"I've deviled Mary Bransford because I thought it would stir you up. I don't care anything for her—it's Peggy Nyland that I like. Mebbe I'd have done the square thing to her—if I'd been let alone—an' if she'd have liked me. Peggy's better, ain't she? When I saw her after—after I saw Maison layin' there, choked to——"
"So you saw Maison—dead, you say?"
"Ben Nyland guzzled him," Dale's lips wreathed in a cynical smile. "Ben thought Maison had brought Peggy to his rooms. You knowed Maison was dead?"
Sanderson nodded.
"Then you must have been to Okar." He groaned. "Where's Ben Nyland?"
"In Okar. He's lookin' for you." Sanderson leaned closer to the man and spoke sharply to him. "Look here, Dale; you were at the Double A. What has become of Mary Bransford?"
"She went away with Barney Owen—to Okar. Nobody hurt her," he said, as he saw Sanderson's eyes glow. "She's all right—she's with her brother."
He saw Sanderson's eyes; they were filled with an expression of incredulity; and a late moon, just showing its rim above the edge of the mesa above them, flooded the slope with a brilliancy that made it possible for Dale to see another expression in Sanderson's eyes—an expression which told him that Sanderson thought his mind was wandering.
He laughed, weakly.
"You think I'm loco, eh? Well, I ain't. Barney Owen ain't Barney Owen at all—he's Will Bransford. I found that out yesterday," he continued, soberly, as Sanderson looked quickly at him. "I had some men down to Tombstone way, lookin' him up.