"SQUARE" DEAL SANDERSON
Three days later, still traveling northeastward, Sanderson felt he must
be close to the Double A. Various signs and conclusions were
convincing.
In the first place, he had been a week on the trail, and estimating his
pace conservatively, that time should bring him within easy riding
distance of the place he had set out to seek. There were so many miles
to be covered in so many days, and Streak was a prince of steady
travelers.
Besides, yesterday at dusk, Sanderson had passed through Las Vegas.
Careful inquiry in the latter town had brought forth the intelligence
that the Double A was a hundred and seventy-five miles northeastward.
"Country's short of cow-hands," said Sanderson's informer. "If you're
needin' work, an' forty a month looks good to you, why, I'd admire to
take 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 always
been convinced that work and he had agreed too well in the past.
Except for the few brief holidays that are the inevitable portion of
the average puncher who is human enough to yearn for the relaxation of
a trip to "town" once or twice a year, Sanderson and work had been
inseparable 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 the
cow-country, were descriptive of virtues not at all common. In
Sanderson's case they were deserved--more, to them might have been
added another, "straight."
Sanderson's trip northeastward had resulted partly from a desire to
escape the monotony of old scenes and familiar faces; and partly
because one day while in "town" he had listened attentively to a desert
nomad, or "drifter," who had told a tale of a country where water was
to be the magic which would open the gates of fortune to the eager and
serious-minded.
"That country's goin' to blossom!" declared the Drifter. "An' the guy
which gets in on the ground floor is goin' to make a clean-up! They's
a range there--the Double A--which is right in the middle of things. A
guy named Bransford owns her--an' Bransford's on his last legs. He's
due to pass out _pronto_, or I'm a gopher! He's got a daughter
there--Mary--which is a pippin, an' no mistake! But she's sure got a
job on her hands, if the ol' man croaks.
"They's a boy, somewheres, which ain't no good I've heard, an' if the
girl hangs on she's due for an uphill climb. She'll have a fight on
her hands too, with Alva Dale--a big rough devil of a man with a greedy
eye on the whole country--an' the girl, too, I reckon--if my eyes is
any good. I've seen him look at her--oh, man! If she was any relation
to me I'd climb Dale's frame sure as shootin'!"
There had been more--the Drifter told a complete story. And Sanderson
had assimilated it without letting the other know he had been affected.
Nor had he mentioned to Burroughs--his employer--a word concerning the
real reason for his desire to make a change. Not until he had written
to Bransford, and received a reply, did he acquaint Burroughs with his
decision to leave. As a matter of fact, Sanderson had delayed his
leave-taking for more than a month after receiving Bransford's letter,
being reluctant, now that his opportunity had come, to sever those
relations that, he now realized, had been decidedly pleasant.
"I'm sure next to what's eatin' you," Burroughs told him on the day
Sanderson asked for his "time." "You're yearnin' for a change. It's a
thing that gets hold of a man's soul--if he's got one. They ain't no
fightin' it. I'm sure appreciatin' what you've done for me, an' if you
decide to come back any time, you'll find me a-welcomin' you with open
arms, as the sayin' is. You've got a bunch of coin comin'--three
thousand. 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 of
the Far Southwest, where the ability to live depended upon those
natural, protective instincts and impulses which civilization frowns
upon, Sanderson was grimly confident of his accomplishments--which were
to draw a gun as quickly as any other man had ever drawn one, to shoot
as fast and as accurately as the next man--or a little faster and more
accurately; to be alert and self-contained, to talk as little as
possible; to listen well, and to deal fairly with his fellow-men.
That philosophy had served Sanderson well. It had made him feared and
respected throughout Arizona; it had earned him the sobriquet
"Square"--a title which he valued.
Sanderson could not have told, however, just what motive had impelled
him to decide to go to the Double A. No doubt the Drifter's story
regarding the trouble that was soon to assail Mary Bransford had had
its effect, but he preferred to think he had merely grown tired of life
at the Pig-Pen--Burrough's ranch--and that the Drifter's story, coming
at the instant when the yearning for a change had seized upon him, had
decided him.
He had persisted in that thought until after the finding of the letters
in William Bransford's pockets; and then, staring down at the man's
face, he had realized that he had been deluding himself, and, that he
was journeying northeastward merely because he was curious to see the
girl whom the Drifter had so vividly described.
Away back in his mind, too, there might have been a chivalrous desire
to help her in the fight that was to come with Alva Dale. He had felt
his blood surge hotly at the prospect of a fight, with Mary Bransford
as the storm center; a passion to defend her had got into his soul; and
a hatred for Alva Dale had gripped him.
Whatever the motive, he had come, and since he had looked down into
William Bransford's face, he had become conscious of a mighty
satisfaction. The two men who had trailed Bransford had been
cold-blooded murderers, and he had avenged Bransford completely. That
could not have happened if he had not yielded to the impulse to go to
the 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 her
brother--and he must tell her. And now, too, he was convinced that his
journey to the Double A had been previously arranged--by Fate, or
whatever Providence controls the destinies of humans.
And that conviction helped him to fight down the sense of guilty
embarrassment that had afflicted him until now--the knowledge that he
was deliberately and unwarrantedly going to the Double A to interfere,
to throw himself into a fight with persons with whom he had no previous
acquaintance, for no other reason than that his chivalrous instincts
had prompted him.
And yet his thoughts were not entirely serious as he rode. The
situation had its humorous side.
"Mostly nothin' turns out as folks figure in the beginnin'," he told
himself. "Otherwise everything would be cut an' dried, an' there
wouldn't be a heap of fun in the world--for butters-in. An' folks
which 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 a
sand plain, although, he knew he could not now be far from the Double A
range. And in the early light of the morning he found his judgment
vindicated, for stretching before him, still in a northeasterly
direction, he saw a great, green-brown level sweeping away from his
feet and melting into some rimming mountains--a vast, natural basin of
gigantic 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, sitting
on a flat rock as he ate, and scanning the basin.
Mere bigness had never impressed Sanderson; the West had shown him
greater vistas than this mammoth basin. And yet his eyes glowed as he
looked out and down at the country that lay, slumbering in the pure
white light of the dawn.
He saw, dotting the floor of the basin, the roofs of houses. From his
height they seemed to be close together, but Sanderson was not misled,
and he knew that they were separated by miles of virgin soil--of
sagebrush and yucca, and soapweed and other desert weeds that needed
not the magic of water to make them live.
When Sanderson finally mounted Streak, the sun was up. It took Streak
two hours to descend the slope leading down into the basin, and when
once horse and rider were down, Sanderson dismounted and patted
Streak's moist flanks.
"Some drop, eh, Streak?" he said. "But it didn't fool us none. We
knowed it was some distance, didn't we? An' they ain't foolin' us
about the rest of it, are they? The Drifter said to head toward the
Big 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 get
there by feedin' time, this noon, eh?"
A little later, Streak having rested, Sanderson mounted and rode
forward, toward the peak of a majestic mountain that loomed far above
them.