Mary shook her head with a decisive negative.

“Then he won’t die, right now,” said Sanderson.  “He’ll pull his freight away from the Double A, though, ma ‘am.  An’ he’ll never come back.”

He was talking to Dale through the girl, and Dale watched him, scowling.

“If he does come back, you’ll tell me, won’t you, ma’am?  An’ then there’ll never be an Alva Dale to bother you again—­or to go around robbin’ honest men, an’ tryin’ to get them mixed up with the law.”

And now he turned from the girl and spoke to Dale: 

“You go right back to Okar an’ tell Maison an’ Silverthorn what has happened here tonight.  Show them how the fear of God has got into your heart an’ made you yearn to practice the principles of a square deal.  Tell them that they’d better get to goin’ straight, too, for if they don’t there’s a guy which was named after a square deal that is goin’ to snuff them off this hemisphere middlin’ rapid.  That’s all.  You’d better hit the breeze right back to Okar an’ spread the good news.”

He stood, a grim smile on his face, watching Dale as the latter walked to the door.  When Dale stepped out on the porch Sanderson followed him, still regarding the movements of the other coldly and alertly.

Mary heard them—­their steps on the boards of the porch; she heard the saddle leather creak as Dale climbed on his horse; she heard the sound of the hoofbeats as the horse clattered out of the ranchhouse yard.

And then for several minutes she stood near the little table in the room, listening vainly for some sound that would tell her of the presence of Sanderson on the porch.  None came.

At last, when she began to feel certain that he had gone to the bunkhouse, she heard a step on the porch and saw Sanderson standing in the doorway.

He grinned at her, meeting her gaze fairly.

“Dale told you a heap of truth, ma’am,” he said.  “I feel more like a man tonight than I’ve felt for a good many days—­an’ nights.”

“Then it was true—­as Dale said—­that you are not my brother?” said the girl.  She was trying to make her voice sound severe, but only succeeded in making it quaver.

“I ain’t your brother.”

“And you came here to try to take the ranch away from me—­to steal it?”

He flushed.  “You’ve got four thousand of my money there, ma’am.  You’re to keep it.  Mebbe that will help to show what my intentions were.  About the rest—­your brother an’ all—­I’ll have to tell you.  It’s a thing you ought to know, an’ I don’t know what’s been keepin’ me from tellin’ you all along.

“Mebbe it was because I was scared you’d take it hard.  But since these sneaks have got to waggin’ their tongues it’ll have to be told.  If you sit down by the table there, I’ll tell you why I done what I did.”

She took a chair beside the table and faced him, and, standing before her, speaking very gently, but frankly, he related what had occurred to him in the desert.  She took it calmly, though there were times when her eyes glowed with a light that told of deep emotion.  But she soon became resigned to the death of her brother and was able to listen to Sanderson’s story of his motive in deceiving her.