United States or Iceland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sullenly, Corrigan had returned to Manti with the deputies that had accompanied him to the Bar B. He had half expected to find Trevison at the ranchhouse, for he had watched him when he had ridden away and he seemed to have been headed in that direction. Jealousy dwelt darkly in the big man's heart, and he had found his reason for the suspicion there.
Therefore, he divided his army and brought a part over into the valley, and concealed them on the east, and on the south of the hill Riplah; And the remainder he concealed in the west valley, on the west of the river Sidon, and so down into the borders of the land Manti. And thus having placed his army according to his desire, he was prepared to meet them.
The universal sympathy for the "under dog" oppressed by Justice perverted or controlled, had here found expression. It was so all over Manti. Admiring glances followed Trevison; though he said no word concerning the incident; nor could any man have said, judging from the expression of his face, that he was elated.
But Trevison knew that the coming of the railroad marked an epoch, that the two thin, thread-like lines of steel were the tentacles of the man-made monster that had gripped the East business reaching out for newer fields and that Manti, futile and ridiculous as it seemed, was an outpost fortified by unlimited resource. Manti had come to stay. And the cattle business was going, Trevison knew.
Two other passengers in the coach watched him warily, and once, when he got up and walked to the front of the coach, opening the door and looking out, to let in the roar and whir and the clatter, one of the passengers remarked to the other: "That guy is in a temper where murder would come easy to him." The train left Manti at nine o'clock in the evening.
"I thought at first that your father was over-enthusiastic about Manti, Miss Benham," he continued. "But the more I see of it the firmer becomes my conviction that your father was right. There are tremendous possibilities for growth. Even now it is a rather fertile country. We shall make it hum, once the railroad and the dam are completed.
She had been uppermost in his thoughts during his reckless ride from Manti, and he would have cheerfully given his land, his ten years of labor, for the assurance that she was innocent.
Later, Rosalind went out, alone, upon the porch where, huddled in a big rocker, she gazed gloomily at the lights of Manti, dim and distant. Something of the turmoil and the tumult of the town in its young strength and vigor, assailed her, contrasting sharply with the solemn peace of her own surroundings. Life had been a very materialistic problem to her, heretofore.
"They got the Judge, 'Brand' they run him off, with my cayuse!" "Who got him?" "I ain't reckonin' to know. Some of Corrigan's scum, most likely I didn't see 'em close." "How long ago?" "Not a hell of a while. Mebbe fifteen or twenty minutes. I been missin' a lot of time, I reckon. Can't have been long, though." "Which way did they go?" "Off towards Manti. Two of 'em took him.
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.
Word Of The Day