"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."
CHAPTER V
A TELEGRAM AND A GIRL
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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