“So you were expecting me,” he said. “Well, I’m here. You want my land, eh?”
“I want the land that I’m entitled to under the terms of my purchase—the original Midland grant, consisting of one-hundred thousand acres. It belongs to me, and I mean to have it!”
“You’re a liar, Corrigan,” said the young man, holding the other’s gaze coldly; “you’re a lying, sneaking crook. You have no claim to the land, and you know it!”
Corrigan smiled stiffly. “The record of the deal I made with Jim Marchmont years before any of you people usurped the property is in my pocket at this minute. The court, here, will uphold it.”
Trevison narrowed his eyes at the big man and laughed, bitter humor in the sound. It was as though he had laughed to keep his rage from leaping, naked and murderous, into this discussion.
“It takes nerve, Corrigan, to do what you are attempting; it does, by Heaven—sheer, brazen gall! It’s been done, though, by little, pettifogging shysters, by piking real-estate crooks—thousands of parcels of property scattered all over the United States have been filched in that manner. But a hundred-thousand acres! It’s the biggest steal that ever has been attempted, to my knowledge, short of a Government grab, and your imagination does you credit. It’s easy to see what’s been done. You’ve got a fake title from Marchmont, antedating ours; you’ve got a crooked judge here, to befuddle the thing with legal technicalities; you’ve got the money, the power, the greed, and the cold-blooded determination. But I don’t think you understand what you’re up against—do you? Nearly every man who owns this land that you want has worked hard for it. It’s been bought with work, man—work and lonesomeness and blood—and souls. And now you want to sweep it all away with one stroke. You want to step in here and reap the benefit; you want to send us out of here, beggars.” His voice leaped from its repression; it now betrayed the passion that was consuming him; it came through his teeth: “You can’t hand me that sort of a raw deal, Corrigan, and make me like it. Understand that, right now. You’re bucking the wrong man. You can drag the courts into it; you can wriggle around a thousand legal corners, but damn you, you can’t avert what’s bound to come if you don’t lay off this deal, and that’s a fight!” He laughed, full-throated, his voice vibrating from the strength of the passion that blazed in his eyes. He revealed, for an instant to Corrigan the wild, reckless untamed youth that knew no law save his own impulses, and the big man’s eyes widened with the revelation, though he gave no other sign. He leaned back in his chair, smiling coldly, idly flecking a bit of ash from his shirt where it had fallen from his cigar.
“I am prepared for a fight. You’ll get plenty of it before you’re through—if you don’t lie down and be good.” There was malice in his look, complacent consciousness of his power. More, there was an impulse to reveal to this young man whom he intended to ruin, at least one of the motives that was driving him. He yielded to the impulse.
“I’m going to tell you something. I think I would have let you out of this deal, if you hadn’t been so fresh. But you made a grand-stand play before the girl I am going to marry. You showed off your horse to make a bid for her favor. You paraded before her window in the car to attract her attention. I saw you. You rode me down. You’ll get no mercy. I’m going to break you. I’m going to send you back to your father, Brandon, senior, in worse condition than when you left, ten years ago.” He sneered as Trevison started and stepped on the floor, rigid.
“How did you recognize me?” Curiosity had dulled the young man’s passion; his tone was hoarse.
“How?” Corrigan laughed, mockingly. “Did you think you could repose any confidence in a woman you have known only about a month? Did you think she wouldn’t tell me—her promised husband? She has told me—everything that she succeeded in getting out of you. She is heart and soul with me in this deal. She is ambitious. Do you think she would hesitate to sacrifice a clod-hopper like you? She’s very clever, Trevison; she’s deep, and more than a match for you in wits. Fight, if you like, you’ll get no sympathy there.”