Dale and his men knew also, for their faces grew sullen.  Sanderson, however, would tolerate no resistance.  Rope in hand, he faced Dale.  The latter’s face grew white with impotent fury as he looked at the rope in Sanderson’s hands; but the significant Hardness that flashed into Sanderson’s eyes convinced him of the futility of resistance, and he held his hands outward.

Sanderson tied them.  Very little of the rope was required in the process, and after Dale was secured, Sanderson threw a loop around the hands of a man who stood beside Dale, linking him with the latter.

Several others followed.  Sanderson used half a dozen ropes, and when he had finished, all the Dale men—­with their leader on an extreme end, were lashed together.

There were hard words spoken by the men; but they brought only grins to Sanderson’s face, to Owen’s, and to Mary’s.

“They won’t bother you a heap, now,” declared Sanderson as he stepped toward the porch and spoke to Owen.  “Keep an eye on them, though, an’ don’t let them go to movin’ around much.”

Sanderson stepped up on the porch and spoke lowly to Mary, asking her to go with him after Williams—­for he had had that thought in mind ever since Owen had issued the order for him to ride after the engineer.

But Mary refused, telling Sanderson that by accompanying him she would only hamper him.

Reluctantly, then, though swiftly, Sanderson ran to the corral, threw saddle and bridle on Streak, and returned to the porch.  He halted there for a word with Owen and Mary, then raced northeastward, following a faint trail that Williams and the others had taken, which led for a time over the plains, then upward to the mesa which rimmed the basin.

CHAPTER XXVI

A MAN IS HANGED

Sanderson and Streak grew dim in the distance until, to the watchers at the ranchhouse, horse and rider merged into a mere blot that crawled up the long slope leading to the mesa.  The watchers saw the blot yet a little longer, as it traveled with swift, regular leaps along the edge of the mesa; then it grew fainter and fainter, and at last they saw it no more.

Dale’s men, their backs to Owen and Mary, seemed to have accepted their defeat in a spirit of resignation, for they made no attempt to turn their heads.

Mary, white and shaking, though with a calmness that came from the knowledge that in this crisis she must do what she could, went inside and stood behind Owen, ready to respond to any call he might make upon her.

Owen, his rage somewhat abated, though he still watched Dale and his men with sullen, malevolent eyes, had changed his position.  Mary had brought a chair, and Owen sat on it, the rifle still resting on the window-sill, menacing the men.

The minutes, it seemed to the girl, passed with exceeding slowness.  She watched the hands of a clock on a shelf in the room drag themselves across the face of the dial, and twice she walked in front of the shelf and peered intently at the clock, to be certain it was going.