CHAPTER XIII
ANOTHER LETTER
That afternoon, Corrigan rode to the Bar B. The ranchhouse was of the better class, big, imposing, well-kept, with a wide, roofed porch running across the front and partly around both sides. It stood in a grove of fir-balsam and cottonwood, on a slight eminence, and could be seen for miles from the undulating trail that led to Manti. Corrigan arrived shortly after noon, to find Rosalind gone, for a ride, Agatha told him, after she had greeted him at the edge of the porch.
Agatha had not been pleased over Rosalind’s rides with Trevison as a companion. She was loyal to her brother, and she did not admire the bold recklessness that shone so frankly and unmistakably in Trevison’s eyes. Had she been Rosalind she would have preferred the big, sleek, well-groomed man of affairs who had called today. And because of her preference for Corrigan, she sat long on the porch with him and told him many things—things that darkened the big man’s face. And when, as they were talking, Rosalind came, Agatha discreetly retired, leaving the two alone.
For a time after the coming of Rosalind, Corrigan sat in a big rocking chair, looking thoughtfully down the Manti trail, listening to the girl talk of the country, picturing her on a distant day—not too distant, either, for he meant to press his suit—sitting beside him on the porch of another house that he meant to build when he had achieved his goal. These thoughts thrilled him as they had never thrilled him until the entrance of Trevison into his scheme of things. He had been sure of her then. And now the knowledge that he had a rival, filled him with a thousand emotions, the most disturbing of which was jealousy. The rage in him was deep and malignant as he coupled the mental pictures of his imagination with the material record of Rosalind’s movements with his rival, as related by Agatha. It was not his way to procrastinate; he meant to exert every force at his command, quickly, resistlessly, to destroy Trevison, to blacken him and damn him, in the eyes of the girl who sat beside him. But he knew that in the girl’s presence he must be wise and subtle.
“It’s a great country, isn’t it?” he said, his eyes on the broad reaches of plain, green-brown in the shimmering sunlight. “Look at it—almost as big as some of the Old-world states! It’s a wonderful country. I feel like a feudal baron, with the destinies of an important principality in the clutch of my hand!”
“Yes; it must give one a feeling of great responsibility to know that one has an important part in the development of a section like this.”
He laughed, deep in his throat, at the awe in her voice. “I ought to have seen its possibilities years ago—I should have been out here, preparing for this. But when I bought the land I had no idea it would one day be so valuable.”
“Bought it?”
“A hundred thousand acres of it. I got it very cheap.” He told her about the Midland grant and his purchase from Marchmont.