Notwithstanding that it was midday, Manti was teeming with life and action. Since the day that Miss Benham had viewed the town from the window of the private car, Manti had added more than a hundred buildings to its total. They were not attractive; they were ludicrous in their pitiful masquerade of substantial types. Here and there a three-story structure reared aloft, sheathed with galvanized iron, a garish aristocrat seemingly conscious of its superiority, brazen, in its bid for attention; more modest buildings seemed dwarfed, humiliated, squatting sullenly and enviously. There were hotels, rooming-houses, boarding-houses, stores, dwellings, saloons--and others which for many reasons need not be mentioned. But they were pulsating with life, electric, eager, expectant. Taking advantage of the scarcity of buildings, an enterprising citizen had erected tents in rows on the street line, for whose shelter he charged enormously--and did a capacity business.
"A hundred came in on the last train," complained the over-worked station agent. "God knows what they all expect to do here!"
Corrigan had kept his promise to build Judge Lindman a courthouse. It was a flat-roofed structure, one story high, wedged between a saloon and Braman's bank building. A sign in the front window of Braman's bank announced that Jefferson Corrigan, agent of the Land & Improvement Company, of New York, had office space within, but on the morning of the day following his return to Manti, Corrigan was seated at one side of a flat-top desk in the courthouse, talking with Judge Lindman, who sat at the other side.
"Got them all transcribed?" asked Corrigan.
The Judge drew a thin ledger from his desk and passed it over to Corrigan. As Corrigan turned the pages and his face lighted, the Judge's grew correspondingly troubled.
"All right," exulted Corrigan. "This purports to be an accurate and true record of all the land transactions in this section from the special grant to the Midland Company, down to date. It shows no intermediate owners from the Midland Company to the present claimants. As a document arraigning carelessness on the part of land buyers it cannot be excelled. There isn't a present owner that has a legal leg to stand on!"