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Owen unlocked the door, Sanderson slipped out, Owen passed him the six-shooter he had lost in the barroom of the Okar Hotel, and the two slipped noiselessly down the corridor. A minute later they were mounting the horses that Owen had brought, and shortly afterward they were moving like shadows away from the outskirts of Okar.
Mingling with the vehicles were the cow-ponies of horsemen who had ridden into town on various errands; and in the company corrals were many cattle awaiting shipment. Sanderson stood beside his horse at the hitching rail for a look at Okar. There was one street wide and dust-windrowed, with two narrow board walks skirting it.
"No go," he informed her. "Maison an' Silverthorn an' Dale have anticipated that move. We don't sell any cattle in Okar." The girl's disappointment was deep. "I suppose we may as well give up," she said. Sanderson lifted her face to his. "If you're goin' to talk that way I ain't goin' to love you like I thought I was," he grinned. "An' I'm sure wantin' to." "I don't want to give up," she said.
And he had gone away, half convinced that Peggy was right, and that Dale would not molest her. But he had made himself as inconspicuous as possible while in Okar, waiting for the train, and he was certain that none of Dale's men had seen him. Nyland had concluded his business as quickly as possible, but the best he could do was to take the return train that he had told Peggy he would take.
"Poor fool! You may throw the great switch that will give you the freedom of the air of Okar, and then, in fatuous security, go on with thy red princess to the freedom of death. When you have passed beyond this chamber in your flight, what can prevent Solan replacing the switch as it was before your vile hand touched it?
But an instant did I crush that dear form to me ere Salensus Oll, trembling with rage and jealousy, shouldered his way to us. "Seize the man," he cried to his warriors, and a hundred ruthless hands tore us apart. Well it was for the nobles of the court of Okar that John Carter had been disarmed.
When, however, I saw the vile hand of Salensus Oll reach out for the hand of my beloved princess I could restrain myself no longer, and before the nobles of Okar knew that aught had happened I had leaped through their thin line and was upon the dais beside Dejah Thoris and Salensus Oll.
Two glittering lines of steel that came from out of the obscurity of distance eastward skirted Okar's buildings and passed westward into an obscurity equally distant. The country around Okar was devoted to cattle. Sanderson's practiced eye told him that.
And had he been the free agent he had always been until his coming to the Double A he would have gone straight to Okar, thus yielding to the blood lust that swelled his veins. But he could not permit his inclinations to ruin the girl he had promised to protect. He could kill Dale, Silverthorn, and Maison quite easily.
Dale gasped, caught his breath, and stiffened. Sanderson stayed with him until the dawn, sitting, quietly beside him until the end. Then Sanderson got up, threw the body on Dale's horse, mounted his own, and set out across the basin toward Okar.
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