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 Owen returned. She was pale, and a haunting fear, cringing, abject, was in her eyes.
She got to her feet when she saw Owen and ran to him, crying.
Owen tried to comfort her, but his words were futile.
"You be brave, little woman!" he said. "You must be brave! Sanderson and the other men are in danger, and I've got to go to Okar for help!"
"I'll go with you," declared the girl. "I can't stay here—I won't. I can't stand being in the same house with—with that!" She pointed to the kitchen.
"All right," Owen said resignedly; "we'll both go. What did you do with the money?"
Mary disclosed the hiding place, and Owen took the money, carried it to the bunkhouse, where he stuffed it into the bottom of a tin food box. Then, hurriedly, he saddled and bridled two horses and led them to where Mary was waiting on the porch.
Mounting, they rode fast toward Okar—the little man's face working nervously, a great eagerness in his heart to help the man for whom he had conceived a deep affection.
Banker Maison had made no mistake when he had told Sanderson that Judge Graney was honest. Graney looked honest. There was about him an atmosphere of straightforwardness that was unmistakable and convincing. It was because he was honest that a certain governor had sent him to Okar.
And Graney had vindicated the governor's faith in him. Whenever crime and dishonesty raised their heads in Okar, Judge Graney pinned them to the wall with the sword of justice, and called upon all men to come and look upon his deeds.
Maison, Silverthorn, and Dale—and others of their ilk—seldom called upon the judge for advice. They knew he did not deal in their kind. Through some underground channel they had secured a deputyship for Dale, and upon him they depended for whatever law they needed to further their schemes.
Judge Graney was fifty—the age of experience. He knew something of men himself. And on the night that Maison and Sanderson had come to him, he thought he had seen in Sanderson's eyes a cold menace, a threat, that meant nothing less than death for the banker, if the latter had refused to write the bill of sale.
For, of course, the judge knew that the banker was being forced to make out the bill of sale. He knew that from the cold determination and alert watchfulness in Sanderson's eyes; he saw it in the white nervousness of the banker.
And yet it was not his business to interfere, or to refuse to attest the signatures of the men. He had asked Maison to take the oath, and the banker had taken it.
Thus it seemed he had entered into the contract in good faith. If he had not, and there was something wrong about the deal, Maison had recourse to the law, and the judge would have aided him.
But nothing had come of it; Maison had said nothing, had lodged no complaint.
But the judge had kept the case in mind.
Late in the afternoon of the day on which Dale had organized the posse to go to the Double A, Judge Graney sat at his desk in the courtroom. The room was empty, except for a court attache, who was industriously writing at a little desk in the rear of the room.
The Maison case was in the judge's mental vision, and he was wondering why the banker had not complained, when the sheriff of Colfax entered.
Graney smiled a welcome at him. "You don't get over this way very often, Warde, but when you do, I'm glad to see you. Sit on the desk—that's your usual place, anyway."
Warde followed the suggestion about the desk; he sat on it, his legs dangling. There was a glint of doubt and anxiety in his eyes.
"What's wrong, Warde?" asked the judge.
"Plenty," declared Warde. "I've come to you for advice—and perhaps for some warrants. You recollect some time ago there was a herd of cattle lost in Devil's Hole—and some men. Some of the men were shot, and one or two of them went down under the herd when it stampeded."
"Yes," said the judge, "I heard rumors of it. But those things are not uncommon, and I haven't time to look them up unless the cases are brought formally to my attention."
"Well," resumed Warde, "at the time there didn't seem to be any clue to work on that would indicate who had done the killing. We've nothing to do with the stampede, of course—that sort of stuff is out of my line. But about the shooting of the men. I've got evidence now."
"Go ahead," directed the judge.
"Well, on the night of the killing two of my men were nosing around the level near Devil's Hole, trying to locate a horse thief who had been trailed to that section. They didn't find the horse thief, but they saw a bunch of men sneaking around a camp fire that belonged to the outfit which was trailin' the herd that went down in Devil's Hole.
"They didn't interfere, because they didn't know what was up. But they saw one of the men stampede the herd, and they saw the rest of them do the killing."
"Who did the killing?"
"Dale and his gang," declared the sheriff.
Judge Graney's eyes glowed. He sat erect and looked hard at the sheriff.
"Who is Sanderson?" he asked.
"That's the fellow who bossed the trail herd."
The judge smiled oddly. "There were three thousand head of cattle?"
Warde straightened. "How in hell do you know?" he demanded.
"Banker Maison paid for them," he said gently.
He related to Warde the incident of the visit of Sanderson and the banker, and the payment to Sanderson by Maison of the ninety thousand dollars.
At the conclusion of the recital Warde struck the desk with his fist.
"Damned if I didn't think it was something like that!" he declared. "But I wasn't going to make a holler until I was sure. But Sanderson knew, eh? He knew all the time who had done the killing, and who had planned it. Game, eh? He was playing her a lone hand!"
The sheriff was silent for a moment, and then he spoke again, a glow of excitement in his eyes. "But there'll be hell to pay about this! If Sanderson took ninety thousand dollars away from Maison, Maison was sure to tell Dale and Silverthorn about it—for they're as thick as three in a bed. And none of them are the kind of men to stand for that kind of stuff from anybody—not even from a man like Sanderson!"
"We've got to do something, Judge! Give me warrants for the three of them—Dale, Maison, and Silverthorn, and I'll run them in before they get a chance to hand Sanderson anything!"
Judge Graney called the busy clerk and gave him brief instructions. As the latter started toward his desk there was a sound at the door, and Barney Owen came in, breathing heavily.
Barney's eyes lighted when they rested upon the sheriff, for he had not hoped to see him there. He related to them what had happened at the Double A that day, and how Dale's men had followed Sanderson and the others to "wipe them out" if they could.
"That settles it!" declared the sheriff. He was outside in an instant, running here and there in search of men to form a posse. He found them, scores of them; for in all communities where the law is represented, there are men who take pride in upholding it.
So it was with Okar. When the law-loving citizens of the town were told what had occurred they began to gather around the sheriff from all directions—all armed and eager. And yet it was long after dusk before the cavalcade of men turned their horses' heads toward the neck of the basin, to begin the long, hard ride over the plains to the spot where Sanderson, Williams, and the others had been ambushed by Dale's men.
A rumor came to the men, however, just before they started, which made several of them look at one another—for there had been those who had seen Ben Nyland riding down the street toward Maison's bank in the dusk, his face set and grim and a wild light in his eyes.
"Maison has been guzzled—he's deader than a salt mackerel!" came the word, leaping from lip to lip.
Sheriff Warde grinned. "Serves him right," he declared; "that's one less for us to hang!"