and presently J. C. called and a negro came out with two chairs. J. C. and Corrigan draped themselves in the chairs and smoked. Dusk was settling over Manti; lights appeared in the windows of the buildings; a medley of noises reached the ears of the two men. By day Manti was lively enough, by night it was a maelstrom of frenzied action. A hundred cow-ponies were hitched to rails that skirted the street in front of store and saloon; cowboys from ranches, distant and near, rollicked from building to building, touching elbows with men less picturesquely garbed; the strains of crude music smote the flat, dead desert air; yells, shouts, laughter filtered through the bedlam; an engine, attached to a train of cars on the main track near the private car, wheezed steam in preparation for its eastward trip, soon to begin.

Benham had solemn thoughts, sitting there, watching.

“That crowd wouldn’t have much respect for law. They’re living at such a pitch that they’d lose their senses entirely if any sudden crisis should arise. I’d feel my way carefully, Corrigan—if I were you.”

Corrigan laughed deeply. “Don’t lose any sleep over it. There are fifty deputy marshals in that crowd—and they’re heeled. The rear room in the bank building is a young arsenal.”

Benham started. “How on earth—” he began.

“Law and order,” smiled Corrigan. “A telegram did it. The territory wants a reputation for safety.”

“By the way,” said Benham, after a silence; “I had to take that Trevison affair out of your hands. We don’t want to antagonize the man. He will be valuable to us—later.”

“How?”

“Carrington, the engineer I sent out here to look over the country before we started work, did considerable nosing around Trevison’s land while in the vicinity. He told me there were unmistakable signs of coal of a good quality and enormous quantity. We ought to be able to drive a good bargain with Trevison one of these days—if we handle him carefully.”

Corrigan frowned and grunted. “His land is included in that of the Midland grant. He shall be treated like the others. If that is your only objection—”

“It isn’t,” said Benham. “I have discovered that ‘Brand’ Trevison is really Trevison Brandon, the disgraced son of Orrin Brandon, the millionaire.”

The darkness hid Corrigan’s ugly pout. “How did you discover that?” he said, coolly, after a little.

“My daughter mentioned it in one of her letters to me. I confirmed, by quizzing Brandon, senior. Brandon is powerful and obstinate. If he should discover what our game is he would fight us to the last ditch. The whole thing would go to smash, perhaps.”

“You didn’t tell him about his son being out here?”

“Certainly not!”

“Good!”

“What do you mean?”

“That it’s my land; that I’m going to take it away from Trevison, father or no father. I’m going to break him. That’s what I mean!” Corrigan’s big hands were clenched on the arms of his chair; his eyes gleamed balefully in the semi-darkness. J. C. felt a tremor of awed admiration for him. He laughed, nervously. “Well,” he said, “if you think you can handle it—”

They sat there for a long time, smoking in silence. One thought dominated Corrigan’s mind: “Three weeks, and exchanging confidences—damn him!”

A discordant note floated out of the medley of sound in palpitating Manti, sailed over the ridiculous sky line and smote the ears of the two on the platform. The air rocked an instant later