"How could I," he asked, "with a new day dawnin' for me?"
CHAPTER XVI
THE HAND OF THE ENEMY
When in the bunkhouse the next morning Sanderson informed Barney Owen of what had occurred during the night, the latter looked fixedly at Sanderson.
"So she didn't take it hard," he said.
"Was you expectin' her to? For a brother that she hadn't seen in a dozen years—an' which she knows in her secret heart wasn't any good?" retorted Sanderson. "Shootin' your face off in Okar—or anywhere else—don't go any more," added Sanderson. "She's pretendin', publicly, that I'm her brother."
"I'm through talking," declared Owen.
"Or livin'. It's one or the other," warned Sanderson.
Sanderson took the seven thousand dollars that Mary gave him, rode to Lazette—a town fifty miles eastward from the basin—-and deposited the money in a bank there. Then he rode eastward still farther and in another town discovered a young engineer with a grievance against his employers.