leave Peggy in the cabin. But she might
recover, and she had recognized him. Ben Nyland would exact stern
vengeance for the outrage.

Dale stood for some seconds in the doorway, his brain working rapidly.
Then he leaped inside the cabin, took the girl up in his arms, carried
her to his horse, mounted, and with the limp, sagging body in his arms
rode into the night.

Reaction, also, was working on Banker Maison. Though more than an hour
had passed since he had got into bed, following the departure of his
nocturnal visitor, he had not slept a wink. His brain revolving the
incidents of the night--it had been a positive panorama of vivid
horrors.

The first gray streak of dawn was splitting the horizon when he gave it
up, clambered out of bed and poured a generous drink from the bottle on
the sideboard.

"God, a man needs something like this to brace him up after such a
night!" he declared.

He took a second drink from the bottle, and a third. In the act of
pouring a fourth he heard a sound at the back door, and with a gulp of
terror he remembered that he had again forgotten to lock it.

Sanderson undoubtedly was returning!

Again Maison's body became clammy with a cold sweat. He stood in the
room near the sideboard, tremblingly listening. For again there was a
step on the stairs.

When he saw the door begin to open his knees knocked together, but
there entered, not the dread apparition he expected, but Alva Dale,
with the limp form of a woman in his arms!

The sudden breaking of the tension, and astonishment over what he saw,
made Maison's voice hoarse.

"What's up now?" he demanded.

"Hell!" muttered Dale. He told Maison the whole story--with some
reservations.

"I was sparkin' her--like I've been doin' for a long time. We had a
tiff over--over somethin'--an' I pushed her. She fell over, hittin'
her head."

"You damned fool!" snapped Maison. Dale was not Sanderson, and Maison
felt the authority of his position. "This is Peggy Nyland, isn't it?
She's the girl Silverthorn was telling me about--that you're sweet on.
You damned fool. Can't you let the women alone when we're in a deal
like this! You'll ruin the whole thing! Get her out of here!"

Dale eyed the other sullenly, his face bloating with rage.

"Look here, Maison; you quit your infernal yappin'. She stays here. I
thought at first I'd killed her an' I was goin' to plant her. But
she's been groanin' a little while I've been comin