Halfway between the Double A and the neck of the basin, Nyland came upon the sheriff and his posse.  The posse halted Nyland, thinking he might be Dale, but upon discovering the error allowed the man to proceed—­after he had told them that Sanderson was safe and was riding toward the Bar D. Sanderson, Nyland said, was after Dale.  He did not say that he, too, wanted to see Dale.

“Dale!” mocked the sheriff, “Barney Owen hung him!”

“Dale’s alive, an’ in Okar—­or somewhere!” Nyland flung back at them as he raced toward town.

“I reckon we might as well go back,” said the sheriff to his men.  “The clean-up has took place, an’ it’s all over—­or Sanderson wouldn’t be back.  We’ll go back to Okar an’ have a talk with Silverthorn.  An’ mebbe, if Dale’s around, we’ll run into him.”

The posse, led by the sheriff, returned to Okar.  Within five minutes after his arrival in town the sheriff was confronting Silverthorn in the latter’s office in the railroad station.  The posse waited.

“It comes to this, Silverthorn,” said the sheriff.  “We ain’t got any evidence that you had a hand in killing those men at Devil’s Hole.  But there ain’t a man—­an honest man—­in town that ain’t convinced that you did have a hand in it.  What I want to say to you is this: 

“Sanderson and Nyland are running maverick around the country tonight.  Nyland has killed Maison and is hunting for Dale.  Sanderson and his men have cleaned up the bunch of guys that went out this morning to wipe Sanderson out.  And Sanderson is looking for Dale.  And after he gets Dale he’ll come for you, for he’s seeing red, for sure.

“I ain’t interfering.  This is one of the times when the law don’t see anything—­and don’t want to see anything.  I won’t touch Nyland for killing Maison, and I won’t lay a finger on Sanderson if he shoots the gizzard out of you.  There’s a train out of here in fifteen minutes.  I give you your chance—­take the train or take your chance with Sanderson!”

“I’ll take the train,” declared Silverthorn.

Fifteen minutes later, white and scared, he was sitting in a coach, cringing far back into one of the seats, cursing, for it seemed to him that the train would never start.

CHAPTER XXXIV

A MAN GETS A SQUARE DEAL

Dale did not miss Ben Nyland by more than a few hundred yards as he passed through the neck of the basin.  But the men could not see each other in the black shadows cast by the somber mountains that guarded the entrance to the basin, and so they sped on, one headed away from Okar and one toward it, each man nursing his bitter thoughts; one intent on killing and the other riding to escape the death that, he felt, was imminent.

Dale reached the Bar D and pulled the saddle and bridle from his horse.  He caught up a fresh animal, threw saddle and bridle on him, and then ran into the house to get some things that he thought might be valuable to him.