'Firebrand' Trevison - Charles Alden Seltzer

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banker watched him until he vanished around the corner of a building. Then Braman shook his head. “Jeff’s resourceful,” he said. “But Trevison—” His face grew solemn. “What a damned fool I was to trip him with that broom!” He drew a pistol from a pocket and examined it intently, then returned it to the pocket and sat, staring with unseeing eyes beyond the station at the two lines of steel that ran out upon the plains and stopped in the deep cut on the crest of which he could see a man on a black horse.

      Down at the station Corrigan was leaning on a rough wooden counter, writing on a yellow paper pad. When he had finished he shoved the paper over to the telegrapher, who had been waiting:

      J. Chalfant Benham, B—Building, New York.

      Unexpected opposition developed. Trevison. Give Lindman removal order immediately. Communicate with me at Dry Bottom tomorrow morning. Corrigan.

      Corrigan watched the operator send the message and then he returned to the bank building, where he found Braman setting out a meager lunch in the rear room. The two men talked as they ate, mostly about Trevison, and the banker’s face did not lose its worried expression. Later they smoked and talked and watched while the afternoon sun grew mellow; while the somber twilight descended over the world and darkness came and obliterated the hill on which sat the rider of the black horse.

      Shortly after dark Corrigan sent the banker on another errand, this time to a boarding-house at the edge of town. Braman returned shortly, announcing: “He’ll be ready.” Then, just before midnight Corrigan climbed into the cab of the engine which had brought the private car, and which was waiting, steam up, several hundred feet down the track from the car.

      “All right!” said Corrigan briskly, to the engineer, as he climbed in and a flare from the fire-box suffused his face; “pull out. But don’t make any fuss about it—I don’t want those people in the car to know.” And shortly afterwards the locomotive glided silently away into the darkness toward that town in which a judge of the United States Court had, a few hours before, received orders which had caused him to remark, bitterly: “So does the past shape the future.”

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       Table of Contents

      Banker Braman went to bed on the cot in the back room shortly after Corrigan departed from Manti. He stretched himself out with a sigh, oppressed with the conviction that he had done a bad day’s work in antagonizing Trevison. The Diamond K owner would repay him, he knew. But he knew, too, that he need have no fear that Trevison would sneak about it. Therefore he did not expect to feel Trevison at his throat during the night. That was some satisfaction.

      He dropped to sleep, thinking of Trevison. He awoke about dawn to a loud hammering on the rear door, and he scrambled out of bed and opened the door upon the telegraph agent. That gentleman gazed at him with grim reproof.

      “Holy Moses!” he said; “you’re a hell of a tight sleeper! I’ve been pounding on this door for an age!” He shoved a sheet of paper under Braman’s nose. “Here’s a telegram for you.”

      Braman took the telegram, scanning it, while the agent talked on, ramblingly. A sickly smile came over Braman’s face when he finished reading, and then he listened to the agent:

      “I got a wire a little after midnight, asking me if that man, Corrigan, was still in Manti. The engineer told me he was taking Corrigan back to Dry Bottom at midnight, and so I knew he wasn’t here, and I clicked back ‘No.’ It was from J. C. He must have connected with Corrigan at Dry Bottom. That guy Trevison must have old Benham’s goat, eh?”

      Braman re-read the telegram; it was directed to him:

      Send my daughter to Trevison with cash in amount of check destroyed by Corrigan yesterday. Instruct her to say mistake made. No offense intended. Hustle. J. C. Benham.

      Braman slipped his clothes on and ran down the track to the private car. He had known J. C. Benham several years and was aware that when he issued an order he wanted it obeyed, literally. The negro autocrat of the private car met him at the platform and grinned amply at the banker’s request.

      “Miss Benham done tol’ me she am not to be disturbed till eight o’clock,” he objected. But the telegram in Braman’s hands had instant effect upon the black custodian of the car, and shortly afterward Miss Benham was looking at the banker and his telegram in sleepy-eyed astonishment, the door of her compartment open only far enough to permit her to stick her head out.

      Braman was forced to do much explaining, and concluded by reading the telegram to her. She drew everything out of him except the story of the fight.

      “Well,” she said in the end, “I suppose I shall have to go. So his name is ‘Brand’ Trevison. And he won’t permit the men to work. Why did Mr. Corrigan destroy the check?”

      Braman evaded, but the girl thought she knew. Corrigan had yielded to an impulse of obstinacy provoked by Trevison’s assault on him. It was not good business—it was almost childish; but it was human to feel that way. She felt a slight disappointment in Corrigan, though; the action did not quite accord with her previous estimate of him. She did not know what to think of Trevison. But of course any man who would deliberately and brutally ride another man down, would naturally not hesitate to adopt other lawless means of defending himself.

      She told Braman to have the money ready for her in an hour, and at the end of that time with her morocco handbag bulging, she emerged from the front door of the bank and climbed the steps of the private car, which had been pulled down to a point in front of the station by the dinky engine, with Murphy presiding at the throttle.

      Carson was standing on the platform when Miss Benham climbed to it, and he grinned and greeted her with:

      “If ye have no objections, ma’am, I’ll be ridin’ down to the cut with ye. Me name’s Patrick Carson, ma’am.”

      “I have no objection whatever,” said the lady, graciously. “I presume you are connected with the railroad?”

      “An’ wid the ginneys that’s buildin’ it, ma’am,” he supplemented. “I’m the construction boss av this section, an’ I’m the mon that had the unhappy experience av lookin’ into the business end av ‘Firebrand’s’ six-shooter yisterday.”

      “ ‘Firebrand’s’?” she said, with a puzzled look at him.

      “Thot mon, Trevison, ma’am; that’s what they call him. An’ he fits it bedad—beggin’ your pardon.”

      “Oh,” she said; “then you know him.” And she felt a sudden interest in Carson.

      “Enough to be certain he ain’t to be monkeyed with, ma’am.”

      She seemed to ignore this. “Please tell the engineer to go ahead,” she told him. “And then come into the car—I want to talk with you.”

      A little later, with the car clicking slowly over the rail-joints toward the cut, Carson diffidently followed the negro attendant into a luxurious compartment, in which, seated in a big leather-covered chair, was Miss Benham. She motioned Carson to another chair, and in the conversation that followed Miss Benham received a comprehensive estimate of Trevison from Carson’s viewpoint. It seemed unsatisfying to her—Carson’s commendation did not appear to coincide with Trevison’s performances.

      “Have you heard what happened in Manti yesterday?” she questioned. “This man, Trevison, jumped his horse against Mr. Corrigan and knocked him down.”

      “I heard av it,” grinned Carson. “But I didn’t see it. Nor did I see the daisy scrap

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