satisfaction. The two men who had trailed Bransford had been
cold-blooded murderers, and he had avenged Bransford completely. That
could not have happened if he had not yielded to the impulse to go to
the Double A.

He was glad he had decided to go. He was now the bearer of ill news,
but he was convinced that the girl would want to know about her
brother--and he must tell her. And now, too, he was convinced that his
journey to the Double A had been previously arranged--by Fate, or
whatever Providence controls the destinies of humans.

And that conviction helped him to fight down the sense of guilty
embarrassment that had afflicted him until now--the knowledge that he
was deliberately and unwarrantedly going to the Double A to interfere,
to throw himself into a fight with persons with whom he had no previous
acquaintance, for no other reason than that his chivalrous instincts
had prompted him.

And yet his thoughts were not entirely serious as he rode. The
situation had its humorous side.

"Mostly nothin' turns out as folks figure in the beginnin'," he told
himself. "Otherwise everything would be cut an' dried, an' there
wouldn't be a heap of fun in the world--for butters-in. An' folks
which scheme an' plot, tryin' to get things that belong to other folks,
would have it too easy. There's got to be folks that wander around,
nosin' into places that they shouldn't. Eh, Streak?"

Streak did not answer, and Sanderson rode on, smiling gravely.