In the dim light she did not at first see the mask on Dale's face, and she was insistently demanding to be told just where Ben's injuries were, when she detected the fraud.

Then she gasped and stepped back, trying to close the door. She would have succeeded had not Dale thrust a foot into the aperture.

She stamped at his foot with her bare one ineffectually. Dale laughed at her futile efforts to keep him from opening the door. He struck an arm through the aperture, leaned his weight against the door, and pushed it open.

She was at the other side of the room when he entered, having dodged behind a table. He made a rush for her, but she evaded him, keeping the table between them.

There was no word said. The girl's breath was coming in great gasps from the fright and shock she had received, but Dale's was shrill and laboring from the strength of his pa.s.sions.

Reason left him as they circled around the table, and with a curse he overturned it so that it rolled and crashed out of the way, leaving her with no obstacle behind which to find shelter.

She ran toward the door, but Dale caught her at the threshold. She twisted and squirmed in his grasp, scratching him and clawing at his face in an access of terror, and one hand finally caught the black mask covering and tore it from his face.

"Alva Dale!" she shrieked. "Oh, you beast!"

Fighting with redoubled fury she forced him against one of the door jambs, still scratching and clawing. Dale grasped one hand, but the free one reached his face, the fingers sinking into the flesh and making a deep gash in his cheek.

The pain made a demon of Dale, and he struck her. She fell, soundlessly, her head striking the edge of a chair with a deadening, thudding crash.

Standing in the doorway looking down at her, the faint, outdoor light shining on her face and revealing its ghastly whiteness, Dale suffered a quick reaction. He had not meant to strike so hard, he told himself; he hoped he had not killed her.

Kneeling beside her he felt her pulse and her head. The flesh under his hand was cold as marble; the pulse--if there was any--was not perceptible. Dale examined the back of her head, where it had struck the chair. He got up, his face ashen and convulsed with horror.

"Good Lord!" he muttered hoa.r.s.ely, "she's dead--or dying. I've done it now!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE GUNMAN

Dale's first decision was to leave Peggy in the cabin. But she might recover, and she had recognized him. Ben Nyland would exact stern vengeance for the outrage.

Dale stood for some seconds in the doorway, his brain working rapidly.

Then he leaped inside the cabin, took the girl up in his arms, carried her to his horse, mounted, and with the limp, sagging body in his arms rode into the night.

Reaction, also, was working on Banker Maison. Though more than an hour had pa.s.sed since he had got into bed, following the departure of his nocturnal visitor, he had not slept a wink. His brain revolving the incidents of the night--it had been a positive panorama of vivid horrors.

The first gray streak of dawn was splitting the horizon when he gave it up, clambered out of bed and poured a generous drink from the bottle on the sideboard.

"G.o.d, a man needs something like this to brace him up after such a night!" he declared.

He took a second drink from the bottle, and a third. In the act of pouring a fourth he heard a sound at the back door, and with a gulp of terror he remembered that he had again forgotten to lock it.

Sanderson undoubtedly was returning!

Again Maison's body became clammy with a cold sweat. He stood in the room near the sideboard, tremblingly listening. For again there was a step on the stairs.

When he saw the door begin to open his knees knocked together, but there entered, not the dread apparition he expected, but Alva Dale, with the limp form of a woman in his arms!

The sudden breaking of the tension, and astonishment over what he saw, made Maison's voice hoa.r.s.e.

"What's up now?" he demanded.

"h.e.l.l!" muttered Dale. He told Maison the whole story--with some reservations.

"I was sparkin' her--like I've been doin' for a long time. We had a tiff over--over somethin'--an' I pushed her. She fell over, hittin'

her head."

"You d.a.m.ned fool!" snapped Maison. Dale was not Sanderson, and Maison felt the authority of his position. "This is Peggy Nyland, isn't it?

She's the girl Silverthorn was telling me about--that you're sweet on.

You d.a.m.ned fool. Can't you let the women alone when we're in a deal like this! You'll ruin the whole thing! Get her out of here!"

Dale eyed the other sullenly, his face bloating with rage.

"Look here, Maison; you quit your infernal yappin'. She stays here. I thought at first I'd killed her an' I was goin' to plant her. But she's been groanin' a little while I've been comin' here, an' there's a chance for her. Go get the doctor."

"What about her brother?" demanded Maison. "He's a shark with a gun, they tell me, an' a tiger when he's aroused. If he finds out about this he'll kill both of us."

Dale grinned saturninely. "I'll take care of the brother," he said.

"You get the doc--an' be d.a.m.ned quick about it!"

Maison went out, and in five minutes returned with the doctor. The latter worked for more than an hour with Peggy, and at last succeeded in reviving her.

But though Peggy opened her eyes, there was no light of reason in them--only the vacuous, unseeing stare of a dulled and apathetic brain.

"She's got an awful whack," said the doctor. "It's cracked her skull.

It'll be weeks before she gets over it--if she ever does. I'll come and see her tomorrow."

The doctor came the next day--in the morning. He found the patient no better. A woman, hired by Dale, was caring for the girl.

Also, in the morning, Dale paid a visit. His visit was to Dal Colton, the man Dale had employed to kill Sanderson, and who had so signally failed.

The scene of the meeting between Dale and Colton was in the rear room of the City Hotel.

"Look here," said Dale. "This deal can't be no whizzer like you run in on Sanderson. He's got to be dropped, or things are goin' to happen to all of us. His name's Nyland--Ben Nyland. You know him?"

Colton nodded. "Plenty. He's a fast man with a gun. I'll have to get him when he ain't lookin'. You'll get me clear?"

"No one will know about it," declared Dale. "You go out to his ranch an' lay for him. He'll be in on the afternoon train. When he comes into the door of his house, nail him. That's easy."

CHAPTER XXIV

CONCERNING A WOMAN