Square Deal Sanderson

by Charles Alden Seltzer

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 yet his thoughts were not entirely serious as he rode. The situation had its humorous side.

"Mostly nothin' turns out as folks figure in the beginnin'," he told himself. "Otherwise everything would be cut an' dried, an' there wouldn't be a heap of fun in the world—for butters-in. An' folks which scheme an' plot, tryin' to get things that belong to other folks, would have it too easy. There's got to be folks that wander around, nosin' into places that they shouldn't. Eh, Streak?"