'Firebrand' Trevison Part 7

And when the girl reached the platform Agatha was close behind her.

But both halted on the platform as they were about to descend the steps.

They heard Carson's voice, loud and argumentative:

"There's a lady aboored, I tell ye! If ye shoot, you're a lot of d.a.m.ned rapscallions, an' I'll come up there an' bate the head off ye!"

"Stow your gab an' produce the lady!" answered a voice. It came from above, and Rosalind stepped down to the floor of the cut and looked upward. On the crest of the southern wall were a dozen men--cowboys--armed with rifles, peering down at the car. They s.h.i.+fted their gaze to her when she stepped into view, and one of them laughed.

"Correct, boys," he said; "it's a lady." There was a short silence; Rosalind saw the men gather close--they were talking, but she could not hear their voices. Then the man who had spoken first stepped to the edge of the cut and called: "What do you want?"

The girl answered: "I want to speak with Mr. Trevison."

"Sorry, ma'am," came back the voice; "but Trevison ain't here--he's at the Diamond K."

Rosalind reached a decision quickly. "Aunty," she said; "I am going to the Diamond K."

"I forbid you!" said Agatha sternly. "I would not trust you an instant with those outlaws!"

"Nonsense," smiled Rosalind. "I am coming up," she called to the man on the crest; "do you mind?"

The man laughed. "I reckon not, ma'am."

Rosalind smiled at Carson, who was watching her admiringly, and to the smile he answered, pointing eastward to where the slope of the hill melted into the plains: "You'll have to go thot way, ma'am." He laughed. "You're perfectly safe wid thim min, ma'am--they're Trevison's--an' Trevison wud shoot the last mon av thim if they'd harm a hair av your pretty head. Go along, ma'am, an' G.o.d bless ye! Ye'll be savin' a heap av throuble for me an' me ginneys, an' the railroad company." He looked with bland derision at Agatha who gave him a glance of scornful reproof as she followed after her charge.

The girl was panting when she reached the crest of the cut. Agatha was a little white, possibly more from apprehension than from indignation, though that emotion had its influence; but their reception could not have been more formal had it taken place in an eastern drawing-room. For every hat was off, and each man was trying his best to conceal his interest. And when men have not seen a woman for a long time, the appearance of a pretty one makes it rather hard to maintain polite poise. But they succeeded, which spoke well for their manliness. If they exchanged surrept.i.tious winks over the appearance of Agatha, they are to be excused, for that lady's demeanor was one of frigid haughtiness, which is never quite impressive to those who live close to nature.

In an exchange of words, brief and pointed, Rosalind learned that it was three miles to the Diamond K ranchhouse, and that Trevison had given orders not to be disturbed unless the railroad company attempted to continue work at the cut. Could she borrow one of their horses, and a guide?

"You bet!" emphatically returned the spokesman who, she learned later, was Trevison's foreman. She should have the gentlest "cayuse" in the "bunch,"

and the foreman would do the guiding, himself. At which word Agatha, noting the foreman's enthusiasm, glared coldly at him.

But here Agatha was balked by the insurmountable wall of convention. She had ridden horses, to be sure, in her younger days; but when the foreman, at Rosalind's request, offered her a pony, she sniffed scornfully and marched down the slope toward the private car, saying that if Rosalind was _determined_ to persist she might persist without _her_ a.s.sistance. For there was no side-saddle in the riding equipment of the outfit. And Rosalind, quite aware of the prudishness exhibited by her chaperon, and not unmindful of the mirth that the men were trying their best to keep concealed, rode on with the foreman, with something resembling thankfulness for the temporary freedom tugging at her heart.

Trevison had camped all night on the crest of the cut. It was only at dawn that Barkwell, the foreman who had escorted Rosalind, had appeared at the cut on his way to town, and discovered him, and then the foreman's plans were changed and he was dispatched to the Diamond K for reinforcements.

Trevison had ridden back to the Diamond K to care for his arm, which had pained him frightfully during the night, and at ten o'clock in the morning he was stretched out, fully dressed and wide awake on the bed in his room in the ranchhouse, frowningly reviewing the events of the day before.

He was in no good humor, and when he heard Barkwell hallooing from the yard near the house, he got up and looked out of a window, a scowl on his face.

Rosalind was not in the best of spirits, herself, for during the ride to the ranchhouse she had been sending subtly-questioning shafts at the foreman--questions that mostly concerned Trevison--and they had all fell, blunted and impotent, from the armor of Barkwell's reticence. But a glance at Trevison's face, ludicrous in its expression of stunned amazement, brought a broad smile to her own. She saw his lips form her name, and then she waited demurely until she saw him coming out of the ranchhouse door toward her.

He had quite recovered from his surprise, she noted; his manner was that of the day before, when she had seen him riding the black horse. When she saw him coming lightly toward her, she at first had eyes for nothing but his perfect figure, feeling the strength that his close-fitting clothing revealed so unmistakably, and an unaccountable blush glowed in her cheeks.

And then she observed that his left arm was in a sling, and a flash of wondering concern swept over her--also unaccountable. And then he was at her stirrup, smiling up at her broadly and cordially.

"Welcome to the Diamond K, Miss Benham," he said. "Won't you get off your horse?"

"Thank you; I came on business and must return immediately. There has been a misunderstanding, my father says. He wired me, directing me to apologize, for him, for Mr. Corrigan's actions of yesterday. Perhaps Mr.

Corrigan over-stepped his authority--I have no means of knowing." She pa.s.sed the morocco bag over to him, and he took it, looking at it in some perplexity. "You will find cash in there to the amount named by the check that Mr. Corrigan destroyed. I hope," she added, smiling at him, "that there will be no more trouble."

"The payment of this money for the right-of-way removes the provocation for trouble," he laughed. "Barkwell," he directed, turning to the foreman; "you may go back to the outfit." He looked after the foreman as the latter rode away, turning presently to Rosalind. "If you will wait a few minutes, until I stow this money in a safe place, I'll ride back to the cut with you and pull the boys off."

She had wondered much over the rifles in the hands of his men at the cut.

"Would your men have used their guns?" she asked.

He had turned to go to the house, and he wheeled quickly, astonished.

"Certainly!" he said; "why not?"

"That would be lawlessness, would it not?" It made her s.h.i.+ver slightly to hear him so frankly confess to murderous designs.

"It was not my quarrel," he said, looking at her narrowly, his brows contracted. "Law is all right where everybody accepts it as a governor to their actions. I accept it when it deals fairly with me--when it's just.

Certain rights are mine, and I'll fight for them. This situation was brought on by Corrigan's obstinacy. We had a fight, and it peeved him because I wouldn't permit him to hammer my head off. He destroyed the check, and as the company's option expired yesterday it was unlawful for the company to trespa.s.s on my land."

"Well," she smiled, affected by his vehemence; "we shall have peace now, presumably. And--" she reddened again "--I want to ask your pardon on my own account, for speaking to you as I did yesterday. I thought you brutal--the way you rode your horse over Mr. Corrigan. Mr. Carson a.s.sured me that the horse was to blame."

"I am indebted to Carson," he laughed, bowing. Rosalind watched him go into the house, and then turned and inspected her surroundings. The house was big, roomy, with a ma.s.sive hip roof. A paved gallery stretched the entire length of the front--she would have liked to rest for a few minutes in the heavy rocker that stood in its cool shadows. No woman lived here, she was certain, because there was a lack of evidence of woman's handiwork--no filmy curtains at the windows--merely shades; no cus.h.i.+on was on the chair--which, by the way, looked lonesome--but perhaps that was merely her imagination. Much dust had gathered on the gallery floor and on the sash of the windows--a woman would have had things looking differently. And so she divined that Trevison was not married. It surprised her to discover that that thought had been in her mind, and she turned to continue her inspection, filled with wonder that it had been there.

She got an impression of breadth and s.p.a.ciousness out of her survey of the buildings and the surrounding country. The buildings were in good condition; everything looked substantial and homelike and her contemplation of it aroused in her a yearning for a house and land in this section of the country, it was so peaceful and dignified in comparison with the life she knew.

She watched Trevison when he emerged from the house, and smiled when he returned the empty handbag. He went to a small building near a fenced enclosure--the corral, she learned afterward--and came out carrying a saddle, which he hung on the fence while he captured the black horse, which she had already observed. The animal evaded capture, playfully, but in the end it trotted mincingly to Trevison and permitted him to throw the bridle on. Then, shortly afterward he mounted the black and together they rode back toward the cut.

As they rode the girl's curiosity for the man who rode beside her grew acute. She was aware--she had been aware all along--that he was far different from the other men of Manti--there was about him an atmosphere of refinement and quiet confidence that mingled admirably with his magnificent physical force, tempering it, suggesting reserve power, hinting of excellent mental capacity. She determined to know something about him. And so she began subtly:

"In a section of country so large as this it seems that our American measure of length--a mile--should be stretched to something that would more adequately express size. Don't you think so?"

He looked quickly at her. "That is an odd thought," he laughed, "but it inevitably attacks the person who views the yawning distances here for the first time. Why not use the English mile if the American doesn't satisfy?"

"There is a measure that exceeds that, isn't there? Wasn't there a Persian measure somewhat longer, fathered by Herodotus or another of the ancients?

I am sure there was--or is--but I have forgotten?"

"Yes," he said, "--a parasang." He looked narrowly at her and saw her eyes brighten.

She had made progress; she felt much satisfaction.

"You are not a native," she said.

"How do you know?"

"Cowboys do not commonly measure their distances with parasangs," she laughed.

"Nor do ordinary women try to shake off ennui by coming West in private cars," he drawled.

She started and looking quickly at him. "How did you know that was what happened to me?" she demanded.

"Because you're too spirited and vigorous to spend your life dawdling in society. You yearn for action, for the broad, free life of the open.

You're in love with this country right now."

"Yes, yes," she said, astonished; "but how do you know?"