"Don't!" he said, "for God's sake, don't! You'll break me apart! It's my back--it's broke. I've felt you workin' around me for hours. But it won't do any good--I'm done. I can feel myself goin'." Sanderson laid him down again and knelt beside him. "You're Sanderson," said Dale, after a time. "I thought it was Nyland chasin' me for a while. Then I heard you talkin' to your horse an' I knew it was you. Why don't you kill me?" "I reckon the Lord is doin' that," said Sanderson. "Yes--He is. Well, the Lord ain't ever done anything for me." He was silent for a moment. Then: "I want to tell you somethin', Sanderson. I've tried to hate you, but I ain't never succeeded. I've admired you. I've cussed myself for doin' it, but I couldn't help it. An' because I couldn't hate you, I tried my best to do things that would make you hate me. "I've deviled Mary Bransford because I thought it would stir you up. I don't care anything for her--it's Peggy Nyland that I like. Mebbe I'd have done the square thing to her--if I'd been let alone--an' if she'd have liked me. Peggy's better, ain't she? When I saw her after--after I saw Maison layin' there, choked to----" "So you saw Maison--dead, you say?" "Ben Nyland guzzled him," Dale's lips wreathed in a cynical smile. "Ben thought Maison had brought Peggy to his rooms. You knowed Maison was dead?" Sanderson nodded. "Then you must have been to Okar." He groaned. "Where's Ben Nyland?" "In Okar. He's lookin' for you." Sanderson leaned closer to the man and spoke sharply to him. "Look here, Dale; you were at the Double A. What has become of Mary Bransford?" "She went away with Barney Owen--to Okar. Nobody hurt her," he said, as he saw Sanderson's eyes glow. "She's all right--she's with her brother." He saw Sanderson's eyes; they were filled with an expression of incredulity; and a late moon, just showing its rim above the edge of the mesa above them, flooded the slope with a brilliancy that made it possible for Dale to see another expression in Sanderson's eyes--an expression which told him that Sanderson thought his mind was wandering. He laughed, weakly. "You think I'm loco, eh? Well, I ain't. Barney Owen ain't Barney Owen at all--he's Will Bransford. I found that out yesterday," he continued, soberly, as Sanderson looked quickly at him. "I had some men down to Tombstone way, lookin' him up. "When old Bransford showed me the letter that you took away from me, I knew Will Bransford was in Tombstone; an' when Mary sent that thousand to him I set a friend of mine--Gary Miller--onto him. Gary an' two of his friends salivated young Bransford, but he turned up, later, minus the money, in Tombstone. Another friend of mine sent me word--an' a description of him. Barney Owen is Bransford. "Just what happened to Gary Miller an' his two friends has bothered me a heap," went on Dale. "They was to come this way, to help me in this deal. But they never showed up."