NYLAND'S VENGEANCE
Just before the dusk enveloped Okar, Banker Maison closed the desk in
his private office and lit a cigar. He leaned back in the big desk
chair, slowly smoking, a complacent smile on his lips, his eyes glowing
with satisfaction.
For Maison's capacity for pleasure was entirely physical. He got more
enjoyment out of a good dinner and a fragrant cigar than many
intellectual men get out of the study of a literary masterpiece, or a
philanthropist out of the contemplation of a charitable deed.
Maison did not delve into the soul of things. The effect of his greed
on others he did not consider. That was selfishness, of course, but it
was a satisfying selfishness.
It did not occur to him that Mary Bransford, for instance, or
Sanderson--or anybody whom he robbed--could experience any emotion or
passion over their losses. They might feel resentful, to be sure; but
resentment could avail them little--and it didn't bring the dollars
back to them.
He chuckled. He was thinking of the Bransfords now--and Sanderson. He
had put a wolf on Sanderson's trail--he and Silverthorn; and Sanderson
would soon cease to bother him.
He chuckled again; and he sat in the chair at the desk, hugely enjoying
himself until the cigar was finished. Then he got up, locked the
doors, and went upstairs.
Peggy Nyland had not recovered consciousness. The woman who was caring
for the girl sat near an open window that looked out upon Okar's one
street when Maison entered the room.
Maison asked her if there was any change; was told there was not. He
stood for an instant at the window, mentally anathematizing Dale for
bringing the girl to his rooms, and for keeping her there; then he
dismissed the woman, who went down the stairs, opened the door that
Maison had locked, and went outside.
He stood for an instant longer at the window; then he turned and looked
down at Peggy, stretched out, still and white, on the bed.
Maison looked long at her, and decided it was not remarkable that Dale
had become infatuated with Peggy, for the girl was handsome.
Maison had never bothered with women, and he yielded to a suspicion of
sentiment as he looked down at Peggy. But, as always, the sentiment
was not spiritual.
Dale had intimated that the girl was his mistress. Well, he was bound
to acknowledge that Dale had good taste in such matters, anyway.
The expression of Maison's face was not good to see; there was a glow
in his eyes that, had Peggy seen it, would have frightened her.
And if Maison had been less interested in Peggy, and with his thoughts
of Dale, he would have heard the slight sound at the door; he would
have seen Ben Nyland standing there in the deepening dusk, his eyes
aflame with the wild and bitter passions of a man who had come to kill.
Maison did not see, nor did he hear until Ben leaped for him. Then
Maison heard him, felt his presence, and realized his danger.
He turned, intending to escape down the other stairway. He was too
late.
Ben caught him midway between the bed and the door that opened to the
stairway, and his big hands went around the banker's neck, cutting
short his scream of terror and the incoherent mutterings which followed
it.
Peggy Nyland had been suffering mental torture for ages, it seemed to
her. Weird and grotesque thoughts had followed one another in rapid
succession through her brain. The thing had grown so vivid--the
horrible imaginings had seemed so real, that many times she had been on
the verge of screaming. Each time she tried to scream, however, she
found that her jaws were tightly set, her teeth clenched, and she could
get no sound through them.
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 threshing around
near her; she heard a stifled scream and incoherent mutterings. The
thing was so close, the thumping and threshing 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 God'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 passion.
"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 passion; 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 lust 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.