ding he was passing.

Alva Dale was standing just inside the doorway, watching him, and as
Sanderson's gaze met his Dale grinned sneeringly.

Sanderson's lips twitched with contempt. His own smile matched Dale's
in the quality of its hostility.

Sanderson was about to pass on when someone struck him heavily between
the shoulders. He staggered and lurched against the rough board front
of the building going almost to his knees.

When he could steady himself he wheeled, his hand at his hip. Standing
near him, grinning maliciously, was the man with whom he had collided.

In the man's right hand was a pistol.

"Bump into me, will you--you locoed shorthorn!" sneered the man as
Sanderson turned. He cursed profanely, incoherently. But he did not
shoot.

The weapon in his hand began to sag curiously, the fingers holding it
slowly slipping from the stock. And the man's face--thin and
seamed--became chalklike beneath the tan upon it. His eyes, furtive
and wolfish, bulged with astonishment and recognition, and his mouth
opened vacuously.

"Deal Sanderson!" he said, weakly. "Good Lord! I didn't git a good
look at yon! I'm in the wrong pew, Deal, an' I sure don't want none of
your game!"

"Dal Colton," said Sanderson. His voice was cold and even as he
watched the other sheathe his gun. "Didn't know me, eh? But you was
figurin' on pluggin' me."

He walked close to the man and stuck his face close to the other, his
lips in a straight line. He knew Colton to be one of the most
conscienceless "killers" in the section of the country near Tombstone.

"Who was you lookin' for, then?" demanded Sanderson.

"Not you--that's a cinch!" grinned the other, fidgeting nervously under
Sanderson's gaze. He whispered to Sanderson, for in the latter's eyes
he saw signs of a cold resolve to sift the matter to the bottom:

"Look here, Square; I sure don't want none of your game. Things has
been goin' sorta offish for me for a while, an' so when I meets a guy a
while ago who tells me to 'git' a guy named Will Bransford--pointin'
you out to me when your back was turned--I takes him up. I wasn't
figurin'----"

"Who told you to get Bransford?" demanded Sanderson.

"A guy named Dale," whispered Colton.

Sanderson turned swiftly. He saw Dale still standing in the doorway.
Dale was grinning coldly, and Sanderson knew he suspected what had been
whispered by Colton. But before Sanderson could move, Dale's voice was
raised lo