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her way and rode miles before she recovered her sense of direction, and when she finally pulled the beast to a halt at the edge of the Diamond K ranchhouse gallery, midnight was not far away. The ranchhouse was dark. She smothered a gasp of disappointment as she crossed the gallery floor. She was about to hammer on the door when it swung open and Trevison stepped out, peered closely at her and laughed shortly.

“It’s you, eh?” he said. “I thought I told you—”

She winced at his tone, but it did not lessen her concern for him.

“It isn’t that, Trev! And I don’t care how you treat me—I deserve it! But I can’t see them punish you—for what you did last night!” She felt him start, his muscles stiffen.

“Something has turned up, then. You came to warn me? What is it?”

“You were seen last night! They’re going to arrest—”

“So she squealed, did she?” he interrupted. He laughed lowly, bitterly, with a vibrant disappointment that wrung the woman’s heart with sympathy. But her brain quickly grasped the significance of his words, and longing dulled her sense of honor. It was too good an opportunity to miss. “Bah! I expected it. She told me she would. I was a fool to dream otherwise!” He turned on Hester and grasped her by the shoulders, and her flesh deadened under his fingers.

“Did she tell Corrigan?”

“Yes.” The woman told the lie courageously, looking straight into his eyes, though she shrank at the fire that came into them as he released her and laughed.

“Where did you get your information?” His voice was suddenly sullen and cold.

“From Braman.”

He started, and laughed in humorous derision.

“Braman and Corrigan are blood brothers in this deal. You must have captivated the little sneak completely to make him lose his head like that!”

“I did it for you, Trev—for you. Don’t you see? Oh, I despise the little beast! But he dropped a hint one day when I was in the bank, and I deliberately snared him, hoping I might be able to gain information that would benefit you. And I have, Trev!” she added, trembling with a hope that his hasty judgment might result to her advantage. And how near she had come to mentioning Carson’s name! If Trevison had waited for just another second before interrupting her! Fortune had played favorably into her hands tonight!

“For you, boy,” she said, slipping close to him, sinuously, whispering, knowing the “she” he had mentioned must be Rosalind Benham. “Old friends are best, boy. At least they can be depended upon not to betray one. Trev; let me help you! I can, and I will! Why, I love you, Trev! And you need me, to help you fight these people who are trying to ruin you!”

“You don’t understand.” Trevison’s voice was cold and passionless. “It seems I can’t make you understand. I’m grateful for what you have done for me tonight—very grateful. But I can’t live a lie, woman. I don’t love you!”

“But you love a woman who has delivered you into the hands of your enemies,” she moaned.

“I can’t help it,” he declared hoarsely. “I don’t deny it. I would love her if she sent me to the gallows, and stood there, watching me die!”

The woman bowed her head, and dropped her hands listlessly to her sides. In this instant she was thinking almost the same words that Rosalind Benham had murmured on her ride to Blakeley’s, when she had discovered Trevison’s identity: “I wonder if Hester Keyes knows what she has missed.”

CHAPTER XXII A MAN ERRS—AND PAYS

For a time Trevison stood on the gallery, watching the woman as she faded into the darkness toward Manti, and then he laughed mirthlessly and went into the house, emerging with a rifle and saddle. A few minutes later he rode Nigger out of the corral and headed him southwestward. Shortly after midnight he was at the door of Levins’ cabin. The latter grinned with feline humor after they held a short conference.

“That’s right,” he said; “you don’t need any of the boys to help you pull that off—they’d mebbe go to actin’ foolish an’ give the whole snap away. Besides, I’m a heap tickled to be let in on that sort of a jamboree!” There followed an interval, during which his grin faded. “So she peached on you, eh? She told my woman she wouldn’t. That’s a woman, ain’t it? How’s a man to tell about ’em?”

“That’s a secret of my own that I am not ready to let you in on. Don’t tell your wife where you are going tonight.”

“I ain’t reckonin’ to. I’ll be with you in a jiffy!” He vanished into the cabin, reappeared, ran to the stable, and rode out to meet Trevison. Together they were swallowed up by the plains.

At eight o’clock in the morning Corrigan came out of the dining-room of his hotel and stopped at the cigar counter. He filled his case, lit one, and stood for a moment with an elbow on the glass of the show case, smoking thoughtfully.

“That was quite an accident you had at your mine. Have you any idea who did it?” asked the clerk, watching him furtively.

Corrigan glanced at the man, his lips curling.

“You might guess,” he said through his teeth.

“That fellow Trevison is a bad actor,” continued the clerk. “And say,” he went on, confidentially; “not that I want to make you feel bad, but the majority of the people of this town are standing with him in this deal. They think you are not giving the land-owners a square deal. Not that I’m ‘knocking’ you,” the clerk denied, flushing at the dark look Corrigan threw him. “That’s merely what I hear. Personally, I’m for you. This town needs men like you, and it can get along without fellows like Trevison.”

“Thank you,” smiled Corrigan, disgusted with the man, but feeling that it might be well to cultivate such ingratiating interest. “Have a cigar.”

“I’ll go you. Yes, sir,” he added, when he had got the weed going; “this town can get along without any Trevisons. These sagebrush rummies out here give me a pain. What this country needs is less brute force and more brains!” He drew his shoulders erect as though convinced that he was not lacking in the particular virtue to which he had referred.

“You are right,” smiled Corrigan, mildly. “Brains are all important. A hotel clerk must be well supplied. I presume you see and hear a great many things that other people miss seeing and hearing.” Corrigan thought this thermometer of public opinion might have other information.

“You’ve said it! We’ve got to keep our wits about us. There’s very little escapes us.” He leered at Corrigan’s profile. “That’s a swell Moll in number eleven, ain’t it?”

“What do you know about her?” Corrigan’s face was inexpressive.

“Oh say now!” The clerk guffawed close to Corrigan’s ear without making the big man wink an eyelash. “You don’t mean to tell me that you ain’t on! I saw you steer to her room one night—the night she came here. And once or twice, since. But of course us hotel clerks don’t see anything! She is down on the register as Mrs. Harvey. But say! You don’t see any married women running around the country dressed like her!”

“She may be a widow.”

“Well, yes, maybe she might. But she shows speed, don’t she?” He whispered. “You’re a pretty good friend of mine, now, and maybe if I’d give you a tip you’d throw something in my way later on—eh?”

“What?”

“Oh, you might start a hotel here—or something. And I’m thinking of blowing this joint. This town’s booming, and it can stand a swell hotel in a few months.”

“You’re on—if I build a hotel. Shoot!”

The clerk leaned closer, whispering: “She receives other men. You’re not the only one.”

“Who?”

The clerk laughed, and made a funnel of one hand. “The banker across the street—Braman.”

Corrigan bit his cigar in two, and slowly spat that which was left in his mouth into a cuspidor. He contrived to smile, though it cost him an effort, and his hands were clenched.

“How many times has he been here?”

“Oh, several.”

“When was he here last?”

“Last night.” The clerk laughed. “Looked half stewed when he left. Kinda hectic, too. Him and her must have had a tiff, for he left early. And after he’d gone—right away after—she sent one of the waiters out for a horse.”

“Which way did she go?”

“West—I watched her; she went the back way, from here.”

Corrigan smiled and went out. The expression of his face was such as to cause the clerk to mutter, dazedly: “He didn’t seem to be a whole lot interested. I guess I must have sized him up wrong.”

Corrigan stopped at his office in the bank, nodding curtly to Braman. Shortly afterward he got up and went to the courthouse. He had ordered Judge Lindman to issue a warrant for Carson the previous morning, and had intended to see that it was served. But a press of other matters had occupied his attention until late in the night.

He tried the front door of the courthouse, to find it locked. The rear door was also locked. He tried the windows—all were fastened securely. Thinking the Judge still sleeping he went back to his office and spent an hour going over some correspondence. At the end of that time he visited the courthouse again. Angered, he went around to the side and burst the flimsy door in, standing in the opening, glowering, for the Judge’s cot was empty, and the Judge nowhere to be seen.

Corrigan stalked through the building, cursing. He examined the cot, and discovered that it had been slept in. The Judge must have risen early. Obviously, there was nothing to do but to wait. Corrigan did that, impatiently. For a long time he sat in the chair at his desk, watching Braman, studying him, scowling, rage in his heart. “If he’s up to any dirty work, I’ll choke him until his tongue hangs out a yard!” was a mental threat that he repeated many times. “But he’s just mush-headed over the woman, I guess—he’s that kind of a fool!”

At ten o’clock Corrigan jumped on his horse and rode out to the butte where the laborers were working, clearing away the debris from the explosion. No one there had seen Judge Lindman. Corrigan rode back to town, fuming with rage. Finding some of the deputies he sent them out to search for the Judge. One by one they came in and reported their failure. At six-thirty, after the arrival of the evening train from Dry Bottom, Corrigan was sitting at his desk, his face black with wrath, reading for the third or fourth time a letter that he had spread out on the desk before him:

“Mr. Jefferson Corrigan:

“I feel it is necessary for me to take a short rest. Recent excitement in Manti has left me very nervous and unstrung. I shall be away from Manti for about two weeks, I think. During my absence any pending litigation must be postponed, of course.”

The letter was signed by Judge Lindman, and postmarked “Dry Bottom.”

Corrigan got up after a while and stuffed the letter into a pocket. He went out, and when he returned, Braman had gone out also—to supper, Corrigan surmised. When the banker came in an hour later, Corrigan was still seated at his desk. The banker smiled at him, and Corrigan motioned to him.

Corrigan’s voice was silky. “Where were you last night, Braman?”

The banker’s face whitened; his thoughts became confused, but instantly cleared when he observed from the expression of the big man’s face that the question was, apparently, a casual one. But he drew his breath tremulously. One could never be sure of Corrigan.

“I spent the

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