The girl stepped closer to Dale, her voice vibrating with scorn and loathing.

“If you didn’t put the steers in our corral, you know who did, Alva Dale,” she went on.  “And you know why they were put there!  You didn’t do it because you wanted Ben’s land—­as I’ve heard you have said; you did it to get Ben out of the way so that you could punish me!

“If I had told Ben how you have hounded me—­how you have insulted me, Ben would have killed you long ago.  Oh, I ought to have told him, but I was afraid—­afraid to bring more trouble to Ben!”

Dale laughed sneeringly as he watched the young man writhe futilely in the hands of his captors.

“Sounds reasonable—­an’ dramatic,” he said.  “It’d do some good, mebbe, if they was any soft-headed ninnies around that would believe it.  But the law ain’t soft-headed.  We found them steers in Ben Nyland’s corral—­some of them marked with Ben’s brand—­the Star—­blottin’ out the Double A. An’ Miss Bransford admits the steers are hers.  They ain’t nothin’ more to be said.”

“Yes, there is, Dale,” said Miss Bransford.  “It is quite evident there has been a mistake made.  I am willing to believe Peggy Nyland when she says Ben was asleep in the cabin all night—­with her.  At any rate, I don’t want any hanging over a few cattle.  I want you to let Ben Nyland go.”

Dale wheeled and faced Miss Bransford.  His face reddened angrily, but he managed to smile.

“It’s too late, Miss Bransford.  The evidence is all in.  There’s got to be rules to govern such cases as this.  Because you own the steers is no sign you’ve got a right to defeat the aims of justice.  I’d like mighty well to accommodate you, but I’ve got my duty to consider, an’ I can’t let him off.  Ben Nyland has got to hang, an’ that’s all there is to it!”

There came a passionate outcry from Peggy Nyland; and then she had her arms around her brother’s neck, sobbing that she would never let him be hanged.

Miss Bransford’s eyes were blazing with rage and scorn as they challenged Dale’s.  She walked close to him and said something in a low tone to him, at which he answered, though less gruffly than before, that it was “no use.”

Miss Bransford looked around appealingly; first at the pale, anemic little man with big eyes, who shifted his feet and looked uncomfortable; then her gaze went to Sanderson who, resting his left elbow on the pommel of the saddle, was watching her with squinting, quizzical eyes.

There was an appeal in Miss Bransford’s glance that made the blood leap to Sanderson’s face.  Her eyes were shining with an eloquent yearning that would have caused him to kill Dale—­if he had thought killing the man would have been the means of saving Ben Nyland.

And then Mary Bransford was at his side, her hands grasping his, holding them tightly as her gaze sought his and held it.

“Won’t you please do something?” she pleaded.  “Oh, if it only could be!  That’s a mystery to you, perhaps, but when I spoke to you before I was going to ask you if—­if—­ But then, of course you couldn’t be—­or you would have spoken before.”