'Firebrand' Trevison Part 9

When he recovered and sat up, Corrigan had gone. The banker gazed foolishly around at a world that was still reeling--felt his jaw carefully, wonder and astonishment in his eyes.

"What do you know about that?" he asked of the surrounding silence. "I've kidded him about women before, and he never got sore. He must be in love!"

Riding through a saccaton basin, the green-brown tips so high that they caught at their stirrups as they rode slowly along; a white, smiling sky above them and Blakeley's still three miles away, Miss Benham and Trevison were chatting gayly at the instant the banker had received Corrigan's blow.

Miss Benham had spent the night thinking of Trevison, and she had spent much of her time during the present ride stealing glances at him. She had discovered something about him that had eluded her the day before--an impulsive boyishness. It was hidden behind the manhood of him, so that the casual observer would not be likely to see it; men would have failed to see it, because she was certain that with men he would not let it be seen.

But she knew the recklessness that shone in his eyes, the energy that slumbered in them ready to be applied any moment in response to any whim that might seize him, were traits that had not yet yielded to the stern governors of manhood--nor would they yield in many years to come--they were the fountains of virility that would keep him young. She felt the irresistible appeal of him, responsive to the youth that flourished in her own heart--and Corrigan, older, more ponderous, less addicted to impulse, grew distant in her thoughts and vision. The day before yesterday her sympathies had been with Corrigan--she had thought. But as she rode she knew that they were threatening to desert him. For this man of heroic mold who rode beside her was disquietingly captivating in the bold recklessness of his youth.

They climbed the far slope of the basin and halted their horses on the crest. Before them stretched a plain so big and vast and inviting that it made the girl gasp with delight.

"Oh," she said, awed; "isn't it wonderful?"

"I knew you'd like it."

"The East has nothing like this," she said, with a broad sweep of the hand.

"No," he said.

She turned on him triumphantly. "There!" she declared; "you have committed yourself. You are from the East!"

"Well," he said; "I've never denied it."

Something vague and subtle had drawn them together during the ride, bridging the hiatus of strangeness, making them feel that they had been acquainted long. It did not seem impertinent to her that she should ask the question that she now put to him--she felt that her interest in him permitted it:

"You are an easterner, and yet you have been out here for about ten years.

Your house is big and substantial, but I should judge that it has no comforts, no conveniences. You live there alone, except for some men, and you have male servants--if you have any. Why should you bury yourself here? You are educated, you are young. There are great opportunities for you in the East!"

She paused, for she saw a cynical expression in his eyes.

"Well?" she said, impatiently, for she had been very much in earnest.

"I suppose I've got to tell you," he said, soberly. "I don't know what has come over me--you seem to have me under a spell. I've never spoken about it before. I don't know why I should now. But you've got to know, I presume."

"Yes."

"On your head rest the blame," he said, his grin still cynical; "and upon mine the consequences. It isn't a pretty story to tell; it's only virtue is its brevity. I was fired out of college for fighting. The fellows I licked deserved what they got--and I deserved what I got for breaking rules. I've always broken rules. I may have broken laws--most of us have.

My father is wealthy. The last time I saw him he said I was incorrigible and a dunce. I admit the former, but I'm going to make him take the other back. I told him so. He replied that he was from Missouri. He gave me an opportunity to make good by cutting off my allowance. There was a girl.

When my allowance was cut off she made me feel cold as an Eskimo. Told me straight that she had never liked me in the way she'd led me to believe she did, and that she was engaged to a _real_ man. She made the mistake of telling me his name, and it happened to be one of the fellows I'd had trouble with at college. The girl lost her temper and told me things he'd said about me. I left New York that night, but before I hopped on the train I stopped in to see my rival and gave him the bulliest tr.i.m.m.i.n.g that I had ever given anybody. I came out here and took up a quarter-section of land. I bought more--after a while. I own five thousand acres, and about a thousand acres of it is the best coal land in the United States. I wouldn't sell it for love or money, for when your father gets his railroad running, I'm going to cash in on ten of the leanest and hardest and lonesomest years that any man ever put in. I'm going back some day. But I won't stay. I've lived in this country so long that it's got into my heart and soul. It's a golden paradise."

She did not share his enthusiasm--her thoughts were selfishly personal, though they included him.

"And the girl!" she said. "When you go back, would you--"

"Never!" he scoffed, vehemently. "That would convince me that I am the dunce my father said I was!"

The girl turned her head and smiled. And a little later, when they were riding on again, she murmured softly:

"Ten years of lonesomeness and bitterness to save his pride! I wonder if Hester Keyes knows what she has missed?"

CHAPTER VII

TWO LETTERS GO EAST

After Agatha retired that night Rosalind sat for a long time writing at a little desk in the private car. She was tingling with excitement over a discovery she had made, and was yearning for a confidante. Since it had not been her habit to confide in Agatha, she did the next best thing, which was to indite a letter to her chum, Ruth Gresham. In one place she wrote:

"Do you remember Hester Keyes' love affair of ten years ago? You certainly must remember it! If you cannot, permit me to brush the dust of forgetfulness away. You cannot forget the night you met William Kinkaid?

Of course you cannot forget that, for when you are Mrs. Kinkaid--But there! I won't poke fun at you. But I think every married person needs to treasure every shred of romance against inevitable hum-drum days. Isn't that a sad sentiment? But I want to get ahead with my reminder."

There followed much detail, having to do with Hester Keyes' party, to which neither Rosalind nor Ruth Gresham had been invited, for reasons which Rosalind presently made obvious. She continued:

"Of course, custom does not permit girls of fourteen to figure prominently at 'coming-out' parties, but after one is there and is relegated to a stair-landing, one may use one's eyes without restriction. Do you remember my pointing out Hester Keyes' 'fellow'? But of course you didn't pay much attention to him after Billy Kinkaid sailed into your vision! But I envied Hester Keyes her eighteen years--and Trevison Brandon! He had the blackest eyes and hair! And he simply adored Hester! It made me feel positively savage when I heard shortly afterward that she had thrown him over--after his father cut him off--to take up with that fellow Harvey--I never could remember his first name. And she married Harvey--and regretted it, until Harvey died.

"Ruth, Trevison Brandon is out here. He calls himself 'Brand' Trevison. I met him two days ago, and I did not recognize him, he has changed so much.

He puzzled me quite a little; but not even when I heard his name did I connect him with the man I had seen at Hester's party. Ten years is _such_ a long time, isn't it? And I never did have much of a memory for names.

But today he went with me to a certain ranch--Blakeley's--which, by the way, _father is going to buy_--and on the way we became very much acquainted, and he told me about his love affair. I placed him instantly, then, and why I didn't keel over was, I suppose, because of the curious big saddles they have out here, with enormous wooden _stirrups_ on them. I can hear you exclaim over that plural, but there are no side-saddles. That is how it came that I was unchaperoned--Agatha won't take liberties with them, the saddles. Thank Heaven!"

There followed much more, with only one further reference to Trevison:

"He must be nearly thirty now, but he doesn't look it, he's so boyish. I gather, though, that he is regarded as a _man_ out here, where, I understand, manhood is measured by something besides mere appearances. He owns acres and acres of land--some of it has coal on it; and he is sure to be enormously wealthy, some day. But I am twenty-four, myself."

The startling irrelevance of this sentence at first surprised Ruth Gresham, and then caused her eyes to brighten understandingly, as she read the letter a few days later. She remarked, musingly:

"The inevitable hum-drum days, eh? And yet most people long for them."

Another letter was written when the one to Ruth was completed. It was to J. Chalfant Benham.

"DEAR DADDY:

"The West is a golden paradise. I could live here many, many years. I visited Mr. Blakeley today. He calls his ranch the Bar B. We wouldn't have to change the brand, would we? Trevison says the ranch is worth all Blakeley asks for it. Mr. Blakeley says we can take possession immediately, so I have decided to stay here. Mrs. Blakeley has invited me, and I am going to have my things taken over tomorrow.

Since the Blakeley's are anxious to sell out and return South, don't you think you had better conclude the deal at once?

"Lovingly, "ROSALIND."

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHAOS OF CREATION

The West saw many "boom" towns. They followed in the wake of "gold strikes;" they grew, mushroom-like, overnight--garish husks of squalor, palpitating, hardy, a-tingle with extravagant hopes. A few, it is true, lived to become substantial cities buzzing with the American spirit, panting, fighting for progress with an energy that shamed the Old World, lethargic in its smug and self-sufficient superiority. But many towns died in their gangling youth, tragic monuments to hopes; but monuments also to effort, and to the pioneer courage and the dreams of an empire-building people.