He moved his feet slightly apart and let his body fall into a crouch.

He held that position, though, not moving a finger, when he saw a saturnine smile wreathe Sanderson's lips, noted the slight motion with which Sanderson edged Streak around a little, caught the slow, gradual lifting of Sanderson's shoulder--the right; which presaged the drawing of the heavy pistol that swung at Sanderson's right hip.
Both men held their positions for some seconds; and the slow, heavy breathing of the big man indicated his knowledge of the violence that impended--the violence that, plainly, Sanderson would not retreat from.
Then the big man's body began to relax, and a tinge of color came into his face.

He grinned, malevolently, with forced lightness.
"Hell," he said; "you're damned particular! I'm runnin' things here, but I ain't Bransford!" "I was reckonin' you wasn't," said Sanderson, mockingly.

He now ignored the big man, and fixed his gaze on one of the women--the one he felt must be Mary Bransford.
He had found time, while talking with the big man, to look twice at the two women--and he had discovered they were not women at all, but girls.
More, he had discovered that one of them looked as he had pictured her many times during the days since he had heard of her from the Drifter.
She was standing slightly aside from the men--and from the other girl.
She was pale, her eyes were big and fright-laden, and since Sanderson's comings she had been looking at him with an intense, wondering and wistful gaze, her hands clasped over her breast, the fingers working stiffly.
Sanderson colored as he looked at her; he was wondering what she would say to him if she knew that he had come to the Double A purposely to see her, and that seeing her he was afflicted with a dismayed embarrassment that threatened to render him speechless.
For she more than fulfilled the promise of what he had expected of her.
She was slightly above medium height, though not tall--a lissome, graceful girl with direct, frank eyes.
That was all Sanderson noted.

Her hair, he saw, of course--it was done up in bulging knots and folds--and was brown, and abundant, and it made him gulp in admiration of it; but he could not have told what her features were like--except that they were what he expected them to be.
"I reckon you're Mary Bransford, ma'am ?" he said to her.
The girl took a step toward him, unclasping her hands.
"Yes," she said rapidly, "It can't be that you--that you----" The big man stepped between the girl and Sanderson, pushing the girl aside and standing before Sanderson.