When in the bunkhouse the next morning Sanderson informed Barney Owen of what had occurred during the night, the latter looked fixedly at Sanderson.
"So she didn't take it hard," he said.
"Was you expectin' her to? For a brother that she hadn't seen in a dozen years—an' which she knows in her secret heart wasn't any good?" retorted Sanderson. "Shootin' your face off in Okar—or anywhere else—don't go any more," added Sanderson. "She's pretendin', publicly, that I'm her brother."
"I'm through talking," declared Owen.
"Or livin'. It's one or the other," warned Sanderson.
Sanderson took the seven thousand dollars that Mary gave him, rode to Lazette—a town fifty miles eastward from the basin—-and deposited the money in a bank there. Then he rode eastward still farther and in another town discovered a young engineer with a grievance against his employers.
The result of this discovery was that on the following morning the young engineer and Sanderson journeyed westward to the basin, arriving at the Double A late in the afternoon of the next day.
On the edge of the plateau after the engineer and, Sanderson had spent three or four days prowling through the basin and the gorge, the engineer spoke convincingly:
"It's the easiest thing in the world! A big flume to the point I showed you, a big main ditch and several laterals will do the trick. I'm with you to the finish!"
Sanderson smiled at the engineer's glowing enthusiasm and told him of the opposition he would meet in developing the project.
"There'll be a heap of schemin', an' mebbe shootin', Williams," Sanderson told him. "Puttin' through this deal won't be any pussy-kitten affair."
"So much the better," laughed the engineer; "I'm fed up on soft snaps and longing for action."
The engineer was thirty; big, square-shouldered, lithe, and capable. He had a strong face and a level, steady eye.
"If you mean business, let's get acquainted," he said. "My front name is Kent."
"Well, Kent, let's get busy," smiled Sanderson. "You go to work on your estimates, order your material, hire your men. I'll see how bad the people in the basin want the water they've been expectin'."
Kent Williams took up his quarters in the bunkhouse and immediately began work, though before he could do much he rode to Okar, telegraphed to Dry Bottom, the town which had been the scene of his previous activity, and awaited the arrival of several capable-looking young men.
In company with the latter he returned to the Double A, and for many days thereafter he and his men ran the transit and drove stakes in the basin and along the gorge.
Sanderson spent much of his time talking with the cattlemen in the basin. They were all eager to have water brought to their ranches, for it would save them the long trip to the river, which was inaccessible in many places, and they welcomed the new project.
0ne of the men—a newcomer to the basin—voiced the general sentiment.
"We want water, an' we don't give a damn who brings it here. First come, first served!"
The big problem to Sanderson, however, was the question of money. He was aware that a vast sum would be required. Nearly all the money he possessed would be sunk in the preliminary work, and he knew that if the work was to go on he must borrow money.
He couldn't get money in Okar, he knew that.
He rode to Lazette and talked with a banker there. The latter was interested, but unwilling to lend.
"The Okar Basin," he said. "Yes, I've heard about it. Great prospects there. But I've been told that Silverthorn and Maison are going to put it through, and until I hear from them, I shouldn't like to interfere."
"That gang won't touch the Double A water!" declared Sanderson. "I'll see the basin scorched to a cinder before I'll let them in on the deal!"
The banker smiled. "You are entitled to the water, of course; and I admire your grit. But those men are powerful. I have to depend on them a great deal. So you can see that I couldn't do anything without first consulting them."
Sanderson left Lazette in disgust. It was not until after he had tried in Dry Bottom and Las Vegas that he realized how subtle and far-reaching was the power and influence of the financial rulers of Okar.
"We should like to let you have the money," the Las Vegas banker told him. "But, unfortunately, a loan to you would conflict with our interests in Okar. We know the big men in Okar have been considering the water question in the basin, and we should not like to antagonize them."
The trip consumed two weeks, and Sanderson returned to the Double A to discover that during his absence very little work had been done.
"It looks like we're up against it," Williams informed him when pressed for an explanation. "We can't get a pound of material. I went personally to Okar and was told by Silverthorn that the railroad would accept no material consigned to the Double A ranch."
"Pretty raw," was Sanderson's only comment.
"Raw? It's rotten!" declared Williams. "There's plenty of the kind of material we want in Lazette. To get it here would mean a fifty-mile haul. I can get teams and wagons in Lazette," he added, an eager note in his voice.
"Go to it," said Sanderson.
Williams smiled admiringly. "You're game, Mr. Man," he said; "it's a pleasure to work for you!"
However, it was not courage that impelled Sanderson to accept the hazard and expense of the fifty-mile haul. In his mind during the days he had been trying to borrow money had been a picture of the defeat that was ahead of him if he did not succeed; he could imagine the malicious satisfaction with which his three enemies would discuss his failure.
Inwardly, Sanderson was writhing with impatience and consumed with an eagerness to get into personal contact with his enemies, the passion to triumph had gripped his soul, and a contempt for the sort of law in which Okar dealt had grown upon him until the contemplation of it had aroused in him a savage humor.
Okar's law was not law at all; it was a convenience under which his three enemies could assail the property rights of others.
Outwardly, Sanderson was a smiling optimist. To Mary Bransford he confided that all was going well.
Neither had broached the subject of Sanderson's impersonation since the night of Dale's visit. It was a matter which certain thoughts made embarrassing for Mary, and Sanderson was satisfied to keep silent.
But on the day that Williams left the Double A for Lazette, Mary's curiosity could not be denied. She had conquered that constraint which had resulted from the revelation of Sanderson's identity, and had asked him to ride to the top of the gorge, telling him she wanted him to explain the proposed system of irrigation.
"It is desperately hard to get any information out of Williams," she told Sanderson; "he simply won't talk about the work."
"Meanin' that he'll talk rapid enough about other things, eh?" Sanderson returned. He looked slyly at Mary.
"What other things are there for him to talk about?"
"A man could find a heap of things to talk about—to a woman. He might talk about himself—or the woman," suggested Sanderson, grinning.
She gave him a knowing look. "Oh," she said, reddening. "Yes," she added, smiling faintly, "now that you speak of it, I remember he did talk quite a little. He is a very interesting man."
"Good-looking too," said Sanderson; "an' smart. He saw the prospects of this thing right off."
"Didn't you see them?" she questioned quickly.
"Oh, that," he said, flushing. "If the Drifter hadn't told me mebbe I wouldn't have seen."
"You have always been around cattle, I suppose?" she asked.
"Raised with them," smiled Sanderson.
Thus she directed the conversation to the subject about which she had wanted to inquire—his past life. Her questions were clever; they were suggestions to which he could do nothing except to return direct replies. And she got out of him much of his history, discovering that he had sound moral views, and a philosophy of which the salient principle was the scriptural injunction: "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you."
Upon that principle he had founded his character. His reputation had grown out of an adamantine adherence to it. Looking at him now she felt the strength of him, his intense devotion to his ideals; the earnestness of him.
Curiously, she had felt those things during the time she had thought of him as her brother, and had been conscious of the lure of him. It gave her a queer thrill to stand beside him now, knowing that she had kissed him; that he had had an opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and had not done so.
He had acted the gentleman; he was a gentleman. That was why she was able to talk with him now. If he had not treated her as he had treated her his presence at the Double A would have been intolerable.
There was deep respect for women in Sanderson, she knew. Also, despite his bold, frank glances—which was merely the manhood of him challenging her and taking note of her charms—there was a hesitating bashfulness about the man, as though he was not quite certain of the impression he was creating in her mind.
That knowledge pleased Mary; it convinced her of his entire worthiness; it gave her power over him—and that power thrilled her.
As her brother, he had been an interesting figure, though his manner had repelled her. And she had been conscious of a subtle pleasure that was not all sisterly when she had been near him. She knew, now, that the sensation had been instinctive, and she wondered if she could have felt toward her brother as she felt toward this man.
However, this new situation had removed the diffidence that had affected her; their relations were less matter of fact and more romantic, and she felt toward him as any woman feels who knows an admirer pursues her—breathless with the wonder of it, but holding aloof, tantalizing, whimsical, and uncertain of herself.
She looked at him challengingly, mockery in her eyes.
"So you came here because the Drifter told you there would be trouble—and a woman. How perfectly delightful!"
He sensed her mood and responded to it.
"It's sure delightful. But it ain't unusual. I've always heard that trouble will be lurkin' around where there's a woman."
"But you would not say that a woman is not worth the trouble she causes?" she countered.
"A man is willin' to take her—trouble an' all," he responded, looking straight at her.
"Yes—if he can get her!" she shot back at him.
"Mostly every woman gets married to a man. I've got as good a chance as any other man."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're talkin' to me about it," he grinned. "If you wasn't considerin' me you wouldn't argue with me about it; you'd turn me down cold an' forget it."
"I suppose when a man is big and romantic-looking——"
"Oh, shucks, ma'am; you'll be havin' me gettin' a swelled head."
"He thinks that all he has to do is to look his best."
"I expect I've looked my worst since I've been here. I ain't had a chance to do any moonin' at you."
"I don't like men that 'moon,'" she declared.
"That's the reason I didn't do it," he said.
She laughed. "Now, tell me," she asked, "how you got your name, 'Deal.' It had something to do with cards, I suppose?"
"With weight," he said, looking soberly at her. "When I was born my dad looked at me sort of nonplussed. I was that big. 'There's a deal of him,' he told my mother. An' the name stuck. That ain't a lot mysterious."
"It was a convenient name to attach the 'Square' to," she said.
"I've earned it," he said earnestly. "An' I've had a mighty hard time provin' my right to wear it. There's men that will tempt you out of pure deviltry, an' others that will try to shoot such a fancy out of your system. But I didn't wear the 'Square' because I wanted to—folks hung it onto me without me askin'. That's one reason I left Tombstone; I'd got tired of posin' as an angel."
He saw her face grow thoughtful and a haunting expression come into her eyes.
"You haven't told me how he looked," she said.
Sanderson lied. He couldn't tell her of the dissipation he had seen in her brother's face, nor of the evilness that had been stamped there. He drew a glowing picture of the man he had buried, and told her that had he lived her brother would have done her credit.
But Sanderson suffered no remorse over the lie. For he saw her eyes glow with pride, and he knew that the picture he had drawn would be the ideal of her memory for the future.
Kent Williams went to Lazette, and Sanderson spent the interval during his departure and return in visiting the cattlemen and settlers in the basin. The result of these visits was a sheaf of contracts for water, the charge based on acreage, that reposed in Sanderson's pockets. According to the terms of the contracts signed by the residents of the basin, Sanderson was to furnish water within one year.
The length of time, Sanderson decided, would tell the story of his success or failure. If he failed he would lose nothing, because of having the contracts with the settlers, and if he won the contracts would be valid.
Sanderson was determined to win. When after an absence of a week Williams returned, to announce that he had made arrangements for the material necessary to make a "regular" start, and that he had hired men and teams to transport the material, Sanderson's determination became grim. For Williams told him that he had "gone the limit," which meant that every cent to Sanderson's credit in the Lazette bank had been pledged to pay for the material the engineer had ordered.
"We're going to rush things from now on," Williams told Sanderson. "Next week we'll need ten thousand dollars, at least."
Sanderson went into the house and had a long talk with Mary Bransford. Coming out, he went to the corral, saddled Streak, and rode to Okar.
Shortly he was sitting at a desk opposite a little man who was the resident buyer for an eastern live-stock company.
"The Double A has three thousand head of cattle," Sanderson told the little man. "They've had good grass and plenty of water. They're fat, an' are good beef cattle. Thirty-three dollars is the market price. What will you give for them, delivered to your corral here?"
The resident buyer looked uncomfortable. "I've had orders not to buy any more cattle for a time."
"Whose orders?" demanded Sanderson.
The resident buyer's face flushed and he looked more uncomfortable.
"My firm's orders!" he snapped.
Sanderson laughed grimly; he saw guilt in the resident buyer's eyes.
"Silverthorn's orders," he said shortly. At the other's emphatic negative Sanderson laughed again. "Maison's, then. Sure—Maison's," he added, as the other's flush deepened.
Sanderson got up. "Don't take it so hard," he advised the resident buyer. "I ain't goin' to bite you. What I'm wonderin' is, did Maison give you that order personally, or did you get it from your boss."
The buyer shifted uneasily in his chair, and did not look at Sanderson.
"Well," said the latter, "it don't make a heap of difference. Good-bye," he said, as he went out. "If you get to feelin' mighty small an' mean you can remember that you're only one of the pack of coyotes that's makin' this town a disgrace to a dog kennel."
Sanderson returned to the Double A and found Mary in the house.
"No go," he informed her. "Maison an' Silverthorn an' Dale have anticipated that move. We don't sell any cattle in Okar."
The girl's disappointment was deep.
"I suppose we may as well give up," she said.
Sanderson lifted her face to his.
"If you're goin' to talk that way I ain't goin' to love you like I thought I was," he grinned. "An' I'm sure wantin' to."
"I don't want to give up," she said.
"Meanin'?"
"Meaning that I'd like to have you beat those men. Oh, the miserable schemers! They will go to any length to defeat you."
He laughed lowly and vibrantly. "Well, they'll certainly have to travelsome," he said. "About as fast as the man will have to travel that takes you away from me."
"Is victory that dear to you?" she asked.
"I won't take one without the other," he told her his eyes glowing. "If I don't beat Silverthorn and the others, an' keep the Double A for you, why I——"
"You'll win!" she said.
"You are hopin' I will?" he grinned. "Well," he added, as she averted her eyes, "there'll come a time when we'll talk real serious about that. I'm goin' to tell the range boss to get ready for a drive to Las Vegas."
"That is a hundred and seventy-five miles!" gasped the girl.
"I've followed a trail herd two thousand," grinned Sanderson.
"You mean that you will go yourself—with the outfit?"
"Sure."
Sanderson went out, mounted Streak, and found the range boss—Eli Carter. Carter and the men were ordered to round up all the Double A cattle and get ready to drive them to Las Vegas. Sanderson told Carter he would accompany the outfit.
Cutting across the basin toward the ranchhouse, he saw another horseman riding fast to intercept him, and he swerved Streak and headed toward the other.
The rider was Williams, and when Sanderson got close enough to see his face he noted that the engineer was pale and excited.
The engineer waved a yellow paper at Sanderson and shouted:
"I just got this. I made a hit with the Okar agent last week, and he sent a man over with it. That's a damned scoundrelly bunch that's working against you! Do you know what they've done?"
Sanderson said nothing, and the engineer resumed, explosively:
"They've tied up your money at the Lazette bank! My material men won't send a pound of stuff to me until they get the cash! We're stopped—dead still!"
He passed a telegram to Sanderson, who read:
Bank here refuses to honor Sanderson's check. Claim money belongs to Bransford estate. Legal tangle. Must have cash or won't send material.
THE BRANDER COMPANY.
A flicker of Sanderson's eyelids was all the emotion he betrayed to Williams. The latter looked at him admiringly.
"By George," he said, "you take it like a major! In your shoes I'd get off my nag and claw up the scenery!"
Sanderson smiled. After telling the engineer to do as much as he could without the material, he rode on.
He had betrayed no emotion in the presence of Williams, but he was seething with passion.
Late the next afternoon he joined Carter and the outfit. The men had made good use of their time, and when Sanderson arrived, the entire herd of cattle was massed on a broad level near the river. They were milling impatiently, for the round-up had just been completed, and they were nervous over the unusual activity.
The cowboys, bronzed, lean, and capable, were guarding the herd, riding slowly around the fringe of tossing horns, tired, dusty, but singing their quaint songs.
Carter had sent the cook back to the ranchhouse during the afternoon to obtain supplies; and now the chuck wagon, with bulging sides, was standing near a fire at which the cook himself was preparing supper.
Carter grinned as Sanderson rode up.
"All ready!" he declared. "We sure did hump ourselves!"
Around the camp fire that night Sanderson was moody and taciturn. He had stretched out on his blanket and lay listening to the men until one by one they dropped off to sleep.
Sanderson's thoughts were bitter. He felt the constricting influence of his enemies; he was like the herd of cattle that his men had rounded up that day, for little by little Silverthorn, Dale, and Maison were cutting down his area of freedom and of action, were hampering him on all sides, and driving him to a point where he would discover resistance to be practically useless.
He had thought in the beginning that he could devise some way to escape the meshes of the net that was being thrown around him, but he was beginning to realize that he had underestimated the power and the resources of his enemies.
Maison and Silverthorn he knew were mere tentacles of the capital they represented; it was their business to reach out, searching for victims, in order to draw them in and drain from them the last vestige of wealth.
And Sanderson had no doubt that they did that work impersonally and without feeling, not caring, and perhaps not understanding the tortures of a system—of a soulless organization seeking only financial gain.
Dale, however, was intensely human and individualistic. He was not as subtle nor as smooth as his confederates. And money was not the only incentive which would drive him to commit crime. He was a gross sensualist, unprincipled and ruthless, and Sanderson's hatred of him was beginning to overshadow every other consideration.
Sanderson went to sleep with his bitter thoughts, which were tempered with a memory of the gentle girl at whom the evil agencies of his enemies were directed. They were eager to get possession of Mary Bransford's property, but their real fight would be, and was, against him.
But it was Mary Bransford that he was fighting for, and if he could get the herd of cattle to Las Vegas and dispose of them, he would be provided with money enough to defeat his enemies. But money he must have.
At breakfast the next morning Carter selected the outfit for the drive. He named half a dozen men, who were variously known as Buck, Andy, Bud, Soapy, Sogun, and the Kid. These men were experienced trail-herd men, and Carter had confidence in them.
Their faces, as they prepared for the trip, revealed their joy and pride over their selection, while the others, disappointment in their eyes, plainly envied their fellow-companions.
But Sanderson lightened their disappointment by entrusting them with a new responsibility.
"You fellows go back to the Double A an' hang around," he told them. "I don't care whether you do a lick of work or not. Stick close to the house an' keep an eye on Mary Bransford. If Dale, or any of his gang, come nosin' around, bore them, plenty! If any harm comes to Mary Bransford while I'm gone, I'll salivate you guys!"
Shortly after breakfast the herd was on the move. The cowboys started them westward slowly, for trail cattle do not travel fast, urging them on with voice and quirt until the line stretched out into a sinuously weaving band a mile long.
They reached the edge of the big level after a time, and filed through a narrow pass that led upward to a table-land. Again, after a time, they took a descending trail, which brought them down upon a big plain of grassland that extended many miles in all directions. Fringing the plain on the north was a range of hills that swept back to the mountains that guarded the neck of the big basin at Okar.
There was timber on the hills, and the sky line was ragged with boulders. And so Sanderson and his men, glancing northward many times during the morning, did not see a rider who made his way through the hills.
During the previous afternoon the rider had sat on his horse in the dim haze of distance, watching the Double A outfit round up its cattle; and during the night he had stood on guard, watching the men around the camp fire.
He had seen most of the Double A men return toward the ranchhouse after the trail crew had been selected; he had followed the progress of the herd during the morning.
At noon he halted in a screen of timber and grinned felinely.
"They're off, for certain," he said aloud.
Late that afternoon the man was in Okar, talking with Dale and Silverthorn and Maison.
"What you've been expectin' has happened," he told them. "Sanderson, Carter, an' six men are on the move with a trail herd. They're headed straight on for Las Vegas."
Silverthorn rubbed the palms of his hands together, Maison smirked, and Dale's eyes glowed with satisfaction.
Dale got up and looked at the man who had brought the information.
"All right, Morley," he said with a grin. "Get going; we'll meet up with Sanderson at Devil's Hole."
Trailing a herd of cattle through a strange wild country is no sinecure. There was not a man in the Double A outfit who expected an easy time in trailing the herd to Las Vegas, for it was a rough, grim country, and the men were experienced.
Wild cattle are not tractable; they have an irritating habit of obstinately insisting on finding their own trail, and of persisting in vagaries that are the despair of their escort.
The Double A herd was no exception. On a broad level they behaved fairly well, though always requiring the attention of the men; but in the broken sections of country through which they passed, heart-breaking effort was required of the men to keep them headed in the right direction.
The men of the outfit had little sleep during the first two days of the drive. Nights found them hot, tired, and dusty, but with no prospect of an uninterrupted sleep. Still there was no complaint.
On the third night, the herd having been driven about forty miles, the men began to show the effects of their sleepless vigil.
They had bedded the herd down on a level between some hills, near a rocky ford over which the waters of a little stream trickled.
Buck and Andy were on their ponies, slowly circling the herd, singing to the cattle, talking to them, using all their art and persuasion to induce the herd to cease the restless "milling" that had begun with the effort to halt for the night.
Around the camp fire, which had been built at the cook's orders, were Sanderson, Carter, Bud, Sogun, Soapy, and the Kid. Carter stood at a little distance from the fire, watching the herd.
"That's a damned nervous bunch we've got, boys," he called to the other men. "I don't know when I've seen a flightier lot. It wouldn't take much to start 'em!"
"We'll have our troubles gettin' them through Devil's Hole," declared Soapy. Soapy, so called because of his aversion to the valuable toilet preparation so necessary to cleanliness, had a bland, ingenuous face and perplexed, inquiring eyes. He was a capable man, however, despite his pet aversion, and there was concern in his voice when he spoke.
"That's why I wasn't in no hurry to push them too far tonight," declared Carter. "I don't want to get anywhere near Devil's Hole in the darkness, an' I want that place quite some miles away when I camp. I seen a herd stride that quicksand on a run once, an' they wasn't enough of them left to make a good stew.
"If my judgment ain't wrong, an' we can keep them steppin' pretty lively in the mornin', we'll get to Devil's Hole just about noon tomorrow. Then we can ease them through, an' the rest ain't worth talkin' about."
"Devil's Hole is the only trail?" inquired Sanderson.
Carter nodded. The others confirmed the nod. But Carter's desire for an early start the next morning was denied. Bud and Sogun were on guard duty on the morning shift, with the other men at breakfast, when a dozen horsemen appeared from the morning haze westward and headed directly for the camp fire.
"Visitors," announced Soapy, who was first to see the riders.
The Double A men got to their feet to receive the strangers. Sanderson stepped out from the group slightly, and the horsemen came to a halt near him. A big man, plainly the leader of the strangers, dismounted and approached Sanderson.
The man radiated authority. There was a belligerent gleam in his eyes as he looked Sanderson over, an inspection that caused Sanderson's face to redden, so insolent was it. Behind him the big man's companions watched, their faces expressionless, their eyes alert.
"Who's runnin' this outfit?" demanded the man.
"You're talkin' at the boss," said Sanderson.
"I'm the sheriff of Colfax County," said the other, shortly. "There's been a complaint made about you. Bill Lester, of the Bar X, says you've been pickin' up his cattle, crossin' his range, yesterday."
This incident had happened before, both to Sanderson and to Carter. They had insisted on the right of inspection themselves, when strange herds had been driven through their ranges.
"We want to look your stock over," said the sheriff.
The request was reasonable, and Sanderson smiled.
"That's goin' to hold us up a spell," he returned; "an' we was figurin' on makin' Devil's Hole before dark. Hop in an' do your inspectin'."
The big man motioned to his followers and the latter spurred to the herd, the other being the last to leave the camp fire.
For two hours the strangers threaded and weaved their horses through the mass of cattle, while Sanderson and his men, impatient to begin the morning drive, rode around the outskirts and watched them.
"They're takin' a mighty good look," commented Carter at the end of the two hours.
Sanderson's face was set in a frown; he saw that the men were working very slowly, and were conferring together longer than seemed necessary.
At the end of three hours Carter spoke to Sanderson, his voice hoarse with rage:
"They're holdin' us up purposely. I'll be damned if I'm goin' to stand for it!"
"Easy there!" cautioned Sanderson. "I've never seen a sheriff that was long on speed. They'll be showin' their hand pretty soon."
Half an hour later the sheriff spurred his horse out of the press and approached Sanderson. His face was grave. His men rode up also, and halted their horses near him. The Double A men had advanced and stood behind Sanderson and Carter.
"There's somethin' wrong here!" he declared, scowling at Sanderson. "It ain't the first time this dodge has been worked. A man gets up a brand that's mighty like the brand on the range he's goin' to drive through, an' he picks up cattle an' claims they're his. You claim your brand is the Double A." He dismounted and with a branch of chaparral drew a design in the sand.
"This is the way you make your brand," he said, and he pointed out the Double A brand:
Double A and Bar X brands.[Illustration: Double A and Bar X brands.]
Double A and Bar X brands.[Illustration: Double A and Bar X brands.]
"That's an 'A' lookin' at it straight up an' from the right side, like this, just reversin' it. But when you turn it this way, it's the Bar X:
"An' there's a bunch of your steers with the brand on them that way. I'll have to take charge of the herd until the thing is cleared up!"
Sanderson's lips took on a straight line; the color left his face.
Here was authority—that law with which he had unaccountably clashed on several occasions during his stay at the Double A. Yet he knew that—as on those other occasions—the law was operating to the benefit of his enemies.
However, he did not now suspect Silverthorn and the others of setting the law upon him. The Double A men might have been careless with their branding, and it was unfortunate that he had been forced by the closing of the Okar market to drive his cattle over a range upon which were cattle bearing a brand so startlingly similar to his.
His men were silent, watching him with set faces. He knew they would stand behind him in any trouble that might occur. And yet he hesitated, for he did not wish to force trouble.
"How many Bar X cattle do you think are in the herd?" he asked.
"Mebbe a hundred—mebbe more."
"How long will it take you to get Bill Lester here to prove his stock?"
The big man laughed. "That's a question. Bill left last night for Frisco; I reckon mebbe he'll be gone a month—mebbe more."
The color surged back into Sanderson's face. He stiffened.
"An' you expect to hold my herd here until Lester gets back?" he said, slowly.
"Yep," said the other, shortly.
"You can't do it!" declared Sanderson. "I know the law, an' you can't hold a man's cattle that long without becomin' liable for damages."
"We'll be liable," grinned the sheriff. "Before Bill left last night he made out a bond for ninety thousand dollars—just what your cattle are worth at the market price. If there's any damages comin' to you you'll get them out of that."
"It's a frame-up," growled Carter, at Sanderson's side. "It proves itself. This guy, Lester, makes out a bond before we're within two days' drive of his bailiwick. He's had information about us, an' is plannin' to hold us up. You know what for. Silverthorn an' the bunch has got a finger in the pie."
That suspicion had also become a conviction to Sanderson. And yet, in the person of the sheriff and his men, there was the law blocking his progress toward the money he needed for the irrigation project.
"Do you think one hundred and fifty heads will cover the suspected stock?" he questioned.
"I'd put it at two hundred," returned the sheriff.
"All right, then," said Sanderson slowly; "take your men an' cut out the two hundred you think belong to Lester. I'll stop on the way back an' have it out with you."
The sheriff grinned. "That'll be square enough," he agreed. He turned to the men who had come with him. "You boys cut out them cattle that we looked at, an' head them toward the Bar X." When the men had gone he turned to Sanderson.
"I want you men to know that I'm actin' under orders. I don't know what's eatin' Bill Lester—that ain't my business. But when I'm ordered to do anything in my line of duty, why, it's got to be done. Your friend has gassed some about a man named Silverthorn bein' at the bottom of this thing. Mebbe he is—I ain't got no means of knowin'. It appears to me that Bill ain't got no call to hog your whole bunch, though, for I've never knowed Bill to raise more than fifteen hundred head of cattle in one season. I'm takin' a chance on two hundred coverin' his claims."
It was after noon when the sheriff and his men started westward with the suspected stock.
Carter, fuming with rage, watched them go. Then he turned to Sanderson.
"Hell an' damnation! We'll hit Devil's Hole about dusk—if we start now. What'll we do?"
"Start," said Sanderson. "If we hang around here for another day they'll trump up another fake charge an' clean us out!"
The country through which they were forced to travel during the afternoon was broken and rugged, and the progress of the herd was slow. However, according to Carter, they made good time considering the drawbacks they encountered, and late afternoon found them within a few miles of the dreaded Devil's Hole.
Carter counseled a halt until morning, and Sanderson yielded. After a camping ground had been selected Carter and Sanderson rode ahead to inspect Devil's Hole.
The place was well named. It was a natural basin between some jagged and impassable foothills, running between a gorge at each end. Both ends of the basin constricted sharply at the gorges, resembling a wide, narrow-necked bottle.
A thin stream of water flowed on each side of a hard, rock trail that ran straight through the center of the basin, and on both sides of the trail a black bog of quicksand spread, covering the entire surface of the land.
Halfway through the basin, Sanderson halted Streak on the narrow trail and looked at the treacherous sand.
"I've seen quicksand,an'quicksand," he declared, "but this is the bogs of the lot. If any steers get bogged down in there they wouldn't be able to bellow more than once before they'd sink out of sight!"
"There's a heap of them in there," remarked Carter.
It was an eery place, and the echo of their voices resounded with ever-increasing faintness.
"I never go through this damned hell-hole without gettin' the creeps," declared Carter. "An' I've got nerve enough, too, usually. There's somethin' about the place that suggests the cattle an' men it's swallowed.
"Do you see that flat section there?" he indicated a spot about a hundred yards wide and half as long, which looked like hard, baked earth, black and dead. "That's where that herd I was tellin' you about went in. The next morning you couldn't see hide nor hair of them.
"It's a fooler for distance, too," he went on, "it's more than a mile to that little spot of rock, that projectin' up, over there. College professors have been here, lookin' at it, an' they say the thing is fed from underground rivers, or springs, or somethin' that they can't even guess.
"One of them was tellin' Boss Edwards, over on the Cimarron, that that rock point that you see projectin' up was the peak of a mountain, an' that this narrow trail we're on is the back of a ridge that used to stick up high an' mighty above a lot of other things.
"I can't make it out, an' I don't try; it's here, an' that's all there is to it. An' I ain't hangin' around it any longer than I have to."
"A stampede—" began Sanderson.
"Gentlemen, shut up!" interrupted Carter. "If any cattle ever come through here, stampedin', that herd wouldn't have enough left of it to supply a road runner's breakfast!"
They returned to the camp, silent and anxious.
Sanderson took his turn standing watch with the other men. The boss of a trail herd cannot be a shirker, and Sanderson did his full share of the work.
Tonight he had the midnight shift. At two o'clock he would ride back to camp, awaken his successor, and turn in to sleep until morning.
Because of the proximity of the herd to Devil's Hole an extra man had been told off for the nightwatch, and Soapy and the Kid were doing duty with Sanderson.
Riding in a big circle, his horse walking, Sanderson could see the dying embers of the camp fire glowing like a big firefly in the distance. A line of trees fringing the banks of the river near the camp made a dark background for the tiny, leaping sparks that were shot up out of the fire, and the branches waving in the hazy light from countless coldly glittering stars were weird and foreboding.
Across the river the ragged edges of the rock buttes that flanked the water loomed somberly; beyond them the peaks of some mountains, miles distant, glowed with the subdued radiance of a moon that was just rising.
Back in the direction from which the herd had come the ridges and depressions stretched, in irregular corrugations, as far as Sanderson could see. Southward were more mountains, dark and mysterious.
Riding his monotonous circles, Sanderson looked at his watch, his face close to it, for the light from the star-haze was very dim. He was on the far side of the herd, toward Devil's Hole, and he was chanting the refrain from a simple cowboy song as he looked at the watch.
The hands of the timepiece pointed to "one." Thus he still had an hour to stand watch before awakening the nest man. He placed the watch is a pocket, shook the reins over Streak's neck and spoke to him.
"Seems like old times to be ridin' night-watch, eh, Streak?" he said.
The words had hardly escaped his lips when there arose a commotion from the edge of the herd nearest the corrugated land that lay between the herd and the trail back to the Double A.
On a ridge near the cattle a huge, black, grotesque shape was clearly outlined. It was waving to and fro, as though it were some giant-winged monster of the night trying to rise from the earth. Sanderson could hear the flapping noise it made; it carried to him with the sharp resonance of a pistol shot.
"Damnation!" he heard himself say. "Some damned fool is wavin' a tarp!"
He jerked Streak up shortly, intending to ride for the point where the tarpaulin was being waved before it was too late. But as he wheeled Streak he realized that the havoc had been wrought, for the cattle nearest him were on their feet, snorting with fright—a sensation that had been communicated to them by contact with their fellows in the mass.
At the point where the commotion had occurred was confusion. Sanderson saw steers rising on their hind legs, throwing their forelegs high in the air; they were bellowing their fright and charging against the steers nearest them, frenziedly trying to escape the danger that seemed to menace them.
Sanderson groaned, for the entire herd was on the move! Near at hand a dozen steers shot out of the press and lumbered past him, paying no attention to his shouts. He fired his pistol in the face of one, and though the animal tried to turn back, frightened by the flash, the press of numbers behind it, already moving forward, forced it again to wheel and break for freedom.
Sanderson heard the sounds of pistol shots from the direction of the camp fire; he heard other shots from the direction of the back trail; he saw the forms of men on horses darting here and there on the opposite side of the herd from where he rode.
From the left side of the herd came another rider—Soapy. He tore ahead of the vanguard of running steers, shooting his pistol in their faces, shouting profanely at them, lashing them with his quirt.
A first batch slipped by him. He spurred his horse close to Sanderson—who was trying to head off still others of the herd that were determined to follow the first—and cursed loudly:
"Who in hell waved that tarp?"
Sanderson had no time to answer. A score of steers bolted straight for him, and he groaned again when he saw that the whole herd was rushing forward in a mass. A common impulse moved them; they were frenzied with fright and terror.
It was not the first stampede that Sanderson had been in, and he knew its dangers. Yet he grimly fought with the cattle, Streak leaping here and there in answer to the knee-pressure of his master, horse and rider looking like knight and steed of some fabled romance, embattled with a huge monster with thousands of legs.
Sanderson caught a glimpse of several riders tearing toward him from the direction of the camp, and he knew that Carter and the others were trying to reach him in the hope of being able to stem the torrent of rushing cattle.
But the movement had already gone too far, and the speed of the frenzied steers was equal to the best running that Streak could do.
Sanderson saw that all effort to stop them would be hopeless, and aware of the danger of remaining at the head of the flying mass, he veered Streak off, heading him toward the side, out of the press.
As he rode he caught a glimpse of Soapy. The latter had the same notion that was in Sanderson's mind, for he was leaning over his pony's mane, riding hard to get out of the path taken by the herd.
Sanderson pulled Streak up slightly, watching Soapy until he was certain the latter would reach the edge, then he gave Streak the reins again.
The pause, though, robbed Sanderson of his chance to escape. He had been cutting across the head of the herd at a long angle when watching Soapy, and had been traveling with the cattle also; and now he saw that the big level was behind him, that he and the cattle were in an ever-narrowing valley which led directly into the neck of Devil's Hole.
Sanderson now gave up all hope of reaching the side, and devoted his attention to straight, hard riding. There were a few steers ahead of him, and he had a faint hope that if he could get ahead of them he might be able to direct their course through Devil's Hole and thus avert the calamity that threatened.
Grimly, silently, riding as he had never ridden before, he urged Streak forward. One by one he passed the steers in his path, and just before he reached the entrance to Devil's Hole he passed the foremost steer.
Glancing back as Streak thundered through the neck of the Hole, Sanderson saw Soapy coming, not more than a hundred yards behind. Soapy had succeeded in getting clear of the great body of steers, but there were a few still running ahead of him, and he was riding desperately to pass them.
Just as Sanderson looked back he saw Soapy's horse stumble. He recovered, ran a few steps and stumbled again. This time he went to one knee. He tried desperately to rise, fell again, and went down, neighing shrilly in terror.
Sanderson groaned and tried to pull Streak up. But the animal refused to heed the pull on the reins and plunged forward, unheeding.
There would have been no opportunity to save Soapy, even if Streak had obeyed his master. The first few steers at the head of the mass swerved around the fallen man and his horse, for they could see him.
The thousands behind, though, running blindly, in the grip of the nameless terror that had seized them, saw nothing, heeded nothing, and they swept, in a smother of dust, straight over the spot where Soapy and his horse had been.
White-lipped, catching his breath in gasps over the horror, Sanderson again turned his back to the herd and raced on. The same accident might happen to him, but there was no time to pick and choose his trail.
Behind him, with the thundering noise of a devastating avalanche, the herd came as though nothing had happened. The late moon that had been touching the peaks of the far mountains now lifted a rim over them, flooding the world with a soft radiance. Sanderson had reached the center of the trail, through Devil's Hole, before he again looked back.
What he saw caused him to pull Streak up with a jerk. The head of the herd had burst through the entrance to the Hole, and, opening fanlike, had gone headlong into the quicksand.
Fascinated with the magnitude of the catastrophe, Sanderson paid no attention to the few steers that went past him, snorting wildly; he sat rigid on his horse and watched the destruction of the herd.
A great mass of steers had gone into the quicksand at the very edge of the Hole; they formed a foothold for many others that, forced on by the impetus of the entire mass, crushed them down, trampled them further into the sand, and plunged ahead to their own destruction.
It was a continually recurring incident. Maddened, senseless, unreasoning in their panic, the mass behind came on, a sea of tossing horns, a maelstrom of swirling, blinding dust and heaving bodies into the mire; the struggling, enmeshed bodies of the vanguard forming a living floor, over which each newcomer swept to oblivion.
Feeling his utter helplessness, Sanderson continued to watch. There was nothing he could do; he was like a mere atom of sand on a seashore, with the storm waves beating over him.
The scene continued a little longer. Sanderson saw none of the men of the outfit. The dust died down, settling like a pall over the neck of the Hole. A few steers, chancing to come straight ahead through the neck of the Hole, and thus striking the hard, narrow trail that ran through the center, continued to pass Sanderson. They were still in the grip of a frenzy; and at the far end of the Hole he saw a number of them bogged down. They had not learned the lesson of the first entrance.
At length it seemed to be over. Sanderson saw one steer, evidently with some conception of the calamity penetrating its consciousness, standing near him on the trail, moving its head from side to side and snorting as it looked at its unfortunate fellows. The animal seemed to be unaware of Sanderson's presence until Streak moved uneasily.
Then the steer turned to Sanderson, its red eyes ablaze. As though it blamed him for the catastrophe, it charged him. Sanderson drew his pistol and shot it, with Streak rearing and plunging.
Roars of terror and bellows of despair assailed Sanderson's ears from all directions. Groans, almost human, came from the mired mass on both sides of the trail. Hundreds of the cattle had already sunk from sight, hundreds were sucked partly down, and other hundreds—thousands, it seemed—were struggling in plain view, with only portions of their bodies under.
Still others—the last to pour through the throat of the gorge—were clambering out, using the sinking bodies of others to assist them; Sanderson could see a few more choking the far end of the Hole.
How many had escaped he did not know, nor care. The dramatic finish of Soapy was vivid, and concern for the other members of the outfit was uppermost in his mind.
He rode the back trail slowly. The destruction of his herd had not occupied ten minutes, it seemed. Dazed with the suddenness of it, and with a knowledge of what portended, he came to the spot where Soapy's horse had stumbled and looked upon what was left of the man. His face dead white, his hands trembling, he spread his blanket over the spot. He had formed an affection for Soapy.
Mounting Streak, he resumed his ride toward the camp. A dead silence filled the wide level from which the stampede had started—a silence except for the faint bellowing that still reached his ears from the direction of the Hole.
Half a mile from where he had found the pitiable remnants of Soapy he came upon Carter. The range boss was lying prone on his back, his body apparently unmarred. His horse was standing near him, grazing. Carter had not been in the path of the herd.
What, then, had happened to him?
Sanderson dismounted and went to his knees beside the man. At first he could see no sign of anything that might have caused death—for Carter was undoubtedly dead—and already stiffening! Then he saw a red patch staining the man's shirt, and he examined it. Carter had been shot. Sanderson stood up and looked around. There was no one in sight. He mounted Streak and began to ride toward the camp, for he felt that Carter's death had resulted from an accident. One explanation was that a stray bullet had killed Carter—in the excitement of a stampede the men were apt to shoot wildly at refractory steers.
But the theory of accident did not abide. Halfway between Carter and the camp Sanderson came upon Bud. Bud was lying in a huddled heap. He had been shot from behind. Later, continuing his ride to camp, Sanderson came upon the other men.
He found the Kid and the cook near the chuck wagon, Sogun and Andy were lying near the fire, whose last faint embers were sputtering feebly; Buck was some distance away, but he, too, was dead!
Sanderson went from one to the other of the men, to make a final examination. Bending over Sogun, he heard the latter groan, and in an instant Sanderson was racing to the river for water.
He bathed Sogun's wound—which was low on the left side, under the heart, and, after working over him for five or ten minutes, giving him whisky from a flask he found in the chuck wagon, and talking to the man in an effort to force him into consciousness, he was rewarded by seeing Sogun open his eyes.
Sogun looked perplexedly at Sanderson, whose face was close.
There was recognition in Sogun's eyes—the calm of reason was swimming in them.
He half smiled. "So you wriggled out of it, boss, eh? It was a clean-up, for sure. I seen them get the other boys. I emptied my gun, an' was fillin' her again when they got me."
"Who?" demanded Sanderson sharply.
"Dale an' his gang. They was a bunch of them—twenty, mebbe. I heard them while I was layin' here. They thought they'd croaked me, an' they wasn't botherin' with me.
"One of them waved a blanket—or a tarp. I couldn't get what it was. Anyway, they waved somethin' an' got the herd started. I heard them talkin' about seein' Soapy go under, right at the start. An' you. Dale said he saw you go down, an' it wasn't no use to look for you. They sure played hell, boss."
Sanderson did not answer.
"If you'd lift my head a little higher, boss, I'd feel easier, mebbe," Sogun smiled feebly. "An' if it ain't too much trouble I'd like a little more of that water—I'm powerful thirsty."
Sanderson went to the river, and when he returned Sogun was stretched out on his back, his face upturned with a faint smile upon it.
Sanderson knelt beside him, lifted his head and spoke to him. But Sogun did not answer.
Sanderson rose and stood with bowed head for a long time, looking down at Sogun. Then he mounted Streak and headed him into the moonlit space that lay between the camp and the Double A ranchhouse.
It was noon the next day when Sanderson returned with a dozen Double A men. After they had labored for two hours the men mounted their horses and began the return trip, one of them driving the chuck wagon.
All of the men were bitter against Dale for what had happened, and several of them were for instant reprisal.
But Sanderson stared grimly at them.
"There ain't any witnesses," he said, "not a damned one! My word don't go in Okar. Besides, it's my game, an' I'm goin' to play her a lone hand—as far as Dale is concerned."
"You goin' to round up what's left of the cattle?" asked a puncher.
Sanderson answered shortly: "Not any. There wasn't enough left to make a fuss about, an' Dale can have them."