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 worshiped 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 hardships 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.

Nyland was afflicted with a premonition of evil when he got off the train at Okar.  To the insistence of the owner of the livery stable, where he had left his horse, Nyland replied: 

“I ain’t got no time to do any drinkin’; I’ve got to get home.”

The premonition of evil still oppressed him as he rode his horse homeward.  He rode fast, his face set and worried.

When he reached the clearing through which Dale had come on the night he had visited the Nyland cabin, he looked furtively around, for the dire foreboding that had gripped him for hours had grown suddenly stronger.

He halted his horse and sat motionless in the saddle, intently examining every object within view.

It was to the horse corral that he finally turned when he could see nothing strange in the objects around him.  He had looked at the house, and there seemed to be nothing wrong here, for he could see Peggy’s wash on the line that ran from a porch column to a corner of the stable.