“Hands up!”
And at the sound of the other’s voice the newcomer cried out in astonishment:
“Ben Nyland! What in hell are you doin’ here?”
“Lookin’ for Dale,” said the other, hoarsely. “Thought you was him, an’ come pretty near borin’ you. What saved you was a notion I had of wantin’ Dale to know what I was killin’ him for! Pretty close, Deal!”
“Why do you want to kill him?”
“For what he done to Peggy—damn him! He sneaked into the house an’ hurt her head, draggin’ her to Okar—to Maison’s. I’ve killed Maison, an’ I’ll kill him!”
“He ain’t here, then—Dale ain’t?” demanded Sanderson.
“They ain’t nobody here,” gruffly announced Nyland. “They’ve been here, an’ gone. Dale, most likely. The house looks like a twister had struck it!”
Sanderson was inside before Nyland ceased speaking. He found the lamp, lit it, and looked around the interior, noting the partially destroyed lounge and the other wrecked furniture, strewn around the rooms. He went out again and met Nyland on the porch.
One look at Sanderson told Nyland what was in the latter’s mind, and he said:
“He’s at the Bar D, most likely. We’ll get him!”
“I ain’t takin’ no chance of missin’ him,” Sanderson shot back at Nyland as they mounted their horses; “you fan it to Okar an’ I’ll head for his shack!”
Nyland’s agreement to this plan was manifested by his actions. He said nothing, but rode beside Sanderson for a mile or so, then he veered off and rode at an angle which would take him to the neck of the basin, while Sanderson, turning slightly northward, headed Streak for Dale’s ranch.
Halfway between the Double A and the neck of the basin, Nyland came upon the sheriff and his posse. The posse halted Nyland, thinking he might be Dale, but upon discovering the error allowed the man to proceed—after he had told them that Sanderson was safe and was riding toward the Bar D. Sanderson, Nyland said, was after Dale. He did not say that he, too, wanted to see Dale.
“Dale!” mocked the sheriff, “Barney Owen hung him!”
“Dale’s alive, an’ in Okar—or somewhere!” Nyland flung back at them as he raced toward town.
“I reckon we might as well go back,” said the sheriff to his men. “The clean-up has took place, an’ it’s all over—or Sanderson wouldn’t be back. We’ll go back to Okar an’ have a talk with Silverthorn. An’ mebbe, if Dale’s around, we’ll run into him.”
The posse, led by the sheriff, returned to Okar. Within five minutes after his arrival in town the sheriff was confronting Silverthorn in the latter’s office in the railroad station. The posse waited.
“It comes to this, Silverthorn,” said the sheriff. “We ain’t got any evidence that you had a hand in killing those men at Devil’s Hole. But there ain’t a man—an honest man—in town that ain’t convinced that you did have a hand in it. What I want to say to you is this:
“Sanderson and Nyland are running maverick around the country tonight. Nyland has killed Maison and is hunting for Dale. Sanderson and his men have cleaned up the bunch of guys that went out this morning to wipe Sanderson out. And Sanderson is looking for Dale. And after he gets Dale he’ll come for you, for he’s seeing red, for sure.
“I ain’t interfering. This is one of the times when the law don’t see anything—and don’t want to see anything. I won’t touch Nyland for killing Maison, and I won’t lay a finger on Sanderson if he shoots the gizzard out of you. There’s a train out of here in fifteen minutes. I give you your chance—take the train or take your chance with Sanderson!”
“I’ll take the train,” declared Silverthorn.
Fifteen minutes later, white and scared, he was sitting in a coach, cringing far back into one of the seats, cursing, for it seemed to him that the train would never start.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A MAN GETS A SQUARE DEAL
Dale did not miss Ben Nyland by more than a few hundred yards as he passed through the neck of the basin. But the men could not see each other in the black shadows cast by the somber mountains that guarded the entrance to the basin, and so they sped on, one headed away from Okar and one toward it, each man nursing his bitter thoughts; one intent on killing and the other riding to escape the death that, he felt, was imminent.
Dale reached the Bar D and pulled the saddle and bridle from his horse. He caught up a fresh animal, threw saddle and bridle on him, and then ran into the house to get some things that he thought might be valuable to him.
He came out again, and nervously paused on the threshold of the door to listen.
A sound reached his ears—the heavy drumming of a horse’s hoofs on the hard sand in the vicinity of the ranchhouse; and Dale gulped down his fear as he ran to his horse, threw himself into the saddle and raced around a corner of the house.
He had hardly vanished into the gloom of the night when another rider burst into view.
The second rider was Sanderson. He did not halt Streak at the door of the Bar D ranchhouse, for from a distance he had seen a man throw himself upon a horse and dash away, and he knew of no man in the basin, except Dale, who would find it necessary to run from his home in that fashion.
So he kept Streak in the dead run he had been in when approaching the house, and when he reached the corner around which Dale had vanished, he saw his man, two or three hundred yards ahead, flashing across a level toward the far side of the big basin.
He knew that Dale thought his pursuer was Nyland, and that thought gave Sanderson a grim joy. In Sanderson’s mind was a picture of Dale’s face—of the stark, naked astonishment that would be on it when he discovered that it was Sanderson and not Nyland who had caught him.
For Sanderson would catch him—he was convinced of that.
The conviction became strengthened when, after half an hour’s run, Streak had pulled up on Dale. Sanderson could see that Dale’s horse was running erratically; that it faltered on the slight rises that they came to now and then. And when Sanderson discovered that Dale’s horse was failing, he urged Streak to a faster pace. In an hour the space between the two riders had become less. They were climbing the long, gradual slope that led upward out of the basin when Dale’s horse stumbled and fell, throwing Dale out of the saddle.
There was something horribly final in the manner of Dale’s falling, for he tumbled heavily and lay perfectly quiet afterward. His horse, after rising, stumbled on a few steps and fell again.
Sanderson, fully alive to the danger of haste, rode slowly toward the fallen man. He was taking no chances, for Dale might be shamming in an effort to shoot Sanderson as he came forward.
But Dale was not shamming. Dismounting and drawing his pistol, Sanderson went forward. Dale did not move, and when at last Sanderson stood over the fallen man he saw that his eyes were closed and that a great gash had been cut in his forehead near the right temple.
Sanderson saw that the man was badly hurt, but to make sure of him he drew Dale’s pistol from its sheath and searched his clothing for other weapons—finding another pistol in a pocket, and a knife in a belt. These he threw into some brush near by, and then he bent over the man.
Dale was unconscious, and despite all Sanderson could do, he remained so.
Sanderson examined the wound in his temple, and discovered that it was deep and ragged—such a wound as a jagged stone might make.
It was midnight when Sanderson ceased his efforts and decided that Dale would die. He pitied the man, but he felt no pang of regret, for Dale had brought his death upon himself. Sanderson wondered, standing there, looking down at Dale, whether he would have killed the man. He decided that he would have killed him.
“But that ain’t no reason why I should let him die after he’s had an accident,” he told himself. “I’ll get him to Okar—to the doctor. Then, after the doc patches him up—if he can—an’ I still think he needs killing I’ll do it.”
So he brought Dale’s horse near.
The animal had had a long rest, and had regained his strength.
Sanderson bent to Dale and lifted his shoulders, so that he might get an arm under him, to carry him to his horse. But at the first movement Dale groaned and opened his eyes, looking directly into Sanderson’s.
“Don’t!” he said, “for God’s sake, don’t! You’ll break me apart! It’s my back—it’s broke. I’ve felt you workin’ around me for hours. But it won’t do any good—I’m done. I can feel myself goin’.”
Sanderson laid him down again and knelt beside him.
“You’re Sanderson,” said Dale, after a time. “I thought it was Nyland chasin’ me for a while. Then I heard you talkin’ to your horse an’ I knew it was you. Why don’t you kill me?”
“I reckon the Lord is doin’ that,” said Sanderson.
“Yes—He is. Well, the Lord ain’t ever done anything for me.”
He was silent for a moment. Then:
“I want to tell you somethin’, Sanderson. I’ve tried to hate you, but I ain’t never succeeded. I’ve admired you. I’ve cussed myself for doin’ it, but I couldn’t help it. An’ because I couldn’t hate you, I tried my best to do things that would make you hate me.
“I’ve deviled Mary Bransford because I thought it would stir you up. I don’t care anything for her—it’s Peggy Nyland that I like. Mebbe I’d have done the square thing to her—if I’d been let alone—an’ if she’d have liked me. Peggy’s better, ain’t she? When I saw her after—after I saw Maison layin’ there, choked to—”
“So you saw Maison—dead, you say?”
“Ben Nyland guzzled him,” Dale’s lips wreathed in a cynical smile. “Ben thought Maison had brought Peggy to his rooms. You knowed Maison was dead?”
Sanderson nodded.
“Then you must have been to Okar.” He groaned. “Where’s Ben Nyland?”
“In Okar. He’s lookin’ for you.” Sanderson leaned closer to the man and spoke sharply to him. “Look here, Dale; you were at the Double A. What has become of Mary Bransford?”
“She went away with Barney Owen—to Okar. Nobody hurt her,” he said, as he saw Sanderson’s eyes glow. “She’s all right—she’s with her brother.”
He saw Sanderson’s eyes; they were filled with an expression of incredulity; and a late moon, just showing its rim above the edge of the mesa above them, flooded the slope with a brilliancy that made it possible for Dale to see another expression in Sanderson’s eyes—an expression which told him that Sanderson thought his mind was wandering.
He laughed, weakly.
“You think I’m loco, eh? Well, I ain’t. Barney Owen ain’t Barney Owen at all—he’s Will Bransford. I found that out yesterday,” he continued, soberly, as Sanderson looked quickly at him. “I had some men down to Tombstone way, lookin’ him up.
“When old Bransford showed me the letter that you took away from me, I knew Will Bransford was in Tombstone; an’ when Mary sent that thousand to him I set a friend of mine—Gary Miller—onto him. Gary an’ two of his friends salivated young Bransford, but he turned up, later, minus the money, in Tombstone. Another friend of mine sent me word—an’ a description of him. Barney Owen is Bransford.
“Just what happened to Gary Miller an’ his two friends has bothered me a heap,” went on Dale.
“They was to come this way, to help me in this deal. But they never showed up.”
Sanderson smiled, and Dale’s eyes gleamed.
“You know what’s become of him!” he charged. “That’s where you got that thousand you give to Mary Bransford—an’ the papers, showin’ that young Bransford was due here. Ain’t it?”
“I ain’t sayin’,” said Sanderson.
“Well,” declared Dale, “Barney Owen is Will Bransford. The night Morley got him drunk we went the limit with Owen, an’ he talked enough to make me suspicious. That’s why I sent to Tombstone to find out how he looked. We had the evidence to show the court at Las Vegas. We was goin’ to prove you wasn’t young Bransford, an’ then we was goin’ to put Owen out of the—”
Dale gasped, caught his breath, and stiffened.
Sanderson stayed with him until the dawn, sitting, quietly beside him until the end. Then Sanderson got up, threw the body on Dale’s horse, mounted his own, and set out across the basin toward Okar.
CHAPTER XXXV
A DEAL IN LOVE
A few days later Mary Bransford, Sanderson, and Barney Owen were sitting on the porch of the Double A ranchhouse, near where they had sat on the day Mary and Owen and the Dale men had seen Sanderson riding along the edge of the mesa in his pursuit of Williams and the others.
Mary and Sanderson were sitting rather close together at one end of the porch; Barney Owen was sitting near them, on the porch edge, his elbows resting on his knees.
There had been a silence between the three for some time, but at last Sanderson broke it. He smiled at Mary.
“We’ll build that dam—an’ the irrigation plant now, mebbe,” he said. “But it’s goin’ to be a big job. Williams says it will take a year, or more.”
“There will be difficulties, too, I suppose,” said Mary.
“Sure.”
“But difficulties do not worry you,” she went on, giving him a glowing look.
He blushed. “We promised each other not to refer to that again,” he protested. “You are breaking your promise.”
“I just can’t help it!” she declared. “I feel so good over your victory. Why, it really wasn’t your affair at all, and yet you came here, fought our fight for us; and then, when it is all over, you wish us to say nothing about it! That isn’t fair!”
He grinned. “Was you fair?” he charged.
“You told me the other day that you knew, the day after I ordered Dale away from the Double A—after tellin’ you that I wasn’t what I claimed to be—that Barney Owen wasn’t Barney Owen at all, but your brother.
“An’ you let me go on, not tellin’ me. An’ he didn’t do a heap of talkin’. I ain’t mentioned it until now, but I’ve wondered why? Barney knew from the first day that I wasn’t what I pretended to be. Why didn’t you tell me, Barney?”
Mary was blushing, and Barney’s face was red. His eyes met Mary’s and both pairs were lowered, guiltily.
Barney turned to Sanderson.
“Look at me!” he said. “Do I look like a man who could fight Dale, Silverthorn, and Maison—and the gang they had—with any hope of victory? When I got here—after escaping Gary Miller and the others—I was all in—sick and weak. It didn’t take me long to see how things were. But I knew I couldn’t do anything.
“I was waiting, though, for Gary Miller and his friends to come, to claim the Double A. I would have killed them. But they didn’t come. You came.
“At first I was not sure what to think of you. But I saw sympathy in your eyes when you looked at Mary, and when you told Dale that you were Will Bransford, I decided to keep silent. You looked capable, and when I saw that you were willing to fight for Mary, why—why—I just let you go. I—I was afraid that if I’d tell you who I was you’d throw up the whole deal. And so I didn’t say anything.”
Sanderson grinned. “That’s the reason you was so willin’ to sign all the papers that wanted Will Bransford’s signature. I sure was a boxhead for not tumblin’ to that.”
He laughed, meeting Mary’s gaze and holding it.
“Talkin’ of throwin’ up the deal,” he said. “That couldn’t be. Dale an’ Silverthorn an’ Maison an’ their gang of cutthroats couldn’t make me give it up. There’s only one person could make me do that. She’d only have to say that she don’t think as much of me as I think she ought to. And, then—”
“She’ll keep pretty silent about that, I think,” interrupted Owen, grinning at the girl’s crimson face.
“I wouldn’t be takin’ your word for it,” grinned Sanderson, “it wouldn’t be reliable.”
“Why—” began Mary, and looked at Owen.
“Sure,” he laughed, “I
’ll go and take a walk. There are times when three can’t explain a thing as well as two.”
There was a silence following Owen’s departure.
Then Mary looked shyly at Sanderson, who was watching her with a smile.
“Does it need any explaining?” she began. “Can’t you see that—”
“Shucks, little girl,” he said gently, as he leaned toward her, “words ain’t—well, words ain’t so awful important, are they?”
Apparently words were not important. For within the next few minutes there were few spoken. And progress was made without them. And then:
“I believe I never was so happy as when I saw you, that morning, coming in to Okar with Dale’s body, and you said you had not killed him. And if Barney—Will, had killed him that day—if he had really hanged him, and Dale had died from it—I should have kept seeing Dale as he was hanging there all my life.”
“It was Dale’s day,” said Sanderson.
“And Okar’s!” declared the girl. “The town has taken on a new spirit since those men have left. And the whole basin has changed. Men are more interested and eager. There is an atmosphere of fellowship that was absent before. And, oh, Deal, how happy I am!”
“You ain’t got anything on me!” grinned Sanderson.
And presently, looking toward the rim of the mesa, they saw Williams and his men coming toward them from Lazette, with many wagons, loaded with supplies and material for the new dam, forecasting a new day and a new prosperity for the Double A—and themselves.
“That’s for a new deal,” said Sanderson, watching the wagons and men.
“Wrong,” she laughed, happily, “it is all for a ‘Square’ Deal!”
“All?” he returned, grinning at her.
“All,” she repeated, snuggling close to him.
THE RANCHMAN
Originally published in 1919.
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING DAWES
The air in the Pullman was hot and, despite the mechanical contrivances built into the coach to prevent such a contingency, the dust from the right-of-way persisted in filtering through crevices.
Even the electric fans futilely combated the heat; their droning hum bespoke terrific revolutions which did not materially lessen the discomfort of the occupants of the coach; and the dry, dead dust of the desert, the glare of a white-hot sun, the continuing panorama of waste land, rolling past the car windows, afforded not one cool vista to assuage the torture of travel.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 21
