“Yes,” returned Owen, gripping the hand held out to him.

“Will!” came Mary’s voice from the kitchen, “supper is ready!”

Owen laughed lowly, dropped Sanderson’s hand, and slipped away into the growing darkness.

Sanderson got up and faced the kitchen door, hesitating, reluctant again to face the girl and to continue the deception.  Necessity drove him to the door, however, and when he reached it, he saw Mary standing near the center of the kitchen, waiting for him.

“I don’t believe you are hungry at all!” she declared, looking keenly at him.  “And do you know, I think you blush more easily than any man I ever saw.  But don’t let that bother you,” she added, laughing; “blushes become you.  Will,” she went on, tenderly pressing his arm as she led him through a door into the dining-room, “you are awfully good-looking!”

“You’ll have me gettin’ a swelled head if you go to talkin’ like that,” he said, without looking at her.

“Oh, no; you couldn’t be vain if you tried.  None of the Bransfords were ever vain—­or conceited.  But they all have had good appetites,” she told him, shaking a finger at him.  “And if you don’t eat heartily I shall believe your long absence from home has taken some of the Bransford out of you!”

She pulled a chair out for aim, and took another at the table opposite him.

Sanderson ate; there was no way out of it, though he felt awkward and uncomfortable.  He kept wondering what she would say to him if she knew the truth.  It seemed to him that had the girl looked closely at him she might have seen the guilt in his eyes.

But apparently she was not thinking of doubting him—­it was that knowledge which made Sanderson realize how contemptible was the part he was playing.  She had accepted him on trust, without question, with the implicit and matter-of-fact faith of a child.

He listened in silence while she told him many things about the Bransfords—­incidents that had occurred during his supposed absence, intimate little happenings that he had no right to hear.  And he sat, silently eating, unable to interrupt, feeling more guilty and despicable all the time.

But he broke in after a time, gruffly: 

“What’s the trouble between Dale and the Nylands?”

Instantly she stiffened.  “I forgot to tell you about that.  Ben Nyland is a nester.  He has a quarter-section of land on the northwestern edge of the basin.  But he hasn’t proved on it.  The land adjoins Dale’s.  Dale wants it—­he has always wanted it.  And he means to have it.  He also wants Peggy Nyland.

“Dale is a beast!  You heard Peggy tell how he has hounded her.  It is true; she has told me about it more than once.  Dale hasn’t told, of course; but it is my opinion that Dale put the Double A cattle into Ben’s corral so that he could hang Ben.  With Ben out of the way he could take the Nyland property—­and Peggy, too.”