Square Deal Sanderson Part 28

They resumed their card-playing. An hour or so later there came a knock on the door of the bank--a back door--and Dale opened it to admit Morley--the big man who had drawn a pistol on Sanderson when he had tried to take Barney Owen out of the City Hotel barroom.

Morley was alone. He stepped inside without invitation and grinned at the others.

"There's no sign of Sanderson. Someone had been there an' planted the guys we salivated--an' the guy which went down in the run. We seen his horse layin' there, cut to ribbons. It's likely Sanderson went into the sand ahead of the herd--they was crowdin' him pretty close when we seen them runnin'."

"You say them guys was planted?" said Dale. "Then Sanderson got out of it. He would--if anyone could, for he was riding like a devil on a cyclone when I saw him. He's got back, and took his men to Devil's Hole."

Maison laughed. "We'll say he got out of it. What of it? He's broke.

And if the d.a.m.ned court would get a move on with that evidence we've sent over to prove that he isn't a Bransford, we'd have the Double A inside of a week!"

Dale got up, grinning and looking at his watch.

"Well, gentlemen, I'm hitting the breeze to the Bar D for some sleep.

See you tomorrow."

Dale went out and mounted his horse. But he did not go straight home, as he had declared he would. After striking the neck of the basin he swerved his horse and rode northeastward toward Ben Nyland's cabin.

For he had heard that day in Okar that Ben Nyland had taken a train eastward that morning, to return on the afternoon of the day following.

And during the time Dale had been talking with Maison; and Silverthorn, and playing cards with them, he thought often of Peggy Nyland.

Silverthorn and Morley did not remain long in Maison's private room in the bank building.

Morley had promised to play cards with some of his men in the City Hotel barroom, and he joined them there, while Silverthorn went to his rooms in the upper story of the station.

After the departure of the others, Maison sat for a long time at the table in the private room, making figures on paper.

Maison had exacted from the world all the luxuries he thought his pampered body desired. His financial career would not have borne investigation, but Maison's operations had been so smooth and subtle that he had left no point at which an enemy could begin an investigation.

But years of questionable practice had had an inevitable effect upon Maison. Outwardly, he had hardened, but only Maison knew of the many devils his conscience created for him.

Continued communion with the devils of conscience had made a coward of Maison. When at last he got up from the table he glanced apprehensively around the room; and after he had put out the light and climbed the stairs to his rooms above the bank, he was trembling.

Maison had often dealt crookedly with his fellow-men, but never, until the incident of Devil's Hole, had he deliberately planned murder. Thus tonight Maison's conscience had more ghastly evidence to confront him with, and conscience is a pitiless retributive agent.

Maison poured himself a generous drink of whisky from a bottle on a sideboard before he got into bed, but the story told him by Dale and the others of the terrible scene at Devil's Hole--remained so staringly vivid in his thoughts that whisky could not dim it.

He groaned and pulled the covers over his head, squirming and twisting, for the night was warm and there was little air stirring.

After a while Maison sat up. It seemed to him that he had been in bed for an age, though actually the time was not longer than an hour.

It had been late when he had left the room downstairs. And now he listened for sounds that would tell him that Okar's citizens were still busy with their pleasures.

But no sound came from the street. Maison yearned for company, for he felt unaccountably depressed and morbid. It was as though some danger impended and instinct was warning him of it.

But in the dead silence of Okar there was no suggestion of sound. It must have been in the ghostly hours between midnight and the dawn--though a cold terror that had gripped Maison would not let him get up to look at the clock that ticked monotonously on the sideboard.

He lay, clammy with sweat, every sense strained and acute, listening.

For, from continued contemplation of imaginary dangers he had worked himself into a frenzy which would have turned into a conviction of real danger at the slightest sound near him.

He expected sound to come; he waited for it, his ears attuned, his senses alert.

And at last sound came.

It was a mere creak--such a sound as a foot might make on a stairway.

And it seemed to have come from the stairs leading to Maison's rooms.

He did not hear it again, though, and he might have fought off the new terror that was gripping him, if at that instant he had not remembered that when leaving the lower room he had forgotten to lock the rear door--the door through which Morley had entered earlier in the evening; the door through which Silverthorn had departed.

He had not locked that door, and that noise on the stairs might have been made by some night prowler.

Aroused to desperation by his fears he started to get out of bed with the intention of getting the revolver that lay in a drawer in the sideboard.

His feet were on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed preparatory to standing, when he saw the door at the head of the stairs slowly swing open and a figure of a man appear in the opening.

The light in the room was faint--a mere luminous star-mist--hut Maison could see clearly the man's face. He stiffened, his hands gripping the bedclothing, as he muttered hoa.r.s.ely:

"Sanderson!"

Sanderson stepped into the room and closed the door. The heavy six-shooter in his hand was at his hip, the long barrel horizontal, the big muzzle gaping forebodingly into Maison's face. There was a cold, mirthless grin on Sanderson's face, but it seemed to Maison that the grin was the wanton expression of murder l.u.s.t.

He knew, without Sanderson telling him, that if he moved, or made the slightest outcry, Sanderson would kill him.

Therefore he made neither move nor sound, but sat there, rigid and gasping for breath, awaiting the other's pleasure.

Sanderson came close to him, speaking in a vibrant whisper:

"Anyone in the house with you? If you speak above a whisper I'll blow you apart!"

"I'm alone!" gasped Maison.

Sanderson laughed lowly. "You must have known I was comin'. Did you expect me? Well--" when Maison did not answer--"you left the rear door open. Obliged to you.

"You know what I came for? No?" His voice was still low and vibrant.

"I came to talk over what happened at Devil's Hole."

Maison's eyes bulged with horror.

"I see you know about it, all right. I'm glad of that. Seven men murdered; three thousand head of cattle gone. Mebbe they didn't all go into the quicksand--I don't know. What I do know is this: they've got to be paid for--men an' cattle. Understand? Cattle an' men."

The cold emphasis he laid on the "and" made a shiver run over the banker.

"Money will pay for cattle," went on Sanderson. "I'll collect a man for every man you killed at Devil's Hole."

He laughed in feline humor when Maison squirmed at the words.

"You think your life is more valuable than the life of any one of the men you killed at Devil's Hole, eh? Soapy was worth a hundred like you! An' Sogun--an' all the rest! Understand? They were real men, doin' some good in the world. I'm tellin' you this so you'll know that I don't think you amount to a h.e.l.l of a lot, an' that I wouldn't suffer a heap with remorse if you'd open your trap for one little peep an' I'd have to blow your guts out!"

A devil of conscience had finally visited Maison--a devil in the flesh.

For all the violent pa.s.sions were aflame in Sanderson's face, repressed but needing only provocation to loose them.