His soul was in the grip of a mighty rage against Dale and the others; he longed to come into personal contact with them—­to feel them writhe and squirm in his clutch.  And had he been the free agent he had always been until his coming to the Double A he would have gone straight to Okar, thus yielding to the blood lust that swelled his veins.

But he could not permit his inclinations to ruin the girl he had promised to protect.  He could kill Dale, Silverthorn, and Maison quite easily.  But he would have no defense for the deed, and the law would force him to desert Mary Bransford.

For an entire day following the return of himself and his men from the scene of the stampede Sanderson fought a terrific mental battle.  He said nothing to Mary Bransford, after giving her the few bare facts that described the destruction of the herd.  But the girl watched him anxiously, suspecting something of the grim thoughts that tortured him, and at dinner she spoke to him.

“Deal,” she said, “don’t be rash.  Those men have done a lawless thing, but they still have the power to invoke the law against you.”

“I ain’t goin’ to be lawless—­yet,” he grinned.

But Sanderson was yielding to an impulse that had assailed him.  His manner betrayed him to Owen, at least, who spoke to Mary about it.

“He’s framing up something—­or he’s got it framed up and is ready to act,” he told the girl.  “He has got that calm during the past few hours that I feel like I’m in the presence of an iceberg when I’m near him.”

Whatever was on Sanderson’s mind he kept to himself.  But late that night, when the ranchhouse was dark, and a look through one of the windows of the bunkhouse showed Sanderson there were only two men awake—­and they playing cards sleepily—­he threw saddle and bridle on Streak and rode away into the inky darkness of the basin.

Shortly after dusk on the same night Silverthorn, Dale, and Maison were sitting at a table in Maison’s private office in the bank building.  They, too, were playing cards.

But their thoughts were not on the cards.  Elation filled their hearts.

Dale was dealing, but it was plain that he took no interest in the game.  At last, with a gesture of disgust, he threw the cards face up on the table and smiled at the others.

“What’s the use?” he said.  “I keep thinking of what happened at Devil’s Hole.  We ought to have been sure that we finished the job, an’ we would have been sure if we hadn’t known that that damned Colfax sheriff was hanging around somewhere.

“He took two hundred head from Sanderson—­when he ought to have taken the whole damn herd—­which he’d orders to do.  And then, instead of driving them direct to Lester’s he made camp just on the other side of Devil’s Hole—­three or four miles, Morley said.  I don’t know what for, except that maybe he’s decided to give Sanderson the steers he’d taken from him—­the damned fool!  You’ve got to break him, Maison, for disobeying orders!”