The Bransford letter was missing! Half a dozen times he thumbed the letters in the packages over before he would admit that the one for which he was seeking was not there.
He stood for a time looking at the package of letters, bitterly accusing himself. It was his own fault if the whole structure of deception tumbled about his ears, for he should have taken the letter when he had had an opportunity.
Mary Bransford had it, of course. The other letters, he supposed, she cared less for than the one written by her brother.
For the twentieth time since his arrival at the ranch, Sanderson had an impulse to ride away and leave Mary Bransford to fight the thing out herself. But, as before, he fought down the impulse.
This time--so imbued was he with determination to heap confusion upon Alva Dale"s head--he stood in the center of the room, grinning saturninely, fully resolved that if it must be he would make a complete confession to the girl and stay at the Double A to fight Dale no matter what Mary thought of him.
He might have gone to Mary, to ask her what had become of the letter.
He could have invented some pretext. But he would not; he would not have her think he had been examining her letters. One thing he could do without confessing that he had been prying--and he did it.
At dinner he remarked casually to Mary:
"I reckon you don"t think enough of my letters put them away as keepsakes?"
"Sanderson"s or Bransford"s?" she returned, looking at him with a smile.
"Both," he grinned.
"Well," she said, "I did keep both. But, as I told you before, I had the Sanderson letter somewhere. I have been looking for it, but have not been able to find it."
Sanderson grinned faintly and wondered what she would say if she knew what care he had taken to burn the Sanderson letter.
"The letter you wrote as yourself--the Bransford letter--I have. It was among a lot of others in the drawer of the dresser in your room. I was looking them over while you were gone, and I took it."
Sanderson had a hard time to keep the eagerness out of his voice, but he did so:
"You got it handy?"
She looked straight at him. "That is the oddest thing," she said seriously. "I took it from there to keep it safe, and I have mislaid it again, for I can"t find it anywhere."
There was no guile in her eyes--Sanderson was certain of that. And he hoped the letter would stay mislaid. He grinned.
"Well, I was only curious," he said. "Don"t bother to look for it."
He felt better when he went out of the house and walked toward the corral fence. He felt more secure and capable. Beginning with the following day, he meant to take charge of the ranch and run it as he knew it should be run.
He had not been at the Double A long, but he had seen signs of shiftlessness here and there. He had no doubt that since Bransford"s death the men had taken advantage of the absence of authority to relax, and the ranch had suffered. He would soon bring them back to a state of efficiency.
He heard a step behind him, and looking over his shoulder he saw the little man approaching.
The little man joined Sanderson, not speaking as he climbed the fence at a point near by and sat on the top rail, idly swinging his legs.
Sanderson had conceived a liking for Owen. There was something about the little man that invited it. He was little, and manly despite his bodily defects. But there was a suggestion of effeminacy mingling with the manliness of him that aroused the protective instinct in Sanderson.
In a big man the suggestion of effeminacy would have been disgusting, and Sanderson"s first action as owner of the ranch would have been to discharge such a man instantly. But in Sanderson"s heart had come a spirit of tolerance toward the little man, for he felt that the effeminacy had resulted from his afflictions.
He was a querulous semi-invalid, trying bravely to imitate his vigorous and healthy friends.
"Thinking it over?" he queried, looking down at Sanderson.
"Thinkin" what over?"
"Well, just things," grinned the little man. "For one thing, I suppose you are trying to decide why you didn"t sign your name--over in Las Vegas."
Sanderson grinned mildly, but did not answer. He felt more at ease now, and the little man"s impertinences did not bother him so much as formerly. He looked up, however, startled, when Owen said slowly:
"Do you want me to tell you why you didn"t sign Will Bransford"s name to the affidavit?"
Sanderson"s eyes did not waver as they met Owen"s.
"Tell me," he said evenly.
"Because you are not Will Bransford," said the little man.
Sanderson did not move; nor did he remove his gaze from the face of the little man. He was not conscious of any emotion whatever. For now that he had determined to stay at the Double A no matter what happened, discovery did not alarm him. He grinned at the little man, deliberately, with a taunting smile that the other could not fail to understand.
"You"re a wise guy, eh?" he said. "Well, spring it. I"m anxious to know how you got next to me."
"You ain"t sore, then?"
"Not, none."
"I was hoping you wouldn"t be," eagerly said the little man, "for I don"t want you to hit the breeze just now. I know you are not Will Bransford because I know Bransford intimately. I was his chum for several years. He could drink as much as I. He was lazy and shiftless, but I liked him. We were together in Tucson--and in other places in Arizona. Texas, too. We never amounted to much. Do you need to know any more? I can tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"More," grinned the other man, "about yourself. You are Sanderson--Deal Sanderson--nicknamed Square Deal Sanderson. I saw you one day in Tombstone; you were pointed out to me, and the minute I laid my eyes on you the day Dale tried to hang Nyland, I knew you."
Sanderson smiled. "Why didn"t you tell Mary?"
The little man"s face grew grave. "Because I didn"t want to queer your game. You saved Nyland--an innocent man. Knowing your reputation for fairness, I was convinced that you didn"t come here to deceive anybody."
"But I did deceive somebody," said Sanderson. "Not you, accordin" to what you"ve been tellin" me, but Mary Bransford. She thinks I am her brother, an" I"ve let her go on thinkin" it."
"Why?" asked the little man.
Sanderson gravely appraised the other. "There ain"t no use of holdin"
out anything on you," he said. His lips straightened and his eyes bored into the little man"s. There was a light in his own that made the little man stiffen. And Sanderson"s voice was cold and earnest.
"I"m puttin" you wise to why I"ve not told her," he went on. "But if you ever open your yap far enough to whisper a word of it to her I"m wringin" your neck, _p.r.o.nto_! That goes!"
He told Owen the story from the beginning--about the Drifter, his letter to the elder Bransford, how he had killed the two men who had murdered Will Bransford, and how, on the impulse of the moment, he had impersonated Mary"s brother.
"What are you figuring to do now?" questioned the little man when Sanderson finished.
"I"m tellin" her right now," declared Sanderson. "She"ll salivate me, most likely, for me lettin" her kiss me an" fuss over me. But I ain"t carin" a heap. I ain"t never been no hand at deceivin" no one--I ain"t foxy enough. There"s been times since I"ve been here when I"ve been scared to open my mouth for fear my d.a.m.ned heart would jump out. I reckon she"ll just naturally kill me when she finds it out, but I don"t seem to care a heap whether she does or not."