"I'm agreein'," said Hamlin, thickly. "I ain't wanted to do the things I've been doin'. But things didn't go right, an' Singleton—damn it, Lawler; I never liked the man, an' I don't know why I've been doin' what I have been doin'. But I've wanted to do somethin' for Ruth—so's she could quit teachin' an' live like a lady. I thought if I could get a bunch of coin together that mebbe she'd have——"
"She'd see you dead before she'd touch it," scoffed Lawler.
"Mebbe I'd be better off if I was dead," said Hamlin, glumly.
"You'll die, right enough, if you don't keep your word to me," grimly declared Lawler.
He strode to the door, leaped upon Red King and rode away.
Inside the cabin, Hamlin got to his feet and swayed toward the door, reaching it and looking out, to see Lawler riding rapidly toward Willets.
CHAPTER III
A WOMAN'S EYES
There had been a day when Willets was but a name, designating a water tank and a railroad siding where panting locomotives, hot and dry from a long run through an arid, sandy desert that stretched westward from the shores of civilization, rested, while begrimed, overalled men adjusted a metal spout which poured refreshing water into gaping reservoirs.
In that day Willets sat in the center of a dead, dry section, swathed in isolation so profound that passengers in the coaches turned to one another with awe in their voices and spoke of God and the insignificance of life.