'Firebrand' Trevison Part 10

Manti was destined to live. It was a boom town with material reasons for substantial growth. Behind it were the resources of a railroad company which would antic.i.p.ate the development of a section of country bigger than a dozen Old-world states, and men with brains keen enough to realize the commercial possibilities it held. It had Corrigan for an advance agent--big, confident, magnetic, energetic, suave, smooth.

Manti had awaited his coming; he was the magic force, the fulfillment of the rumored promise. He had stayed away for three weeks, following his departure on the special car after bringing Judge Lindman, and when he stepped off the car again at the end of that time Manti was "humming," as he had predicted. During the three weeks of his absence, the switch at Manti had never been unoccupied. Trains had been coming in regularly bearing merchandise, men, tools, machines, supplies. Engineers had arrived; the basin near Manti, choked by a narrow gorge at its westerly end (where the dam was to be built) was dotted with tents, wagons, digging implements, a miscellany of material whose hauling had worn a rutted trail over the plains and on the slope of the basin, continually active with wagon-train and pack horse, and articulate with sweating, cursing drivers.

"She's a pippin!" gleefully confided a sleek-looking individual who might have been mistaken for a western "parson" had it not been for a certain sophisticated cynicism that was prominent about him, and which imparted a distasteful taint of his profession. "Give me a year of this and I'll open a joint in Frisco! I cleaned out a brace of bull-whackers in the _Plaza_ last night--their first pay. Afterward I stung a couple of cattlemen for a hundred each. Look at her hum!"

Notwithstanding that it was midday, Manti was teeming with life and action. Since the day that Miss Benham had viewed the town from the window of the private car, Manti had added more than a hundred buildings to its total. They were not attractive; they were ludicrous in their pitiful masquerade of substantial types. Here and there a three-story structure reared aloft, sheathed with galvanized iron, a garish aristocrat seemingly conscious of its superiority, brazen, in its bid for attention; more modest buildings seemed dwarfed, humiliated, squatting sullenly and enviously. There were hotels, rooming-houses, boarding-houses, stores, dwellings, saloons--and others which for many reasons need not be mentioned. But they were pulsating with life, electric, eager, expectant.

Taking advantage of the scarcity of buildings, an enterprising citizen had erected tents in rows on the street line, for whose shelter he charged enormously--and did a capacity business.

"A hundred came in on the last train," complained the over-worked station agent. "G.o.d knows what they all expect to do here!"

Corrigan had kept his promise to build Judge Lindman a courthouse. It was a flat-roofed structure, one story high, wedged between a saloon and Braman's bank building. A sign in the front window of Braman's bank announced that Jefferson Corrigan, agent of the Land & Improvement Company, of New York, had office s.p.a.ce within, but on the morning of the day following his return to Manti, Corrigan was seated at one side of a flat-top desk in the courthouse, talking with Judge Lindman, who sat at the other side.

"Got them all transcribed?" asked Corrigan.

The Judge drew a thin ledger from his desk and pa.s.sed it over to Corrigan.

As Corrigan turned the pages and his face lighted, the Judge's grew correspondingly troubled.

"All right," exulted Corrigan. "This purports to be an accurate and true record of all the land transactions in this section from the special grant to the Midland Company, down to date. It shows no intermediate owners from the Midland Company to the present claimants. As a doc.u.ment arraigning carelessness on the part of land buyers it cannot be excelled. There isn't a present owner that has a legal leg to stand on!"

"There is only one weak point in your case," said the Judge, and his eyes gleamed with satisfaction, which he concealed by bowing his head. "It is that since these records show no sale of its property by the Midland Company, the Midland Company can come forward and re-establish its t.i.tle."

Corrigan laughed and flipped a legal-looking paper in front of the Judge.

The latter opened it and read, showing eagerness. He laid it down after reading, his hands trembling.

"It shows that the Midland Company--James Marchmont, president--transferred to Jefferson Corrigan, on a date prior to these other transactions, one-hundred thousand acres of land here--the Midland Company's entire holdings. Why, man, it is forgery!"

"No," said Corrigan quietly. "James Marchmont is alive. He signed his name right where it is. He'll confirm it, too, for he happens to be in something of the fix that you are in. Therefore, there being no records of any sales on your books--as revised, of course--" he laughed; "Jeff Corrigan is the legal possessor of one-hundred thousand acres of land right in the heart of what is going to be the boom section of the West!"

He chuckled, lit a cigar, leaned back in his chair and looked at the Judge. "All you have to do now is to enter that transaction on your records."

"You don't expect the present owners to yield their t.i.tles without a fight, do you?" asked the Judge. He spoke breathlessly.

Corrigan grunted. "Sure; they'll fight. But they'll lose. I've got them.

I've got the power--the courts--the law, behind me. I've got them, and I'll squeeze them. It means a mint of money, man. It will make you. It's the biggest thing that any man ever attempted to pull off in this country!"

"Yes, it's big," groaned the Judge; "it's stupendous! It's frightful! Why, man, if anything goes wrong, it would mean--" He paused and s.h.i.+vered.

Corrigan smiled contemptuously. "Where's the original record?" he asked.

"I destroyed it," said the Judge. He did not look at Corrigan. "How?"

demanded the latter.

"Burned it."

"Good." Corrigan rubbed his palms together. "It's too soon to start anything. Things are booming, and some of these owners will be trying to sell. Hold them off--don't record anything. Give them any excuse that comes to your mind. Have you heard from Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"The establishment of the court here has been confirmed."

"Quick work," laughed Corrigan. He got up, murmuring something about having to take care of some leases. When he turned, it was to start and stand rigid, his jaws set, his face pale. A man stood in the open doorway--a man of about fifty apparently, furtive-eyed, slightly shabby, though with an atmosphere about him that hinted of past dignity of carriage.

"Jim Marchmont!" said Corrigan. He stepped forward, threateningly, his face dark with wrath. Without speaking another word he seized the newcomer by the coat collar, snapping his head back savagely, and dragged him back of a wooden part.i.tion. Concealed there from any of the curious in the street, he jammed Marchmont against the wall of the building, held him there with one hand and stuck a huge fist into his face.

"What in h.e.l.l are you doing here?" he demanded. "Come clean, or I'll tear you apart!"

The other laughed, but there was no mirth in it, and his thin lips were curved queerly, and were stiff and white. "Don't get excited, Jeff," he said; "it won't be healthy." And Corrigan felt something hard and cold against his s.h.i.+rt front. He knew it was a pistol and he released his hold and stepped back.

"Speaking of coming clean," said Marchmont. "You crossed me. You told me you were going to sell the Midland land to two big ranch-owners. I find that you're going to cut it up into lots and make big money--loads of it.

You handed me a measly thousand. You stand to make millions. I want my divvy."

"You've got your nerve," scoffed Corrigan. "You got your bit when you sold the Midland before. You're a self-convicted crook, and if you make a peep out here I'll send you over the road for a thousand years!"

"Another thousand now," said Marchmont: "and ten more when you commence to cash in. Otherwise, a thousand years or not, I'll start yapping here and queer your game."

Corrigan's lips were in an ugly pout. For an instant it seemed he was going to defy his visitor. Then without a word to him he stepped around the part.i.tion, walked out the door and entered the bank. A few minutes later he pa.s.sed a bundle of greenbacks to Marchmont and escorted him to the front door, where he stood, watching, his face unpleasant, until Marchmont vanished into one of the saloons.

"That settles _you_, you d.a.m.ned fool!" he said.

He stepped down into the street and went into the bank. Braman fawned on him, smirking insincerely. Corrigan had not apologized for striking the blow, had never mentioned it, continuing his former att.i.tude toward the banker as though nothing had happened. But Braman had not forgiven him.

Corrigan wasted no words:

"Who's the best gun-man in this section?"

Braman studied a minute. "Clay Levins," he said, finally.

"Can you find him?"

"Why, he's in town today; I saw him not more than fifteen minutes ago, going into the _Elk_!"

"Find him and bring him here--by the back way," directed Corrigan.

Braman went out, wondering. A few minutes later he returned, coming in at the front door, smiling with triumph. Shortly afterward Corrigan was opening the rear door on a tall, slender man of thirty-five, with a thin face, a mouth that drooped at the corners, and alert, furtive eyes. He wore a heavy pistol at his right hip, low, the bottom of the holster tied to the leather chaps, and as Corrigan closed the door he noted that the man's right hand lingered close to the b.u.t.t of the weapon.

"That's all right," said Corrigan; "you're perfectly safe here."

He talked in low tones to the man, so that Braman could not hear. Levins departed shortly afterwards, grinning crookedly, tucking a piece of paper into a pocket, upon which Corrigan had transcribed something that had been written on the cuff of his s.h.i.+rt sleeve. Corrigan went to his desk and busied himself with some papers. Over in the courthouse, Judge Lindman took from a drawer in his desk a thin ledger--a duplicate of the one he had shown Corrigan--and going to the rear of the room opened the door of an iron safe and stuck the ledger out of sight under a ma.s.s of legal papers.

When Marchmont left Corrigan he went straight to the _Plaza_, where he ordered a lunch and ate heartily. After finis.h.i.+ng his meal he emerged from the saloon and stood near one of the front windows. One of the hundred dollar bills that Corrigan had given him he had "broke" in the _Plaza_, getting bills of small denomination in change, and in his right trousers'

pocket was a roll that bulked comfortably in his hand. The feel of it made him tingle with satisfaction, as, except for the other thousand that Corrigan had given him some months ago, it was the only money he had had for a long time. He knew he should take the next train out of Manti; that he had done a hazardous thing in baiting Corrigan, but he was lonesome and yearned for the touch and voice of the crowds that thronged in and out of the saloons and the stores, and presently he joined them, wandering from saloon to saloon, drinking occasionally, his content and satisfaction increasing in proportion to the quant.i.ty of liquor he drank.

And then, at about three o'clock, in the barroom of the _Plaza_, he heard a discordant voice at his elbow. He saw men crowding, jostling one another to get away from the spot where he stood--crouching, pale of face, their eyes on him. It made him feel that he was the center of interest, and he wheeled, staggering a little--for he had drunk much more than he had intended--to see what had happened. He saw Clay Levins standing close to him, his thin lips in a cruel curve, his eyes narrowed and glittering, his body in a suggestive crouch. The silence that had suddenly descended smote Marchmont's ears like a momentary deafness, and he looked foolishly around him, uncertain, puzzled. Levins' voice shocked him, sobered him, whitened his face:

"Fork over that coin you lifted from me in the _Elk_, you light-fingered hound!" said Levins.

Marchmont divined the truth now. He made his second mistake of the day. He allowed a flash of rage to trick him into reaching for his pistol. He got it into his hand and almost out of the pocket before Levins' first bullet struck him, and before he could draw it entirely out the second savage bark of the gun in Levins' hand shattered the stillness of the room.

Soundlessly, his face wreathed in a grin of hideous satire, Marchmont sank to the floor and stretched out on his back.

Before his body was still, Levins had drawn out the bills that had reposed in his victim's pocket. Crumpling them in his hand he walked to the bar and tossed them to the barkeeper.