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, pronto!  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 damned 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.”

The little man narrowed his eyes at Sanderson.

“You’re deeply in love with her, I suppose?”

Sanderson flushed; then his gaze grew steady and cold.  “Up till now you’ve minded your own business,” he said.  “If you’ll keep on mindin’ it, we’ll——­”

“Of course,” grinned Owen.  “You couldn’t help loving her—­I love her, too.  You say you’re going to tell her.  Don’t do it.  Why should you?  Don’t you see that if you told her that her brother had been murdered she’d never get over it?  She’s that kind.  And you know what Dale’s scheme was, don’t you?  Has she told you?” At Sanderson’s nod, Owen went on: 

“If you were to let it be known that you are not Will Bransford, Dale would get the property as sure as shooting.  I know his plan.  I overheard him and a man named Dave Silverthorn talking it over one night when I was prowling around Dale’s house.  The window of Dale’s office was wide open, and I was crouching outside.

“They’ve got a man ready to come on here to impersonate Bransford.  They would prove his claim and after he was established he would sell out to them.  They have forged papers showing that Mary is an adopted daughter—­though not legally.  Don’t you see that if you don’t go on letting everybody think you are Bransford, Mary will lose the ranch?”

Sanderson shook his head.  “I’d be gettin’ deeper an’ deeper into it all the time—­in love an’ in trouble.  An’ when she’d find out how I’d fooled her all the time she’d hate me.”

“Not if you save the ranch for her,” argued the little man.  “She’d feel badly about her brother, maybe, but she’d forgive you if you stayed and beat Dale at his own game.”