ropes that were hanging from
the saddles.

He worked fast, and looking up once he saw Owen's eyes glowing with
approval--while Mary smiled broadly at him. They knew what he meant to
do.

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.

Ma