Trevison dismounted and ran into the house. The room that he used as an office was in a state of disorder. Papers, books, littered the floor. It was evident that a thorough search had been made—for something. Trevison darted to the desk and ran a hand into the pigeonhole in which he kept the deed which he had come for. The hand came out, empty. He sprang to the door of a small closet where, in a box that contained some ammunition that he kept for the use of his men, he had placed the money that Rosalind Benham had brought to him. The money was not there. He walked to the center of the room and stood for an instant, surveying the mass of litter around him, reeling, rage-drunken, murder in his heart. Barkwell, the foreman, watching him, drew great, long breaths of sympathy and excitement.
“Shall I get the boys an’ go after them damn sneaks?” he questioned, his voice tremulous. “We’ll clean ’em out—smoke ’em out of the county!” he threatened. He started for the door.
“Wait!” Trevison had conquered the first surge of passion; his grin was cold and bitter as he crossed glances with his foreman. “Don’t do anything—yet. I’m going to play the peace string out. If it doesn’t work, why then—” He tapped his pistol holster significantly.
“You get a few of the boys and stay here with them. It isn’t probable that they’ll try anything like that again, because they’ve got what they wanted. But if they happen to come again, hold them until I come. I’m going to court.”
Later, in Manti, he was sitting opposite Graney in a room in the hotel to which the Judge had gone.
“H’m,” said the latter, compressing his lips; “that’s sharp practice. They are not wasting any time.”
“Was it legal?”
“The law is elastic—some judges stretch it more than others. A search-warrant and a writ of attachment probably did the business in this case. What I can’t understand is why Judge Lindman issued the writ at all—if he did so. You are the defendant, and you certainly would have brought the deed into court as a means of proving your case.”
Trevison had mentioned the missing money, though he did not think it important to explain where it had come from. And Judge Graney did not ask him. But when court opened at the appointed time, with a dignity which was a mockery to Trevison, and Judge Graney had explained that he had come to represent the defendant in the action, he mildly inquired the reason for the forcible entry into his client’s house, explaining also that since the defendant was required to prove his case it was optional with him whether or not the deed be brought into court at all.
Corrigan had been on time; he had nodded curtly to Trevison when he had entered to take the chair in which he now sat, and had smiled when Trevison had deliberately turned his back. He smiled when Judge Graney asked the question—a faint, evanescent smirk. But at Judge Lindman’s reply he sat staring stolidly, his face an impenetrable mask: