"Manti is a wonderful town--a _wonderful_ town!" he declared. "It may be said that success is lurking just ahead. And much of the credit is due to your efforts," he added, generously. Corrigan murmured a polite disclaimer, and plunged into dry details. J. C. had a passion for dry details. For many hours they sat in the office, their heads close together. Braman was occasionally called in. Judge Lindman was summoned after a time. J. C. shook the Judge's hand warmly and then resumed his chair, folding his chubby hands over his corpulent stomach. "Judge Lindman," he said; "you thoroughly understand our position in this Midland affair." The Judge glanced at Corrigan. "Thoroughly." "No doubt there will be some contests. But the present claimants have no legal status. Mr. -- (here J. C. mentioned a name that made the Judge's eyes brighten) tells me there will be no hitch. There could not be, of course. In the absence of any court record of possible transfers, the title to the land, of course, reverts to the Midland Company. As Mr. Corrigan has explained to me, he is entirely within his rights, having secured the title to the land from Mr. Marchmont, representing the Midland. You have no record of any transfers from the Midland to the present claimants or their predecessors, have you? There is no such record?" The Judge saw Corrigan's amused grin, and surmised that J. C. was merely playing with him. "No," he said, with some bitterness. "Then of course you are going to stand with Mr. Corrigan against the present claimants?" "I presume so." "H'm," said J. C. "If there is any doubt about it, perhaps I had better remind you--" The Judge groaned in agony of spirit. "It won't be necessary to remind me." "So I thought. Well, gentlemen--" J. C. arose "--that will be all for this evening." Thus he dismissed the Judge, who went to his cot behind a partition in the courthouse, while Corrigan and J. C. stepped outside and walked slowly toward the private car. They lingered at the steps, and presently J. C. called and a negro came out with two chairs. J. C. and Corrigan draped themselves in the chairs and smoked. Dusk was settling over Manti; lights appeared in the windows of the buildings; a medley of noises reached the ears of the two men. By day Manti was lively enough, by night it was a maelstrom of frenzied action. A hundred cow-ponies were hitched to rails that skirted the street in front of store and saloon; cowboys from ranches, distant and near, rollicked from building to building, touching elbows with men less picturesquely garbed; the strains of crude music smote the flat, dead desert air; yells, shouts, laughter filtered through the bedlam; an engine, attached to a train of cars on the main track near the private car, wheezed steam in preparation for its eastward trip, soon to begin. Benham had solemn thoughts, sitting there, watching.