CHAPTER III
"SQUARE" DEAL SANDERSON
Three days later, still traveling northeastward, Sanderson felt he mustbe close to the Double A. Various signs and conclusions wereconvincing.
In the first place, he had been a week on the trail, and estimating hispace conservatively, that time should bring him within easy ridingdistance of the place he had set out to seek. There were so many milesto be covered in so many days, and Streak was a prince of steadytravelers.
Besides, yesterday at dusk, Sanderson had passed through Las Vegas.Careful inquiry in the latter town had brought forth the intelligencethat the Double A was a hundred and seventy-five miles northeastward.
"Country's short of cow-hands," said Sanderson's informer. "If you'reneedin' work, an' forty a month looks good to you, why, I'd admire totake you on. I'm German, of the Flyin' U, down the Cimarron a piece."
"Me an' work has disagreed," grinned Sanderson; and he rode on,meditating humorously over the lie.
Work and Sanderson had never disagreed. Indeed, Sanderson had alwaysbeen convinced that work and he had agreed too well in the past.Except for the few brief holidays that are the inevitable portion ofthe average puncher who is human enough to yearn for the relaxation ofa trip to "town" once or twice a year, Sanderson and work had beeninseparable for half a dozen years.
Sanderson's application had earned him the reputation of being"reliable" and "trustworthy"--two terms that, in the lexicon of thecow-country, were descriptive of virtues not at all common. InSanderson's case they were deserved--more, to them might have beenadded another, "straight."
Sanderson's trip northeastward had resulted partly from a desire toescape the monotony of old scenes and familiar faces; and partlybecause one day while in "town" he had listened attentively to a desertnomad, or "drifter," who had told a tale of a country where water wasto be the magic which would open the gates of fortune to the eager andserious-minded.
"That country's goin' to blossom!" declared the Drifter. "An' the guywhich gets in on the ground floor is goin' to make a clean-up! They'sa range there--the Double A--which is right in the middle of things. Aguy named Bransford owns her--an' Bransford's on his last legs. He'sdue to pass out _pronto_, or I'm a gopher! He's got a daughterthere--Mary--which is a pippin, an' no mistake! But she's sure got ajob on her hands, if the ol' man croaks.
"They's a boy, somewheres, which ain't no good I've heard, an' if thegirl hangs on she's due for an uphill climb. She'll have a fight onher hands too, with Alva Dale--a big rough devil of a man with a greedyeye on the whole country--an' the girl, too, I reckon--if my eyes isany good. I've seen him look at her--oh, man! If she was any relationto me I'd climb Dale's frame sure as shootin'!"
There had been more--the Drifter told a complete story. And Sandersonhad assimilated it without letting the other know he had been affected.
Nor had he mentioned to Burroughs--his employer--a word concerning thereal reason for his desire to make a change. Not until he had writtento Bransford, and received a reply, did he acquaint Burroughs with hisdecision to leave. As a matter of fact, Sanderson had delayed hisleave-taking for more than a month after receiving Bransford's letter,being reluctant, now that his opportunity had come, to sever thoserelations that, he now realized, had been decidedly pleasant.
"I'm sure next to what's eatin' you," Burroughs told him on the daySanderson asked for his "time." "You're yearnin' for a change. It's athing that gets hold of a man's soul--if he's got one. They ain't nofightin' it. I'm sure appreciatin' what you've done for me, an' if youdecide to come back any time, you'll find me a-welcomin' you with openarms, as the sayin' is. You've got a bunch of coin comin'--threethousand. I'm addin' a thousand to that--makin' her good measure.That'll help you to start something."
Sanderson started northeastward without any illusions. A product ofthe Far Southwest, where the ability to live depended upon thosenatural, protective instincts and impulses which civilization frownsupon, Sanderson was grimly confident of his accomplishments--which wereto draw a gun as quickly as any other man had ever drawn one, to shootas fast and as accurately as the next man--or a little faster and moreaccurately; to be alert and self-contained, to talk as little aspossible; to listen well, and to deal fairly with his fellow-men.
That philosophy had served Sanderson well. It had made him feared andrespected throughout Arizona; it had earned him the sobriquet"Square"--a title which he valued.
Sanderson could not have told, however, just what motive had impelledhim to decide to go to the Double A. No doubt the Drifter's storyregarding the trouble that was soon to assail Mary Bransford had hadits effect, but he preferred to think he had merely grown tired of lifeat the Pig-Pen--Burrough's ranch--and that the Drifter's story, comingat the instant when the yearning for a change had seized upon him, haddecided him.
He had persisted in that thought until after the finding of the lettersin William Bransford's pockets; and then, staring down at the man'sface, he had realized that he had been deluding himself, and, that hewas journeying northeastward merely because he was curious to see thegirl whom the Drifter had so vividly described.
Away back in his mind, too, there might have been a chivalrous desireto help her in the fight that was to come with Alva Dale. He had felthis blood surge hotly at the prospect of a fight, with Mary Bransfordas the storm center; a passion to defend her had got into his soul; anda hatred for Alva Dale had gripped him.
Whatever the motive, he had come, and since he had looked down intoWilliam Bransford's face, he had become conscious of a mightysatisfaction. The two men who had trailed Bransford had beencold-blooded murderers, and he had avenged Bransford completely. Thatcould not have happened if he had not yielded to the impulse to go tothe Double A.
He was glad he had decided to go. He was now the bearer of ill news,but he was convinced that the girl would want to know about herbrother--and he must tell her. And now, too, he was convinced that hisjourney to the Double A had been previously arranged--by Fate, orwhatever Providence controls the destinies of humans.
And that conviction helped him to fight down the sense of guiltyembarrassment that had afflicted him until now--the knowledge that hewas deliberately and unwarrantedly going to the Double A to interfere,to throw himself into a fight with persons with whom he had no previousacquaintance, for no other reason than that his chivalrous instinctshad prompted him.
And yet his thoughts were not entirely serious as he rode. Thesituation had its humorous side.
"Mostly nothin' turns out as folks figure in the beginnin'," he toldhimself. "Otherwise everything would be cut an' dried, an' therewouldn't be a heap of fun in the world--for butters-in. An' folkswhich scheme an' plot, tryin' to get things that belong to other folks,would have it too easy. There's got to be folks that wander around,nosin' into places that they shouldn't. Eh, Streak?"
Streak did not answer, and Sanderson rode on, smiling gravely.
He made a dry camp that night in a sea of mesquite at the edge of asand plain, although, he knew he could not now be far from the Double Arange. And in the early light of the morning he found his judgmentvindicated, for stretching before him, still in a northeasterlydirection, he saw a great, green-brown level sweeping away from hisfeet and melting into some rimming mountains--a vast, natural basin ofgigantic proportions.
Sanderson was almost at the end of his journey, it was early morning,and he was in no hurry. He leisurely prepared his breakfast, sittingon a flat rock as he ate, and scanning the basin.
Mere bigness had never impressed Sanderson; the West had shown himgreater vistas than this mammoth basin. And yet his eyes glowed as helooked out and down at the country that lay, slumbering in the purewhite light of the dawn.
He saw, dotting the floor of the basin, the roofs of houses. From hisheight they seemed to be close together, but Sanderson was not misled,and he knew that they were separated by miles of virgin soil--ofsagebrush and yucca, and soapweed and other desert weeds
that needednot the magic of water to make them live.
When Sanderson finally mounted Streak, the sun was up. It took Streaktwo hours to descend the slope leading down into the basin, and whenonce horse and rider were down, Sanderson dismounted and pattedStreak's moist flanks.
"Some drop, eh, Streak?" he said. "But it didn't fool us none. Weknowed it was some distance, didn't we? An' they ain't foolin' usabout the rest of it, are they? The Drifter said to head toward theBig Peak. The Double A would be right near there--in the foothills.Looks easy, don't it? But I reckon we'll have to hump ourselves to getthere by feedin' time, this noon, eh?"
A little later, Streak having rested, Sanderson mounted and rodeforward, toward the peak of a majestic mountain that loomed far abovethem.