“They’s a boy, somewheres, which ain’t no good I’ve heard, an’ if the girl hangs on she’s due for an uphill climb.  She’ll have a fight on her hands too, with Alva Dale—­a big rough devil of a man with a greedy eye on the whole country—­an’ the girl, too, I reckon—­if my eyes is any good.  I’ve seen him look at her—­oh, man!  If she was any relation to me I’d climb Dale’s frame sure as shootin’!”

There had been more—­the Drifter told a complete story.  And Sanderson had assimilated it without letting the other know he had been affected.

Nor had he mentioned to Burroughs—­his employer—­a word concerning the real reason for his desire to make a change.  Not until he had written to Bransford, and received a reply, did he acquaint Burroughs with his decision to leave.  As a matter of fact, Sanderson had delayed his leave-taking for more than a month after receiving Bransford’s letter, being reluctant, now that his opportunity had come, to sever those relations that, he now realized, had been decidedly pleasant.

“I’m sure next to what’s eatin’ you,” Burroughs told him on the day Sanderson asked for his “time.”  “You’re yearnin’ for a change.  It’s a thing that gets hold of a man’s soul—­if he’s got one.  They ain’t no fightin’ it.  I’m sure appreciatin’ what you’ve done for me, an’ if you decide to come back any time, you’ll find me a-welcomin’ you with open arms, as the sayin’ is.  You’ve got a bunch of coin comin’—­three thousand.  I’m addin’ a thousand to that—­makin’ her good measure.  That’ll help you to start something.”

Sanderson started northeastward without any illusions.  A product of the Far Southwest, where the ability to live depended upon those natural, protective instincts and impulses which civilization frowns upon, Sanderson was grimly confident of his accomplishments—­which were to draw a gun as quickly as any other man had ever drawn one, to shoot as fast and as accurately as the next man—­or a little faster and more accurately; to be alert and self-contained, to talk as little as possible; to listen well, and to deal fairly with his fellow-men.

That philosophy had served Sanderson well.  It had made him feared and respected throughout Arizona; it had earned him the sobriquet “Square”—­a title which he valued.

Sanderson could not have told, however, just what motive had impelled him to decide to go to the Double A. No doubt the Drifter’s story regarding the trouble that was soon to assail Mary Bransford had had its effect, but he preferred to think he had merely grown tired of life at the Pig-Pen—­Burrough’s ranch—­and that the Drifter’s story, coming at the instant when the yearning for a change had seized upon him, had decided him.

He had persisted in that thought until after the finding of the letters in William Bransford’s pockets; and then, staring down at the man’s face, he had realized that he had been deluding himself, and, that he was journeying northeastward merely because he was curious to see the girl whom the Drifter had so vividly described.