CHAPTER XXIV

ANOTHER WOMAN LIES

Shortly before midnight Aunt Agatha Benham laid her book down, took off her gla.s.ses, wiped her eyes and yawned. She sat for a time stretched out in her chair, her hands folded in her lap, meditatively looking at the flicker of the kerosene lamp, thinking of the conveniences she had given up in order to chaperon a wilful girl who did not appreciate her services.

It was the selfishness of youth, she decided--nothing less. But still Rosalind might understand what a sacrifice her aunt was making for her.

Thrilling with self-pity, she got up, blew out the light and ascended the stairs to her room. She plumped herself in a chair at one of the front windows before beginning to undress, that she might again feel the delicious thrill, for that was the only consolation she got from a contemplation of her sacrifice, Rosalind never offered her a word of grat.i.tude!

The thrill she antic.i.p.ated was not the one she experienced--it was a thrill of apprehension that seized her--for a glowing midnight sky met her gaze as she stared in the direction of Manti, vast, extensive. In its center, directly over the town, was a fierce white glare with off-shoots of licking, leaping tongues of flame that reached skyward hungrily.

Agatha watched for one startled instant, and then she was in Rosalind's room, leaning over the bed, shaking her. The girl got up, dressed in her night clothes, and together they stood at one of the windows in the girl's room, watching.

The fierce white center of the fire seemed to expand.

"It's a fire--in Manti!" said the girl. "See! Another building has caught!

Oh, I _do_ hope they can put it out!"

They stood long at the window. Once, when the glow grew more brilliant, the girl exclaimed sharply, but after a time the light began to fade, and she drew a breath of relief.

"They have it under control," she said.

"Well, come to bed," advised Agatha.

"Wait!" said the girl. She pressed her face against the window and peered intently into the darkness. Then she threw up the sash, stuck her head out and listened. She drew back, her face slowly whitening.

"Some one is coming, Aunty--and riding very fast!"

A premonition of tragedy, a.s.sociated with the fire, had seized the girl at her first glimpse of the light, though she had said nothing. The appearance of a rider, approaching the house at breakneck speed had added strength to her fears, and now, driven by the urge of apprehension that had seized her she flitted out of the room before Agatha could restrain her, and was down in the sitting-room in an instant, applying a match to the lamp. As the light flared up she heard the thunder of hoofs just outside the door, and she ran to it, throwing it open. She shrank back, drawing her breath gaspingly, for the rider had dismounted and stepped toward her, into the dim light of the open doorway.

"You!" she said.

A low laugh was her answer, and Trevison stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. From the foot of the stairs Agatha saw him, and she stood, nerveless and shaking with dread over the picture he made.

He had been more than forty-eight hours without sleep, the storm-center of action had left its impression on him, and his face was gaunt and haggard, with great, dark hollows under his eyes. The three or four days' growth of beard accentuated the bold lines of his chin and jaw; his eyes were dancing with the fires of pa.s.sion; he held a Winchester rifle under his right arm, the left, hanging limply at his side, was stained darkly. He swayed as he stood looking at the girl, and smiled with faint derision at the naked fear and wonder that had leaped into her eyes. But the derision was tinged with bitterness, for this girl with both hands pressed over her breast, heaving with the mingled emotions of modesty and dismay, was one of the chief factors in the scheme to rob him. The knowledge hurt him worse than the bullet which had pa.s.sed through his arm. 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 a.s.surance that she was innocent. But he knew guilt when he saw it, and proof of it had been in her avoidance of him, in her ride to save Corrigan's mining machinery, in her subsequent telling of his presence at the b.u.t.te on the night of the dynamiting, in her bitter declaration that he ought to be punished for it. The case against her was strong. And yet on his ride from Manti he had been irresistibly drawn toward the Bar B ranchhouse. He had told himself as he rode that the impulse to visit her this night was strong within him because on his way to the pueblo he was forced to pa.s.s the house, but he knew better--he had lied to himself. He wanted to talk with her again; he wanted to show her the land record, which proved her fiance's guilt; he wanted to watch her as she looked at the record, to learn from her face--what he might find there.

He stood the rifle against the wall near the door, while the girl and her aunt watched him, breathlessly. His voice was vibrant and hoa.r.s.e, but well under control, and he smiled with straight lips as he set the rifle down and drew the record from his waistband.

"I've something to show you, Miss Benham. I couldn't pa.s.s the house without letting you know what has happened." He opened the book and stepped to her side, swinging his left hand up, the index finger indicating a page on which his name appeared.

"Look!" he said, sharply, and watched her face closely. He saw her cheeks blanch, and set his lips grimly.

"Why," she said, after she had hurriedly scanned the page; "it seems to prove your t.i.tle! But this is a court record, isn't it?" She examined the gilt lettering on the back of the volume, and looked up at him with wide, luminous eyes. "Where did you get that book?"

"From the courthouse."

"Why, I thought people weren't permitted to take court records--"

"I've taken this one," he laughed.

She looked at the blood on his hand, shudderingly. "Why," she said; "there's been violence! The fire, the blood on your hand, the record, your ride here--What does it mean?"

"It means that I've been denied my rights, and I've taken them. Is there any crime in that? Look here!" He took another step and stood looking down at her. "I'm not saying anything about Corrigan. You know what we think of each other, and we'll fight it out, man to man. But the fact that a woman is engaged to one man doesn't bar another man from the game. And I'm in this game to the finish. And even if I don't get you I don't want you to be mixed up in these schemes and plots--you're too good a girl for that!"

"What do you mean?" She stiffened, looking scornfully at him, her chin held high, outraged innocence in her manner. His cold grin of frank disbelief roused her to furious indignation. What right had he to question her integrity to make such speeches to her after his disgraceful affair with Hester Harvey?

"I do not care to discuss the matter with you!" she said, her lips stiff.

"Ha, ha!" The bitter derision in his laugh made her blood riot with hatred. He walked toward the door and took up the rifle, dimly remembering she had used the same words to him once before, when he had met her as she had been riding toward Manti. Of course she wouldn't discuss such a thing--he had been a blind fool to think she would. But it proved her guilt. Swinging the rifle under his arm, he opened the door, turned when on the threshold and bowed to her.

"I'm sorry I troubled you, Miss Benham," he said. He essayed to turn, staggered, looked vacantly around the room, his lips in a queerly cold half-smile, and then without uttering a sound pitched forward, one shoulder against the door jamb, and slid slowly to his knees, where he rested, his head sinking limply to his chest. He heard the girl cry out sharply and he raised his head with an effort and smiled rea.s.suringly at her, and when he felt her hands on his arm, trying to lift him, he laughed aloud in self-derision and got to his feet, hanging to the door jamb.

"I'm sorry, Miss Benham," he mumbled. "I lost some blood, I suppose.

Rotten luck, isn't it. I shouldn't have stopped." He turned to go, lurched forward and would have fallen out of the door had not the girl seized and steadied him.

He did not resist when she dragged him into the room and closed the door, but he waved her away when she tried to take his arm and lead him toward the kitchen where, she insisted, she would prepare a stimulant and food for him. He tottered after her, tall and gaunt, his big, lithe figure strangely slack, his head rocking, the room whirling around him. He had held to the record and the rifle; the latter by the muzzle, dragging it after him, the record under his arm.

But his marvelous const.i.tution, a result of his clean living and outdoor life, responded quickly to the stimulation of food and hot drinks, and in half an hour he got up, still a little weak, but with some color in his cheeks, and shame-facedly thanked the girl. He realized now, that he should not have come here; the past few hours loomed in his thoughts like a wild nightmare in which he had lost his sense of proportion, yielding to the elemental pa.s.sions that had been aroused in his long, sleepless struggle, making him act upon impulses that he would have frowned contemptuously away in a normal frame of mind.

"I've been nearly crazy, I think," he said to the girl with a wan smile of self-accusation. "I want you to forget what I said."

"What happened at Manti?" she demanded, ignoring his words.

He laughed at the recollection, tucking his rifle under his arm, preparatory to leaving. "I went after the record. I got it. There was a fight. But I got away."

"But the fire!"

"I was forced to smash a lamp in the courthouse. The wick fell into the oil, and I couldn't delay to--"

"Was anybody hurt--besides you?"

"Braman's dead." The girl gasped and shrank from him, and he saw that she believed he had killed the banker, and he was about to deny the crime when Agatha's voice shrilled through the doorway:

"There are some men coming, Rosalind!" And then, vindictively: "I presume they are desperadoes--too!"

"Deputies!" said Trevison. The girl clasped her hands over her breast in dismay, which changed to terror when she saw Trevison stiffen and leap toward the door. She was afraid for him, horrified over this second lawless deed, dumb with doubt and indecision--and she didn't want them to catch him!

He opened the door, paused on the threshold and smiled at her with straight, hard lips.

"Braman was--"

"Go!" she cried in a frenzy of anxiety; "go!"

He laughed mockingly, and looked at her intently. "I suppose I will never understand women. You are my enemy, and yet you give me food and drink and are eager to have me escape your accomplice. Don't you know that this record will ruin him?"

"Go, go!" she panted.