"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.



CHAPTER XVII

THE TRAIL HERD

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 travel some," 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.



CHAPTER XVIII

CHECKED BY THE SYSTEM

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."



CHAPTER XIX

A QUESTION OF BRANDS

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:



"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.



CHAPTER XX

DEVIL'S HOLE

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."



CHAPTER XXI

A MAN BORROWS MONEY

The incident of Devil's Hole had changed the character of the fighting between Sanderson and Dale. Dale and his fellow-conspirators had deserted that law upon which, until the incident of Devil's Hole, they had depended. They had resorted to savagery, to murder; they had committed themselves to a course that left Sanderson no choice except to imitate them.

And Sanderson was willing. More, he was anxious. He had respected the law; and still respected it. But he had never respected the law represented by his three enemies. He was determined to avenge the murder of his men, but in his own time and in his own way.

His soul was in the grip of a mighty rage against Dale and the others; he longed to come into personal contact with them—to feel them writhe and squirm in his clutch. And had he been the free agent he had always been until his coming to the Double A he would have gone straight to Okar, thus yielding to the blood lust that swelled his veins.

But he could not permit his inclinations to ruin the girl he had promised to protect. He could kill Dale, Silverthorn, and Maison quite easily. But he would have no defense for the deed, and the law would force him to desert Mary Bransford.

For an entire day following the return of himself and his men from the scene of the stampede Sanderson fought a terrific mental battle. He said nothing to Mary Bransford, after giving her the few bare facts that described the destruction of the herd. But the girl watched him anxiously, suspecting something of the grim thoughts that tortured him, and at dinner she spoke to him.

"Deal," she said, "don't be rash. Those men have done a lawless thing, but they still have the power to invoke the law against you."

"I ain't goin' to be lawless—yet," he grinned.

But Sanderson was yielding to an impulse that had assailed him. His manner betrayed him to Owen, at least, who spoke to Mary about it.

"He's framing up something—or he's got it framed up and is ready to act," he told the girl. "He has got that calm during the past few hours that I feel like I'm in the presence of an iceberg when I'm near him."

Whatever was on Sanderson's mind he kept to himself. But late that night, when the ranchhouse was dark, and a look through one of the windows of the bunkhouse showed Sanderson there were only two men awake—and they playing cards sleepily—he threw saddle and bridle on Streak and rode away into the inky darkness of the basin.

Shortly after dusk on the same night Silverthorn, Dale, and Maison were sitting at a table in Maison's private office in the bank building. They, too, were playing cards.

But their thoughts were not on the cards. Elation filled their hearts.

Dale was dealing, but it was plain that he took no interest in the game. At last, with a gesture of disgust, he threw the cards face up on the table and smiled at the others.

"What's the use?" he said. "I keep thinking of what happened at Devil's Hole. We ought to have been sure that we finished the job, an' we would have been sure if we hadn't known that that damned Colfax sheriff was hanging around somewhere.

"He took two hundred head from Sanderson—when he ought to have taken the whole damn herd—which he'd orders to do. And then, instead of driving them direct to Lester's he made camp just on the other side of Devil's Hole—three or four miles, Morley said. I don't know what for, except that maybe he's decided to give Sanderson the steers he'd taken from him—the damned fool! You've got to break him, Maison, for disobeying orders!"

"I'll attend to him," said Maison.

"That's the reason we didn't go through Devil's Hole to see what had become of Sanderson," resumed Dale. "We was afraid of running into the sheriff, and him, being the kind of a fool he is, would likely have wanted to know what had happened. I thought it better to sneak off without letting him see us than to do any explaining."

Silverthorn looked at his watch. "Morley and the others ought to be here pretty soon," he said.

"They're late as it is," grumbled Dale. "I ought to have gone myself."

They resumed their card-playing. An hour or so later there came a knock on the door of the bank—a back door—and Dale opened it to admit Morley—the big man who had drawn a pistol on Sanderson when he had tried to take Barney Owen out of the City Hotel barroom.

Morley was alone. He stepped inside without invitation and grinned at the others.

"There's no sign of Sanderson. Someone had been there an' planted the guys we salivated—an' the guy which went down in the run. We seen his horse layin' there, cut to ribbons. It's likely Sanderson went into the sand ahead of the herd—they was crowdin' him pretty close when we seen them runnin'."

"You say them guys was planted?" said Dale. "Then Sanderson got out of it. He would—if anyone could, for he was riding like a devil on a cyclone when I saw him. He's got back, and took his men to Devil's Hole."

Maison laughed. "We'll say he got out of it. What of it? He's broke. And if the damned court would get a move on with that evidence we've sent over to prove that he isn't a Bransford, we'd have the Double A inside of a week!"

Dale got up, grinning and looking at his watch.

"Well, gentlemen, I'm hitting the breeze to the Bar D for some sleep. See you tomorrow."

Dale went out and mounted his horse. But he did not go straight home, as he had declared he would. After striking the neck of the basin he swerved his horse and rode northeastward toward Ben Nyland's cabin.

For he had heard that day in Okar that Ben Nyland had taken a train eastward that morning, to return on the afternoon of the day following. And during the time Dale had been talking with Maison; and Silverthorn, and playing cards with them, he thought often of Peggy Nyland.

Silverthorn and Morley did not remain long in Maison's private room in the bank building.

Morley had promised to play cards with some of his men in the City Hotel barroom, and he joined them there, while Silverthorn went to his rooms in the upper story of the station.

After the departure of the others, Maison sat for a long time at the table in the private room, making figures on paper.

Maison had exacted from the world all the luxuries he thought his pampered body desired. His financial career would not have borne investigation, but Maison's operations had been so smooth and subtle that he had left no point at which an enemy could begin an investigation.

But years of questionable practice had had an inevitable effect upon Maison. Outwardly, he had hardened, but only Maison knew of the many devils his conscience created for him.

Continued communion with the devils of conscience had made a coward of Maison. When at last he got up from the table he glanced apprehensively around the room; and after he had put out the light and climbed the stairs to his rooms above the bank, he was trembling.

Maison had often dealt crookedly with his fellow-men, but never, until the incident of Devil's Hole, had he deliberately planned murder. Thus tonight Maison's conscience had more ghastly evidence to confront him with, and conscience is a pitiless retributive agent.

Maison poured himself a generous drink of whisky from a bottle on a sideboard before he got into bed, but the story told him by Dale and the others of the terrible scene at Devil's Hole—remained so staringly vivid in his thoughts that whisky could not dim it.

He groaned and pulled the covers over his head, squirming and twisting, for the night was warm and there was little air stirring.

After a while Maison sat up. It seemed to him that he had been in bed for an age, though actually the time was not longer than an hour.

It had been late when he had left the room downstairs. And now he listened for sounds that would tell him that Okar's citizens were still busy with their pleasures.

But no sound came from the street. Maison yearned for company, for he felt unaccountably depressed and morbid. It was as though some danger impended and instinct was warning him of it.

But in the dead silence of Okar there was no suggestion of sound. It must have been in the ghostly hours between midnight and the dawn—though a cold terror that had gripped Maison would not let him get up to look at the clock that ticked monotonously on the sideboard.

He lay, clammy with sweat, every sense strained and acute, listening. For, from continued contemplation of imaginary dangers he had worked himself into a frenzy which would have turned into a conviction of real danger at the slightest sound near him.

He expected sound to come; he waited for it, his ears attuned, his senses alert.

And at last sound came.

It was a mere creak—such a sound as a foot might make on a stairway. And it seemed to have come from the stairs leading to Maison's rooms.

He did not hear it again, though, and he might have fought off the new terror that was gripping him, if at that instant he had not remembered that when leaving the lower room he had forgotten to lock the rear door—the door through which Morley had entered earlier in the evening; the door through which Silverthorn had departed.

He had not locked that door, and that noise on the stairs might have been made by some night prowler.

Aroused to desperation by his fears he started to get out of bed with the intention of getting the revolver that lay in a drawer in the sideboard.

His feet were on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed preparatory to standing, when he saw the door at the head of the stairs slowly swing open and a figure of a man appear in the opening.

The light in the room was faint—a mere luminous star-mist—hut Maison could see clearly the man's face. He stiffened, his hands gripping the bedclothing, as he muttered hoarsely:

"Sanderson!"

Sanderson stepped into the room and closed the door. The heavy six-shooter in his hand was at his hip, the long barrel horizontal, the big muzzle gaping forebodingly into Maison's face. There was a cold, mirthless grin on Sanderson's face, but it seemed to Maison that the grin was the wanton expression of murder lust.

He knew, without Sanderson telling him, that if he moved, or made the slightest outcry, Sanderson would kill him.

Therefore he made neither move nor sound, but sat there, rigid and gasping for breath, awaiting the other's pleasure.

Sanderson came close to him, speaking in a vibrant whisper:

"Anyone in the house with you? If you speak above a whisper I'll blow you apart!"

"I'm alone!" gasped Maison.

Sanderson laughed lowly. "You must have known I was comin'. Did you expect me? Well—" when Maison did not answer—"you left the rear door open. Obliged to you.

"You know what I came for? No?" His voice was still low and vibrant. "I came to talk over what happened at Devil's Hole."

Maison's eyes bulged with horror.

"I see you know about it, all right. I'm glad of that. Seven men murdered; three thousand head of cattle gone. Mebbe they didn't all go into the quicksand—I don't know. What I do know is this: they've got to be paid for—men an' cattle. Understand? Cattle an' men."

The cold emphasis he laid on the "and" made a shiver run over the banker.

"Money will pay for cattle," went on Sanderson. "I'll collect a man for every man you killed at Devil's Hole."

He laughed in feline humor when Maison squirmed at the words.

"You think your life is more valuable than the life of any one of the men you killed at Devil's Hole, eh? Soapy was worth a hundred like you! An' Sogun—an' all the rest! Understand? They were real men, doin' some good in the world. I'm tellin' you this so you'll know that I don't think you amount to a hell of a lot, an' that I wouldn't suffer a heap with remorse if you'd open your trap for one little peep an' I'd have to blow your guts out!"

A devil of conscience had finally visited Maison—a devil in the flesh. For all the violent passions were aflame in Sanderson's face, repressed but needing only provocation to loose them.

Maison knew what impended. But he succeeded in speaking, though the words caught, stranglingly, in his throat:

"W-what do you—want?"

"Ninety thousand dollars. The market price for three thousand head of cattle."

"There isn't that much in the vaults!" protested Maison in a gasping whisper. "We never keep that amount of money on hand."

He would have said more, but he saw Sanderson's grin become bitter; saw the arm holding the six-shooter stiffen suggestively.

Maison raised his hands in horror.

"Wait!" he said, pleadingly. "I'll see. Good God, man, keep the muzzle of that gun away!"

"Ninety thousand will do it," Sanderson grimly told him, "ninety thousand. No less. You can ask that God you call on so reckless to have ninety thousand in the vault when you go to look for it, right away.

"Get up an' dress!" he commanded.

He stood silently watching the banker as the latter got into his clothing. Then, with a wave of his gun in the direction of the stairs he ordered Maison to precede him. He kept close to the banker in the darkness of the rooms through which they passed, and finally when they reached the little room into which opened the big doors of the vault—embedded in solid masonry—Sanderson again spoke:

"I want it in bills of large denomination." The banker was on his knees before the doors, working at the combination, and he looked around in silent objection at Sanderson's voice.

"Big ones, I said," repeated the latter. "You've got them. I was in Silverthorn's rooms some hours ago, lookin' over his books an' things. I saw a note there, showin' that he'd deposited fifty thousand here the day before yesterday. The note said it was cash. You'll have forty thousand more. If you ain't got it you'll wish you had."

Maison had it. He drew it out in packages—saffron-hued notes that he passed back to Sanderson reluctantly. When he had passed back the exact amount he looked around.

Sanderson ordered him to close the doors, and with the banker preceding him they returned to the upper room, where Sanderson distributed the money over his person securely, the banker watching him.

When Sanderson had finished, he again spoke. There was elation in his eyes, but they still were aflame with the threat of death and violence.

"Who's the biggest an' most honest man in town?" he said, "the one man that the folks here always think of when they're in trouble an' want a square deal? Every town always has such a man. Who is he?"

"Judge Graney," said Maison.

"All right," declared Sanderson. "We'll go see Judge Graney. You're goin' to lead me to the place where he lives. We're goin' to have him witness that you've paid me ninety thousand dollars for the stock you destroyed—my cattle. He's goin' to be all the law I'm goin' to depend on—in this case. After a while—if you sneaks go too strong—I'll let loose a little of my own law—the kind I've showed you tonight.

"You're goin' to Judge Graney's place, an' you're goin' to sign a paper showin' you paid me the money for my cattle. You ain't goin' to make any noise on the way, or to Judge Graney. You're goin' to do the talkin' an' tell Graney that you want him to witness the deal. An' you're goin' to do it without him gettin' wise that I'm forcin' you. You'll have to do some actin', an' if you fall down on this job you'll never have to act again! Get goin'!"

Maison was careful not to make any noise as he went down the stairs; he was equally careful when he reached the street.

In a short time, Sanderson walking close behind him, he halted at a door of a private dwelling. He knocked on the door, and a short, squat man appeared in the opening, holding a kerosene lamp in one hand and a six-shooter in the other.

He recognized Maison instantly and politely asked him and his visitor inside. There Maison stated his business, and the judge, though revealing some surprise that so big a transaction should be concluded at so uncommon an hour, attested the paper made out by Maison, and signed the receipt for ninety thousand dollars written by Sanderson and given to the banker. Then, still followed by Sanderson, the banker went out.

There was no word spoken by either of the men until they again reached the bank building. Then it was Sanderson who spoke.

"That's all, Maison," he said. "Talk, if you must—mebbe it'll keep you from explodin'. But if there's any more meddlin' with my affairs—by you—I'm comin' for you again. An' the next time it'll be to make you pay for my men!"

He slipped behind the bank building and was gone. A little later, still standing where Sanderson had left him, he saw the Double A man riding swiftly across country toward the neck of the basin.

Maison went slowly upstairs, lighted a lamp, and looked at his reflection in a glass. He sighed, blew out the light, got into bed and stretched out in relief, feeling that he had got out of the affair cheaply enough, considering all things.

And remembering what Sanderson had told him about returning, he determined that if Judge Graney said nothing of the occurrence he would never mention it. For he did not want Sanderson to pay him another visit.



CHAPTER XXII

A MAN FROM THE ABYSS

At about the time Sanderson was entering Okar, Alva Dale was letting himself into the door of his office at the Bar D ranchhouse. Dale's thoughts, because of the sensuous longing with which he had always looked upon Peggy Nyland, had become abysmal. Silverthorn had warned him that the dragging of a woman into the plot would be fatal to their aims, but Dale had paid no heed to Silverthorn. During the day he had kept thinking of the girl until now he could no longer restrain himself. His face was bestial with passion as he entered his office.

Inside the office he lighted a lamp and seated himself at his desk. There, with a pair of shears and a piece of black cloth, he fashioned a mask. He donned the mask and peered at himself in a mirror, grinning with satisfaction over the reflection. Had he not known himself for Alva Dale he would have been fooled by the covering.

Working swiftly, he changed his clothes. Then, after again looking at his reflection, he put out the light, stepped outside, locked the door, and mounted his horse.

Riding a ridge above a shallow arroyo he came upon a little level near a grove of cottonwood trees. He circled one side of the grove, and in a clearing he saw the Nyland cabin.

He had visited the cabin before, but never had he felt about it as he felt at this moment. There had always been the presence of Ben Nyland to dampen the romantic thoughts that had beset him—for there had been a time when—if Peggy Nyland had been willing—he would have married her.

That time had passed. Dale grinned wickedly as he dismounted and walked forward.

There was no light showing in any of the windows, and Dale stepped stealthily to the rear door and knocked.

There was no answer; and Dale repeated the blows. Then he grinned With delight as he heard Peggy's voice, high-pitched and startled, saying:

"Who's there?"

"It's me—Sanderson," he returned. "I've come for you!"

"What for?" This time there was alarm in the girl's voice, and Dale heard her walk across the floor and halt at the door. He mentally visualized her, standing there, one ear against the panel.

"Didn't they tell you?" he said in a hoarse voice, into which he succeeded in getting much pretended anger. "Why, I sent a man over here with word."

"Word about what?"

Dale heard the girl fumbling at the fastenings of the door, and he knew that his imitation of Sanderson's voice had deceived her.

"Word that Ben was hurt," he lied. "The east train hit him as it was pullin' in. He's bad off, but the doc says he'll come around if he gets good nursin', an' that's why I've come——"

While he was talking the door burst open and Peggy appeared in the opening, her eyes wide with concern and eagerness.

She had heard Dale's first knock on the door, and knowing it was someone for her—perhaps Ben returning—she had begun to dress, finishing—except for her shoes and stockings—by the time she opened the door.

In the dim light she did not at first see the mask on Dale's face, and she was insistently demanding to be told just where Ben's injuries were, when she detected the fraud.

Then she gasped and stepped back, trying to close the door. She would have succeeded had not Dale thrust a foot into the aperture.

She stamped at his foot with her bare one ineffectually. Dale laughed at her futile efforts to keep him from opening the door. He struck an arm through the aperture, leaned his weight against the door, and pushed it open.

She was at the other side of the room when he entered, having dodged behind a table. He made a rush for her, but she evaded him, keeping the table between them.

There was no word said. The girl's breath was coming in great gasps from the fright and shock she had received, but Dale's was shrill and laboring from the strength of his passions.

Reason left him as they circled around the table, and with a curse he overturned it so that it rolled and crashed out of the way, leaving her with no obstacle behind which to find shelter.

She ran toward the door, but Dale caught her at the threshold. She twisted and squirmed in his grasp, scratching him and clawing at his face in an access of terror, and one hand finally caught the black mask covering and tore it from his face.

"Alva Dale!" she shrieked. "Oh, you beast!"

Fighting with redoubled fury she forced him against one of the door jambs, still scratching and clawing. Dale grasped one hand, but the free one reached his face, the fingers sinking into the flesh and making a deep gash in his cheek.

The pain made a demon of Dale, and he struck her. She fell, soundlessly, her head striking the edge of a chair with a deadening, thudding crash.

Standing in the doorway looking down at her, the faint, outdoor light shining on her face and revealing its ghastly whiteness, Dale suffered a quick reaction. He had not meant to strike so hard, he told himself; he hoped he had not killed her.

Kneeling beside her he felt her pulse and her head. The flesh under his hand was cold as marble; the pulse—if there was any—was not perceptible. Dale examined the back of her head, where it had struck the chair. He got up, his face ashen and convulsed with horror.

"Good Lord!" he muttered hoarsely, "she's dead—or dying. I've done it now!"



CHAPTER XXIII

THE GUNMAN

Dale's first decision was to leave Peggy in the cabin. But she might recover, and she had recognized him. Ben Nyland would exact stern vengeance for the outrage.

Dale stood for some seconds in the doorway, his brain working rapidly. Then he leaped inside the cabin, took the girl up in his arms, carried her to his horse, mounted, and with the limp, sagging body in his arms rode into the night.

Reaction, also, was working on Banker Maison. Though more than an hour had passed since he had got into bed, following the departure of his nocturnal visitor, he had not slept a wink. His brain revolving the incidents of the night—it had been a positive panorama of vivid horrors.

The first gray streak of dawn was splitting the horizon when he gave it up, clambered out of bed and poured a generous drink from the bottle on the sideboard.

"God, a man needs something like this to brace him up after such a night!" he declared.

He took a second drink from the bottle, and a third. In the act of pouring a fourth he heard a sound at the back door, and with a gulp of terror he remembered that he had again forgotten to lock it.

Sanderson undoubtedly was returning!

Again Maison's body became clammy with a cold sweat. He stood in the room near the sideboard, tremblingly listening. For again there was a step on the stairs.

When he saw the door begin to open his knees knocked together, but there entered, not the dread apparition he expected, but Alva Dale, with the limp form of a woman in his arms!

The sudden breaking of the tension, and astonishment over what he saw, made Maison's voice hoarse.

"What's up now?" he demanded.

"Hell!" muttered Dale. He told Maison the whole story—with some reservations.

"I was sparkin' her—like I've been doin' for a long time. We had a tiff over—over somethin'—an' I pushed her. She fell over, hittin' her head."

"You damned fool!" snapped Maison. Dale was not Sanderson, and Maison felt the authority of his position. "This is Peggy Nyland, isn't it? She's the girl Silverthorn was telling me about—that you're sweet on. You damned fool. Can't you let the women alone when we're in a deal like this! You'll ruin the whole thing! Get her out of here!"

Dale eyed the other sullenly, his face bloating with rage.

"Look here, Maison; you quit your infernal yappin'. She stays here. I thought at first I'd killed her an' I was goin' to plant her. But she's been groanin' a little while I've been comin' here, an' there's a chance for her. Go get the doctor."

"What about her brother?" demanded Maison. "He's a shark with a gun, they tell me, an' a tiger when he's aroused. If he finds out about this he'll kill both of us."

Dale grinned saturninely. "I'll take care of the brother," he said. "You get the doc—an' be damned quick about it!"

Maison went out, and in five minutes returned with the doctor. The latter worked for more than an hour with Peggy, and at last succeeded in reviving her.

But though Peggy opened her eyes, there was no light of reason in them—only the vacuous, unseeing stare of a dulled and apathetic brain.

"She's got an awful whack," said the doctor. "It's cracked her skull. It'll be weeks before she gets over it—if she ever does. I'll come and see her tomorrow."

The doctor came the next day—in the morning. He found the patient no better. A woman, hired by Dale, was caring for the girl.

Also, in the morning, Dale paid a visit. His visit was to Dal Colton, the man Dale had employed to kill Sanderson, and who had so signally failed.

The scene of the meeting between Dale and Colton was in the rear room of the City Hotel.

"Look here," said Dale. "This deal can't be no whizzer like you run in on Sanderson. He's got to be dropped, or things are goin' to happen to all of us. His name's Nyland—Ben Nyland. You know him?"

Colton nodded. "Plenty. He's a fast man with a gun. I'll have to get him when he ain't lookin'. You'll get me clear?"

"No one will know about it," declared Dale. "You go out to his ranch an' lay for him. He'll be in on the afternoon train. When he comes into the door of his house, nail him. That's easy."



CHAPTER XXIV

CONCERNING A WOMAN

Day was breaking when Sanderson rode in to the Double A corral and dismounted. Several of the men of the outfit were astir, and he called to one of them, and told the man to care for his horse. He grinned around at them all, and then went into the house.

Mary Bransford was not yet up. The door that Sanderson had gone out of the night before was still unlocked. He opened it and entered, passing through the sitting-room and halting in the kitchen. He had noted that the door to Mary's room was closed.

Sanderson's dominant emotion was that of grim satisfaction. He had compelled Maison to disgorge the money without jeopardizing his own liberty. Judge Graney's word would suffice to prove his case should Maison proceed against him.

But Sanderson had little fear that Maison would attempt reprisal. If he had judged the man correctly, Maison would not talk, even to Silverthorn.

Sanderson cared very little if he did talk. He had reached the point where the killing of his enemies would come easy to him. They had chosen lawlessness, and he could wage that kind of warfare as well as they. He had shown them that he could.

He disclosed the visible proof of his ability. One by one he drew the packages of currency from various pockets, tossing them at random on the kitchen table. He was standing at the table, counting the bills in one of the packages, when he heard a sound behind him. He wheeled, to confront Mary Bransford.

She was dressed, but her face was as yet unwashed, and her hair uncombed. She stood in the doorway between the dining-room and the kitchen, looking at Sanderson in sleepy-eyed bewilderment.

"I saw you riding in," she said. "Where on earth have you been at this hour? You came from the direction of Okar."

"Business," he grinned.

"Business! Why, what kind of business could take you to Okar during the night?"

"If you could get the sleep out of your eyes," he suggested, "mebbe you could see. It's the kind of business that all the world is interested in—gettin' the money."

And then she saw the packages of bills. She rubbed her eyes as though in doubt of the accuracy of her vision; they grew wide and bright with astonishment and wonder, and she gave a little, breathless gasp as she ran forward to the table and looked down at the mound of wealth.

And then, convinced that her senses had not played her a trick, her face whitened, she drew a long breath, and turned to Sanderson, grasping the lapels of his coat and holding them tightly.

"Sanderson," she said in an awed voice, "what have you done? Where did you get that money?"

He told her, and her eyes dilated. "What a reckless thing to do!" she said. "They might have killed you!"

"Maison was havin' thoughts the other way round," he grinned. "He was mighty glad I didn't make him pay for the men he killed."

"They'll be after you—they'll kill you for that!" she told him.

"Shucks," he laughed. He showed her the document written and signed by Maison, and attested by Judge Graney:

This is to certify that I have tonight paid to Deal Sanderson the sum of ninety thousand dollars for three thousand head of cattle received to my full satisfaction.

"There ain't no comeback to that!" exulted Sanderson. "Now we'll start buildin' that dam. Mebbe, though," he added, grinning at her, "if you knew where a mighty hungry man could find a good cook that would be willin' to rustle some grub, there'd be——"

She laughed. "Right away!" she said, and went outside to perform her ablutions.

Sanderson, while she was outside, counted out ten thousand dollars and put it into a pocket. Then he piled the remainder of the money neatly on the table. When Mary came in, her face glowing, her hair freshly combed, he stood and looked at her with admiration in his eyes, and a great longing in his heart.

"I've dreamed of seein' you that way," he said.

"As your cook?" she demanded, reddening.

"A man's grub would taste a heap better if his wife did the cookin'," he said, his face sober.

"Why—why—" she said; "do you mean——"

"I wouldn't be finicky if—if my wife was doin' my cookin'," he declared, his own face crimson. "I wouldn't kick if she gave me the same kind of grub every mornin'—if it was she I've wanted."

"Why, Sanderson! Is this——"

"It's a proposal, ma'am. I can't say what I want to say—what I've figured on sayin' to you. I don't seem to be able to find the words I wanted to use. But you'll understand, ma'am."

"That you want a cook more than you want a—a wife? Oh, Sanderson!" she mocked.

She knew that it was bashfulness that had caused him to mention the cooking; that he had introduced the subject merely for the purpose of making an oblique start; but she could not resist the temptation to taunt him.

She looked furtively at him to see how deeply she had hurt him, but was surprised to see him grinning widely.

"Women ain't so wise as they pretend to be," he said. "There's grub, an' grub. An' what kind of grub is it that a man in love wants most?"

She caught his meaning, now, and blushed rosy red, drooping her eyes from his.

"That wasn't fair, Sanderson," she said lowly. "Besides, a man can't live on kisses."

"I know a man who can," he smiled, his eyes eager and glowing, now that he saw she was not going to repel him; "that is," he added lowly, "if he could find a cook that would give them to him whenever he wanted them. But it would take a lot of them, an' they'd have to be given with the cook's consent. Do you think you could——"

He paused and looked at her, for her eyes were shining and her lips were pursed in a way that left no doubt of the invitation.

"Why, Mary!" he said, as he caught her in his arms.

For a time the money lay on the table unnoticed and forgotten, and there was an eloquent silence in the kitchen.

A little later, Barney Owen, passing close to the kitchen window—having seen the men caring for Sanderson's horse, and learning from them that Sanderson had come in early after having apparently been out all night—heard Sanderson's voice issuing from the kitchen:

"There's a difference in kisses; them that you gave me when you thought I was your brother wasn't half so thrillin' as——"

Owen stiffened and stood rigid, his face whitening.

And then again he heard Sanderson's voice:

"There's a judge in Okar—Judge Graney. An' if you'd consider gettin' married today, ma'am, why——"

"Why, Sanderson!" came Mary's voice in mild reproof.

"Well, then," sounded Sanderson's voice, full of resignation this time; "have it your way; I don't want to hurry you."

"Hurry me? Oh, no!" laughed the girl in gentle mockery. Whereat they both laughed. The sound of it must have pleased Owen, for he, too, laughed as he left the window and went toward the bunkhouse.

An hour later Sanderson emerged from the house, threw saddle and bridle on Streak, and rode out into the basin to a camp where he found Kent Williams and his men. He gave the engineer the package of bills he had taken from the table.

"Here is ten thousand dollars," he said. "You take your men, ride over to Lazette, get your supplies, an' hustle them right back here. It ain't likely there'll be any more trouble, but we ain't takin' any chances. My men ain't got any more cattle to bother with, an' they'll go with you an' your men to Lazette, an' come back with the wagons to see that they ain't interfered with. Start as soon as you can get ready."

"Within an hour the engineer, his men, and the men of the Double A outfit were on the move. Barney Owen did not go. He sat on one of the top rails of the corral fence, alternately watching the men of the outfit as they faded into the vast space toward Lazette, and Mary Bransford and Sanderson, as they stood on the porch, close together, likewise watching the men.

"I'd say—if anyone was to ask me—that there is a brother who seems to have been forgotten," said Owen with a curious smile.



CHAPTER XXV

A MAN IS AROUSED

The coming of the dawn and the comforting contact with other human beings, brought Banker Maison relief from the terrifying fear that had gripped him during the night. He became almost courageous after breakfast, and began to think that perhaps he had yielded too readily to Sanderson's demands.

As the hours passed and the memory of the night's horror grew more distant, he began to feel indignant over the treatment accorded him by Sanderson. Later the indignation grew to a deep and consuming rage, and he entertained thoughts of his power and influence and of the comparative unimportance of the grim-faced man who had robbed him.

Robbed him—that was it! Sanderson had robbed him!

The more Maison's thoughts dwelt upon the occurrence the deeper grew his rage. He even condoned Dale's action in bringing the Nyland girl to his rooms. Dale was his friend, and he would protect him!

Perhaps Maison did not reflect that his greed was attempting to justify him; that back of his growing championship of Dale was his eagerness to get possession of the Nyland property; and that behind his rage over Sanderson's visit was the bitter thought that Sanderson had compelled him to pay for the destroyed and stolen steers.

Maison did not consider that phase of the question. Or if he did consider it he did not permit that consideration to influence his actions. For within two hours after breakfast he had sent a messenger for Silverthorn and Dale, and fifteen minutes later he was telling them the story of the night's happenings.

Silverthorn's face grew purple with rage during the recital. At its conclusion he got up, dark purpose glinting in his eyes.

"We've got to put Sanderson out of the way, and do it quickly!" he declared. "And we've got to get that money back. Dale, you're a deputy sheriff. Damn the law! This isn't a matter for court action—that damned Graney wouldn't give us a warrant for Sanderson now, no matter what we told him! We've got to take the law into our own hands. We'll see if this man can come in here, rob a bank, and get away without being punished!"

At the end of a fifteen-minute talk, Dale slipped out of the rear door of the bank and sought the street. In the City Hotel he whispered to several men, who sauntered out of the building singly, mounted their horses, and rode toward the neck of the basin. In another saloon Dale whispered to several other men, who followed the first ones.

Dale's search continued for some little time, and he kept a continuous stream of riders heading toward the neck of the basin. And then, when he had spoken to as many as he thought he needed, he mounted his own horse and, rode away.

Sanderson and Mary Bransford had not yet settled the question regarding the disposal of the money Sanderson had received from Banker Maison. They sat on the edge of the porch, talking about it. From a window of the bunkhouse Barney Owen watched them, a pleased smile on his face.

"It's yours," Sanderson told the girl. "An' we ain't trustin' that to any bank. Look what they did with the seven thousand I've got in the Lazette bank. They've tied it up so nobody will be able to touch it until half the lawyers in the county have had a chance to gas about it. An' by that time there won't be a two-bit piece left to argue over. No, siree, you've got to keep that coin where you can put your hands on it when you want it!"

"When you want it," she smiled. "Do you know, Deal," she added seriously, blushing as she looked at him, "that our romance has been so much different from other romances that I've heard about. It has seemed so—er—matter of fact."

He grinned. "All romances—real romances—are a heap matter of fact. Love is the most matter-of-fact thing in the world. When a guy meets a girl that he takes a shine to—an' the girl takes a shine to him—there ain't anything goin' to keep them from makin' a go of it."

He reddened a little.

"That's what I thought when I saw you. Even when the Drifter was tellin' me about you, I was sure of you."

"I think you have shown it in your actions," she laughed.

"But how about you?" he suggested; "did you have any thoughts on the subject?"

"I—I think that even while I thought you were my brother, I realized that my feeling for you was strange and unusual; though I laid it to the fact that I had never had a brother, and therefore could not be expected to know just how a sister should feel toward one. But it has all been unusual, hasn't it?"

"If you mean me comin' here like I did, an' masqueradin', an' lettin' you kiss me, an' fuss over me—why, mebbe that would be considered unusual. But love ain't unusual; an' a man fightin' for the woman he loves ain't unusual."

While he had been talking a change had come over him. His voice had lost its note of gentle raillery, his lips had straightened into hard lines, his eyes were glowing with the light she had seen in them more than once—the cold glitter of hostility.

Startled, she took him by the shoulders and shook him.

"Why, what on earth has come over you, Deal?"

He grinned mirthlessly, got up, took a hitch in his cartridge belt, and drew a full breath.

"The fightin' ain't over yet," he said. "There's a bunch of guys comin' toward the Double A. Dale's gang, most likely—after the money I took from Maison."

She was on her feet now, and looking out into the basin. Two or three miles away, enveloped in huge dust cloud, were a number of riders. They were coming fast, and headed directly for the Double A ranchhouse.

The girl clung to Sanderson's arm in sudden terror until he gently released himself, and taking her by the shoulders forced her through a door and into the sitting-room.

"Hide that money in a safe place—-where the devil himself couldn't find it. Don't give it up, no matter what happens."

He walked to a window and looked out. Behind him he could hear Mary running here and there; and at last when the riders were within half a mile of the house, she came and stood behind Sanderson, panting, resting her hands on his shoulders to peer over them at the coming riders.

Sanderson turned and smiled at her. "We'll go out on the porch, now, an' wait for them."

"Deal," she whispered excitedly; "why don't you go away? Get on Streak—he'll outrun any horse in the county! Go! Get Williams and the other boys. Deal!" She shook him frenziedly. "It isn't the money they are after—it's you! They'll kill you, Deal! And there are so many of them! Run—run!"

He grinned, patting her shoulder as he led her out upon the porch and forced her into a chair.

When the men had come near enough for him to distinguish their faces, and he saw that Dale was leading them, he walked to a slender porch column and leaned against it, turning to smile at Mary.

"Maison decided he'd have to talk, looks like," he said. "Some men just can't help it."

Rigid in her chair, the girl watched the riders swoop toward the ranchhouse; Sanderson, lounging against the porch column, smiled saturninely.

The riders headed directly toward the porch. Sanderson counted them as they came to a halt within thirty feet of the edge of the porch. There were twenty of them.

Dale, his face flushed, his eyes alight with triumph, dismounted and stepped forward, halting at the edge of the porch and sweeping his hat from his head with exaggerated courtesy.

"Delighted to see you, ma'am—an' your friend, Deal Sanderson. Mr. Sanderson paid my friend Maison a visit last night, takin' away with him ninety thousand dollars of the bank's money. Me an' my men has come over to get the money—an' Mr. Sanderson. The Okar court allows that it needs him. I've got a warrant for him."

Dale's grin was huge. He felt secure with his men behind him.

But if he expected Sanderson to be impressed he was disappointed. The latter's face did not change color, nor did he shift his position in the slightest manner. And his cold, amused grin disconcerted Dale. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle and drawling:

"Was you thinkin' Miss Bransford is interested in warrants, Dale? Oh, don't! There's an honest judge in Okar, an' he ain't helpin' Maison's gang. Get back to Okar an' tell Maison that Sanderson ain't visitin' Okar today."

"You ain't, eh!" Dale's voice snapped with rage. "Well, we ain't carin' a damn whether you do or not! We've got you, right where we want you. I've got a warrant, an' you'll come peaceable or we'll plant you! There ain't only two horses in the corral—showing that your men has gone. An' there ain't anything between you an' the coyotes!"

"Only you, Dale," said Sanderson. His voice was still gentle, still drawling. But into it had come a note that made Dale's face turn pale and caused the bodies of the men in the group to stiffen.

"Only you, Dale," Sanderson repeated. His right hand was at his hip, resting lightly on the butt of the six-shooter that reposed in its holster.

"I've always wanted to test the idea of whether a crook like you thought more of what he was doin' than he did of his own life. This gun leather of mine is kind of short at the top—if you'll notice. The stock an' the hammer of the gun are where they can be touched without interferin' with the leather. There ain't any trigger spring, because I've been brought up to fan the hammer. There ain't any bottom to the holster, an' it's hung by a little piece of leather so's it'll turn easy in any direction.

"It can easy be turned on you. You get goin'. I'll have a chance to bore one man before your crowd gets me. Likely it will be you. What are you sayin'?"

Dale was saying nothing. His face changed color, he shifted his feet uneasily, and looked back at his men. Some of them were grinning, and it was plain to Dale that not one of them would act unless ordered to do so.

And an order, given by him, would mean suicide, nothing less; for from that country in which Sanderson had gained his reputation had come stories of the man's remarkable ability with the weapon he had described, and Dale had no longing to risk his life so recklessly.

There was a long, tense silence. Not a man in the group of riders moved a finger. All were gazing, with a sort of dread fascination, at the holster at Sanderson's right hip, and at the butt of the gun in it, projecting far, the hammer in plain sight.

The situation could not last. Sanderson did not expect it to last. Seemingly calm and unconcerned, he was in reality passionately alert and watchful.

For he had no hope of escaping from this predicament. He had made a mistake in sending his men away with Williams, and he knew the chances against him were too great. He had known that all along—even when talking and comforting Mary Bransford.

He knew that Dale had come to kill him; that Graney had not issued any warrant for him, for Graney knew that Maison had acted of his own volition—or at least had given the judge that impression.

But whether the warrant was a true one or not, Sanderson had decided that he would not let himself be taken. He had determined that at the first movement made by any man in the group he would kill Dale and take his chance with the others.

Dale knew it—he saw the cold resolution in Sanderson's eyes. Dale drew a deep breath, and the men in the group behind him watched him narrowly.

But just when it seemed that decisive action in one direction or another must he taken, there came an interruption.

Behind Sanderson—from one of the windows of the ranchhouse—came a hoarse curse.

Sanderson saw Dale's eyes dilate; he saw the faces of the men in the group of riders change color; he saw their hands go slowly upward. Dale, too, raised his hands.

Glancing swiftly over his shoulder, Sanderson saw Barney Owen at one of the windows. He was inside the house, his arms were resting on the window-sill. He was kneeling, and in his hands was a rifle, the muzzle covering Dale and the men who had come with him.

Owen's face was chalk white and working with demoniac passion. His eyes were wild, and blazing with a wanton malignancy that awed every man who looked at him—Sanderson included. His teeth were bared in a horrible snarl; the man was like some wild animal—worse, the savage, primitive passions of him were unleashed and rampant, directed by a reasoning intelligence. His voice was hoarse and rasping, coming in jerks:

"Get out of the way, Sanderson! Stand aside! I'll take care of these whelps! Get your hands up, Dale! Higher—higher! You damned, sneaking vulture! Come here to make trouble, eh? You and your bunch of curs! I'll take care of you! Move—one of you! Move a finger! You won't! Then go! Go! I'll count three! The man that isn't going when I finish counting gets his quick! One—two——"

"Wait!! Already on the move, the men halted at the sound of his voice. The violence of the passion that gripped him gave him a new thought.

"You don't go!" he jeered at them. "You stay here. Sanderson, you take their guns! Grab them yourself!"

Sanderson drew his own weapon and moved rapidly among the men. He got Dale's gun first and threw it in the sand at the edge of the porch. Then he disarmed the others, one after another, throwing the weapons near where he had thrown Dale's.

He heard Owen tell Mary Bransford to get them, and he saw Mary gathering them up and taking them into the house.

Sanderson made his search of the men thorough, for he had caught the spirit of the thing. At last, when the guns were all collected, Owen issued another order:

"Now turn your backs—every last man of you! And stay that way! The man that turns his head will never do it again!

"Sanderson, you go after Williams and the others. They've only been gone about an hour, and they won't travel fast. Get them! Bring them back here. Then we'll take the whole bunch over to Okar and see what Judge Graney has to say about that warrant!"

Sanderson looked at Mary Bransford, a huge grin on his face. She smiled stiffly at him in return, and nodded her head.

Seemingly, it was the only way out of a bad predicament. Certainly they could not commit wholesale murder, and it was equally certain that if Dale was permitted to go, he and his men would return. Or they might retire to a distance, surround the house and thus achieve their aim.

Sanderson, however, was not satisfied, for he knew that a sudden, concerted rush by the men—even though they were unarmed—would result disastrously to Owen—and to Mary—if she decided to remain.

Telling the little man to keep a watchful eye on the men, he went among them, ordering those that were mounted from their horses. When they were all standing, he began to uncoil the ropes that were hanging from the saddles.

He worked fast, and looking up once he saw Owen's eyes glowing with approval—while Mary smiled broadly at him. They knew what he meant to do.

Dale and his men knew also, for their faces grew sullen. Sanderson, however, would tolerate no resistance. Rope in hand, he faced Dale. The latter's face grew white with impotent fury as he looked at the rope in Sanderson's hands; but the significant Hardness that flashed into Sanderson's eyes convinced him of the futility of resistance, and he held his hands outward.

Sanderson tied them. Very little of the rope was required in the process, and after Dale was secured, Sanderson threw a loop around the hands of a man who stood beside Dale, linking him with the latter.

Several others followed. Sanderson used half a dozen ropes, and when he had finished, all the Dale men—with their leader on an extreme end, were lashed together.

There were hard words spoken by the men; but they brought only grins to Sanderson's face, to Owen's, and to Mary's.

"They won't bother you a heap, now," declared Sanderson as he stepped toward the porch and spoke to Owen. "Keep an eye on them, though, an' don't let them go to movin' around much."

Sanderson stepped up on the porch and spoke lowly to Mary, asking her to go with him after Williams—for he had had that thought in mind ever since Owen had issued the order for him to ride after the engineer.

But Mary refused, telling Sanderson that by accompanying him she would only hamper him.

Reluctantly, then, though swiftly, Sanderson ran to the corral, threw saddle and bridle on Streak, and returned to the porch. He halted there for a word with Owen and Mary, then raced northeastward, following a faint trail that Williams and the others had taken, which led for a time over the plains, then upward to the mesa which rimmed the basin.



CHAPTER XXVI

A MAN IS HANGED

Sanderson and Streak grew dim in the distance until, to the watchers at the ranchhouse, horse and rider merged into a mere blot that crawled up the long slope leading to the mesa. The watchers saw the blot yet a little longer, as it traveled with swift, regular leaps along the edge of the mesa; then it grew fainter and fainter, and at last they saw it no more.

Dale's men, their backs to Owen and Mary, seemed to have accepted their defeat in a spirit of resignation, for they made no attempt to turn their heads.

Mary, white and shaking, though with a calmness that came from the knowledge that in this crisis she must do what she could, went inside and stood behind Owen, ready to respond to any call he might make upon her.

Owen, his rage somewhat abated, though he still watched Dale and his men with sullen, malevolent eyes, had changed his position. Mary had brought a chair, and Owen sat on it, the rifle still resting on the window-sill, menacing the men.

The minutes, it seemed to the girl, passed with exceeding slowness. She watched the hands of a clock on a shelf in the room drag themselves across the face of the dial, and twice she walked in front of the shelf and peered intently at the clock, to be certain it was going.