CHAPTER XV
DALE PAYS A VISIT
Shortly after midnight Sanderson was sound asleep on the cot in thecell when a strange, scraping noise awakened him. He lay still for along time, listening, until he discovered that the sound came from thewindow. Then he sat up stealthily and looked around to see, framed inthe starlit gloom of the night, the face of Barney Owen, staring inthrough the window at him.
The sight of Owen enraged Sanderson, but his curiosity drove him to thewindow.
The little man was hanging to the iron bars; his neck muscles werestraining, his face was red and his eyes bright.
"Don't talk, now!" he warned. "The boss of the dump is awake and he'llhear. He's in his room; there's nobody else around. I wanted to tellyou that I'm going to knock him silly and get you out of this!"
"Why?" mocked Sanderson, lowly.
Owen's face grew redder. "Oh, I know I've got something coming, butI'm going to get you out all the same. I've got our horses and guns.Be ready!"
He slipped down. Sanderson could hear his feet thud faintly on thesand outside.
Sanderson got into his clothes and stood at the cell door, waiting.For a long time he heard no sound, but presently he caught the clank ofa door, followed by a swift step, and Owen stood in the corridor beforethe cell door, a bunch of keys in his hand.
There was no word spoken. Owen unlocked the door, Sanderson slippedout, Owen passed him the six-shooter he had lost in the barroom of theOkar Hotel, and the two slipped noiselessly down the corridor.
A minute later they were mounting the horses that Owen had brought, andshortly afterward they were moving like shadows away from the outskirtsof Okar.
Not until they were well out in the big basin did either of them speak.And then Sanderson said, shortly:
"Silverthorn was tellin' me you gassed everything. Are you feelin'better over it?"
Owen's head bent over his horse's mane; his chin was on his chest whenhe answered:
"Come and kill me."
"Hell!" exploded Sanderson, disgustedly. "If there was anything comin'to you killin' would be too good for you. You ain't done anything tome, you sufferin' fool--not a thing! What you've done you've done toMary Bransford. When you see Dale an' Silverthorn grabbin' the DoubleA, an' Mary Bransford ridin' away, homeless--you'll have feelin's ofremorse, mebbe--if you've got any man in you at all!"
Owen writhed and groaned.
"It was the whisky--the cursed whisky!" he whispered. "I can't let italone--I love it! And once I get a taste of it, I'm gone---I'm astark, staring lunatic!"
"I'd swear to that," grimly agreed Sanderson.
"I didn't mean to say a word to anybody," wailed the little man. "Doyou think I'd do anything to harm Mary Bransford--after what she didfor me? But I did--I must have done it. Dale said I did, Silverthornsaid I did, and you say I did. But I don't remember. Silverthorn saidI signed a receipt for some money from the Okar bank--three thousand,odd. I don't remember. Oh, but I'm--"
"Calling yourself names won't get you back to where you was before youmade a fool of yourself," Sanderson told him, pityingly. "An' metellin' you what I think of you won't relieve my feelin's a whole lot,for there ain't words enough layin' around loose.
"What I want to know is this: did you go clean loco, or do you rememberanything that happened to you? Do you know who got the money you drewfrom the bank?"
"Dale," answered Owen. "He had that, for I remember him counting it inthe back room of the hotel. There was more, too; I heard him tellingSilverthorn there was about seven thousand in all. Silverthorn wantedhim to put it all back in the bank, but Dale said there was just enoughfor him to meet his pay-roll--that he owed his men a lot of back pay.He took it with him."
"My four thousand," said Sanderson, shortly.
"Yours?" Owen paled.
"Dale lifted my money belt," Sanderson returned. "I was wondering whathe did with it. So that's what."
He relapsed into a grim silence, and Owen did not speak again.
They rode several miles in that fashion--Owen keeping his horseslightly behind Sanderson's, his gaze on the other's face, his ownwhite with remorse and anxiety.
At last he heard Sanderson laugh, and the sound of it made him grit histeeth in impotent agony.
"Sanderson," he said, gulping, "I'm sorry."
"Sure," returned the other. "If I hadn't wised up to that quite aspell ago, you'd be back on the trail, waitin' for some coyote to comealong an' get his supper."
They rode in silence for a long time. They came to the gentle slope ofthe basin and began to climb it.
A dozen times Owen rode close to Sanderson, his lips trembling overunuttered words, but each time he dropped back without speaking. Hiseyes, fixed worshipfully on the back of the big, silent man ahead ofhim, were glowing with anxiety and wonder.
In the ghostly darkness of the time before the gray forerunner of thedawn appears on the horizon they came in sight of the Double Aranchhouse.
Sanderson was still leading. The ranchhouse burst upon his vision ashis horse topped a rise that had obscured his view of the ranchhouse,and he saw it, clearly outlined.
Riding down the slope of the rise he smiled. For there was a light inone of the ranchhouse windows. Mary had left it burn on his account,he divined.
He halted and allowed Owen to come near him.
"Mary ain't to hear about this deal tonight," he told the little man."Not a peep--understand?"
Without waiting for an answer he rode onward.
Thinking that, perhaps, in spite of the burning lamp Mary might besleeping, Sanderson cautiously dismounted at the corral gates, and,leaving Owen to put his own horse away, he walked toward the house,stealthily, for he did not wish to awaken the girl.
Halfway across the ranchhouse yard, Sanderson saw a shadow cross thelight in the window. Again he grinned, thinking Mary had not gone tobed after all.
But, going forward more unconcernedly, Sanderson's smile faded and wassucceeded by a savage frown. For in the shadow formed by the little"L" at the junction of the house and porch, he saw a horse saddled andbridled.
Suddenly alert, and yielding to the savage rage that gripped him,Sanderson stole softly forward and looked closely at the animal. Herecognized it instantly as Dale's, and in the instant, his face pale,his eyes blazing with passion, he was on the porch, peering through oneof the darkened windows.
Inside he saw Dale and Mary Bransford. They were in the sitting-room.Dale was sitting in a big chair, smoking a cigar, one arm carelesslythrown over the back of the chair, his legs crossed, his attitude thatof the master.
Standing perhaps a dozen feet from him was Mary Bransford.
The girl's eyes were wide with fright and astonishment, disbelief,incredulity--and several other emotions that Sanderson could notanalyze. He did not try. One look at her sufficed to tell him thatDale was baiting her, tantalizing her, mocking her, and Sanderson'shatred for the man grew in intensity until it threatened to overwhelmhim.
There was in his mind an impulse to burst into the house and kill Dalewhere he sat. It was the primitive lust to destroy an unprincipledrival that had seized Sanderson, for he saw in Dale's eyes the boldpassion of the woman hunter.
However, Sanderson conquered the impulse. He fought it with themarvelous self-control and implacable determination that had made himfeared and respected wherever men knew him, and in the end the faint,stiff grin on his face indicated that whatever he did would be donewith deliberation.
This was an instance where the eavesdropper had some justification forhis work, and Sanderson listened.
He heard Dale laugh--the sound of it made Sanderson's lips twitchqueerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over herbreast. Dale's voice carried clearly to Sanderson.
"Ha, ha!" he said. "So _that_ hurts, eh? Well, here's more of thesame kind. We got Barney Owen drunk last sight, and he admitted thathe'd signed all of Sanderson's papers--the papers that were suppo
sed tohave been signed by your brother. Why didn't Sanderson sign them?Why? Because Sanderson couldn't do it.
"Owen, who knew your brother in Arizona, signed them, because he knewhow to imitate your brother's writing. Get that! Owen signed a bankreceipt for the money old Bransford had in the bank. Owen got it andgave it to me. He was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing, buthe could imitate your brother's writing, all right."
"You've got the money?" gasped the girl.
Again Dale laughed, mockingly. "Yep," he said, "I've got it. Threethousand two hundred. And I've got four thousand that belongs to thatfour-flusher, Square Deal. Seven thousand." He laughed again.
"Where is Sanderson?" questioned the girl.
"In jail, over in Okar." Dale paused long enough to enjoy the girl'sdistress. Then he continued: "Owen is in jail, too, by this time.Silverthorn and Maison are not taking any chances on letting him goaround loose."
"Sanderson in jail!" gasped Mary. She seemed to droop; she staggeredto a chair and sank into it, still looking at Dale, despair in her eyes.
Dale got up and walked to a point directly in front of her, lookingdown at her, triumphantly.
"That's what," he said. "In jail. Moreover, that's where they'll stayuntil this thing is settled. We mean to have the Double A. The sooneryou realize that, the easier it will be for you.
"I'm offering you a way out of it--an easy way. That guy, Sanderson,ain't on the level. He's been working you, making a monkey ofyou--fooling you. He wants the Double A for himself. He's beenhanging around here, passing himself off as your brother, aiming to geton the good side of you--getting you to love him good and hard. Thenmebbe he'd tell you, thinking that you'd forgive him. But mebbe thatwasn't his game at all. Mebbe he'd figured to grab the ranch and turnyou out.
"Now, I'm offering you a whole lot. Mebbe you've thought I was sweeton that Nyland girl. Get that out of your mind. I was only foolingwith her--like any man fools with a girl. I want her ranch--that'sall. But I don't care a damn about the Double A, I want you. I've hadmy eye on you right along. Mebbe it won't be marriage right away,but----"
"Alva Dale!"
The girl was on her feet, her eyes blazing.
Dale did not retreat from her; he stood smiling at her, his facewreathed in a huge grin. He was enjoying the girl.
Sanderson slipped along the wall of the house and opened the door. Itcreaked loudly on its hinges with the movement, causing both Dale andthe girl to turn and face it.
Mary Bransford stood rigid as she saw Sanderson standing in thedoorway, a flush sweeping swiftly over her face. There was relief inher eyes.
Astonishment and stark, naked fear were in Dale's eyes. He shrank backa step, and looked swiftly at Sanderson's right hand, and when he sawthat it held a six-shooter he raised both his own hands, shoulder-high,the palms toward Sanderson.
"So you know it means shootin', eh?" said Sanderson grimly as hestepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, slamming itshut with his left hand.
"Well, shootin' goes." There was the cold calm of decision in hismanner; his eyes were ablaze with the accumulated hate and rage thathad been aroused over what he had heard. The grin that he showed toDale drew his lips into two straight, stiff lines.
"I reckon you think you've earned your red shirt, Dale," he said, "fortellin' tales out of school. Well, you'll get it. There's just onething will save your miserable hide. You got that seven thousand onyou?"
Dale hesitated, then nodded.
Sanderson spoke to Mary Bransford without removing his gaze from Dale:
"Get pen, ink, an' paper."
The girl moved quickly into another room, returning almost instantlywith the articles requested.
"Sit down an' write what I tell you to," directed Sanderson.
Dale dropped into a chair beside a center-table, took up the pen,poised it over the paper, and looked at Sanderson.
"I am hereby returning to Deal Sanderson the seven thousand two hundreddollars I stole from, him," directed Sanderson. "I am doing this of myown accord--no one is forcin' me," went on Sanderson. "I want to addthat I hereby swear that the charge of drawin' a gun on Silverthorn wasa frame-up, me an' Silverthorn an' Maison bein' the guilty parties,"finished Sanderson.
"Now," he added, when Dale had written as directed, "sign it."
Dale signed and stood up, his face aflame with rage.
"I'll take the money--now," said Sanderson.
Dale produced it from various pockets, laying it on the table. He saidnothing. Mary Bransford stood a little distance away, watchingsilently.
"Count it, Miss Bransford," said Sanderson when Dale had disgorged themoney.
The two men stood silent as the girl fingered the bills. At last shelooked at Sanderson and nodded.
The latter grinned. "Everything's regular, now," he said. He lookedat Mary. "Do you want him killed, ma'am? He'd be a lot better offdead. You'd be better off, too. This kind of a skunk is alwaysaround, botherin' women--when there ain't no men around."
Mary shook her head with a decisive negative.
"Then he won't die, right now," said Sanderson. "He'll pull hisfreight away from the Double A, though, ma 'am. An' he'll never comeback."
He was talking to Dale through the girl, and Dale watched him, scowling.
"If he does come back, you'll tell me, won't you, ma'am? An' thenthere'll never be an Alva Dale to bother you again--or to go aroundrobbin' honest men, an' tryin' to get them mixed up with the law."
And now he turned from the girl and spoke to Dale:
"You go right back to Okar an' tell Maison an' Silverthorn what hashappened here tonight. Show them how the fear of God has got into yourheart an' made you yearn to practice the principles of a square deal.Tell them that they'd better get to goin' straight, too, for if theydon't there's a guy which was named after a square deal that is goin'to snuff them off this hemisphere middlin' rapid. That's all. You'dbetter hit the breeze right back to Okar an' spread the good news."
He stood, a grim smile on his face, watching Dale as the latter walkedto the door. When Dale stepped out on the porch Sanderson followedhim, still regarding the movements of the other coldly and alertly.
Mary heard them--their steps on the boards of the porch; she heard thesaddle leather creak as Dale climbed on his horse; she heard the soundof the hoofbeats as the horse clattered out of the ranchhouse yard.
And then for several minutes she stood near the little table in theroom, listening vainly for some sound that would tell her of thepresence of Sanderson on the porch. None came.
At last, when she began to feel certain that he had gone to thebunkhouse, she heard a step on the porch and saw Sanderson standing inthe doorway.
He grinned at her, meeting her gaze fairly.
"Dale told you a heap of truth, ma'am," he said. "I feel more like aman tonight than I've felt for a good many days--an' nights."
"Then it was true--as Dale said--that you are not my brother?" said thegirl. She was trying to make her voice sound severe, but onlysucceeded in making it quaver.
"I ain't your brother."
"And you came here to try to take the ranch away from me--to steal it?"
He flushed. "You've got four thousand of my money there, ma'am.You're to keep it. Mebbe that will help to show what my intentionswere. About the rest--your brother an' all--I'll have to tell you.It's a thing you ought to know, an' I don't know what's been keepin' mefrom tellin' you all along.
"Mebbe it was because I was scared you'd take it hard. But since thesesneaks have got to waggin' their tongues it'll have to be told. If yousit down by the table there, I'll tell you why I done what I did."
She took a chair beside the table and faced him, and, standing beforeher, speaking very gently, but frankly, he related what had occurred tohim in the desert. She took it calmly, though there were times whenher eyes glowed with a light that told of deep emotion. But she soonbecame resigned to the
death of her brother and was able to listen toSanderson's story of his motive in deceiving her.
When he related his emotion during their first meeting--when he hadtold Dale that he was her brother, after yielding to the appeal in hereyes--she smiled.
"There was some excuse for it, after all," she declared.
"An' you ain't blamin' me--so much?" he asked.
"No," she said. She blushed as she thought of the times she had kissedhim. He was thinking of her kisses, too, and as their eyes met, eachknew what the other was thinking about. Sanderson smiled at her andher eyes dropped.
"It wasn't a square deal for me to take them, then, ma'am," he toldher. "But I'm goin' to stay around here an' fight Dale an' his friendsto a finish. That is, if you want me to stay. I'd like a straightanswer. I ain't hangin' around where I ain't wanted."
Her eyes glowed as she looked at him.
"You'll have to stay, now," she said. "Will is dead, and you will haveto stay here and brazen it out. They'd take the Double A from mesurely, if you were to desert me. You will have to stay and insistthat you are my brother!"
"That's a contract," he agreed. "But"--he looked at her, a flush onhis face--"goin' back to them kisses. It wasn't a square deal. ButI'm hopin' that a day will come----"
She got up, her face very red. "It is nearly morning," she interrupted.
"Yes," he smiled; "things are only beginnin'."
"You are impudent--and imprudent," she said, looking straight at him.
"An' hopeful," he answered, meeting her eyes.
Fifteen minutes later, stretched out on his bed, Sanderson saw the dawnbreaking in the east. It reminded him of the morning he had seen thetwo riders above him on the edge of the arroyo. As on that othermorning, he lay and watched the coming of the dawn. And when later heheard Mary moving about in the kitchen he got up, not having slept awink, and went out to her.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked.
"How could I," he asked, "with a new day dawnin' for me?"