to his desk, meditating darkly.

"Trevison put Levins up to that. He's showing yellow."

CHAPTER XX

AND RIDES AGAIN--IN VAIN

Rosalind's reflections as she rode toward the Bar B convinced her that
there had been much truth in Corrigan's arraignment of Trevison. Out of
her own knowledge of him, and from his own admission to her on the day
they had ridden to Blakeley's the first time, she adduced evidence of his
predilection for fighting, of his utter disregard for accepted
authority--when that authority disagreed with his conception of justice;
of his lawlessness when his desires were in question. His impetuosity was
notorious, for it had earned him the sobriquet "Firebrand," which he could
not have acquired except through the exhibition of those traits that she
had enumerated.

She was disappointed and spiritless when she reached the ranchhouse, and
very tired, physically. Agatha's questions irritated her, and she ate
sparingly of the food set before her, eager to be alone. In the isolation
of her room she lay dumbly on the bed, and there the absurdity of Levins'
story assailed her. It must be as Corrigan had said--her father was too
great a man to descend to such despicable methods. She dropped off to
sleep.

When she awoke the sun had gone down, and her room was cheerless in the
semi-dusk. She got up, washed, combed her hair, and much refreshed, went
downstairs and ate heartily, Agatha watching her narrowly.

"You are distraught, my dear," ventured her relative. "I don't think this
country agrees with you. Has anything happened?"

The girl answered evasively, whereat Agatha compressed her lips.

"Don't you think that a trip East--"

"I shall not go home this summer!" declared Rosalind, vehemently. And
noting the flash in the girl's eyes, belligerent and defiant; her swelling
breast, the warning brilliance of her eyes, misty with pent-up emotion,
Agatha wisely subsided and the meal was finished in a strained silence.

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. She had lived it according to her environment, a mere
onlooker, detached from the scheme of things. Something of the me