E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell,
Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
Mary Meehan,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Chapter 1--VAUGHN STEELE AND RUSS SITTELL
Chapter 2--A KISS AND AN ARREST
Chapter 3--SOUNDING THE TIMBER
Chapter 4--STEELE BREAKS UP THE PARTY
Chapter 5--CLEANING OUT LINROCK
Chapter 6--ENTER JACK BLOME
Chapter 7--DIANE AND VAUGHN
Chapter 8--THE EAVESDROPPER
Chapter 9--IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO
Chapter 10--A SLAP IN THE FACE
Chapter 11--THE FIGHT IN THE HOPE SO
Chapter 12--TORN TWO WAYS
Chapter 13--RUSS SITTELL IN ACTION
Chapter 14--THROUGH THE VALLEY
Chapter 15--CONVALESCENCE
In the morning, after breakfasting early, I took a turn up and down themain street of Sanderson, made observations and got information likelyto serve me at some future day, and then I returned to the hotel readyfor what might happen.
The stage-coach was there and already full of passengers. This stage didnot go to Linrock, but I had found that another one left for that pointthree days a week.
Several cowboy broncos stood hitched to a railing and a little fartherdown were two buckboards, with horses that took my eye. These probablywere the teams Colonel Sampson had spoken of to George Wright.
As I strolled up, both men came out of the hotel. Wright saw me, andmaking an almost imperceptible sign to Sampson, he walked toward me.
"You're the cowboy Russ?" he asked.
I nodded and looked him over. By day he made as striking a figure as Ihad noted by night, but the light was not generous to his dark face.
"Here's your pay," he said, handing me some bills. "Miss Sampson won'tneed you out at the ranch any more."
"What do you mean? This is the first I've heard about that."
"Sorry, kid. That's it," he said abruptly. "She just gave me themoney—told me to pay you off. You needn't bother to speak with herabout it."
He might as well have said, just as politely, that my seeing her, evento say good-by, was undesirable.
As my luck would have it, the girls appeared at the moment, and I wentdirectly up to them, to be greeted in a manner I was glad George Wrightcould not help but see.
In Miss Sampson's smile and "Good morning, Russ," there was not theslightest discoverable sign that I was not to serve her indefinitely.
It was as I had expected—she knew nothing of Wright's discharging me inher name.
"Miss Sampson," I said, in dismay, "what have I done? Why did you let mego?"
She looked astonished.
"Russ, I don't understand you."
"Why did you discharge me?" I went on, trying to