Sanderson left the board walk and cut through a yard to the railroad. He followed the rails until he reached the station. To his question the station agent informed him that Dave Silverthorn might be found in his office on the second floor of the building.
Sanderson went up. A sign on a glass door bore Silverthorn's name. Sanderson entered without knocking.
Silverthorn was seated at a desk in a far corner of the room. He looked up as Sanderson opened the door, and said shortly:
"Well—what is it?"
Sanderson crossed the room and halted beside the desk. For an instant neither man spoke. Sanderson saw a man of medium height with a rather well-rounded stomach, sloping shoulders, and a sleek, well-fed appearance. His cheeks were full and florid, his lips large and loose; his eyes cold, calculating, and hard.
Silverthorn saw a lean-faced, broad-shouldered young man with a strong chin, a firm mouth, and an eye that fixed him with a steady, unwavering interest.
By the gleam in Sanderson's eyes Silverthorn divined that he was in the presence of a strong, opposing force, and he drew a slow, deep breath.
"Well?" he said, again.
"You're Dave Silverthorn?"
The other nodded. "What can I do for you?" he questioned.
"You can listen while I talk," said Sanderson.
"I'm Will Bransford, of the Double A. I have heard from several sources that you an' Alva Dale are after the title to the Double A. You want the water-rights. You can't have them. An' the title to the Double A stays with me. Understand that? I am goin' to hold on to the property.
"I've heard you can juggle the law—that's your business. But you can't juggle the law enough to horn in on the Double A. If you do, I'm comin' for you with a law of my own!" He tapped his gun bolster significantly.
"That's all," he concluded. "Are you sure you understand?"
"Perfectly," answered Silverthorn. He was smiling mirthlessly, his face blotched and bloated with mingled fear and rage. "But I'll have you understand this: I am not afraid of your threats. You can't bully me. The S. and M. Railroad has dealt with your kind on more than one occasion. There is an opportunity here to develop a large section of land, and my company means to do it. We mean to be fair, however. We'll buy your title to the Double A. How much do you want for it?"
Sanderson grinned. "The Double A is not for sale. I wouldn't sell it to you for a million! You cheap crooks think that all you have to do is to take anything you want. I just stopped in to tell you that I'm wise to your game, an' that the kind of law I represent ain't cluttered up with angles an' technical processes. She runs straight to a square deal all around. That's all, Mr. Silverthorn."
He turned and went out, closing the door behind him.
He had not intended to have his talk with Tom Maison, Okar's banker, until the following morning. But upon returning to Okar's street he saw Maison ahead of him on the sidewalk. He followed the banker, saw him enter the front door of the bank building, and a few minutes later he was sitting opposite Maison at a table in the banker's private room.
Maison was short and pudgy, short of breath, with a pasty complexion.
"Will Bransford, eh?" he said, looking sharply at Sanderson over the table. "H'm. You don't look much like your father."
"Nor I don't act like him, either," smiled Sanderson. "For instance," he went on at the banker's quick look, "dad was slow; he wasn't alive to his opportunities. How long has it been since the railroad came to Okar?"
"Five years."
"Then dad was five years slower than he ought to have been. He ought to have seen what water would do to the basin. He didn't—left that for me."
"Meaning what?" asked Maison, as Sanderson paused.
"Meanin' that I want to turn the Double A water into the basin. That's what I came here to see you for. I want to mortgage the Double A to the limit; I want to build a dam, irrigation canals, locks, an' everything that goes with it. It will take a heap of money."
Maison reflected. "And you want me to supply it," he said. "Yes, that project will require a large sum. H'm! It is—er—do you purpose to try to handle the project yourself, Mr. Bransford?"
"Me an' Mary Bransford. I'll hire an engineer."
Maison's cheeks reddened a trifle. He seemed to lose interest slightly.
"Don't you think it is rather too big a thing for one man to handle—aided by a woman?" He smiled blandly at Sanderson. "I have thought of the water situation in the basin. It is my opinion that it might be worked out successfully.
"Why not organize a company—say a company composed of influential and powerful men like Silverthorn and Dale and—er—myself. We could issue stock, you know. Each would take a certain number of shares—paying you for them, of course, and leaving you in possession of a large block of it—say—forty per cent. We could organize, elect officers——"
"An' freeze me out," smiled Sanderson.
Maison sat erect and gazed haughtily at his visitor.
"No one has ever questioned my honesty," he declared.
Sanderson smiled at him. "Nor I don't. But I want to play her a lone hand."
"I am afraid I wouldn't be interested in that sort of project," said Maison.
The thought that Maisonwouldbe interested—not publicly, but privately—made Sanderson grin. The grin angered Maison; he arose smiling coldly.
"I am sorry to have taken your time, Mr. Bransford," he said, dismissing his visitor.
Sanderson did not give up. "My father left some money in your bank," he said; "I'll take it."
"Certainly," said the banker. He got a withdrawal blank and laid it before Sanderson.
"The amount is three thousand two hundred," he said. "Just fill that out and sign your name and yon can have the money."
Sanderson did not sign; he sat, looking at the blank, suddenly afflicted with the knowledge that once more the troublesome "Bransford" signature had placed him in a dilemma.
Undoubtedly Maison, Silverthorn, and Dale were confederates in this matter, and Dale's insistence that he sign the register claim was a mere subterfuge to obtain a copy of the Bransford signature in order to make trouble for him. It occurred to Sanderson that the men suspected him, and he grinned coldly as he raised his eyes to Maison.
Maison was watching him, keenly; and his flush when he saw Sanderson looking at him convinced the latter that his suspicions were not without foundation.
If Sanderson could have known that he had hardly left the hotel when a man whispered to Maison; and that Maison had said to the man: "All right, I'll go down and wait for him," Sanderson could not have more accurately interpreted Maison's flush.
Sanderson's grin grew grim. "It's a frame-up," he told himself. His grin grew saturnine. He got up, folded the withdrawal blank and stuck it in a pocket.
"I'm leavin' the money here tonight," he said. "For a man that ain't been to town in a long while, there'd be too many temptations yankin' at me."
He went out, leaving Maison to watch him from a window, a flush of chagrin on his face.
Sanderson walked down the street toward the hotel. He would have Owen sign the withdrawal blank before morning—that would defeat Maison's plan to gain evidence of the impersonation.
Sanderson had not been gone from Silverthorn's office more than five minutes when Dale entered. Silverthorn was sitting at his desk scowling, his face pale with big, heavy lines in it showing the strain of his interview with Sanderson.
"Bransford's been here!" guessed Dale, looking at Silverthorn.
Silverthorn nodded, cursing.
"You don't need to feel conceited," laughed Dale; "he's been to see me, too."
Dale related what had happened on the street some time before, and Silverthorn's scowl deepened.
"There are times when you don't seem to be able to think at all, Dale!" he declared. "After this, when you decide to do a thing, see me first—or Maison. The last thing we want to happen right now is to have this fake Bransford killed."
"Why?"
"I've just got word from Las Vegas that he's submitted his affidavit establishing his identity, and that the court has accepted it. That settles the matter until—or unless—we can get evidence to the contrary. And if he dies without us getting that evidence we are through."
"Him dyin' would make things sure for us," contended Dale. "Mary Bransford wouldn't have any claim—us havin' proof that she ain't a Bransford."
"This fellow is no fool," declared Silverthorn. "Suppose he's wise to us, which he might be, and he has willed the property to the girl. Where would we be, not being able to prove that he isn't Will Bransford?"
Dale meditated. Then he made a wry face. "That's right," he finally admitted. He made a gesture of futility. "I reckon I'll let you do the plannin' after this."
"All right," said Silverthorn, mollified. "Have you set Morley on Barney Owen?"
"Owen was goin' right strong a few minutes after this Bransford guy left him," grinned Dale.
"All right," said Silverthorn, "go ahead the way we planned it. But don't have our friend killed."
When Sanderson entered the hotel the clerk was alone in the office pondering over the register.
Dusk had fallen, and the light in the office was rather dim. Through the archway connecting the office with the saloon came a broad beam of light from a number of kerosene lamps. From beyond the archway issued the buzz of voices and the clink of glasses; peering through the opening Sanderson could see that the barroom was crowded.
Sanderson mounted the stairs leading from the office. When he had left Owen, the latter had told Sanderson that it was his intention to spend the time until the return of his friend in reading.
Owen, however, was not in the room. Sanderson descended the stairs, walked to the archway that led into the saloon, and looked inside. In a rear corner of the barroom he saw Owen, seated at a table with several other men. Owen's face was flushed; he was talking loudly and extravagantly.
Sanderson remembered what Owen had told him concerning his appetite for strong liquor, he remembered, too, that Owen was in possession of a secret which, if divulged, would deliver Mary Bransford into the hands of her enemies.
Sanderson's blood rioted with rage and disgust. He crossed the barroom and stood behind Owen. The latter did not see him. One of the men with Owen did see Sanderson, though, and he looked up impudently, and smilingly pushed a filled glass of amber-colored liquor toward Owen.
"You ain't half drinkin', Owen," he said.
Sanderson reached over, took the glass, threw its contents on the floor and grasped Owen by the shoulder. His gaze met the tempter's, coldly.
"My friend ain't drinkin' no more tonight," he declared.
The tempter sneered, his body stiffening.
"He ain't, eh?" he grinned, insolently. "I reckon you don't know him; he likes whisky as a fish likes water."
Several men in the vicinity guffawed loudly.
Owen was drunk. His hair was rumpled, his face was flushed, and his eyes were bleared and wide with an unreasoning, belligerent light as he got up, swaying unsteadily, and looked at Sanderson.
"Not drink any more?" he demanded loudly. "Who says I can't? I've got lots of money, and there's lots of booze here. Who says I can't drink any more?"
And now, for the first time, he seemed to realize that Sanderson stood before him. But the knowledge appeared merely to increase his belligerence to an insane fury. He broke from Sanderson's restraining grasp and stood off, reeling, looking at Sanderson with the grin of a satyr.
"Look who's telling me I can't drink any more!" he taunted, so that nearly every man in the room turned to look at him, "It's my guardian angel gentlemen—Will Bransford, of the Double A! Will Bransford—ha, ha, ha! Will Bransford! Come an' look at him, gentlemen! Says I can't drink any more booze. He's running the Double A, Bransford is. There's a lot I could tell you about Bransford—a whole lot! He ain't——"
His maudlin talk broke off short, for Sanderson had stepped to his side and placed a hand over his mouth. Owen struggled, broke away, and shouted:
"Damn you, let me alone! I'm going to tell these people who you are. You're——"
Again his talk was stilled. This time the method was swift and certain. Sanderson took another step toward him and struck. His fist landed on Owen's jaw, resounding with a vicious smack! in the sudden silence that had fallen, and Owen crumpled and sank to the floor in an inert heap.
Sanderson was bending over him, preparing to carry him to his room, when there came an interruption. A big man, with a drawn six-shooter, stepped to Sanderson's side. A dozen more shoved forward and stood near him, the crowd moving back, Sanderson sensed the movement and stood erect, leaving Owen still on the floor. One look at the hostile faces around him convinced Sanderson that the men were there by design.
He grinned mirthlessly into the face of the man with the drawn pistol.
"Frame-up, eh?" he said. "What's the game?"
"You're wanted for drawin' a gun on Dave Silverthorn—in his office. I'm a deputy sheriff, an' I've got a warrant for you. Want to see it?"
Sanderson did not answer. Here was a manifestation of Dale's power and cupidity.
The charge was a mere subterfuge, designed to deprive him of his liberty. Sanderson had no intention of submitting.
The deputy saw resistance in the gleam of Sanderson's eyes, and he spoke sharply, warningly:
"Don't try any funny business; I've a dozen men here!"
Sanderson laughed in his face. He lunged forward, striking bitterly with the movement. The deputy's body doubled forward—Sanderson's fist had been driven into his stomach. His gun clattered to the floor; he reached out, trying to grasp Sanderson, who evaded him and struck upward viciously.
The deputy slid to the floor, and Sanderson stood beside the table, his gun menacing the deputy's followers.
Sanderson had worked fast. Possibly the deputy's men had anticipated no resistance from Sanderson, or they had been stunned with the rapidity with which he had placed their leader out of action.
Not one of them had drawn a weapon. They watched Sanderson silently as he began to back away from them, still covering them with his pistol.
Sanderson had decided to desert Owen; the man had proved a traitor, and could not expect any consideration. Owen might talk—Sanderson expected he would talk; but he did not intend to jeopardize his liberty by staying to find out.
He stepped backward cautiously, for he saw certain of the men begin to move restlessly. He cautioned them, swinging the muzzle of his pistol back and forth, the crowd behind him splitting apart as he retreated.
He had gone a dozen steps when someone tripped him. He fell backward, landing on his shoulders, his right elbow striking hard on the board floor and knocking the pistol out of his hand.
He saw the men surge forward, and he made a desperate effort to get to his feet. But he did not succeed. He was on his knees when several men, throwing themselves at him, landed on top of him. Their combined weight crushed him to the floor, but he squirmed out of the mass and got to his feet, striking at the faces he saw around him, worrying the men hither and yon, dragging them with him as he reeled under savage blows that were rained on him.
He had torn himself almost free; one man still clung to him, and he was trying to shake the fellow off, that he might hit him effectively, when a great weight seemed to fall on his head, blackness surrounded him, and he pitched face down on the floor.
When Sanderson regained consciousness he was lying on his back on a board floor. His head seemed to have been smashed, he was dizzy and weak, but he sat up and looked around him.
Then he grinned wanly.
He was in jail. A heavy, barred door was in front of him; turning his head he saw an iron-grated window behind him. Door and window were set in heavy stone walls; two other stone walls, with a narrow iron cot set against one of them, rose blankly on either side.
Sanderson got up, reeling, and went to the window. Darkness had come; he could see Okar's lights flickering and winking at him from the buildings that skirted the street. Various sounds reached his ears—Okar's citizens were enjoying themselves.
Sanderson did not watch the lights long. He walked to the cot, seated himself on its edge, rested his elbows on his knees and his chin in the upturned palms of his hands and reflected on what had occurred to him.
Remembering the four thousand dollars in bills of large denomination that Burroughs had paid him when leaving the Pig-Pen, his hand went to the money belt around his waist.
Belt and money were gone!
Sanderson got up again, walked to the door and called.
A heavy-featured man slouched down the corridor and halted near the door.
"Awake, eh?" he grinned. "Dale sure did hand it to you—now, didn't he? Well," he added as Sanderson's lips straightened at his words, "what's eatin' you?"
"I had a belt with some money in it—four thousand. What's become of it?"
"Four thousand!" the man jeered. "That bump on the head is still affectin' you, I reckon. Four thousand—shucks!" He laughed. "Well, I ain't seen it—if that's any consolation to you. If you'd had it when you come here I'd sure seen it."
"Who brought me here?"
"Dale and his first deputy—the guy you poked in the stummick, over in the Okar Hotel. They tell me you fi't like hell! What's Dale got ag'in' you? Be sure was some het up about you."
Sanderson did not answer. He turned his back to the jailer and walked to the cot, again sitting on its edge. He heard the jailer sniff contemptuously, but he paid no attention to him.
Prominent in Sanderson's thoughts was the realization that Dale had taken his money. He knew that was the last of it—Dale would not admit taking it. Sanderson had intended to use the four thousand on the Double A irrigation project. The sum, together with the three thousand he meant to draw from the Okar bank, would have been enough to make a decent start.
Sanderson had some bitter thoughts as he sat on the edge of the cot, all of them centering around Dale, Silverthorn, Maison, Owen, Mary Bransford, and himself. He realized that he had been defeated in the first clash with the forces opposed to him, that Owen had turned traitor, that Mary Bransford's position now was more precarious than it had been before his coming, and that he had to deal with resourceful, desperate, and unscrupulous men.
And yet, sitting there at the edge of the cot, Sanderson grinned. The grin did not make his face attractive, for it reflected something of the cold, bitter humor and savage passion that had gripped his soul.
At noon the next day Sanderson, looking out of the window of his cell; heard a sound at the door. He turned, to see Silverthorn standing in the corridor.
Silverthorn smiled blandly at him.
"Over it, I see," he said. "They used you rather roughly, eh? Well, they tell me you made them step some."
Sanderson deliberately turned his back and continued to look out of the window.
"On your dignity, eh?" sneered Silverthorn. "Well, let me tell you something. We've heard a lot about you—from Dal Colton and Barney Owen. Morley—one of our men—got Owen soused last night, as per orders, and Owen spilled his knowledge of you all over the town. It's pretty well known, now, that you are Deal Sanderson, from down Tombstone way.
"I don't know what your game was, but I think it's pretty well queered by now. I suppose you had some idea of impersonating Bransford, hoping to get a slice of the property. I don't blame you for trying. It was up to us to see that you didn't get away with it.
"But we don't want to play hog. If you'll admit before a notary that you are not Will Bransford we'll hand you back the four thousand Dale took from you, give you ten thousand in addition and safe conduct out of the county. That strike you?"
Sanderson did not answer.
Silverthorn's face reddened. "You're a damned fool!" he sneered, venomously. "We'll keep you in jail here for a thousand years, if necessary. We'll do worse!
"Look here!" he suddenly said. But Sanderson did not turn. Silverthorn rattled a paper.
"Here's a withdrawal slip on the Okar bank, calling for three thousand two hundred dollars, signed by Will Bransford. Barney Owen drew the money last night and blew it in gambling and drinking. He says he's been signing Bransford's name—forging it—at your orders. The signature he put on this paper is a dead ringer for the one on the registry blank you gave Dale.
"Dale saw Owen sign that. That's why he knew you are not Will Bransford. Understand? Maison will swear you signed the withdrawal slip and got the money. We'll prove that you are not Bransford, and you'll go to the Las Vegas pen for twenty years! Now, let's talk business!"
Sanderson turned. There was a mirthless grin on his face. He spoke loudly, calling the jailer.
When the latter appeared in the corridor beside Silverthorn, Sanderson addressed him without looking at the other:
"You ain't on your job a heap, are you? There's a locoed coyote barkin' at me through the door, there. Run him out, will you—he's disturbin' me plenty."
He turned from the door, stretched himself on the cot, and with his face to the wall listened while Silverthorn cursed.
Shortly after midnight Sanderson was sound asleep on the cot in the cell when a strange, scraping noise awakened him. He lay still for a long time, listening, until he discovered that the sound came from the window. Then he sat up stealthily and looked around to see, framed in the starlit gloom of the night, the face of Barney Owen, staring in through the window at him.
The sight of Owen enraged Sanderson, but his curiosity drove him to the window.
The little man was hanging to the iron bars; his neck muscles were straining, his face was red and his eyes bright.
"Don't talk, now!" he warned. "The boss of the dump is awake and he'll hear. He's in his room; there's nobody else around. I wanted to tell you that I'm going to knock him silly and get you out of this!"
"Why?" mocked Sanderson, lowly.
Owen's face grew redder. "Oh, I know I've got something coming, but I'm going to get you out all the same. I've got our horses and guns. Be ready!"
He slipped down. Sanderson could hear his feet thud faintly on the sand outside.
Sanderson got into his clothes and stood at the cell door, waiting. For a long time he heard no sound, but presently he caught the clank of a door, followed by a swift step, and Owen stood in the corridor before the cell door, a bunch of keys in his hand.
There was no word spoken. Owen unlocked the door, Sanderson slipped out, Owen passed him the six-shooter he had lost in the barroom of the Okar Hotel, and the two slipped noiselessly down the corridor.
A minute later they were mounting the horses that Owen had brought, and shortly afterward they were moving like shadows away from the outskirts of Okar.
Not until they were well out in the big basin did either of them speak. And then Sanderson said, shortly:
"Silverthorn was tellin' me you gassed everything. Are you feelin' better over it?"
Owen's head bent over his horse's mane; his chin was on his chest when he answered:
"Come and kill me."
"Hell!" exploded Sanderson, disgustedly. "If there was anything comin' to you killin' would be too good for you. You ain't done anything to me, you sufferin' fool—not a thing! What you've done you've done to Mary Bransford. When you see Dale an' Silverthorn grabbin' the Double A, an' Mary Bransford ridin' away, homeless—you'll have feelin's of remorse, mebbe—if you've got any man in you at all!"
Owen writhed and groaned.
"It was the whisky—the cursed whisky!" he whispered. "I can't let it alone—I love it! And once I get a taste of it, I'm gone—-I'm a stark, staring lunatic!"
"I'd swear to that," grimly agreed Sanderson.
"I didn't mean to say a word to anybody," wailed the little man. "Do you think I'd do anything to harm Mary Bransford—after what she did for me? But I did—I must have done it. Dale said I did, Silverthorn said I did, and you say I did. But I don't remember. Silverthorn said I signed a receipt for some money from the Okar bank—three thousand, odd. I don't remember. Oh, but I'm—"
"Calling yourself names won't get you back to where you was before you made a fool of yourself," Sanderson told him, pityingly. "An' me tellin' you what I think of you won't relieve my feelin's a whole lot, for there ain't words enough layin' around loose.
"What I want to know is this: did you go clean loco, or do you remember anything that happened to you? Do you know who got the money you drew from the bank?"
"Dale," answered Owen. "He had that, for I remember him counting it in the back room of the hotel. There was more, too; I heard him telling Silverthorn there was about seven thousand in all. Silverthorn wanted him to put it all back in the bank, but Dale said there was just enough for him to meet his pay-roll—that he owed his men a lot of back pay. He took it with him."
"My four thousand," said Sanderson, shortly.
"Yours?" Owen paled.
"Dale lifted my money belt," Sanderson returned. "I was wondering what he did with it. So that's what."
He relapsed into a grim silence, and Owen did not speak again.
They rode several miles in that fashion—Owen keeping his horse slightly behind Sanderson's, his gaze on the other's face, his own white with remorse and anxiety.
At last he heard Sanderson laugh, and the sound of it made him grit his teeth in impotent agony.
"Sanderson," he said, gulping, "I'm sorry."
"Sure," returned the other. "If I hadn't wised up to that quite a spell ago, you'd be back on the trail, waitin' for some coyote to come along an' get his supper."
They rode in silence for a long time. They came to the gentle slope of the basin and began to climb it.
A dozen times Owen rode close to Sanderson, his lips trembling over unuttered words, but each time he dropped back without speaking. His eyes, fixed worshipfully on the back of the big, silent man ahead of him, were glowing with anxiety and wonder.
In the ghostly darkness of the time before the gray forerunner of the dawn appears on the horizon they came in sight of the Double A ranchhouse.
Sanderson was still leading. The ranchhouse burst upon his vision as his horse topped a rise that had obscured his view of the ranchhouse, and he saw it, clearly outlined.
Riding down the slope of the rise he smiled. For there was a light in one of the ranchhouse windows. Mary had left it burn on his account, he divined.
He halted and allowed Owen to come near him.
"Mary ain't to hear about this deal tonight," he told the little man. "Not a peep—understand?"
Without waiting for an answer he rode onward.
Thinking that, perhaps, in spite of the burning lamp Mary might be sleeping, Sanderson cautiously dismounted at the corral gates, and, leaving Owen to put his own horse away, he walked toward the house, stealthily, for he did not wish to awaken the girl.
Halfway across the ranchhouse yard, Sanderson saw a shadow cross the light in the window. Again he grinned, thinking Mary had not gone to bed after all.
But, going forward more unconcernedly, Sanderson's smile faded and was succeeded by a savage frown. For in the shadow formed by the little "L" at the junction of the house and porch, he saw a horse saddled and bridled.
Suddenly alert, and yielding to the savage rage that gripped him, Sanderson stole softly forward and looked closely at the animal. He recognized it instantly as Dale's, and in the instant, his face pale, his eyes blazing with passion, he was on the porch, peering through one of the darkened windows.
Inside he saw Dale and Mary Bransford. They were in the sitting-room. Dale was sitting in a big chair, smoking a cigar, one arm carelessly thrown over the back of the chair, his legs crossed, his attitude that of the master.
Standing perhaps a dozen feet from him was Mary Bransford.
The girl's eyes were wide with fright and astonishment, disbelief, incredulity—and several other emotions that Sanderson could not analyze. He did not try. One look at her sufficed to tell him that Dale was baiting her, tantalizing her, mocking her, and Sanderson's hatred for the man grew in intensity until it threatened to overwhelm him.
There was in his mind an impulse to burst into the house and kill Dale where he sat. It was the primitive lust to destroy an unprincipled rival that had seized Sanderson, for he saw in Dale's eyes the bold passion of the woman hunter.
However, Sanderson conquered the impulse. He fought it with the marvelous self-control and implacable determination that had made him feared and respected wherever men knew him, and in the end the faint, stiff grin on his face indicated that whatever he did would be done with deliberation.
This was an instance where the eavesdropper had some justification for his work, and Sanderson listened.
He heard Dale laugh—the sound of it made Sanderson's lips twitch queerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over her breast. Dale's voice carried clearly to Sanderson.
"Ha, ha!" he said. "Sothathurts, eh? Well, here's more of the same kind. We got Barney Owen drunk last sight, and he admitted that he'd signed all of Sanderson's papers—the papers that were supposed to have been signed by your brother. Why didn't Sanderson sign them? Why? Because Sanderson couldn't do it.
"Owen, who knew your brother in Arizona, signed them, because he knew how to imitate your brother's writing. Get that! Owen signed a bank receipt for the money old Bransford had in the bank. Owen got it and gave it to me. He was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing, but he could imitate your brother's writing, all right."
"You've got the money?" gasped the girl.
Again Dale laughed, mockingly. "Yep," he said, "I've got it. Three thousand two hundred. And I've got four thousand that belongs to that four-flusher, Square Deal. Seven thousand." He laughed again.
"Where is Sanderson?" questioned the girl.
"In jail, over in Okar." Dale paused long enough to enjoy the girl's distress. Then he continued: "Owen is in jail, too, by this time. Silverthorn and Maison are not taking any chances on letting him go around loose."
"Sanderson in jail!" gasped Mary. She seemed to droop; she staggered to a chair and sank into it, still looking at Dale, despair in her eyes.
Dale got up and walked to a point directly in front of her, looking down at her, triumphantly.
"That's what," he said. "In jail. Moreover, that's where they'll stay until this thing is settled. We mean to have the Double A. The sooner you realize that, the easier it will be for you.
"I'm offering you a way out of it—an easy way. That guy, Sanderson, ain't on the level. He's been working you, making a monkey of you—fooling you. He wants the Double A for himself. He's been hanging around here, passing himself off as your brother, aiming to get on the good side of you—getting you to love him good and hard. Then mebbe he'd tell you, thinking that you'd forgive him. But mebbe that wasn't his game at all. Mebbe he'd figured to grab the ranch and turn you out.
"Now, I'm offering you a whole lot. Mebbe you've thought I was sweet on that Nyland girl. Get that out of your mind. I was only fooling with her—like any man fools with a girl. I want her ranch—that's all. But I don't care a damn about the Double A, I want you. I've had my eye on you right along. Mebbe it won't be marriage right away, but——"
"Alva Dale!"
The girl was on her feet, her eyes blazing.
Dale did not retreat from her; he stood smiling at her, his face wreathed in a huge grin. He was enjoying the girl.
Sanderson slipped along the wall of the house and opened the door. It creaked loudly on its hinges with the movement, causing both Dale and the girl to turn and face it.
Mary Bransford stood rigid as she saw Sanderson standing in the doorway, a flush sweeping swiftly over her face. There was relief in her eyes.
Astonishment and stark, naked fear were in Dale's eyes. He shrank back a step, and looked swiftly at Sanderson's right hand, and when he saw that it held a six-shooter he raised both his own hands, shoulder-high, the palms toward Sanderson.
"So you know it means shootin', eh?" said Sanderson grimly as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, slamming it shut with his left hand.
"Well, shootin' goes." There was the cold calm of decision in his manner; his eyes were ablaze with the accumulated hate and rage that had been aroused over what he had heard. The grin that he showed to Dale drew his lips into two straight, stiff lines.
"I reckon you think you've earned your red shirt, Dale," he said, "for tellin' tales out of school. Well, you'll get it. There's just one thing will save your miserable hide. You got that seven thousand on you?"
Dale hesitated, then nodded.
Sanderson spoke to Mary Bransford without removing his gaze from Dale:
"Get pen, ink, an' paper."
The girl moved quickly into another room, returning almost instantly with the articles requested.
"Sit down an' write what I tell you to," directed Sanderson.
Dale dropped into a chair beside a center-table, took up the pen, poised it over the paper, and looked at Sanderson.
"I am hereby returning to Deal Sanderson the seven thousand two hundred dollars I stole from, him," directed Sanderson. "I am doing this of my own accord—no one is forcin' me," went on Sanderson. "I want to add that I hereby swear that the charge of drawin' a gun on Silverthorn was a frame-up, me an' Silverthorn an' Maison bein' the guilty parties," finished Sanderson.
"Now," he added, when Dale had written as directed, "sign it."
Dale signed and stood up, his face aflame with rage.
"I'll take the money—now," said Sanderson.
Dale produced it from various pockets, laying it on the table. He said nothing. Mary Bransford stood a little distance away, watching silently.
"Count it, Miss Bransford," said Sanderson when Dale had disgorged the money.
The two men stood silent as the girl fingered the bills. At last she looked at Sanderson and nodded.
The latter grinned. "Everything's regular, now," he said. He looked at Mary. "Do you want him killed, ma'am? He'd be a lot better off dead. You'd be better off, too. This kind of a skunk is always around, botherin' women—when there ain't no men around."
Mary shook her head with a decisive negative.
"Then he won't die, right now," said Sanderson. "He'll pull his freight away from the Double A, though, ma 'am. An' he'll never come back."
He was talking to Dale through the girl, and Dale watched him, scowling.
"If he does come back, you'll tell me, won't you, ma'am? An' then there'll never be an Alva Dale to bother you again—or to go around robbin' honest men, an' tryin' to get them mixed up with the law."
And now he turned from the girl and spoke to Dale:
"You go right back to Okar an' tell Maison an' Silverthorn what has happened here tonight. Show them how the fear of God has got into your heart an' made you yearn to practice the principles of a square deal. Tell them that they'd better get to goin' straight, too, for if they don't there's a guy which was named after a square deal that is goin' to snuff them off this hemisphere middlin' rapid. That's all. You'd better hit the breeze right back to Okar an' spread the good news."
He stood, a grim smile on his face, watching Dale as the latter walked to the door. When Dale stepped out on the porch Sanderson followed him, still regarding the movements of the other coldly and alertly.
Mary heard them—their steps on the boards of the porch; she heard the saddle leather creak as Dale climbed on his horse; she heard the sound of the hoofbeats as the horse clattered out of the ranchhouse yard.
And then for several minutes she stood near the little table in the room, listening vainly for some sound that would tell her of the presence of Sanderson on the porch. None came.
At last, when she began to feel certain that he had gone to the bunkhouse, she heard a step on the porch and saw Sanderson standing in the doorway.
He grinned at her, meeting her gaze fairly.
"Dale told you a heap of truth, ma'am," he said. "I feel more like a man tonight than I've felt for a good many days—an' nights."
"Then it was true—as Dale said—that you are not my brother?" said the girl. She was trying to make her voice sound severe, but only succeeded in making it quaver.
"I ain't your brother."
"And you came here to try to take the ranch away from me—to steal it?"
He flushed. "You've got four thousand of my money there, ma'am. You're to keep it. Mebbe that will help to show what my intentions were. About the rest—your brother an' all—I'll have to tell you. It's a thing you ought to know, an' I don't know what's been keepin' me from tellin' you all along.
"Mebbe it was because I was scared you'd take it hard. But since these sneaks have got to waggin' their tongues it'll have to be told. If you sit down by the table there, I'll tell you why I done what I did."
She took a chair beside the table and faced him, and, standing before her, speaking very gently, but frankly, he related what had occurred to him in the desert. She took it calmly, though there were times when her eyes glowed with a light that told of deep emotion. But she soon became resigned to the death of her brother and was able to listen to Sanderson's story of his motive in deceiving her.
When he related his emotion during their first meeting—when he had told Dale that he was her brother, after yielding to the appeal in her eyes—she smiled.
"There was some excuse for it, after all," she declared.
"An' you ain't blamin' me—so much?" he asked.
"No," she said. She blushed as she thought of the times she had kissed him. He was thinking of her kisses, too, and as their eyes met, each knew what the other was thinking about. Sanderson smiled at her and her eyes dropped.
"It wasn't a square deal for me to take them, then, ma'am," he told her. "But I'm goin' to stay around here an' fight Dale an' his friends to a finish. That is, if you want me to stay. I'd like a straight answer. I ain't hangin' around where I ain't wanted."
Her eyes glowed as she looked at him.
"You'll have to stay, now," she said. "Will is dead, and you will have to stay here and brazen it out. They'd take the Double A from me surely, if you were to desert me. You will have to stay and insist that you are my brother!"
"That's a contract," he agreed. "But"—he looked at her, a flush on his face—"goin' back to them kisses. It wasn't a square deal. But I'm hopin' that a day will come——"
She got up, her face very red. "It is nearly morning," she interrupted.
"Yes," he smiled; "things are only beginnin'."
"You are impudent—and imprudent," she said, looking straight at him.
"An' hopeful," he answered, meeting her eyes.
Fifteen minutes later, stretched out on his bed, Sanderson saw the dawn breaking in the east. It reminded him of the morning he had seen the two riders above him on the edge of the arroyo. As on that other morning, he lay and watched the coming of the dawn. And when later he heard Mary moving about in the kitchen he got up, not having slept a wink, and went out to her.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked.
"How could I," he asked, "with a new day dawnin' for me?"