“Holy Moses!” he said; “you’re a hell of a tight sleeper! I’ve been pounding on this door for an age!” He shoved a sheet of paper under Braman’s nose. “Here’s a telegram for you.”
Braman took the telegram, scanning it, while the agent talked on, ramblingly. A sickly smile came over Braman’s face when he finished reading, and then he listened to the agent:
“I got a wire a little after midnight, asking me if that man, Corrigan, was still in Manti. The engineer told me he was taking Corrigan back to Dry Bottom at midnight, and so I knew he wasn’t here, and I clicked back ‘No.’ It was from J. C. He must have connected with Corrigan at Dry Bottom. That guy Trevison must have old Benham’s goat, eh?”
Braman re-read the telegram; it was directed to him:
Send my daughter to Trevison with cash in amount of check destroyed by Corrigan yesterday. Instruct her to say mistake made. No offense intended. Hustle. J. C. Benham.
Braman slipped his clothes on and ran down the track to the private car. He had known J. C. Benham several years and was aware that when he issued an order he wanted it obeyed, literally. The negro autocrat of the private car met him at the platform and grinned amply at the banker’s request.
“Miss Benham done tol’ me she am not to be disturbed till eight o’clock,” he objected. But the telegram in Braman’s hands had instant effect upon the black custodian of the car, and shortly afterward Miss Benham was looking at the banker and his telegram in sleepy-eyed astonishment, the door of her compartment open only far enough to permit her to stick her head out.
Braman was forced to do much explaining, and concluded by reading the telegram to her. She drew everything out of him except the story of the fight.
“Well,” she said in the end, “I suppose I shall have to go. So his name is ‘Brand’ Trevison. And he won’t permit the men to work. Why did Mr. Corrigan destroy the check?”
Braman evaded, but the girl thought she knew. Corrigan had yielded to an impulse of obstinacy provoked by Trevison’s assault on him. It was not good business—it was almost childish; but it was human to feel that way. She felt a slight disappointment in Corrigan, though; the action did not quite accord with her previous estimate of him. She did not know what to think of Trevison. But of course any man who would deliberately and brutally ride another man down, would naturally not hesitate to adopt other lawless means of defending himself.