The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  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 dow
n 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.