Square Deal Sanderson - Charles Alden Seltzer (guided reading books txt) 📗

another on the opposite side—the dining-room. There was a front door and two windows on the side Nyland was on.

Two courses were open for Nyland. He could gain entrance to the house through one of the windows or the front door, thereby running the risk of making a target of himself, or he could stay on the outside and wait for the man to come out—which he would have to do some time.

Nyland decided to remain where he was. For a long time he crouched against the wall and nothing happened. Then, growing impatient, he moved stealthily around the rear corner, stole to the rear window, and peered inside.

It took him long to prepare for the look—he accomplished the action in an instant—a flashing glance. A gun roared close to his head, the flash blinding him; the glass tinkling on the ground at his feet.

But Nyland had not been hit, and he grinned felinely as he dropped to the ground, slipped under the window, and ran around the house. Ducking under the side window he ran around to the front. From the front window he could look through the house, and he saw the man, gun in hand, watching the side door.

Nyland took aim through the window, but just as he was about to pull the trigger of the weapon the man moved stealthily toward the door—out of Nyland's vision.

Evidently the man considered the many windows to be a menace to his safety, and had determined to go outside, where he would have an equal chance with his intended victim.

Grinning coldly, Nyland moved to the corner of the house nearest the kitchen door. The man stepped out of the door, and at the instant Nyland saw him he was looking toward the rear of the house.

Nyland laughed—aloud, derisively. He did not want to shoot the man in the back.

At Nyland's laugh the man wheeled, snapping a shot from his hip. He was an instant too late, though, for with the man's wheeling movement Nyland's gun barked death to him.

He staggered, the gun falling from his loosening fingers, his hands dropped to his sides, and he sagged forward inertly, plunging into the dust in front of the kitchen door.

Nyland ran forward, peered into the man's face, saw that no more shooting on his part would be required, and then ran into the house to search for Peggy.

She was not in the house—a glance into each room told Nyland that. He went outside again, his face grim, and knelt beside the man.

The latter's wound was fatal—Nyland saw that plainly, for the bullet had entered his breast just above the heart.

Nyland got some water, for an hour he worked over the man, not to save his life, but to restore him to consciousness only long enough to question him.

And at last his efforts were rewarded: the man opened his eyes, and they were swimming with the calm light of reason. He smiled faintly at Nyland.

"Got me," he said. "Well, I don't care a whole lot. There's just one thing that's been botherin' me since you come. Did you think somethin' was wrong in the house when you was tyin' your cayuse over there at the corral fence?"

At Nyland's nod he continued:

"I knowed it. It was the water, wasn't it—in the trough? I'm sure a damned fool for not thinkin' of that! So that was it? Well, you've got an eye in your head—I'll tell you that. I'm goin' to cash in, eh?"

Nyland nodded and the man sighed. He closed his eyes for an instant, but opened them slightly at Nyland's question:

"What did you do to Peggy? Where is she?"

The man was sinking fast, and it seemed that he hardly comprehended Nyland's question. The latter repeated it, and the man replied weakly:

"She's over in Okar—at Maison's—in his rooms. She——"

He closed his eyes and his lips, opening the latter again almost instantly to cough a crimson stream.

Nyland got up, his face chalk white. Standing beside the man he removed the two spent cartridges from the cylinder of his pistol and replaced them with two loaded ones. Then he ran to his horse, tore the reins from the rail of the corral fence, mounted with the horse in a dead run, and raced toward Okar.

CHAPTER XXIX 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.

CHAPTER XXX 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 snatched 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