CHECKED BY THE SYSTEM
The engineer waved a yellow paper at Sanderson and shouted:
"I just got this. I made a hit with the Okar agent last week, and he
sent a man over with it. That's a damned scoundrelly bunch that's
working against you! Do you know what they've done?"
Sanderson said nothing, and the engineer resumed, explosively:
"They've tied up your money at the Lazette bank! My material men won't
send a pound of stuff to me until they get the cash! We're
stopped--dead still!"
He passed a telegram to Sanderson, who read:
Bank here refuses to honor Sanderson's check. Claim money belongs to
Bransford estate. Legal tangle. Must have cash or won't send material.
THE BRANDER COMPANY.
A flicker of Sanderson's eyelids was all the emotion he betrayed to
Williams. The latter looked at him admiringly.
"By George," he said, "you take it like a major! In your shoes I'd get
off my nag and claw up the scenery!"
Sanderson smiled. After telling the engineer to do as much as he could
without the material, he rode on.
He had betrayed no emotion in the presence of Williams, but he was
seething with passion.
Late the next afternoon he joined Carter and the outfit. The men had
made good use of their time, and when Sanderson arrived, the entire
herd of cattle was massed on a broad level near the river. They were
milling impatiently, for the round-up had just been completed, and they
were nervous over the unusual activity.
The cowboys, bronzed, lean, and capable, were guarding the herd, riding
slowly around the fringe of tossing horns, tired, dusty, but singing
their quaint songs.
Carter had sent the cook back to the ranchhouse during the afternoon to
obtain supplies; and now the chuck wagon, with bulging sides, was
standing near a fire at which the cook himself was preparing supper.
Carter grinned as Sanderson rode up.
"All ready!" he declared. "We sure did hump ourselves!"
Around the camp fire that night Sanderson was moody and taciturn. He
had stretched out on his blanket and lay listening to the men until one
by one they dropped off to sleep.
Sanderson's thoughts were bitter. He felt the constricting influence
of his enemies; he was like the herd of cattle that his men had rounded
up that day, for little by little Silverthorn, Dale, and Maison were
cutting down his area of freedom and of action, were hampering him on
all sides, and driving him to a point where he would discover
resistance to be practically useless.
He had thought in the beginning that he could devise some way to escape
the meshes of the net that was being thrown around him, but he was
beginning to realize that he had underestimated the power and the
resources of his enemies.
Maison and Silverthorn he knew were mere tentacles of the capital they
represented; it was their business to reach out, searching for victims,
in order to draw them in and drain from them the last vestige of wealth.
And Sanderson had no doubt that they did that work impersonally and
without feeling, not caring, and perhaps not understanding the tortures
of a system--of a soulless organization seeking only financial gain.
Dale, however, was intensely human and individualistic. He was not as
subtle nor as smooth as his confederates. And money was not the only
incentive which would drive him to commit crime. He was a gross
sensualist, unprincipled and ruthless, and Sanderson's hatred of him
was beginning to overshadow every other consideration.
Sanderson went to sleep with his bitter thoughts, which were tempered
with a memory of the gentle girl at whom the evil agencies of his
enemies were directed. They were eager to get possession of Mary
Bransford's property, but their real fight would be, and was, against
him.
But it was Mary Bransford that he was fighting for, and if he could get
the herd of cattle to Las Vegas and dispose of them, he would be
provided with money enough to defeat his enemies. But money he must
have.
At breakfast the next morning Carter selected the outfit for the drive.
He named half a dozen men, who were variously known as Buck, Andy, Bud,
Soapy, Sogun, and the Kid. These men were experienced trail-herd men,
and Carter had confidence in them.
Their faces, as they prepared for the trip, revealed their joy and
pride over their selection, while the others, disappointment in their
eyes, plainly envied their fellow-companions.
But Sanderson lightened their disappointment by entrusting them with a
new responsibility.
"You fellows go back to the Double A an' hang around," he told them.
"I don't care whether you do a lick of work or not. Stick close to the
house an' keep an eye on Mary Bransford. If Dale, or any of his gang,
come nosin' around, bore them, plenty! If any harm comes to Mary
Bransford while I'm gone, I'll salivate you guys!"
Shortly after breakfast the herd was on the move. The cowboys started
them westward slowly, for trail cattle do not travel fast, urging them
on with voice and quirt until the line stretched out into a sinuously
weaving band a mile long.
They reached the edge of the big level after a time, and filed through
a narrow pass that led upward to a table-land. Again, after a time,
they took a descending trail, which brought them down upon a big plain
of grassland that extended many miles in all directions. Fringing the
plain on the north was a range of hills that swept back to the
mountains that guarded the neck of the big basin at Okar.
There was timber on the hills, and the sky line was ragged with
boulders. And so Sanderson and his men, glancing northward many times
during the morning, did not see a rider who made his way through the
hills.
During the previous afternoon the rider had sat on his horse in the dim
haze of distance, watching the Double A outfit round up its cattle; and
during the night he had stood on guard, watching the men around the
camp fire.
He had seen most of the Double A men return toward the ranchhouse after
the trail crew had been selected; he had followed the progress of the
herd during the morning.
At noon he halted in a screen of timber and grinned felinely.
"They're off, for certain," he said aloud.
Late that afternoon the man was in Okar, talking with Dale and
Silverthorn and Maison.
"What you've been expectin' has happened," he told them. "Sanderson,
Carter, an' six men are on the move with a trail herd. They're headed
straight on for Las Vegas."
Silverthorn rubbed the palms of his hands together, Maison smirked, and
Dale's eyes glowed with satisfaction.
Dale got up and looked at the man who had brought the information.
"All right, Morley," he said with a grin. "Get going; we'll meet up
with Sanderson at Devil's Hole."