"Like it here, eh?" he said. "Well, you look it." He shook a finger at her. "Agatha has been writing to me rather often, lately," he added. There followed no answer and J. C. went on, narrowing his eyes at the girl. "She tells me that this fellow who calls himself 'Brand' Trevison has proven himself a--shall we say, persistent?--escort on your trips of inspection around the ranch."
"I thought Corrigan--" he began. The girl's eyes chilled.
It was a month before Trevison went to town, again. Only once during that time did he see Rosalind Benham, for the Blakeleys had vacated, and goods and servants had arrived from the East and needed attention. Rosalind presided at the Bar B ranchhouse, under Agatha's chaperonage, and she had invited Trevison to visit her whenever the mood struck him. He had been in the mood many times, but had found no opportunity, for the various activities of range work claimed his attention. After a critical survey of Manti and vicinity, J. C. had climbed aboard his private car to be whisked to New York, where he reported to his Board of Directors that Manti would one day be one of the greatest commercial centers of the West.
Vague rumors of a legal tangle involving the land around Manti had reached Trevison's ears, and this morning he had jumped on Nigger, determined to run the rumors down. He made a wide swing, following the river, which took him miles from his own property and into the enormous basin which one day the engineers expected to convert into a mammoth lake from which the thirst of many dry acres of land was to be slaked; and halting Nigger near the mouth of the gorge, watched the many laborers, directed by various grades of bosses, at work building the foundation of the dam. Later, he crossed the basin, followed the well-beaten trail up the slope to the level, and shortly he was in Hanrahan's saloon across the street from Braman's bank, listening to the plaint of Jim Lefingwell, the Circle Cross owner, whose ranch was east of town. Lefingwell was big, florid, and afflicted with perturbation that was almost painful. So exercised was he that he was at times almost incoherent.
"She's boomin', ain't she? Meanin' this man's town, of course. An' a man's got a right to cash in on a boom whenever he gits the chance. Well, I'd figgered to cash in. I ain't no hawg an' I got savvy enough to perceive without the aid of any damn fortune-teller that cattle is done in this country--considered as the main question. I've got a thousand acres of land--which I paid for in spot cash to Dick Kessler about eight years ago. If Dick was here he'd back me up in that. But he ain't here--the doggone fool went an' died about four years ago, leavin' me unprotected. Well, now, not digressin' any, I gits the idea that I'm goin' to unload consid'able of my thousand acres on the sufferin' fools that's yearnin' to come into this country an' work their heads off raisin' alfalfa an' hawgs, an' cabbages an' sons with Pick-a-dilly collars to be eddicated East an' come back home some day an' lift the mortgage from the old homestead--which job they always falls down on--findin' it more to their likin' to mortgage their souls to buy jew'l'ry for fast wimmin. Well, not digressin' any, I run a-foul of a guy last week which was dead set on investin' in ten acres of my land, skirtin' one of the irrigation ditches which they're figgerin' on puttin' in. The price I wanted was a heap satisfyin' to the guy. But he suggests that before he forks over the coin we go down to the courthouse an' muss up the records to see if my title is clear. Well, not digressin' any, she ain't! She ain't even nowheres clear a-tall--she ain't even there! She's wiped off, slick an' clean! There ain't a damned line to show that I ever bought my land from Dick Kessler, an' there ain't nothin' on no record to show that Dick Kessler ever owned it! What in hell do you think of that?