“Alva Dale!”

The girl was on her feet, her eyes blazing.

Dale did not retreat from her; he stood smiling at her, his face wreathed in a huge grin.  He was enjoying the girl.

Sanderson slipped along the wall of the house and opened the door.  It creaked loudly on its hinges with the movement, causing both Dale and the girl to turn and face it.

Mary Bransford stood rigid as she saw Sanderson standing in the doorway, a flush sweeping swiftly over her face.  There was relief in her eyes.

Astonishment and stark, naked fear were in Dale’s eyes.  He shrank back a step, and looked swiftly at Sanderson’s right hand, and when he saw that it held a six-shooter he raised both his own hands, shoulder-high, the palms toward Sanderson.

“So you know it means shootin’, eh?” said Sanderson grimly as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, slamming it shut with his left hand.

“Well, shootin’ goes.”  There was the cold calm of decision in his manner; his eyes were ablaze with the accumulated hate and rage that had been aroused over what he had heard.  The grin that he showed to Dale drew his lips into two straight, stiff lines.

“I reckon you think you’ve earned your red shirt, Dale,” he said, “for tellin’ tales out of school.  Well, you’ll get it.  There’s just one thing will save your miserable hide.  You got that seven thousand on you?”

Dale hesitated, then nodded.

Sanderson spoke to Mary Bransford without removing his gaze from Dale: 

“Get pen, ink, an’ paper.”

The girl moved quickly into another room, returning almost instantly with the articles requested.

“Sit down an’ write what I tell you to,” directed Sanderson.

Dale dropped into a chair beside a center-table, took up the pen, poised it over the paper, and looked at Sanderson.

“I am hereby returning to Deal Sanderson the seven thousand two hundred dollars I stole from, him,” directed Sanderson.  “I am doing this of my own accord—­no one is forcin’ me,” went on Sanderson.  “I want to add that I hereby swear that the charge of drawin’ a gun on Silverthorn was a frame-up, me an’ Silverthorn an’ Maison bein’ the guilty parties,” finished Sanderson.

“Now,” he added, when Dale had written as directed, “sign it.”

Dale signed and stood up, his face aflame with rage.

“I’ll take the money—­now,” said Sanderson.

Dale produced it from various pockets, laying it on the table.  He said nothing.  Mary Bransford stood a little distance away, watching silently.

“Count it, Miss Bransford,” said Sanderson when Dale had disgorged the money.

The two men stood silent as the girl fingered the bills.  At last she looked at Sanderson and nodded.

The latter grinned.  “Everything’s regular, now,” he said.  He looked at Mary.  “Do you want him killed, ma’am?  He’d be a lot better off dead.  You’d be better off, too.  This kind of a skunk is always around, botherin’ women—­when there ain’t no men around.”