Square Deal Sanderson Part 39

Lately, though--it seemed that it had been for hours--she had felt a gradual lessening of the tension. Within the last few hours she had heard voices near her; had divined that persons were near her. But she had not been certain. That is, until within a few minutes.

Then it seemed to her that she heard some giant body thres.h.i.+ng around near her; she heard a stifled scream and incoherent mutterings. The thing was so close, the thumping and thres.h.i.+ng so real, that she started and sat up in bed, staring wildly around.

She saw on the floor near her two men. One had his hands buried in the other's throat, and the face of the latter was black and horribly bloated.

This scene, Peggy felt, was real, and again she tried to scream.

The effort was successful, though the sound was not loud. One of the men turned, and she knew him.

"Ben," she said in an awed, scared voice, "what in G.o.d's name are you doing?"

"Killin' a snake!" he returned sullenly.

"Dale?" she inquired wildly. Her hands were clasped, the fingers working, twisting and untwisting.

"Maison," he told her, his face dark with pa.s.sion.

"Because of me! O, Ben! Maison has done nothing to me. It was Dale, Ben--Dale came to our place and attacked me. I felt him carrying me--taking me somewhere. This--this place----"

"Is Maison's rooms," Ben told her. In his eyes was a new pa.s.sion; he knelt beside the bed and stroked the girl's hair.

"Dale, you said--Dale. Dale hurt you? How?"

She told him, and he got up, a cold smile on his face.

"You feel better now, eh? You can be alone for a few minutes? I'll send someone to you."

He paid no attention to her objections, to her plea that she was afraid to be alone. He grinned at her, the grin that had been on his face when he had shot Dal Colton, and backed away from her until he reached the stairs.

Outside he mounted his horse and visited several saloons. There was no sign of Dale. In the City Hotel he came upon a man who told him that earlier in the day Dale had organized a posse and had gone to the Double A to arrest Sanderson. This man was not a friend of Dale's, and one of the posse had told him of Dale's plan.

Nyland mounted his horse again and headed it for the neck of the basin.

In his heart was the same l.u.s.t that had been there while he had been riding toward Okar.

And in his soul was a rage that had not been sated by the death of the banker who, a few minutes before Nyland's arrival, had been so smugly reviewing the pleasurable incidents of his life.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE LAW TAKES A HAND

Barney Owen was tying the knot of the rope more securely when he heard the bolt on the pantry door shoot back. He wheeled swiftly, to see Mary Bransford emerging from the pantry, her hands covering her face in a vain endeavor to shut from sight the grisly horror she had confronted when she had reached her feet after recovering consciousness.

Evidently she had no knowledge of what had occurred, for when at a sound Owen made and she uncovered her eyes, she saw Owen and instantly fainted.

Owen dove forward and caught her as she fell, and then with a strength that was remarkable in his frail body he carried her to the lounge in the parlor.

Ho was compelled to leave her there momentarily, for he still entertained fears that Dale would escape the loop of the rope. So he ran into the pantry, looked keenly at Dale, saw that, to all appearances, he was in the last stages of strangulation, and then went out again, to return to Mary.

But before he left Dale he s.n.a.t.c.hed the man's six-shooter from its sheath, for his own had been lost in the confusion of the rush of Dale's men for the door.

Mary was sitting up on the lounge when Owen returned. She was pale, and a haunting fear, cringing, abject, was in her eyes.

She got to her feet when she saw Owen and ran to him, crying.

Owen tried to comfort her, but his words were futile.

"You be brave, little woman!" he said. "You must be brave! Sanderson and the other men are in danger, and I've got to go to Okar for help!"

"I'll go with you," declared the girl. "I can't stay here--I won't. I can't stand being in the same house with--with that!" She pointed to the kitchen.

"All right," Owen said resignedly; "we'll both go. What did you do with the money?"

Mary disclosed the hiding place, and Owen took the money, carried it to the bunkhouse, where he stuffed it into the bottom of a tin food box.

Then, hurriedly, he saddled and bridled two horses and led them to where Mary was waiting on the porch.

Mounting, they rode fast toward Okar--the little man's face working nervously, a great eagerness in his heart to help the man for whom he had conceived a deep affection.

Banker Maison had made no mistake when he had told Sanderson that Judge Graney was honest. Graney looked honest. There was about him an atmosphere of straightforwardness that was unmistakable and convincing.

It was because he was honest that a certain governor had sent him to Okar.

And Graney had vindicated the governor's faith in him. Whenever crime and dishonesty raised their heads in Okar, Judge Graney pinned them to the wall with the sword of justice, and called upon all men to come and look upon his deeds.

Maison, Silverthorn, and Dale--and others of their ilk--seldom called upon the judge for advice. They knew he did not deal in their kind.

Through some underground channel they had secured a deputys.h.i.+p for Dale, and upon him they depended for whatever law they needed to further their schemes.

Judge Graney was fifty--the age of experience. He knew something of men himself. And on the night that Maison and Sanderson had come to him, he thought he had seen in Sanderson's eyes a cold menace, a threat, that meant nothing less than death for the banker, if the latter had refused to write the bill of sale.

For, of course, the judge knew that the banker was being forced to make out the bill of sale. He knew that from the cold determination and alert watchfulness in Sanderson's eyes; he saw it in the white nervousness of the banker.

And yet it was not his business to interfere, or to refuse to attest the signatures of the men. He had asked Maison to take the oath, and the banker had taken it.

Thus it seemed he had entered into the contract in good faith. If he had not, and there was something wrong about the deal, Maison had recourse to the law, and the judge would have aided him.

But nothing had come of it; Maison had said nothing, had lodged no complaint.

But the judge had kept the case in mind.

Late in the afternoon of the day on which Dale had organized the posse to go to the Double A, Judge Graney sat at his desk in the courtroom.

The room was empty, except for a court attache, who was industriously writing at a little desk in the rear of the room.

The Maison case was in the judge's mental vision, and he was wondering why the banker had not complained, when the sheriff of Colfax entered.

Graney smiled a welcome at him. "You don't get over this way very often, Warde, but when you do, I'm glad to see you. Sit on the desk--that's your usual place, anyway."