The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Read online

  Sanderson had intended to take possession of the ranch, in an effort to forestall any scheme Dale might have, and while in Las Vegas he had applied to the court for permission to have the title transferred. And then he had been told it would be necessary for him to file an affidavit and proof establishing his identity.

  With Barney Owen looking on Sanderson was compelled to defer signing the affidavit, for Sanderson remembered the letter from young Bransford, bearing the younger Bransford’s signature. The letter was still in the dresser drawer in his room, and he would have to have it beside him while he signed Bransford’s name to the affidavit in order to imitate Bransford’s handwriting successfully. Therefore he asked permission to take the affidavit home.

  Pocketing the paper, after receiving the necessary permission, Sanderson caught Owen looking at him with a smile. He scowled at the little man.

  “What’s eatin’ you?” he demanded.

  “Curiosity,” said the other. “Don’t tell me you’re too bashful to sign your name in public.”

  They were mounting their horses when the little man spoke, and Sanderson grinned coldly at him.

  “You’re a whole lot longer on talk than I like any of my friends to be,” he said.

  “Then I’ll cut out gassing promiscuous,” grinned the latter.

  Sanderson was troubled over the situation. To successfully keep Dale from attacking his title to the ranch he must sign the affidavit and return it to the court. He must imitate Will Bransford’s signature to prevent Mary Bransford from suspecting the deception—for at any time she might decide to go to Las Vegas to look over the records there.

  More, he must practice writing Bransford’s signature until he could imitate it without having to look at the original.

  Determined to go to work at the deception instantly, Sanderson returned to the ranchhouse, slipped into his room and locked the door, opened the drawer and took out the package of letters.

  The Bransford letter was missing! Half a dozen times he thumbed the letters in the packages over before he would admit that the one for which he was seeking was not there.

  He stood for a time looking at the package of letters, bitterly accusing himself. It was his own fault if the whole structure of deception tumbled about his ears, for he should have taken the letter when he had had an opportunity.

  Mary Bransford had it, of course. The other letters, he supposed, she cared less for than the one written by her brother.

  For the twentieth time since his arrival at the ranch, Sanderson had an impulse to ride away and leave Mary Bransford to fight the thing out herself. But, as before, he fought down the impulse.

  This time—so imbued was he with determination to heap confusion upon Alva Dale’s head—he stood in the center of the room, grinning saturninely, fully resolved that if it must be he would make a complete confession to the girl and stay at the Double A to fight Dale no matter what Mary thought of him.

  He might have gone to Mary, to ask her what had become of the letter. He could have invented some pretext. But he would not; he would not have her think he had been examining her letters. One thing he could do without confessing that he had been prying—and he did it.

  At dinner he remarked casually to Mary:

  “I reckon you don’t think enough of my letters put them away as keepsakes?”

  “Sanderson’s or Bransford’s?” she returned, looking at him with a smile.

  “Both,” he grinned.

  “Well,” she said, “I did keep both. But, as I told you before, I had the Sanderson letter somewhere. I have been looking for it, but have not been able to find it.”

  Sanderson grinned faintly and wondered what she would say if she knew what care he had taken to burn the Sanderson letter.

  “The letter you wrote as yourself—the Bransford letter—I have. It was among a lot of others in the drawer of the dresser in your room. I was looking them over while you were gone, and I took it.”

  Sanderson had a hard time to keep the eagerness out of his voice, but he did so:

  “You got it handy?”

  She looked straight at him. “That is the oddest thing,” she said seriously. “I took it from there to keep it safe, and I have mislaid it again, for I can’t find it anywhere.”

  There was no guile in her eyes—Sanderson was certain of that. And he hoped the letter would stay mislaid. He grinned.

  “Well, I was only curious,” he said. “Don’t bother to look for it.”

  He felt better when he went out of the house and walked toward the corral fence. He felt more secure and capable. Beginning with the following day, he meant to take charge of the ranch and run it as he knew it should be run.

  He had not been at the Double A long, but he had seen signs of shiftlessness here and there. He had no doubt that since Bransford’s death the men had taken advantage of the absence of authority to relax, and the ranch had suffered. He would soon bring them back to a state of efficiency.

  He heard a step behind him, and looking over his shoulder he saw the little man approaching.

  The little man joined Sanderson, not speaking as he climbed the fence at a point near by and sat on the top rail, idly swinging his legs.

  Sanderson had conceived a liking for Owen. There was something about the little man that invited it. He was little, and manly despite his bodily defects. But there was a suggestion of effeminacy mingling with the manliness of him that aroused the protective instinct in Sanderson.

  In a big man the suggestion of effeminacy would have been disgusting, and Sanderson’s first action as owner of the ranch would have been to discharge such a man instantly. But in Sanderson’s heart had come a spirit of tolerance toward the little man, for he felt that the effeminacy had resulted from his afflictions.

  He was a querulous semi-invalid, trying bravely to imitate his vigorous and healthy friends.

  “Thinking it over?” he queried, looking down at Sanderson.

  “Thinkin’ what over?”

  “Well, just things,” grinned the little man. “For one thing, I suppose you are trying to decide why you didn’t sign your name—over in Las Vegas.”

  Sanderson grinned mildly, but did not answer. He felt more at ease now, and the little man’s impertinences did not bother him so much as formerly. He looked up, however, startled, when Owen said slowly:

  “Do you want me to tell you why you didn’t sign Will Bransford’s name to the affidavit?”

  Sanderson’s eyes did not waver as they met Owen’s.

  “Tell me,” he said evenly.

  “Because you are not Will Bransford,” said the little man.

  Sanderson did not move; nor did he remove his gaze from the face of the little man. He was not conscious of any emotion whatever. For now that he had determined to stay at the Double A no matter what happened, discovery did not alarm him. He grinned at the little man, deliberately, with a taunting smile that the other could not fail to understand.

  “You’re a wise guy, eh?” he said. “Well, spring it. I’m anxious to know how you got next to me.”

  “You ain’t sore, then?”

  “Not, none.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t be,” eagerly said the little man, “for I don’t want you to hit the breeze just now. I know you are not Will Bransford because I know Bransford intimately. I was his chum for several years. He could drink as much as I. He was lazy and shiftless, but I liked him. We were together in Tucson—and in other places in Arizona. Texas, too. We never amounted to much. Do you need to know any more? I can tell you.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “More,” grinned the other man, “about yourself. You are Sanderson—Deal Sanderson—nicknamed Square Deal Sanderson. I saw you one day in Tombstone; you were pointed out to me, and the minute I laid my eyes on you the day Dale tried to hang Nyland, I knew you.”

  Sanderson smiled. “Why didn’t you tell Mary?”

  The little man’s face grew grave. “Because I didn’t want to q
ueer your game. You saved Nyland—an innocent man. Knowing your reputation for fairness, I was convinced that you didn’t come here to deceive anybody.”

  “But I did deceive somebody,” said Sanderson. “Not you, accordin’ to what you’ve been tellin’ me, but Mary Bransford. She thinks I am her brother, an’ I’ve let her go on thinkin’ it.”

  “Why?” asked the little man.

  Sanderson gravely appraised the other. “There ain’t no use of holdin’ out anything on you,” he said. His lips straightened and his eyes bored into the little man’s. There was a light in his own that made the little man stiffen. And Sanderson’s voice was cold and earnest.

  “I’m puttin’ you wise to why I’ve not told her,” he went on. “But if you ever open your yap far enough to whisper a word of it to her I’m wringin’ your neck, pronto! That goes!”

  He told Owen the story from the beginning—about the Drifter, his letter to the elder Bransford, how he had killed the two men who had murdered Will Bransford, and how, on the impulse of the moment, he had impersonated Mary’s brother.

  “What are you figuring to do now?” questioned the little man when Sanderson finished.

  “I’m tellin’ her right now,” declared Sanderson. “She’ll salivate me, most likely, for me lettin’ her kiss me an’ fuss over me. But I ain’t carin’ a heap. I ain’t never been no hand at deceivin’ no one—I ain’t foxy enough. There’s been times since I’ve been here when I’ve been scared to open my mouth for fear my damned heart would jump out. I reckon she’ll just naturally kill me when she finds it out, but I don’t seem to care a heap whether she does or not.”

  The little man narrowed his eyes at Sanderson.

  “You’re deeply in love with her, I suppose?”

  Sanderson flushed; then his gaze grew steady and cold. “Up till now you’ve minded your own business,” he said. “If you’ll keep on mindin’ it, we’ll—”

  “Of course,” grinned Owen. “You couldn’t help loving her—I love her, too. You say you’re going to tell her. Don’t do it. Why should you? Don’t you see that if you told her that her brother had been murdered she’d never get over it? She’s that kind. And you know what Dale’s scheme was, don’t you? Has she told you?” At Sanderson’s nod, Owen went on:

  “If you were to let it be known that you are not Will Bransford, Dale would get the property as sure as shooting. I know his plan. I overheard him and a man named Dave Silverthorn talking it over one night when I was prowling around Dale’s house. The window of Dale’s office was wide open, and I was crouching outside.

  “They’ve got a man ready to come on here to impersonate Bransford. They would prove his claim and after he was established he would sell out to them. They have forged papers showing that Mary is an adopted daughter—though not legally. Don’t you see that if you don’t go on letting everybody think you are Bransford, Mary will lose the ranch?”

  Sanderson shook his head. “I’d be gettin’ deeper an’ deeper into it all the time—in love an’ in trouble. An’ when she’d find out how I’d fooled her all the time she’d hate me.”

  “Not if you save the ranch for her,” argued the little man. “She’d feel badly about her brother, maybe, but she’d forgive you if you stayed and beat Dale at his own game.”

  Sanderson did not answer. The little man climbed down from the fence and moved close to him, talking earnestly, and at last Sanderson grinned down at him.

  “I’m doing it,” he said. “I’ll stay. I reckon I was figurin’ on it all the time.”

  CHAPTER X

  PLAIN TALK

  Barney Owen had told Sanderson of his hatred for Alva Dale, but he had not told Sanderson many other things. He had not told the true story of how he came to be employed at the Double A—how Mary had come upon him one day at a shallow crossing of the river, far down in the basin.

  Owen was flat on his stomach at the edge of the water, scooping it up with eager handfuls to quench a thirst that had endured for days. He had been so weak that he could not stand when she found him, and in some way she got him on his horse and brought him to the ranchhouse, there to nurse him until he recovered his strength.

  It had been while she was caring for him that she had told him about her fear of Dale, and thereafter—as soon as he was able to ride again—Owen took it upon himself to watch Dale.

  In spite of his exceeding slenderness, Owen seemed to possess the endurance and stamina of a larger and more physically perfect man. For though he was always seen about the ranchhouse during the day—helping at odd jobs and appearing to be busy nearly all the time—each succeeding night found him stealthily mounting his horse to ride to the Bar D, there to watch Dale’s movements.

  He had not been at the Bar D since the night before the day on which he had left with Sanderson to go to Las Vegas, but on the second night following his return—soon after dark—he went to the stable, threw saddle and bridle on his horse, and vanished into the shadows of the basin.

  Later, moving carefully, he appeared at the edge of a tree clump near the Bar D corral. He saw a light in one of the windows of the house—Dale’s office—and he left his horse in the shadows and stole forward. There were two men in the office with Dale. Owen saw them and heard their voices as he crept to a point under the window in the dense blackness of the night.

  The men Dale had sent to Tucson had not required the full two weeks for the trip; they had made it in ten days, and their faces, as they sat before Dale in the office, showed the effects of their haste. Yet they grinned at Dale as they talked, glowing with pride over their achievement, but the word they brought to Dale did not please him, and he sat glaring at them until they finished.

  “Gary Miller ain’t been heard of for a month, eh?” he said. “You say you heard he started this way? Then where in hell is he?”

  Neither of the men could answer that question and Dale dismissed them. Then he walked to a door, opened it, and called to someone in another room. Dave Silverthorn entered the office, and for more than an hour the two talked, their conversation being punctuated with futile queries and profanity.

  At ten o’clock the next morning Dale appeared at the Double A ranchhouse. Apparently he was willing to forgive and forget, for he grinned at Owen, who was watching him from the door of the bunkhouse, and he politely doffed his hat to Mary Bransford, who met him at the door of the ranchhouse.

  “Well, Miss Mary,” he said, “how does it feel to have a brother again?”

  “It’s rather satisfying, Dale,” smiled the girl. “Won’t you get off your horse?”

  The girl’s lips were stiff with dread anticipation and dislike. Dale’s manner did not mislead her; his forced geniality, his gruff heartiness, his huge smile, were all insincere, masking evil. He seemed to her like a big, tawny, grinning beast, and her heart thumped with trepidation as she looked at him.

  “How’s Nyland?” he asked, smiling hugely. “That was a narrow squeak—now, wasn’t it? For I found that Ben Nyland didn’t brand them cattle at all—it was another man, living down the basin. That nester near Colby’s. He done it. But he sloped before we could get a rope on him. Had a grudge against Nyland, I reckon. Sorry it happened.”

  Thus he attempted to smooth the matter over. But he saw that Mary did not believe him, and his grin grew broader.

  “Where’s brother Will this mornin’, Mary?” he said.

  Sanderson appeared in the doorway behind Mary.

  “You could see him if you was half lookin’,” he said slowly.

  “So I could,” guffawed Dale. “But if there’s a pretty girl around—”

  “You come here on business, Dale?” interrupted Sanderson. “Because if you did,” he went on before Dale could answer, “I’d be glad to get it over.”

  “Meanin’ that you don’t want me to be hangin’ around here no longer than is necessary, eh?” said Dale.

  “You’ve said a heap,” drawled Sanderson.

  “Well, it won’t take a long time
,” Dale returned. “It’s just this. I’ve got word from Las Vegas that you’ve swore to an affidavit sayin’ that you’re Will Bransford. That’s all right—I ain’t got nothin’ to say about that. But there’s a law about brands.

  “Your dad registered his brand—the Double A. But that don’t let you out. Accordin’ to the law you’ve got to do your registerin’ same as though the brand had never been registered before. Bein’ the only law around here—me bein’ a deputy sheriff—I’ve got to look out for that end of it.

  “An’ so, if you’ll just sign this here blank, with your name and address, specifyin’ your brand, why, we’ll call it all settled.”

  And he held out a legal-looking paper toward Sanderson.

  Sanderson’s lips straightened, for as his eyes met Dale’s he saw the latter’s glint with a cold cunning. For an instant Sanderson meditated, refusing to accept the paper, divining that Dale was concealing his real purpose; but glancing sidewise he caught a swift wink from Owen, who had drawn near and was standing beside a porch column. And he saw Owen distinctly jerk his head toward the house.

  Sanderson stepped forward and took the paper from Dale’s hand. Then he abruptly strode toward the house, telling Dale to wait.

  Sanderson halted in the middle of the sitting-room as Owen entered the room through, a rear door. Barney Owen was grinning.

  “Wants your signature, does he?” said Owen. He whispered rapidly to Sanderson, and the latter’s face grew pale and grim as he listened. When Owen had finished he grinned.

  “Now we’ll give him Will Bransford’s signature—just as he used to write it. I’ve seen it more times than any other man ever saw it, and I can duplicate it to a flourish. Give me the paper!”

  He sat down at a table, where there was a pen and a bottle of ink and wrote boldly: “Will Bransford.” With a grin he passed the paper back.

  Sanderson stared, then a smile wreathed his lips, for the signature was seemingly a duplicate of that which had been written at the bottom of the letter Will Bransford had written to his father.

  On his way to return the paper to Dale, Sanderson paused to listen again to Owen, who whispered to him. Sanderson stiffened, looked hard at Owen, and then grinned with straight lips. In less than no time he was out of the house and confronting Dale.