Part 37 (1/2)

He saw a number of men crouching behind rocks and boulders that were scattered over the steep slope, and he counted them deliberately--sixteen. He could see their faces plainly, and he recognized many of them as Dale's men. They were of the vicious type that are to be found in all lawless communities.

Sanderson's grin as he sighted along the barrel of his rifle was full of sardonic satisfaction, tempered with a slight disappointment. For he did not see Dale among the others. Dale, he supposed, had stayed behind.

The thought of what Dale might be doing at the Double A ranchhouse maddened Sanderson, and taking quick sight at a man crouching behind a rock, he pulled the trigger.

Looking only in front of him, at the other side of the defile where Sanderson's men were concealed, the man did not expect attack from a new quarter, and as Sanderson's bullet struck him he leaped up, howling with pain and astonishment, clutching at his breast.

He had hardly exposed himself when several reports from the other side of the defile greeted him. The man staggered and fell behind his rock, his feet projecting from one side and his head from the other.

Instantly the battle took on a new aspect. It was a flank attack, which Dale's men had not antic.i.p.ated, and it confused them. Several of them s.h.i.+fted their positions, and in doing so they brought parts of their bodies into view of the men on the opposite wall.

There rose from the opposite wall a succession of reports, followed by hoa.r.s.e cries of pain from Dale's men. They flopped back again, thus exposing themselves to Sanderson's fire, and the latter lost not one of his opportunities.

It was the aggressors themselves that were now under cross fire, and they relished it very little.

A big man, incensed at his inability to silence Sanderson, and wounded in the shoulder, suddenly left the shelter of his rock and charged across the steep face of the slope toward the fissure.

This man was brave, despite his a.s.sociations, but he was a Dale man, and deserved no mercy. Sanderson granted him none. Halfway of the distance between his rock and the fissure he charged before Sanderson shot him. The man fell soundlessly, turning over and over in his descent to the bottom of the defile.

And then rose Williams' voice--Sanderson grinned with bitter humor:

”We've got them, boys; we've got them. Give them h.e.l.l, the d.a.m.ned buzzards!”

CHAPTER XXVIII

NYLAND MEETS A ”KILLER”

Ben Nyland had gone to Lazette to attend to some business that had demanded his attention. He had delayed going until he could delay no longer.

”I hate like blazes to go away an' leave you alone, here--to face that beast, Dale, if he comes sneakin' around. But I reckon I've just got to go--I can't put it off any longer. If you'd only go an' stay at Bransford's while I'm gone I'd feel a heap easier in my mind.”

”I'm not a bit afraid,” Peggy declared. ”That last experience of Dale's with Sanderson has done him good, and he won't bother me again.”

That had been the conversation between Ben and Peggy as Ben got ready to leave. And he had gone away, half convinced that Peggy was right, and that Dale would not molest her.

But he had made himself as inconspicuous as possible while in Okar, waiting for the train, and he was certain that none of Dale's men had seen him.

Nyland had concluded his business as quickly as possible, but the best he could do was to take the return train that he had told Peggy he would take. That train brought him back to Okar late in the afternoon of the next day.

Ben Nyland had been born and raised in the West, and he was of the type that had made the West the great supply store of the country. Rugged, honest, industrious, Ben Nyland had no ambitions beyond those of taking care of his sister--which responsibility had been his since the death of his parents years before.

It had not been a responsibility, really, for Nyland wors.h.i.+ped his sister, and it had been his eagerness to champion her that had made an enemy of Alva Dale.

He hated Dale, but not more than he hated Maison and Silverthorn for the part they were playing--and had played--in trying to rob him of his land.

Nyland was a plodder, but there ran in his veins the fighting blood of ancestors who had conquered the hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of a great, rugged country, and there had been times when he thought of Dale and the others that his blood had leaped like fire through his veins.

Twice Peggy had prevented him from killing Alva Dale.