Square Deal Sanderson | Page 6

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