two lines of steel that ran out upon the
plains and stopped in the deep cut on the crest of which he could see a
man on a black horse.

Down at the station Corrigan was leaning on a rough wooden counter,
writing on a yellow paper pad. When he had finished he shoved the paper
over to the telegrapher, who had been waiting:

J. Chalfant Benham, B-- Building, New York.

Unexpected opposition developed. Trevison. Give Lindman removal order
immediately. Communicate with me at Dry Bottom tomorrow morning.
Corrigan.

Corrigan watched the operator send the message and then he returned to the
bank building, where he found Braman setting out a meager lunch in the
rear room. The two men talked as they ate, mostly about Trevison, and the
banker's face did not lose its worried expression. Later they smoked and
talked and watched while the afternoon sun grew mellow; while the somber
twilight descended over the world and darkness came and obliterated the
hill on which sat the rider of the black horse.

Shortly after dark Corrigan sent the banker on another errand, this time
to a boarding-house at the edge of town. Braman returned shortly,
announcing: "He'll be ready." Then, just before midnight Corrigan climbed
into the cab of the engine which had brought the private car, and which
was waiting, steam up, several hundred feet down the track from the car.

"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 scra