'Firebrand' Trevison Part 23

"What's the use, Hester?" he said; "it can't be."

"Well, G.o.d bless you, anyway, dear," she said chokingly.

He pa.s.sed on, leaving her in the shadows of the buildings, and walked far out on the plains. Making a circuit to avoid meeting the woman again, he skirted the back yards, stumbling over tin cans and debris in his progress. When he got to the shed where he had hitched n.i.g.g.e.r he mounted and rode down the railroad tracks toward the cut, where an hour later he was joined by Clay Levins, who came toward him, riding slowly and cautiously.

Patrick Carson had wooed sleep unsuccessfully. For hours he lay on his cot in the tent, staring out through the flap at the stars. A vague unrest had seized him. He heard the hilarious din of Manti steadily decrease in volume until only intermittent noises reached his ears. But even when comparative peace came he was still wide awake.

"I'll be gettin' the w.i.l.l.i.e.s av I lay here much longer widout slape," he confided to his pillow. "Mebbe a turn down the track wid me dujeen wud do the thrick." He got up, lighted his pipe and strode off into the semi-gloom of the railroad track. He went aimlessly, paying little attention to objects around him. He pa.s.sed the tents wherein the laborers lay--and smiled as heavy snores smote his ears. "They slape a heap harder than they worruk, bedad!" he observed, grinning. "Nothin' c'ud trouble a ginney's conscience, annyway," he scoffed. "But, accordin' to that they must be a heap on me own!" Which observation sent his thoughts to Corrigan. "Begob, there's a man! A domned rogue, if iver they was one!"

He pa.s.sed the tents, smoking thoughtfully. He paused when he came to the small buildings scattered about at quite a distance from the tents, then left the tracks and made his way through the deep alkali dust toward them.

"Whativer wud Corrigan be askin' about the dynamite for? 'How much do ye kape av it?' he was askin'. As if it was anny av his business!"

He stopped puffing at his pipe and stood rigid, watching with bulging eyes, for he saw the door of the dynamite shed move outward several inches, as though someone inside had shoved it. It closed again, slowly, and Carson was convinced that he had been seen. He was no coward, but a cold sweat broke out on him and his knees doubled weakly. For any man who would visit the dynamite shed around midnight, in this stealthy manner, must be in a desperate frame of mind, and Carson's virile imagination drew lurid pictures of a gun duel in which a stray shot penetrated the wall of the shed. He s.h.i.+vered at the roar of the explosion that followed; he even drew a gruesome picture of stretchers and mangled flesh that brought a groan out of him.

But in spite of his mental stress he lunged forward, boldly, though his breath wheezed from his lungs in great gasps. His body lagged, but his will was indomitable, once he quit looking at the pictures of his imagination. He was at the door of the shed in a dozen strides.

The lock had been forced; the hasp was hanging, suspended from a twisted staple. Carson had no pistol--it would have been useless, anyway.

Carson hesitated, vacillating between two courses. Should he return for help, or should he secrete himself somewhere and watch? The utter foolhardiness of attempting the capture of the prowler single handed a.s.sailed him, and he decided on retreat. He took one step, and then stood rigid in his tracks, for a voice filtered thinly through the doorway, hoa.r.s.e, vibrant:

"Don't forget the fuses."

Carson's lips formed the word: "Trevison!"

Carson's breath came easier; his thoughts became more coherent, his recollection vivid; his sympathies leaped like living things. When his thoughts dwelt upon the scene at the b.u.t.te during Trevison's visit while the mining machinery was being erected--the trap that Corrigan had prepared for the man--a grim smile wreathed his face, for he strongly suspected what was meant by Trevison's visit to the dynamite shed.

He slipped cautiously around a corner of the shed, making no sound in the deep dust surrounding it, and stole back the way he had come, tingling.

"Begob, I'll slape now--a little while!"

As Carson vanished down the tracks a head was stuck out through the doorway of the shed and turned so that its owner could scan his surroundings.

"All clear," he whispered.

"Get going, then," said another voice, and two men, their faces m.u.f.fled with handkerchiefs, bearing something that bulked their pockets oddly, slipped out of the door and fled noiselessly, like gliding shadows, down the track toward the cut.

Rosalind had been asleep in the rocker. A cool night breeze, laden with the strong, pungent aroma of sage, sent a s.h.i.+ver over her and she awoke, to see that the lights of Manti had vanished. An eerie lonesomeness had settled around her.

"Why, it must be nearly midnight!" she said. She got up, yawning, and stepped toward the door, wondering why Agatha had not called her. But Agatha had retired, resenting the girl's manner.

Almost to the door, Rosalind detected movement in the ghostly semi-light that flooded the plains between the porch and the picturesque spot, more than a mile away, on which Levins' cabin stood. She halted at the door and watched, and when the moving object resolved into a horse, loping swiftly, she strained her eyes toward it. At first it seemed to have no rider, but when it had approached to within a hundred yards of her, she gasped, leaped off the porch and ran toward the horse. An instant later she stood at the animal's head, voicing her astonishment.

"Why, it's Chuck Levins! Why on earth are you riding around at this hour of the night?"

"Sissy's sick. Maw wants you to please come an' see what you can do--if it ain't too much trouble."

"Trouble?" The girl laughed. "I should say not! Wait until I saddle my horse!"

She ran to the porch and stole silently into the house, emerging with a small medicine case, which she stuck into a pocket of her coat. Once before she had had occasion to use her simple remedies on Sissy--an illness as simple as her remedies; but she could feel something of Mrs.

Levins' concern for her offspring, and--and it was an ideal night for a gallop over the plains.

It was almost midnight by the Levins' clock when she entered the cabin, and a quick diagnosis of her case with an immediate application of one of her remedies, brought results. At half past twelve Sissy was sleeping peacefully, and Chuck had dozed off, fully dressed, no doubt ready to re-enact his manly and heroic role upon call.

It was not until Rosalind was ready to go that Mrs. Levins apologized for her husband's rudeness to his guest.

"Clay feels awfully bitter against Corrigan. It's because Corrigan is fighting Trevison--and Trevison is Clay's friend--they've been like brothers. Trevison has done so much for us."

Rosalind glanced around the cabin. She had meant to ask Chuck why his father had not come on the midnight errand, but had forebore. "Mr. Levins isn't here?"

"Clay went away about nine o'clock." The woman did not meet Rosalind's direct gaze; she flushed under it and looked downward, twisting her fingers in her ap.r.o.n. Rosalind had noted a strangeness in the woman's manner when she had entered the cabin, but she had ascribed it to the child's illness, and had thought nothing more of it. But now it burst upon her with added force, and when she looked up again Rosalind saw there was an odd, strained light in her eyes--a fear, a dread--a sinister something that she shrank from. Rosalind remembered the killing of Marchmont, and had a quick divination of impending trouble.

"What is it, Mrs. Levins? What has happened?"

The woman gulped hard, and clenched her hands. Evidently, whatever her trouble, she had determined to bear it alone, but was now wavering.

"Tell me, Mrs. Levins; perhaps I can help you?"

"You can!" The words burst sobbingly from the woman. "Maybe you can prevent it. But, oh, Miss Rosalind, I wasn't to say anything--Clay told me not to. But I'm so afraid! Clay's so hot-headed, and Trevison is so daring! I'm afraid they won't stop at anything!"

"But what is it?" demanded Rosalind, catching something of the woman's excitement.

"It's about the machinery at the b.u.t.te--the mining machinery. My G.o.d, you'll never say I told you--will you? But they're going to blow it up tonight--Clay and Trevison; they're going to dynamite it! I'm afraid there will be murder done!"

"Why didn't you tell me before?" The girl stood rigid, white, breathless.

"Oh, I ought to," moaned the woman. "But I was afraid you'd tell--Corrigan--somebody--and--and they'd get into trouble with the law!"

"I won't tell--but I'll stop it--if there's time! For your sake. Trevison is the one to blame."

She inquired about the location of the b.u.t.te; the shortest trail, and then ran out to her horse. Once in the saddle she drew a deep breath and sent the animal scampering into the flood of moonlight.

Down toward the cut the two men ran, and when they reached a gully at a distance of several hundred feet from the dynamite shed they came upon their horses. Mounting, they rode rapidly down the track toward the b.u.t.te where the mining machinery was being erected. They had taken the handkerchiefs off while they ran, and now Trevison laughed with the hearty abandon of a boy whose mischievous prank has succeeded.

"That was easy. I thought I heard a noise, though, when you backed against the door and shoved it open."

"n.o.body usually monkeys around a dynamite shed at night," returned Levins.

"Whew! There's enough of that stuff there to blow Manti to Kingdom Come--wherever that is."

They rode boldly across the level at the base of the b.u.t.te, for they had reconnoitered after meeting on the plains just outside of town, and knew Corrigan had left no one on guard.

"It's a cinch," Levins declared as they dismounted from their horses in the shelter of a shoulder of the b.u.t.te, about a hundred yards from where the corrugated iron building, nearly complete, loomed somberly on the level. "But if they'd ever get evidence that we done it--"