Halfway across the ranchhouse yard, Sanderson saw a shadow cross the light in the window. Again he grinned, thinking Mary had not gone to bed after all.

But, going forward more unconcernedly, Sanderson's smile faded and was succeeded 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 and bridled.

Suddenly alert, and yielding to the savage rage that gripped him, Sanderson stole softly forward and looked closely at the animal. He recognized it instantly as Dale's, and in the instant, his face pale, his eyes blazing with pa.s.sion, he was on the porch, peering through one of 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 carelessly thrown over the back of the chair, his legs crossed, his att.i.tude that of 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 not a.n.a.lyze. He did not try. One look at her sufficed to tell him that Dale was baiting her, tantalizing her, mocking her, and Sanderson's hatred for the man grew in intensity until it threatened to overwhelm him.

There was in his mind an impulse to burst into the house and kill Dale where he sat. It was the primitive l.u.s.t to destroy an unprincipled rival that had seized Sanderson, for he saw in Dale's eyes the bold pa.s.sion of the woman hunter.

However, Sanderson conquered the impulse. He fought it with the marvelous self-control and implacable determination that had made him feared and respected wherever men knew him, and in the end the faint, stiff grin on his face indicated that whatever he did would be done with deliberation.

This was an instance where the eavesdropper had some justification for his work, and Sanderson listened.

He heard Dale laugh--the sound of it made Sanderson's lips twitch queerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over her breast. Dale's voice carried clearly to Sanderson.

"Ha, ha!" he said. "So _that_ hurts, eh? Well, here's more of the same kind. We got Barney Owen drunk last sight, and he admitted that he'd signed all of Sanderson's papers--the papers that were supposed to have 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 knew how to imitate your brother's writing. Get that! Owen signed a bank receipt for the money old Bransford had in the bank. Owen got it and gave it to me. He was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing, but he 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. Three thousand two hundred. And I've got four thousand that belongs to that four-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's distress. Then he continued: "Owen is in jail, too, by this time.

Silverthorn and Maison are not taking any chances on letting him go around loose."

"Sanderson in jail!" gasped Mary. She seemed to droop; she staggered to 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, looking down at her, triumphantly.

"That's what," he said. "In jail. Moreover, that's where they'll stay until this thing is settled. We mean to have the Double A. The sooner you 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 of you--fooling you. He wants the Double A for himself. He's been hanging around here, pa.s.sing himself off as your brother, aiming to get on the good side of you--getting you to love him good and hard. Then mebbe he'd tell you, thinking that you'd forgive him. But mebbe that wasn't his game at all. Mebbe he'd figured to grab the ranch and turn you out.

"Now, I'm offering you a whole lot. Mebbe you've thought I was sweet on that Nyland girl. Get that out of your mind. I was only fooling with her--like any man fools with a girl. I want her ranch--that's all. But I don't care a d.a.m.n about the Double A, I want you. I've had my 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 face wreathed in a huge grin. He was enjoying the girl.

Sanderson slipped along the wall of the house and opened the door. It creaked loudly on its hinges with the movement, causing both Dale and the girl to turn and face it.

Mary Bransford stood rigid as she saw Sanderson standing in the doorway, a flush sweeping swiftly over her face. There was relief in her eyes.

Astonishment and stark, naked fear were in Dale's eyes. He shrank back a step, and looked swiftly at Sanderson's right hand, and when he saw that 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 he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, slamming it shut with his left hand.

"Well, shootin' goes." There was the cold calm of decision in his manner; his eyes were ablaze with the acc.u.mulated hate and rage that had been aroused over what he had heard. The grin that he showed to Dale drew his lips into two straight, stiff lines.

"I reckon you think you've earned your red shirt, Dale," he said, "for tellin' tales out of school. Well, you'll get it. There's just one thing will save your miserable hide. You got that seven thousand on you?"

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 instantly with 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 hundred dollars I stole from, him," directed Sanderson. "I am doing this of my own accord--no one is forcin' me," went on Sanderson. "I want to add that I hereby swear that the charge of drawin' a gun on Silverthorn was a 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 said nothing. Mary Bransford stood a little distance away, watching silently.

"Count it, Miss Bransford," said Sanderson when Dale had disgorged the money.

The two men stood silent as the girl fingered the bills. At last she looked at Sanderson and nodded.

The latter grinned. "Everything's regular, now," he said. He looked at Mary. "Do you want him killed, ma'am? He'd be a lot better off dead. You'd be better off, too. This kind of a skunk is always around, 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 his freight away from the Double A, though, ma 'am. An' he'll never come back."

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' then there'll never be an Alva Dale to bother you again--or to go around robbin' honest men, an' tryin' to get them mixed up with the law."