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THE TRAIL HORDE

"Warden, if you move a quarter of an inch I'll blow you to hell!"

The Trail Horde

BY CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER

Author of "The Ranchman," "'Firebrand' Trevison," "The Range Boss," "The Vengeance of Jefferson Gawne," "The Boss of the Lazy Y," Etc.

FRONTISPIECE BY P. V. E. IVORY

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1920
Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1920

Published September, 1920

Copyrighted in Great Britain

CONTENTS

The Trail Horde

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING MORALS

There were fifty thousand acres within view of the ranchhouse—virgin grass land dotted with sage, running over a wide level, into little hills, and so on to an upland whose rise was so gradual that it could be seen only from a distance, best from the gallery of the ranchhouse.

The first tang of autumn was in the sage-scented breeze that swept the county, and the tawny valley, basking in the warm sunlight that came down from a cloudless sky, showed its rugged beauty to advantage.

Kane Lawler paused at the edge of the gallery and filled his lungs from the sage-laden breeze, and then wheeled to face his mother.

She smiled at him.

"Have you seen Ruth Hamlin lately, Kane?"

Lawler's lips opened, then closed again, tightly. And by that token Mrs. Lawler knew that something Kane had been on the point of saying never would be said. For she knew her son as no other person in the country knew him.

Kane Lawler was big. From the broad shoulders that bulged the gray flannel shirt, down the yellow corduroy trousers that encased his legs to the tops of the boots with their high heels and dull-roweled spurs, Lawler looked what he was, a man who asked no favors of his kind.

Mrs. Lawler had followed him out of the house, and she now stood near him, watching him.

There was in Lawler's lean face as he turned from his mother and peered steadily out into the valley, a hint of volcanic force, of resistless energy held in leash by a contrary power. That power might have been grim humor—for his keen gray eyes were now gleaming with something akin to humor—it might have been cynical tolerance—for his lips were twisted into a curious, mirthless half-smile; it might have been the stern repression that had governed him all his days.

Whatever it was it seemed to be no secret from his mother, for she smiled understandingly, and with pride that must have been visible to anyone who watched her.

Massed in the big valley—at a distance of two or three miles from the big ranchhouse, was a herd of cattle. Circling them were a number of cowboys on horses. In the huge corral that spanned a shallow, narrow river, were other cattle. These were the result of the fall—or beef—round-up. For a month there had been intense activity in the section. Half the cattlemen in the county had participated in the round-up that had centered upon Lawler's range, the Circle L: and the cattle had been herded down in the valley because of its natural advantages.

There the herd had been held while the neighboring cattlemen engaged in the tedious task of "cutting out"—which meant that each cattle owner took from the herd the steers that bore his "brand," with the addition of a proportionate number of unbranded steers, and calves, designated as "mavericks." Then the neighboring outfit had driven their stock home.

"It was a big round-up, Kane," said Mrs. Lawler, watching the herd.

"Eight thousand head," Lawler replied. "We're starting a thousand toward Willets today."

"Have you seen Gary Warden? I mean, have you arranged with Warden to have him take the cattle?"

Lawler smiled. "I had an agreement with Jim Lefingwell. We made it early last spring."

"A written agreement?"

"Shucks—no. I never had a written agreement with Lefingwell. Never had to. Jim's word was all I ever wanted from him—all I ever asked for."

"But perhaps Gary Warden's business methods are different?"

"I talked that over with Lefingwell when he sold out to Warden. Jim said he'd already mentioned our agreement to Warden and that Warden had agreed to carry it out."

"But suppose Warden has changed his mind?"

Lawler spoke seriously. "No man goes back on his word in this country. But from what I've heard of Warden, he's likely to. If he does, we'll drive the stock to Keppler, at Red Rock. Keppler isn't buying for the same concern, but he'll pay what Lefingwell agreed to pay. We'll ship them, don't worry."

"Red Rock means a five hundred mile drive, Kane."

Lawler replied, "You're anticipating, Mother. Warden will take them."

Lawler grinned and stepped off the gallery. A few minutes later he emerged from the stable carrying a saddle, which he flung over one of the top rails of the corral fence. He roped a big, red bay, smooth, with a glossy coat that shone like a flame in the clear white light of the morning sun.

The bay was built on heroic lines. He was tall and rangy, and the spirit of a long line of thoroughbred ancestors was in him. It showed in the clear white of his gleaming, indomitable eyes, in his thin, sensitive nostrils and long, shapely muzzle; in the contour of his head and chest, and in his slender, sinewy legs.

Man and horse were big, capable, strong-willed. They were equipped for life in the grim, wild country that surrounded them. From the slender, powerful limbs of the big bay, to the cartridge-studded belt that encircled the man's middle, with a heavy pistol at the right hip, they seemed to typify the ruggedness of the country, seemed to embody the spirit of the Wild.

Lawler mounted, and the big bay whistled as he pranced across the ranchhouse yard to the big corral where the cattle were confined. Lawler brought the bay to a halt at a corner of the corral fence, where his foreman, Blackburn, who had been breakfasting in the messhouse, advanced to meet him, having seen Lawler step down from the gallery.

Blackburn was of medium height, swarthy, with heavy brows under which were keen, deep-set eyes. His mouth was big, expressive, with a slightly cynical set in repose.

"We're hittin' the trail in about an hour," said Blackburn. "Are you wantin' me to put 'em through, or are we takin' two days to it, as usual?"

"Two days," advised Lawler. "There's no hurry. It's a bad trail in spots, and they'll want to feed. They'll stand the trip on the cars better if they've had plenty of grass."

"Gary Warden is keeping Lefingwell's agreement with you, I reckon?" asked Blackburn. He eyed Lawler intently.

"Of course." Lawler caught the expression of his foreman's eyes, and his brows drew together. He added: "Why do you ask?"

"Just wonderin'," hesitated Blackburn; "just wonderin'. You seen this here man, Warden?"

Lawler had not met Warden; he had not even seen the man from a distance. That was because he had not visited Willets since Warden had bought Lefingwell's ranch and assumed Lefingwell's position as resident buyer for a big eastern live-stock company. Lawler had heard, though, that Warden seemed to be capable enough; that he had entered upon the duties of his position smoothly without appreciable commotion; he had heard that Warden, was quiet and "easy-going," and that as a cattle buyer he seemed to "know his business."

This information had reached Lawler's ears through the medium of neighboring cattle owners, and he was willing to accept it as accurate, though he was not prepared to form an estimate of Warden until he had an opportunity to talk with him personally.

"Well," went on Blackburn; "them that's looked him over don't hesitate to say he don't measure up to Jim Lefingwell's size."

"Jim was a mighty big man—in size and principles," said Lawler.

"Now you're shoutin'! There wasn't no man bigger'n Jim, sideways, edgeways, or up an' down. I reckon any man would have a hard time measurin' up to Jim Lefingwell. Mebbe that's what's wrong with Warden. Folks has got Jim Lefingwell on their minds, an' they're not givin' Warden what's comin' to him, them bein' biased." He squinted at Lawler. "Folks is hintin' that Warden don't own Jim Lefingwell's ranch a-tall; that some eastern guys bought it, an' that Warden's just managin' it. Seems like they's a woman at the Lefingwell's old place, keepin' Warden company. She's eastern, too, they say. Got a old maid with her to keep her company—a chapper-own, they say—which ain't in no ways illuminatin' my think-tank none. Which is a chapper-own?"

"A kind of a moral monitor, Blackburn," grinned Lawler. "Some folks need them. If you're thinking of getting one——"

"Bah!" Blackburn's eyes were vitriolic with disgust. "I sabe what you are hintin' at when you gas of morals—which I'm a heap acquainted with because I ain't got none to speak of. But I'm plumb flabbergasted when you go to connectin' a battleship with anything that's got a whole lot to do with morals. Accordin' to my schoolin', a monitor is a thing which blows the stuffin' out of——"

"A monitor of morals could do that," gravely said Lawler. "In fact, according to the best authorities, there have been many monitors who have blown the stuffing out of the reputations of their charges."

Blackburn gulped. He was puzzled, and his eyes were glazed with the incomprehension which had seized him. Twice again as he watched Lawler's grave face he gulped. And then he eyed Lawler belligerently.

"I reckon them monitors is eastern. I've never seen one galivantin' around these parts."

"They're a lot eastern," assented Lawler. "I've never seen one, but I've read about them in books. And once my mother saw one—she tells me the East raises them by the hundred."

"That accounts for it," declared Blackburn; "anything which comes from the East is likely to be a heap shy on hoss sense."

He now squinted at Lawler, watching him keenly.

"Accordin' to report Joe Hamlin ought to go around draggin' one of them monitors."

Blackburn shrewdly noted the quickening of Lawler's eyes, and the dull red that stole into his face.

"What do you mean, Blackburn?"

"Davies an' Harris hit town ag'in last night; an' comin' back they run plumb into Joe Hamlin. He was in the upper end of the box arroyo. He'd roped an' hog-tied a Circle L cow an' was blottin' our brand out."

"What happened?" Lawler's lips were set in grim lines.

"Nothin'—followin' your orders regardin' the cuss. Davies an' Harris let him go—after warnin' him. Somethin' ought to be done. It ain't addin' a heap to the morals of the outfit for the men to know a man can rustle cattle that promiscuous—an' the boss not battin' an eyewinker. This is the fourth time he's been caught with the goods—to say nothin' of the times he's done it without nobody gittin' wise—an' the boys is beginnin' to ask questions, bein' a heap puzzled because somethin' don't happen to Joe."

Lawler's face was expressionless. Except for the flush in his cheeks he seemed to be unaffected by Blackburn's words. His voice was a trifle cold when he spoke:

"I'll attend to Hamlin. I'll stop at the Two Bar on my way to Willets. By the time you reach town with the cattle I'll have the deal with Warden clinched."

Blackburn nodded, and Lawler wheeled the bay, heading him northward.

As he rode, Lawler's face changed expression. He frowned, and his lips set stiffly.

What he had been almost on the point of telling his mother was that he knew why Ruth Hamlin had refused him. It was pride, nothing less. Lawler suspected that Ruth knew her father was a rustler. In fact, there had been times when he had seen that knowledge lying naked in her eyes when she looked at her parent. Accusation and disgust had been there, but mingling with them was the persistent loyalty that had always governed the girl; the protective instinct, and a hope of reformation.

The pride that Mrs. Lawler had exhibited was not less strong in the girl's heart. By various signs Lawler knew the girl loved him; he knew it as positively as he knew she would not marry him while the stigma of guilt rested upon her parent. And he was convinced that she was ignorant of the fact that Lawler shared her secret. That was why Lawler had permitted Hamlin to escape; it was why he had issued orders to his men to suffer Hamlin's misdeeds without exacting the expiation that custom provided. Lawler did not want Ruth to know that he knew.

He sent the big bay forward at a steady, even pace, and in an hour he had crossed the sweep of upland and was riding a narrow trail that veered gradually from the trail to Willets. The character of the land had changed, and Lawler was now riding over a great level, thickly dotted with bunch grass, with stretches of bars, hard sand, clumps of cactus and greasewood.

He held to the narrow trail. It took him through a section of dead, crumbling lava and rotting rock; through a little stretch of timber, and finally along the bank of a shallow river—the Wolf—which ran after doubling many times, through the Circle L valley.

In time he reached a little grass level that lay close to the river. A small cabin squatted near the center of the clearing, surrounded by several outbuildings in a semi-dilapidated condition, and a corral, in which there were several horses.

Lawler sent Red King straight toward the cabin. When he reached the cabin he swung off and walked toward the door, his lips set in straight lines, his manner decisive.

He had taken only several steps when a voice greeted him, coming from the interior of the cabin—a man's voice, snarling, venomous:

"You come another step, Kane Lawler, an' I'll bore you!"

Lawler halted, facing the door. The door was closed, but a little slide in the upper part of it was open. Through the aperture projected the muzzle of a rifle, and behind the rifle appeared a man's face—dark, bearded, with eyes that gleamed with ferocious malignancy.

CHAPTER II

DRIVING A BARGAIN

Lawler stiffened. There was no mistaking the deadly threat of the rifle and the man's menacing manner. Lawler's face was pale, but his eyes were unwavering as they looked into those that glared out at him through the aperture in the door.

Guilt and fear were the emotions that had driven Hamlin to this rather hysterical threat. Lawler resisted an impulse to laugh, though he felt a pulse of grim humor shoot through him.

To his knowledge—excepting Hamlin's predilection to rustle cattle—the man was harmless. He never had been known to draw a gun, even in self-defense, and Lawler was convinced that there was not sufficient provocation for him to break one of the rules that had governed him until now. Hamlin might be goaded, or frightened, into using the rifle, but Lawler had no intention of goading or frightening him. In fact, being aware of the reason for Hamlin's belligerence, he had no intention of acquainting the man with the knowledge of what had happened the night before. At least, not at this instant.

Lawler's lips wore a shadowy smile.

"I reckon you don't know me, Hamlin?" he said.

"I know you mighty well, Lawler," snapped Hamlin; "you heard me mention your name!"

"Then you've got a new way of greeting your friends, eh—with a rifle. Well, put it down and open the door. There's some things I want to say to you."

"What about?" asked Hamlin, suspiciously. Overwhelming every other thought in his mind was the conviction that Davies and Harris had apprised Lawler of what had happened the night before, and that Lawler had come to capture him, single-handed.

"About Ruth."

The wild gleam in Hamlin's eyes began to dull. However, he was still suspicious.

"You seen any of your men this mornin'—Davies or Harris?" he asked.

"Davies and Harris went to town last night. I reckon they didn't get back yet. What's Davies and Harris got to do with me visiting you?"

"Nothin'." There was relief in Hamlin's voice. The muzzle of the rifle wavered; the weapon was withdrawn and the slide closed. Then the door slowly opened, and Hamlin appeared in it, a six-shooter in hand.

"If you're foolin' me, Kane Lawler, I'll sure bore you a-plenty!" he threatened.

"Shucks!" Lawler advanced to the door, ignoring the heavy pistol, which was shoved close to his body as he walked into the cabin, Hamlin retreating before him.

"Hamlin, you're losing whatever sense you had," said Lawler as he halted near the center of the big room. There were three rooms, their doors opening from the one in which Lawler and Hamlin stood.

"Meanin' what?" demanded Hamlin, nervously fingering the six-shooter.

It was clear that Hamlin was impressed with the repressed force that he could see in Lawler; with the slumbering energy that Lawler's lithe, sinewy body suggested; with the man's complete lack of fear and with the cold confidence that swam in his steady eyes.

Hamlin did not know at this minute whether or not he had meant to shoot Lawler. He believed that if Lawler had told him he had come to take him for blotting out the Circle L brand in the arroyo the preceding night he would have killed Lawler. But he was not sure. Something about Lawler made the thought of shooting him seem ridiculous. It would take a lot of provocation for any man to kill Lawler, for something about Lawler seemed to hint that it couldn't be done.

"Meaning that you are old enough to know that you can't keep on rustling my cattle without getting in trouble."

"Ah!" exclaimed Hamlin, his breath hissing through his teeth as he sucked it in with a gasp; "you sneaked on me, damn you!"

He threw the muzzle of the pistol up, his body stiffening, his eyes glittering with the malignance that had been in them when he had been looking out at Lawler through the aperture in the door.

"You know about that deal, an' you've come for me. You tried to fool me, eh—tellin' me that you didn't see Davies an' Harris. Well, damn your hide you ain't goin' to take me; I'll blow you to hell first!"

Lawler's eyes were steady and unblinking as he watched Hamlin; they bored into Hamlin's with a compelling intensity, that brought a conviction of futility into Hamlin's soul. They were cold eyes—cold as icebergs, Hamlin thought as he watched them; but they seemed to flame also, to flame with a fire that was cold as the ice in them.

The terrible power of them, and the promise of volcanic action back in them; the awful confidence that shone in them; the threat compelling Hamlin against his will, deadening his muscles, jumbling his thoughts—brought chaos into the man's brain, and he stood, his mouth agape with wonder over the thing that was happening to him, as Lawler walked steadily to him. He made no resistance as Lawler deliberately wrenched the pistol from his hand and as deliberately walked to a side wall and placed it upon a shelf.

Hamlin stood, nerveless and pallid, for an instant, watching Lawler's movements—until Lawler turned and faced him again. Then he staggered to a chair and dropped into it, lowering his head dejectedly, sitting with his hands folded, completely subjected.

Lawler would hang him, now. Lawler would take him to the Circle L and turn him over to Blackburn and the other men of the outfit. And Blackburn would hang him, for Blackburn had told him he would. Or, if Lawler didn't take him to Blackburn he would take him to the sheriff. He would be hanged then, but he would go to the new prison at the capital, and Ruth would have to stay on here to do the real suffering for his misdeeds.

"You damned fool!" came Lawler's voice into the vacuumlike stillness of the cabin. "You haven't got nerve enough to shoot a coyote!"

Hamlin knew it; he knew, now, at least, that he hadn't had nerve enough to shoot Lawler. He cringed under Lawler's contemptuous tone. And then he became aware that Lawler was speaking again.

"I'm giving you another chance. I'm letting you off, clean. For Ruth's sake.

"Look here, Hamlin!"

Hamlin's chin was caught in an iron grasp and he found himself looking into the terrible eyes. He saw grim pity in the eyes and he shuddered.

"Ruth knows you're stealing cattle. Everybody knows it, now. Who is buying them?"

"Singleton."

"Singleton!" Lawler's voice snapped with astonishment. "Dave Singleton, Lefingwell's old range boss?"

Hamlin nodded. And then the grip of Lawler's fingers on his chin relaxed. He heard Lawler step back, but he did not lift his head for a few minutes, during which a strained silence descended upon the room. Then he covertly raised his head, to see Lawler standing with his arms folded over his chest, watching him.

Lawler had not suspected Singleton. Between himself and Singleton there had always been a lack of ordinary cordiality, a constraint closely approaching dislike; but Lawler had never entertained a suspicion that Lefingwell's range boss was dishonest.

Hamlin was a moral weakling, he knew. Everybody in the Wolf River section knew it. Hamlin was lazy and shiftless, seemingly contented to drift along in an aimless way, regardless of what happened to him. There was at Hamlin's feet some of the wealth that other cattlemen of the district were gaining. He had proved on a quarter-section of good grass land amid plenty of water, and yet he chose to steal cattle rather than raise them.

Lawler's pity for the man was stronger than the resentment he felt. Hamlin was Ruth's father, though looking at him as he sat dejectedly in the chair, Lawler found it hard to discern the relationship.

"How long has Singleton been buying cattle from you?"

"About a year. I sold him what stock I had, before—before I got to runnin' my brand on other folks' stock, an' he hinted he wasn't particular whose cattle I got, long as he could get 'em under the market price."

"Does Singleton come here?"

"Sometimes—mostly nights."

Lawler's quick conclusion was that Ruth must have seen Singleton at the cabin, must have noted that the visits seemed surreptitious. Perhaps she had watched, convincing herself of her father's guilt. Lawler had wondered how she had gained the knowledge she seemed to have, and Singleton's visits must be the explanation.

Hamlin had bowed his head again after a swift glance at Lawler. He stiffened when he felt Lawler at his side again, for there had come into the atmosphere of the cabin a premonitory chill which warned him that Lawler was on the verge of action.

But he was not prepared for what happened.

Lawler's sinewy hands fell on his shoulders. The fingers bit deeply into the flesh, drawing a groan of pain from Hamlin. He was lifted to his feet—off his feet, so that he dangled in the air like a pendulum. He was suspended by the shoulders, Lawler's fingers gripping him like iron hooks; he was shaken until his feet, powerless to retard the movement, were flopping back and forth wildly, and his teeth rattled despite his efforts to clench them. It seemed to him that Lawler would snap his head from his shoulders, so viciously did Lawler shake him. Then suddenly the terrible fingers relaxed, and Hamlin reeled and swayed, dizzy and weak from the violence of movement. He was trying to keep his feet solidly on the floor when he felt Lawler's fingers at his throat.

To his astonishment, the fingers did not sink into the flesh. They touched his throat lightly, and he dazedly met Lawler's eyes, burning, with a passion he never had seen in them before. And Lawler's voice was dry and light, but steady—so steady and cold that Hamlin realized that only the man's complete mastery of himself had kept him from committing murder.

"Hamlin, I ought to kill you. I'm letting you off on one condition—that you break off with Singleton, and that you keep silent about the things we both know. If you confess to Ruth that you've been rustling cattle, or if you tell her—or hint of it—that I know you've been rustling—I'll tear you apart!

"You're like a lot of other damned, weak-kneed polecats. You've got a girl who is good as gold, and you're making a regular hell for her. She's wise to what you've been doing—she suspects you. And from now on you're going to show her that she was wrong—that you're straight and square.

"There's a job for you over at the Circle L—if you want it. I'll throw things in your way; I'll put you on your feet again—give you stock and tools, and pretend I've sold them to you. I'll do anything to keep you square. But if you tell Ruth, I'll kill you as sure as my name is Lawler!"

"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.

But there was a small river near the water tank—the headwaters of the Wolf—or there had been no tank. And a prophet of Business, noting certain natural advantages, had influenced the railroad company to build a corral and a station.

From that day Willets became assured of a future. Cattlemen in the Wolf River section began to ship stock from the new station, rather than drive to Red Rock—another shipping point five hundred miles east.

From the first it became evident that Willets would not be a boom town. It grew slowly and steadily until its fame began to trickle through to the outside world—though it was a cattle town in the beginning, and a cattle town it would remain all its days.

Therefore, because of its slow growth, there were old buildings in Willets. The frame station had an ancient appearance. Its roof sagged in the center, its walls were bulging with weakness. But it stood defiantly flaunting its crimson paint above the wooden platform, a hardy pioneer among the moderns.

Business had strayed from the railroad track; it had left the station, the freighthouse, the company corral, and some open sheds, to establish its enterprises one block southward. There, fringing a wide, unpaved street that ran east and west, parallel with the gleaming steel rails, Business reared its citadels.

Willets buildings were not imposing. One-story frames predominated, with here and there a two-storied structure, or a brick aristocrat seeming to call attention to its substantial solidity.

Willets had plenty of space in which to grow, and the location of the buildings on their sites, seemed to indicate that their builders appreciated the fact that there was no need for crowding. Between each building was space, suggestive of the unending plains that surrounded the town. Willets sat, serene in its space and solitude, unhurried, uncramped, sprawling over a stretch of grass level—a dingy, dirty, inglorious Willets, shamed by its fringe of tin cans, empty bottles, and other refuse—and by the clean sweep of sand and sage and grass that stretched to its very doors. For Willets was man-made.

From the second story of a brick building that stood on the southern side of the street, facing the station, Gary Warden could look past the red station into the empty corrals beside the railroad track. Jim Lefingwell, Warden's predecessor, had usually smiled when he saw the corral comfortably filled with steers. But Gary Warden smiled because the corral was empty.

Warden was standing beside a flat-topped desk at one of his office windows. Warden was big, though not massive. He seemed to have the frame of a tall, slender man, and had he stayed slender he might have carried his flesh gracefully. But Warden had lived well, denying himself nothing, and the flesh which had been added had formed in flabby bunches, drooping his shoulders, sagging his jaws, swelling the back of his neck.

And yet Warden was not old; he had told some new-made friends in Willets that he was thirty-five. But he looked older, for a certain blasé sophistication that shone from his eyes and sat on the curves of his lips, did much to create the impression of past maturity.

Warden dressed well. He was coatless, but he wore a shirt of some soft, striped material, with a loose, comfortable-looking collar and a neat bow tie. His hair was short, with bristles in the roll of fat at the back of his neck; while at his forehead it was punctiliously parted, and plastered down with precision.

Warden was not alone. At another window, her elbows on the sill, her hands crossed, her chin resting on the knuckles of the upper one, sat a woman.

She was young, slender, lissom. There was grace in every line of her, and witchery in the eyes that watched Warden with a steady gaze. She too, was hatless, seemingly conscious of the beauty of her hair, which was looped and twisted into glistening strands that fell over her temples and the back of her neck.

As she watched Warden, who was smiling at the empty corral, she withdrew her elbows from the window-sill, twisted around, so that she faced Warden, and idly twirled the felt hat that she took from her lap.

"Does something please you, Gary?" she asked with slight, bantering emphasis.

Warden's smile broadened. "Well, I'm not exactly displeased."

"With Willets—and the rest of it?"

"With that corral—over there." He pointed.

"Why, it's empty!"

"That's why."

"Why you are pleased! That is odd. As a buyer, I should think you would be more pleased if the corral were full—had cows in it. That is what you are here for, isn't it?"

"Yes," grinned Warden; "to keep it empty until it is filled with steers at my price."

"Oh, bother!" The woman yawned. "I am glad it is you and not I who is to deal with these clod-hoppers. I should turn sour—or laugh myself to death."

"Getting tired of it already, Della?"

"Dreadfully tired, Gary. If I could see one interesting person, or a good-looking man with whom I could flirt——"

"Don't forget our engagement, Della," warned Warden.

She laughed, shooting a mischievous glance at him. "Oh, it would be harmless, I assure you—mere moral exercise. Do you imagine I could lose my heart to one of these sagebrush denizens?"

"Not you, Della," grinned Warden; "that isn't your style."

The girl yawned again, and got to her feet, smoothing her ruffled skirts. Then she walked to a mirror on a wall near the door, and spent some time placing the felt hat on her head at a precise angle, making certain that the coils of hair under it were arranged in the most effective manner. She tucked a stray wisp into the mass at the nape of her neck, patted the glistening coils so that they bulged a little more—smiling with smooth serenity at the reflection in the glass.

"Well, good-bye, Gary. I left Aunt Hannah at Corwin's store. She'll be afraid I've eloped with you. No," she added, as Warden advanced toward her; "no kisses now. I'll look in again before we leave town."

She opened the door, and as it closed she flashed a smile at Warden. Then he heard her descending the stairs. He watched the closed door for an instant, frowning disappointedly; then he strode again to one of the front windows, grinning as his gaze rested on the empty corral.

CHAPTER IV

REBELLION

Accident or design had placed the schoolhouse at the eastern edge of town. The invisible power which creates the schoolhouse seemingly takes no account of time or place. It comes, unheralded, unsung, and squats in the place where the invisible power has placed it, and instantly becomes as indispensable as the ungainly youth that occupies it.

All youth is not ungainly. Ruth Hamlin was considering the negative proposition as she stood on the little platform in front of the blackboard just before noon, calmly scrutinizing the faces of the score of pupils who composed her "class."

About half of her pupils, she decided, were worthy of the affection she had bestowed upon them. The remainder were ungrateful, incorrigible hoodlums. There had been times when Ruth wondered if the task of teaching was worth while.

A good teacher must not be vindictive; and Ruth was trying her best to keep alive the spark of mercy and compassion that threatened to burn itself out.

Despite her apparent calm—the outward sign of cold self-control—Ruth's face revealed indications of the terrific struggle that was going on within her. Her face was pale, and though her eyes seemed to smile, there was a gleam far back in them that suggested thoughts of force, instant, vicious. Also there was wrath in them—wrath that threatened to break with volcanic fury.

The girl was of medium height, and yet she seemed to be almost tall as she stood on the platform. She was erect, her head was held high. She was slender, with a gracefully rounded figure, but as she stood there, her muscles straining, her chest swelling with the passion she was trying to suppress, she must have appeared Amazonic to the culprits whose crimes had goaded her to thoughts of corporal punishment.

It was not difficult to single out the culprits. There were two, and they sat defiantly in their seats, sneering their contempt of the teacher's wrath, advertising their entire disregard for the restraining influence of rules.

Both were boys. The larger, freckle-faced, with an uptilted nose and belligerent eyes, was fully as tall as Ruth. He was broad and muscular, and it was evident that consideration for his size was one influence that had thus far delayed the punishment he no doubt merited.

It was evident, too, that the culprit suspected this, for as Ruth's hesitation continued he grew bolder and more contemptuous. And now, having divined that Ruth would not attempt to inflict the punishment she meditated, the young man guffawed loudly.

"Shucks," he sneered, winking piratically at his brother-culprit; "she's tryin' to run a whizzer in on us. She ain't goin' to do nuthin'!"

"Jimmy Singleton; you advance to the platform!" Ruth's voice came sharply, quavering with the passion she had been suppressing until now.

She stood rigid until "Jimmy" got out of his seat with elephantine deliberation, and shuffled to the edge of the platform, where he stood, grinning defiantly.

Ruth raised the lid of her desk and took out a formidable willow branch, which she had cut only the day before from a tree that grew beside the Wolf near her cabin, in anticipation of the present incident.

She had known for many days that she would have to punish Jimmy Singleton, for Jimmy had been growing daily less amenable to discipline. But she had hoped that she would not be compelled to punish him—she had escaped that disagreeable task so far.

But there was no alternative, and though she grew deadly white and her legs grew weak as she drew out the willow switch, she advanced on Jimmy, her eyes flaming with desperate resolution.

As she reached Jimmy's side, he lunged toward her. He struck viciously at her with his fist, the blow landing on her shoulder near the neck. It had been aimed at her face, but she had somehow dodged it. The force of the blow brought Jimmy against her, and he seized her around the waist and attempted to throw her. She brought the switch down sharply on Jimmy's legs as they struggled, and the sting of the blow enraged the boy. He deliberately wrenched himself loose; then leaped forward, swinging his arms viciously.

He had not struck the girl fairly, but she was in a daze from the rapid movement, and she was not aware of what was going on around her, centering all her energy in an attempt to keep the boy from striking her face.

But she suddenly became conscious that a big form had loomed close to her; she heard a deep, angry voice saying:

"I'll attend to you—you young pirate!"

And then Jimmy was jerked backward, away from her; and she saw Kane Lawler standing not more than two or three paces from her. His right hand was twisted in Jimmy's collar; and there was an expression of cold rage on his face—despite the smile he gave her when she looked at him—that chilled her.

But she made no objection when Lawler walked to a chair that stood on the platform, dragging the now protesting Jimmy after him by the scruff of the neck. There was something of majestic deliberation in Lawler's movements, she thought, as he seated himself in the chair and placed the struggling Jimmy across his knees.

Ruth had never entertained a bloodthirsty thought, but her passions were very near that point when she saw Lawler's large, capable right hand begin to descend upon Jimmy's anatomy. She gasped at first, at Lawler's temerity; and then she stepped back and watched him, her heart singing with approval.

Lawler's capable right hand descended many times with a force that brought dismal howls from the unlucky culprit—so many times and with such force that the girl began to fear that Jimmy would be fatally injured. Jimmy likewise entertained that fear, for his howls grew more shrill, laden with mingled terror and pain, until the piercing appeal of them sent the other pupils out of their seats and into the open shouting that Jimmy was being "killed."

Then, just when Ruth decided to protest, Lawler swung Jimmy around and placed him upright upon the platform. What Lawler said to Jimmy, Ruth did not hear, so low was his voice. But she heard Jimmy's reply, as did some of the children who still lingered outside the door:

"You've walloped me, damn you; you've walloped me!"

Jimmy ran frenziedly to the door, plainly in fear that he would be "walloped" again if he did not make his escape; and when he reached the door he shrieked through unmanly tears:

"My paw will wallop you; you locoed maverick—you see if he don't!"

Jimmy vanished. There was no doubt in Lawler's mind, nor in Ruth's, that he had gone to relate his trouble to his "paw;" and that "paw" would presently appear to exact the lurid punishment Jimmy desired.

But thoughts of imminent punishment were not in Lawler's mind as he faced Ruth. There was nothing but humorous concern in his eyes and voice.

"Did he hurt you, Ruth?"

"I—I think not," she smiled; "but I have no doubt that he would have thrashed me soundly if you hadn't come when you did. I am sorry it happened, but I just had to discipline him. He was setting a bad example for the other pupils."

"Teaching school isn't the best job in the world, is it?"

"Decidedly not!" She looked quickly at Lawler, for something in his voice hinted of subtlety; and when she saw his eyes agleam with the whimsical humor that was always in them when he spoke of his hope of winning her, she knew that he had attacked her obliquely.

Her cheeks flushed, and she drooped her shining eyes from his, murmuring low:

"But I am going to keep at it for the present, Kane."

"I was hoping—" he began. But he paused when she shook her head.

"Is that what you rode to town for?" she asked.

"That's the big reason," he returned. "The other is that I'm here to sell Gary Warden my cattle."

"I don't like Gary Warden!" she declared.

His eyes twinkled. "I've heard that before—two or three times. By the time I see him I'll be disliking, him, myself."

The class, Ruth now noted, had departed—undoubtedly to follow Jimmy Singleton; or perhaps seizing the opportunity so suddenly presented to play truant. At all events the school was deserted except for themselves.

But Ruth did not seem to mind, nor did Lawler express any regret for the absence of an audience. He grinned widely at Ruth.

"You'll not get them back today, I reckon. If you're riding back home I'd be pleased to——"

"But you have business with Gary Warden!" she reminded him.

"That can wait. Blackburn won't have the herd here until tomorrow."

Her eyes were glowing with pleasure, and the faint flush on her face betrayed her still more. But she looked at him resolutely.

"I shall stay the day out, whether the children come back or not," she said. "And you must not permit me to interfere with business."

It cost her something to tell him that, for the lure of him had seized her long ago—during the first days of their acquaintance, in fact—and she was deliberately refusing the happiness that was offered her—because she could not confess her father's crimes to this man, and because she would not marry him unless he knew.

And not even then, perhaps. For she knew something of Lawler's high ideals, the rugged honesty of him, his straightforwardness and his hatred for the thieves who stole cattle—thieves like her father. She couldn't marry him, feeling that each time he looked at her she must feel that he would be thinking of the misdeeds of her parent. That would be unbearable.

He took a step, and stood beside her, looking down at her gravely. He took one of her hands, she permitting it, lifting her eyes to his as he drew the hand toward him. The hand lay inertly in his left; he covered it with his right and held it thus in a warm, firm grip. Then he met her eyes, his own swimming with a gentleness that made her draw a slow, deep breath of wonder.

This minute had been anticipated by both of them; for many months, when they had stood close together, they had felt the imminence of surrender to the longing that dwelt in both of them.

But the girl resisted, as she had resisted many times. Her breath came rapidly, and the captive hand trembled as she tried to withdraw it.

"No; not now, Kane!" she protested; "not now—please!"

Lawler laughed lowly, and held the hand for an instant longer, while he compelled the girl's eyes to meet his.

"All right," he said; "not now. But the time will come. Something is worrying you, Ruth. But you don't trust me enough to tell me what it is. Some day—when you discover that nothing but your love means anything to me; when you realize that I love you enough to take you in spite of the thing that worries you—you'll tell me. And then we'll forget it."

He stepped back, releasing her hand, for he had heard a commotion outside—Jimmy's voice, high-pitched, carrying a note of savage triumph; and the voices of the other pupils in a shrill murmur, coming closer.

Ruth started, clenched her hands and backed to the desk, where she stood, her eyes wide, her breath coming fast, a picture of apprehension and dismay.

Her big eyes went to Lawler, who grinned faintly at her.

"I reckon Jimmy's coming with his 'paw,'" he said.

A big man, massive, muscular, with heavy shoulders that seemed to droop with the weight of his great, long arms, stepped into the room.

The man's head was big, like the rest of him, and covered with shaggy, tawny hair which seemed to bristle with truculence. His chin was huge, square, and sagging a little, his lips were in a hideous pout; and his eyes, small, black, with heavy brows that made them seem deep-set, were glittering with passion.

He paused just inside the door, seemingly to accustom his eyes to the subdued light of the room. His long arms were hanging at his sides, the fingers clenching and unclenching close to the heavy pistols he wore—one at each hip. As he stood there, blinking his eyes at Ruth and Lawler, Lawler spoke.

"Come in, Singleton," he said.

Ruth was still standing at the desk. Her arms were now outstretched along it, her hands gripping its edge. She started at the sound of Lawler's voice, amazed at the change that had come in it—wondering how—when it had been so gentle a few minutes before—it could now have in it a quality that made her shudder.

She saw the big man's eyes widen, noted that his shoulders sagged a little when he heard Lawler's voice; observed that there seemed to come an appreciable lessening of the tension of his taut muscles. She marveled that the sound of one man's voice could have so calming an effect upon another—that it could, at a stroke, seemingly, cool the white-hot rage that had seized the man.

But there was no doubt that a change had come over the big man. His shoulders sagged further. A suggestion of a mirthless smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth; he unclenched the fingers of his hands.

"It's you, eh?" he said, gruffly. "My kid was sayin' someone in the schoolhouse had walloped him, an' I was aimin' to find out who it was. I reckon he's gone."

"I walloped him, Singleton."

Lawler's voice was gentle. In it was still a trace of that quality that Ruth had sensed, softened now slightly by the knowledge that Singleton's rage had slightly cooled.

"There isn't a heap to be said, I reckon," Lawler resumed as Singleton stood rigid again. "Your boy was trying to 'wallop' his teacher. I happened to look in, and I had to take a hand in it, just to keep things even. He had it coming to him, Singleton."

Lawler's manner was conciliatory, even mildly placative. "I figured on saving you a job, Singleton."

Singleton's face reddened.

"Lawler, I figger to lick my own kid."

"Singleton, I reckon it can't be undone, and you'll have to make the best of it. You and I have never got along well, but I want you to know I didn't know it was your boy I punished."

"Hell's fire!" snarled Singleton; "what you interferin' in the schoolhouse for? What business you got buttin' in?" It was dear that Singleton's rage was again rising. He must have noticed that the pupils had crowded around the door, and that Jimmy was watching him, no doubt disappointed that the salutary punishment for which he had hoped had been unnecessarily delayed.

Undoubtedly the presence of the children contributed to Singleton's anger; but at bottom was his old dislike of Lawler—a dislike that the incident of the whipping had increased to hatred.

It was plain that Singleton meditated violence. Yet it was equally plain that he feared Lawler. He never had seen Lawler draw a gun, but he had heard tales of the man's ability with the weapon. There lingered in his mind at this minute—as it had dwelt during all the days he had known Lawler—the knowledge that Lawler's father had been a gunman of wide reputation, and that he had taught his son the precision and swiftness that had made him famous in the deadly art.

That knowledge had always exerted a deterring influence upon Singleton; there had been times when he would have drawn a gun on Lawler had it not been that he feared the son might be as swift as the father.

So Singleton had assured himself; he was not afraid of Lawler, he was afraid of the reputation of Lawler's father. Singleton was reluctant to admit that it was not Lawler's gun that he was afraid of, but something that was in the man himself—in his confident manner, in the level glance of his eyes; in the way he looked at Singleton—seeming to hint that he knew the man's thoughts, and that when the time came—if it ever came—he would convince Singleton that his fears were well founded.

And, singularly, Singleton knew it; he knew that if he drew his gun on Lawler, Lawler would anticipate the movement; Singleton had become convinced of it—the conviction had become an obsession. That was why his rage had cooled so suddenly when he had entered the schoolroom.

But he knew, too, that Lawler never sought trouble; that within the past few years—or since Singleton had known him—he had never drawn the gun that reposed at his hip. And that knowledge brought the rage surging back into Singleton's veins. He knew he could talk to Lawler; that he could say some of the things that were in his mind—that had been in his mind all along; and that he would be safe so long as he kept his hands away from his guns.

As he snarled his questions at Lawler he took a step toward him. His eyes were truculent again, his lips in the pout that had been on them when he had entered. If Lawler didn't go for his gun he need have no fear of him. For he was bigger than Lawler, stronger. And if he could goad Lawler into using his fists instead of the dreaded gun he had no doubt of the outcome.

"Singleton," replied Lawler, answering the questions that had been hurled at him; "what I am here for is my business. I don't feel a heap like explaining it."

"Business—bah!" sneered Singleton. "I reckon the business that brought you here could be carried on better with no kids around."

Singleton saw a pin point of fire glow in Lawler's eyes. But he noted with venomous satisfaction that Lawler's hand did not move upward the slightest fraction of an inch toward his gun, and he laughed discordantly, taking another step toward Lawler, so that he would be close enough to strike when the time came.

"Lawler," he said, sticking his face close to the other's, his eyes glittering with the malignant triumph that had seized him over the conviction that Lawler would not try to draw his gun; "I'm figgerin' on wallopin' you like you walloped my kid. Understand? I'm aimin' to make you fight—with your fists. I'm goin' to knock hell out of you!".

Lawler had not moved. Had Singleton not been so obsessed with thoughts of an easy victory he might have noted that the pin point of fire that had glowed in Lawler's eyes had grown larger, and that his muscles had stiffened. Also, had Singleton been observant at this minute he must have seen a faint grin on Lawler's lips.

"Hell's fire!" snarled Singleton; "won't anything make you fight! There's that girl there—Ruth Hamlin. You think she's got a right to be proud as she is. Lawler, you don't know her; you don't know what's goin' on over there at the Two Bar—Hamlin's ranch. This here school teachin' of hers is only a blind—a blind, I tell you! A blind for other things that her an'—"

Ruth's sharp, protesting cry was drowned in a sodden swish as Lawler struck. His fist had shot upward with the weight of his body behind it, landing fairly on the point of Singleton's chin, snapping his teeth shut with a clack.

Singleton's head went back, his body rose from the floor. He came down with his knees unjointed, his head sagging on his chest; came down in a heap and tumbled forward upon his face, his arms limp, the fingers slowly spreading.

For an instant Lawler stood over him, pale, his eyes agleam. Then when Singleton did not move he turned to Ruth, smiling faintly.

"Go home, now, Ruth, before this beast comes to life. Go out and send the children away. I've got something to say to Singleton."

Ruth looked intently at him, saw there would be no use of pleading with him, and walked to the door, dragging the children away from it, telling them to go home.

Jimmy Singleton, terrorized by the thing that had happened to his father, needed no urging. He ran, whimpering, toward town, the other children following.

Ruth went to the shed where she kept her pony, threw saddle and bridle on him and led him to the step, where she usually mounted.

The door of the schoolhouse was closed. Trailing the reins over the pony's head, she ran to one of the windows—a small one in the center of the side wall, dust-begrimed, with one pane of glass missing.

Peering within, she saw Singleton sitting up, staring dazedly around, supporting himself with his hands, an expression of almost laughable, bewilderment on his face.

Lawler was standing near him—big, stern, seeming to wait for Singleton to rise before he spoke to him.

And while Ruth watched, Singleton staggered to his feet. He swayed uncertainly as he faced Lawler; and when Lawler advanced toward him he cringed and staggered back, raising one arm as though to ward off an expected blow.

Ruth heard his voice; it was a whine, tremulous with fear.

"Don't hit me again, Lawler; I wasn't meanin' anything!"

And then Ruth saw that Singleton must have been struck a second time, for high up on his left cheek was a huge gash that had suffused his chin and neck with blood. She remembered that while saddling and bridling her pony she had heard a sound from within the schoolhouse, but she had thought then that it must have been Lawler moving a chair. Plainly, Singleton had recovered from the first blow, and had received another.

Lawler's voice again reached her. It was low, vibrant with passion.

"Singleton, I ought to kill you. I will kill you if you ever tell that girl that you know her father is a rustler. Damn your hide, she knows it now—and it's breaking her heart!

"I'm warning you. Don't you ever go near the Two Bar again. Don't you ever buy another steer from Hamlin. Don't even speak to him. I'll kill you sure as hell if you do!"

Ruth reeled away from the window. She got on her pony somehow, taking care to make no sound, for she did not want Lawler to know that she had heard. Once on the pony she sent the little animal rapidly away, toward the Two Bar—away from Lawler and from that happiness for which she had hoped despite the hideous knowledge which for months had tortured her.

Inside the schoolhouse Singleton was standing, beaten by the man over whom he had thought to triumph easily; by a man whose pallid face and blazing eyes conveyed to Singleton something of the terrible power and energy of him when aroused.

Singleton did not think of his guns, now; he was aware of nothing but the great awe that had seized him. And as Lawler watched, saying nothing more, Singleton turned from him and slunk out through the door.

CHAPTER V

A MAN'S WORD

When Lawler finally emerged from the schoolhouse door there was no one about. Far down the street, in front of a building, he saw a group of children. Lawler recognized the building as the Wolf Saloon—so named because of the river that ran through the town. He had no doubt that Singleton had entered the building—that would explain the presence of the children in front of it.

But Lawler merely glanced toward town; he turned instantly and gazed long into the great stretch of plain that ran eastward. He caught sight of a dot on his right, so far away that it was dim in the haze of distance, and he knew Ruth had followed his advice.

Lawler watched the dot until it vanished, and when he turned again—to mount Red King—his color had returned, though something of the mighty passion that had gripped him was still swimming in his eyes.

He sent Red King into town at a slow lope, not even looking toward the Wolf as he passed it, but hearing subdued voices that seemed to die away as he drew close.

He brought Red King to a halt in front of the brick building in which Gary Warden had his office, dismounted, tied the horse to a hitching rail and strode to an open doorway from which ran the stairs that led to the second floor. A gilt sign on the open door advised him of the location of Warden's office.

With one foot on the stairs, ready to ascend, Lawler heard a woman's voice, floating downward, coming from the landing above:

"Well, good-bye Gary," said the voice; "I'll see you tonight."

Lawler heard a man's voice answering, the words unintelligible to him; then the woman laughed, banteringly.

Then came the sound of a door closing, and the light tread of a woman's foot on the stairs.

Lawler had halted when he heard the woman's voice; he now stepped back in the narrow hallway, against the open door, to give the woman room to pass him.

Turning his back to the stairs, unconcernedly waiting, subconsciously realizing that the woman was descending, he gazed past the station building to see the empty corrals on the other side of the railroad track. His eyes narrowed with satisfaction—for there would be room for the thousand head of cattle that Blackburn and the other men of the Circle L outfit would bring to Willets in the morning. There would be no delay, and no camp on the edge of town, awaiting the emptying of the corral.

When he heard the woman's step on the bottom of the stairs he turned and faced her. She was looking straight at him, and as their eyes met he saw hers widen eloquently. She half paused as she started to pass him, and it seemed to him that she was about to speak. He smiled gravely, puzzled, hesitant, for her manner indicated that she knew him, or was mistaking him for another. He paused also, and both stood for a fleeting instant face to face, silent.

Lawler noted that the woman was beautiful, well dressed, with a manner unmistakably eastern. He decided that she had mistaken him for someone of her acquaintance, for he felt assured he never had seen her before. He bowed, saying lowly:

"I beg your pardon, ma'am; I reckon it's a case of mistaken identity."

"Why," she returned, laughing; "I thought sure I knew you. Are you quite certain that I don't?"

There was guile in her eyes; so far back that he could not see it, or so cleverly veiled with something else that he was not aware of it. It seemed to him that the eyes were merely engaging, and frankly curious. He did not see the admiration in them, the elation, and the demure coquetry.

"I reckon you'll have to be the judge of that, ma'am. You certainly have the advantage of me."

"You are—" Her pause was eloquent.

"I am Kane Lawler, ma'am."

He looked into her eyes for the disappointment he expected to find there, and saw only eager interrogation.

"Oh, then I don't know you. I beg your pardon."

"I reckon there's no harm done," smiled Lawler.

He bowed again, noting that she looked intently at him, her eyes still wide and filled with something he could not fathom. And when halfway up the stairs he looked back, curious, subtly attracted to the woman, he saw her standing in the doorway, ready to go out, watching him over her shoulder. He laughed and opened the door of Gary Warden's office.

Warden was sitting at his desk. He turned at the sound of the door opening, and faced Lawler inquiringly.

Perhaps in Lawler's eyes there still remained a trace of the cold passion that had seized him in the schoolhouse; it may have been that what Lawler had heard of Gary Warden was reflected in his gaze—a doubt of Warden's honorableness. Or perhaps in Lawler's face he observed signs which told him that before him stood a man of uncommon character.

At any rate, Warden was conscious of a subtle pulse of antagonism; a quick dislike—and jealousy.

Warden could not have told what had aroused the latter emotion, though he was subconsciously aware that it had come when he had noted the rugged, manly strength of Lawler's face; that the man was attractive, and that he admired him despite his dislike.

That knowledge aroused a dull rage in him. His cheeks flushed, his eyes glowed with it.

But Warden's smile contradicted his thoughts. He managed that so cleverly that many men, watching him, might have been deceived.

In Lawler's keen eyes, however, glowed understanding—a knowledge of Warden's character that vindicated the things he had heard about the man—the tentative suggestions that Warden was not a worthy successor to Lefingwell.

That knowledge, though, would not have bothered him, had he not seen in Warden's eyes something that seemed to offer him a personal affront. As quickly as Warden had veiled his eyes from Lawler, the latter had seen the dislike in them, the antagonism, and the rage that had stained his cheeks.

He had come to Warden's office with an open mind; now he looked at the man with a saturnine smile in which there was amused contempt. Assuredly the new buyer did not "measure up" to Jim Lefingwell's "size," as Blackburn had suggested.

Therefore, aware that he could not meet this man on the basis of friendliness that had distinguished all his relations with Jim Lefingwell, Lawler's voice was crisp and businesslike:

"You're Gary Warden?"

At the latter's short, affirmative nod, Lawler continued:

"I'm Kane Lawler, of the Circle L. I've come to make arrangements with you about buying my cattle. I've got eight thousand head—good clean stock. They're above the average, but I'm keeping my word with Jim Lefingwell, and turning them in at the market price."

"That's twenty-five dollars, delivered at the railroad company's corral, in town here."

He looked straight at Lawler, his face expressionless except for the slight smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth—which might have been indicative of vindictiveness or triumph.

"Thirty," smiled Lawler. "That was the price Lefingwell agreed to pay."

Warden appeared to be blandly amused.

"Lefingwell agreed to pay thirty, you say? Well, Lefingwell always was a little reckless. That's why my company asked for his resignation. But if you have a written contract with Lefingwell—in which it appears that Lefingwell acted for the company, why, of course we'll have to take your stock at the contract price. Let me see it, if you please."

"There was no written contract; I had Jim Lefingwell's word—which was all I ever needed."

"Lefingwell's word," smiled Warden. "Unfortunately, a man's word is not conclusive proof."

"Meaning that Jim Lefingwell was lying when he told you he'd agreed to pay thirty dollars for my stock this fall?"

"Oh, no. I don't insinuate against Lefingwell's veracity. But the company requires a written agreement in a case like this—where the former representative——"

"We won't argue that," interrupted Lawler. "Jim Lefingwell told me he'd had a talk with you about my agreement with him, and Jim said you'd carry it out."

"Mr. Lefingwell did not mention the matter to me."

"I'd hate to think Jim Lefingwell lied to me," said Lawler, slowly.

Warden's face grew crimson. "Meaning that I'm a liar, I suppose," he said, his voice quavering with sudden passion.

Lawler's level gaze made him stiffen in his chair. Lawler's smile, cold and mirthless, brought a pulse of apprehension through him, and Lawler's voice, slow, clear, and distinct, forced the blood from his face, leaving it pale:

"I don't let any man twist my words so that they mean something I don't intend them to mean, Mister Man. If I intended to call you a liar, I'd have said it to you mighty plain, so there'd be no doubt in your mind about it. So far as I know, you are not a liar. I'm telling you this, though: A man's word in this country has got to be backed by his performances—and he's got to have memory enough to know when he gives his word.

"I reckon that where you come from men give their word without knowing it. Maybe that's what happened to you when Jim Lefingwell spoke to you about his agreement with me. Anyway, I feel that charitable enough toward you to advance that explanation. You can take that for what it seems worth to you. And I won't be bothered any, no matter which way you take it."

Lawler turned toward the door. On the threshold he paused, for Warden's voice reached him.

"You'd better sell at twenty-five, Mr. Lawler."

Warden's voice was low and smooth; he seemed to have decided to accept the "charity" offered him by Lawler. But there was mockery in his voice, and his eyes were alight with cunning. In the atmosphere about him was complacency which suggested that Warden knew exactly what he was doing; that he had knowledge unsuspected by Lawler, and that he had no doubt that, ultimately, Lawler would accept his offer.

"Not a steer at twenty-five," returned Lawler.

"That price means immediate shipment," pursued Warden. "The railroads are having some trouble with their rolling stock—it is hard to get cars. Some shippers are not getting them at all. And the shortage will grow."

"Perhaps it will. I don't blame you for buying as low as you can. That's business, Warden. I heard through Lew Brainard, of the Two Diamond, that owners in the South Basin, over at Shotwell, were offered forty just before the round-up. I was kicking myself for making that agreement with Lefingwell at thirty. But I intended to keep my word with him. But I feel mighty free, now, to sell where I can get the market price."

"Twenty-five is the market price," said Warden. "Just before the round-up there was some nervousness, it is true; and some buyers were offering forty—and they contracted for some at that price. But that was before we made—" He hesitated, reddened, and then went on quickly, plainly embarrassed, endeavoring to conceal his embarrassment by lighting a cigar.

"It was before the market broke," he went on. "The market is glutted. The West raised more cattle this season than ever before. There is no demand and the price had to tumble. A good many cattle owners will be glad to take twenty, and even fifteen, before long."

"But if there are no cars?" smiled Lawler.

Again he saw Warden's face redden.

"A shortage of cars would mean a shortage of cattle in the East, I reckon," went on Lawler. "And a shortage of cattle would mean higher prices for those that got through. But I'm not arguing—nor am I accepting twenty-five for my cattle. I reckon I'll have to ship my stock East."

"Well, I wish you luck," said Warden.

He turned his back to Lawler, bending over his desk.

Something in his voice—a hint of mockery tempered with rage—brought Lawler to a pause as he crossed the threshold of the doorway. He turned and looked back at Warden, puzzled, for it seemed to him that Warden was defying him; and he seemed to feel the atmosphere of complacence that surrounded the man. His manner hinted of secret knowledge—strongly; it gave Lawler an impression of something stealthy, clandestine. Warden's business methods were not like Lefingwell's. Lefingwell had been bluff, frank, and sincere; there was something in Warden's manner that seemed to exude craft and guile. The contrast between the two men was sharp, acute, startling; and Lawler descended the stairs feeling that he had just been in contact with something that crept instead of walking upright like a man.

A recollection of the woman he had met at the foot of the stairs came to Lawler as he descended, and thought of her did much to erase the impression he had gained of Warden. He grinned, thinking of how he had caught her watching him as he had mounted the stairs. And then he reddened as he realized that he would not have known she was watching him had he not turned to look back at her.

He found himself wondering about her—why she had been in Warden's office, and who she could be. And then he remembered his conversation with Blackburn, about "chapper-owns," and he decided she must be that woman to whom Blackburn had referred as "a woman at Lefingwell's old place, keepin' Warden company." He frowned, and crossed the street, going toward the railroad station building, in which he would find the freight agent.

And as he walked he was considering another contrast—that afforded by his glimpse of the strange woman and Ruth Hamlin. And presently he found himself smiling with pleasure, with a mental picture of Ruth's face before him—her clear, direct-looking, honest eyes, with no guile in them like that which had glowed in the eyes that had gazed into his at the foot of the stairs.

Over in Corwin's store, where "Aunt Hannah," had gone to make some small purchases, the woman who had encountered Lawler in the hall was talking with the proprietor. Aunt Hannah was watching a clerk.

"Della," she called; "do you want anything?"

"Nothing, Aunty," returned the woman. Then she lowered her voice, speaking to Corwin:

"So he owns the Circle L? Is that a large ranch?"

"One of the biggest in the Wolf River section," declared Corwin.

"Then Lawler must be wealthy."

"I reckon he's got wads of dust, ma'am."

The woman's eyes glowed with satisfaction.

"Well," she said; "I was just curious about him. He is a remarkably striking-looking man, isn't he?"

"You've hit it, ma'am," grinned Corwin. "I've been years tryin' to think up a word that would fit him. You've hit it. He's different. Looks like one of them statesmen with cowpuncher duds on—like a governor or somethin', which is out of place here."

The woman smiled affirmation. "So he does," she said, reflectively. "He is big, and imposing, and strikingly handsome. And he is educated, too, isn't he?"

"I reckon he is," said Corwin. "Privately, that is. His maw was a scholar of some kind back East, before she married Luke Lawler an' come out here to live with him. Luke's dead, now—died five years ago. Luke was a wolf, ma'am, with a gun. He could shoot the buttons off your coat with his eyes shut. An' he was so allfired fast with his gun that he'd make a streak of lightnin' look like it was loafin'. Luke had a heap of man in him, ma'am, an' Kane is just as much of a man as his dad was, I reckon. Luke was——"

"About Kane Lawler," interrupted the woman. "You say he is well educated?"

"That's about the only thing I've got ag'in' him, ma'am. I hold that no cattleman has got a right to know so durned much. It's mighty dangerous—to his folks—if he ever gets any. Now take Kane Lawler. If he was to marry a girl that wasn't educated like him, an' he'd begin to get fool notions about hisself—why, it'd make it pretty hard for the girl to get along with him." He grinned. "But accordin' to what I hear, Kane ain't goin' to marry no ignoramus exactly, for he's took a shine to Ruth Hamlin, Willets' school teacher. She's got a heap of brains, that girl, an' I reckon she'd lope alongside of Kane, wherever he went."

The woman frowned. "Is Mr. Lawler going to marry Ruth Hamlin?"

Corwin looked sharply at her. "What do you suppose he's fannin' up to her for?" he demanded. "Neither of them is a heap flighty, I reckon. An' Kane will marry her if she'll have him—accordin' to the way things generally go."

The woman smiled as she left Corwin and joined the older woman at the front of the store. She smiled as she talked with the other woman, and she smiled as they both walked out of the store and climbed into a buckboard. The smile was one that would have puzzled Corwin, for it was inscrutable, baffling. Only one thing Corwin might have seen in it—determination. And that might have puzzled him, also.

CHAPTER VI

THE INVISIBLE POWER

Jay Simmons, the freight agent, was tilted comfortably in a chair near a window looking out upon the railroad platform when Lawler stepped into the office. The office was on the second floor, and from a side window the agent had seen Lawler coming toward the station from Warden's office. He had been sitting near the side window, but when he saw Lawler approaching the station he had drawn his chair to one of the front windows. And now, apparently, he was surprised to see Lawler, for when the latter opened the door of the office Simmons exclaimed, with assumed heartiness:

"Well, if it ain't Kane Lawler!"

Simmons was a rotund man, bald, with red hair that had a faded, washed-out appearance. His eyes were large, pale blue in color, with a singularly ingratiating expression which was made almost yearning by light, colorless lashes.

Simmons' eyes, however, were unreliable as an index to his character. One could not examine very far into them. They seemed to be shallow, baffling. Simmons did not permit his eyes to betray his thoughts. He used them as masks to hide from prying eyes the things that he did not wish others to see.

"Come a-visitin', Lawler?" asked Simmons as Lawler halted midway in the room and smiled faintly at the greeting he received.

"Not exactly, Simmons."

"Not exactly, eh? I reckon that means you've got some business. I'll be glad to help you out—if I can."

"I'm going to ship my stock East, Simmons, and I'm wanting cars for them—eight thousand head."

Simmons still sat in the chair beside the window. He now pursed his lips, drew his brows together and surveyed Lawler attentively.

"Eight thousand head, eh? Sort of whooped 'em up this season, didn't you. I reckon Gary Warden took 'em all?"

"Warden and I couldn't get together. I'm shipping them East, myself."

"Consignin' 'em to who?"

"They'll go to Legget and Mellert."

"H'm; they're an independent concern, ain't they?"

"Yes; that's the firm my father shipped to before Jim Lefingwell opened an office here."

Simmons locked his fingers together and squinted his eyes at Lawler.

"H'm," he said. Then he was silent, seemingly meditating. Then he shook his head slowly from side to side. Apparently he was gravely considering a problem and could find no solution for it.

He cleared his throat, looked at Lawler, then away from him.

"I reckon it's goin' to be a lot bothersome to ship that bunch of stock, Lawler—a heap bothersome. There's been half a dozen other owners in to see me within the last week or so, an' I couldn't give them no encouragement. There ain't an empty car in the state."

Lawler was watching him intently, and the expression in his eyes embarrassed Simmons. He flushed, cleared his throat again, and then shot a belligerent glance at Lawler.

"It ain't my fault—not a bit of it, Lawler. I've been losin' sleep over this thing—losin' sleep, I tell you! I've telegraphed every damned point on the line. This road is swept clean as a whistle. 'No cars' they wire back to me—'no cars!' I've read that answer until there ain't no room for anything else in my brain.

"The worst of it is, I'm gettin' blamed for it. You'd think I was runnin' the damned railroad—that I was givin' orders to the president. Lem Caldwell, of the Star, over to Keegles, was in here yesterday, threatenin' to herd ride me if I didn't have a hundred cars here this day, week. He'd been to see Gary Warden—the same as you have—an' he was figgerin' on playin' her independent. An' some more owners have been in. I don't know what in hell the company is thinkin' of—no cars, an' the round-up just over."

Simmons had worked himself into a near frenzy. His face had become bloated with passion, he was breathing fast. But Lawler noted that his eyes were shifty, that he turned them everywhere except upon Lawler.

Simmons now paused, seemingly having exhausted his breath.

"I've just left Gary Warden," said Lawler, slowly. "He offered his price for my stock. He told me if I accepted, it meant there would be no delay, that they would be shipped immediately. Warden seems to know where he can get cars."

Simmons' face reddened deeply, the flush suffusing his neck and ears. He shot one swift glance at Lawler, and then looked down. In that swift glance, however, Lawler had seen a fleeting gleam of guilt, of insincerity.

Lawler laughed shortly—a sound that made Simmons shoot another swift glance at him.

"How is it that Gary Warden figures on getting cars, Simmons?" said Lawler.

Simmons got up, his face flaming with rage.

"You're accusin' me of holdin' somethin' back, eh? You're callin' me a liar! You're thinkin' I'm——"

"Easy, there, Simmons."

There was a chill in Lawler's voice that brought Simmons rigid with a snap—as though he had suddenly been drenched with cold water. The flush left his face; he drew a deep, quick breath; then stood with open mouth, watching Lawler.

"Simmons," said the latter; "it has been my experience that whenever a man is touchy about his veracity, he will bear watching. You and Gary Warden have both flared up from the same spark. I don't know whether this thing has been framed up or not. But it looks mighty suspicious. It is the first time there has been a lack of cars after a round-up. Curiously, the lack of cars is coincident with Gary Warden's first season as a buyer of cattle.

"I don't say that you've got anything to do with it, but it's mighty plain you know something about it. I'm not asking you to tell what you know, because if there is a frame-up, it's a mighty big thing, and you are about as important a figure in it as a yellow coyote in a desert. I reckon that's all, Simmons. You can tell your boss that Kane Lawler says he can go to hell."

He wheeled, crossed the floor, went out of the room and left the door open behind him. Simmons could hear his step on the stairs. Then Simmons sat down again, drew a big red bandanna handkerchief from a hip pocket and wiped some big beads of perspiration from his forehead. He was breathing fast, and his face was mottled with purple spots. He got up, ran to a side window, and watched Lawler until the latter vanished behind a building opposite Gary Warden's office.

Again Simmons mopped his brow. And now he drew a breath of relief.

"Whew!" he said, aloud; "I'm glad that's over. I've been dreadin' it. He's the only one in the whole bunch that I was afraid of. An' he's wise. There'll be hell in this section, now—pure, unadulterated hell, an' no mistake!"

CHAPTER VII

THE COALITION

When Lawler reached Willets' one street he saw a buckboard drawn by two gray horses. The vehicle was headed west, away from him, and the horses were walking. The distance between himself and the buckboard was not great, and he saw that it was occupied by two women—one of them the woman whom he had met at the foot of the stairs leading to Warden's office. The other was elderly, and was looking straight ahead, but the young woman's head was turned toward Lawler at the instant Lawler caught sight of the buckboard. It seemed to him that the young woman must have been watching him, before he became aware of the buckboard, for there was a smile on her face as she looked at him; and when she seemed sure that he was looking she gayly waved a white handkerchief.

Lawler did not answer the signal. He looked around, thinking that perhaps the woman might have waved the handkerchief at some friend she had just left, and when he turned she had her back to him.

Lawler was conscious of a pulse of amusement over the woman's action, though he experienced no fatuous thrill. The woman was frivolous, and had made no appeal to his imagination.

Besides, Lawler was in no mood for frivolous thought. He was having his first experience with the invisible and subtle power that ruled the commerce of the nation, and his thoughts were serious—almost vicious.

Somewhere a mighty hand had halted activity in the Wolf River section; a power, stealthy, sinister, had interfered with the business in which he was vitally interested, interrupting it, disturbing it.

Lawler had kept himself well informed. In the big library at the Circle L were various volumes relating to economics that had been well thumbed by him. He had been privately educated, by his mother. And among the books that lined the shelves of the library were the philosophers, ancient and modern; the masters of art, science, and letters, and a miscellany of authorities on kindred subjects.

When his father had insisted that he be educated he had studied the political history of his state; he had kept a serious eye upon the activities of all the politicians of note; he had kept his mind open and free from party prejudice. He knew that the present governor of the state was incapable, or swayed by invisible and malign influences. He was aware that the state railroad commissioner lacked aggressiveness, or that he had been directed to keep in the background. And he was also aware that for a year or more the people of the state had regretted electing the present governor; the dissatisfaction manifesting itself in various ways, though chiefly in the tone of the editorials published by the newspapers in the towns.

As the average newspaper editor endeavors to anticipate public opinion he invariably keeps himself well informed concerning the activities of an office-holder, that he may be prepared to campaign against him at the instant he detects dissatisfaction among his subscribers. And the present governor was being scathingly arraigned by the newspapers of the state, while he sat in smug complacence in his office at the capital. He had made no effort to correct some of the evils of government about which he had raged just before the election.

Lawler smiled with grim amusement as he walked toward the Willets Hotel—where he meant to stay overnight. For he was convinced that the car shortage could not exist if the state officials—especially the railroad commissioner—would exert authority to end it. It seemed to Lawler that there must exist a secret understanding between the railroad commissioner and the invisible power represented by Gary Warden. And he wondered at the temerity of the governor—the sheer, brazen disregard for the public welfare that permitted him to become leagued with the invisible power in an effort to rob the cattle owners of the state. He must certainly know that he had been elected by the cattle owners—that their votes and the votes of their employees had made it possible for him to gain the office he had sought.

But perhaps—and Lawler's lips curved with bitterness—the governor wanted only one term. For two years of complete and absolute control of the cattle industry of the state would make him wealthy enough to hold public opinion in contempt.

From a window of his office Gary Warden had watched Lawler go into the station building. And from the same window Warden saw Lawler emerge. He watched Lawler, noting the gravity of his face, exulting, smiling mockingly. Warden also noted the little drama of the fluttering handkerchief, and the smile went out and a black, jealous rage seized him.

However, Gary Warden and Jay Simmons were not the only persons in town who watched Lawler. When he had entered town the school children who had preceded him had watched him from in front of the Wolf; and half a dozen lean-faced, rugged, and prosperous-looking men had watched him from the lounging-room of the Willets Hotel.

The men in the lounging-room were watching Lawler now, as he walked toward the building, for they seemed to divine that he would enter.

When Lawler stepped over the threshold his lips were set in stern, serious lines and his brows were drawn together in a frown. For his thoughts were dwelling upon the sinister power that threatened to create confusion in the section.

He did not see the men in the lounging-room until he had taken several steps toward the desk; and then he glanced carelessly toward them. Instantly his eyes glowed with recognition; he walked toward them.

"Howdy, Lawler," greeted one, extending a hand. And, "howdy," was the word that passed the lips of the others as Lawler shook hands with them. He called them all by name; but it was to the first man that he spoke, after the amenities had been concluded.

"I heard you were in town, Caldwell," he said.

Caldwell—a big man with a black beard, probing, intelligent eyes, and an aggressive chin, grinned grimly.

"Gary Warden tell you?" he asked.

"No. Warden didn't mention you."

"Then it was Jay Simmons. You ain't been anywhere else."

"How do you know?"

Caldwell exchanged glances with his companions. "I reckon we've been watchin' you, Lawler. We seen you ride into town on Red King, an' we seen you go over to the station from Warden's office."

"Watching me?" queried Lawler; "what for?"

"Wall, I reckon we wanted to see how you took it."

"Took what?"

"What Warden an' Simmons had to say to you. We got ours—me yesterday; Barthman an' Littlefield this mornin'; an' Corts, Sigmund, an' Lester the day before yesterday. I reckon the whole section will get it before long. Looks like they're tryin' to squeeze us. How many steers did you sell to Warden at twenty-five?"

Lawler grinned.

"An' Simmons?" said Caldwell, gleefully.

"No cars."

"Seems Simmons ain't makin' no exceptions. We've all heard the same story. We knowed you'd be in, an' we sort of waited around, wonderin' what you'd do about it. We didn't bring no cattle over, for we hadn't made no arrangement with Jim Lefingwell—like you done—an' we didn't want to stampede Warden."

Lawler told them what had occurred in his interview with Warden.

"I reckon Warden's the liar, all right," declared Caldwell; "Jim Lefingwell's word was the only contract anyone ever needed with him." He looked keenly at Lawler. "What you aimin' to do?" he questioned.

"I've been thinking it over," said Lawler.

"You ain't figgerin' to lay down to the cusses?" Caldwell's voice was low and cold.

Lawler looked straight at him, smiling. Caldwell laughed, and the others grinned.

"Lawler, we knowed you wouldn't," declared Caldwell; "but a man's got a right to ask. Right here an' now somethin' has got to be done. Looks to me as if we've got to play this game to a showdown, an' we might as well start right now. They're ain't none of us men goin' to let Gary Warden an' the railroad company run our business; but there's a few owners around here that ain't got no stomach for a fight, an' they'd sell to Warden for ten dollars rather than have any trouble. Them's the guys we've got to talk mighty plain to. For if they go to sellin' for what they can get, they'll make it allfired uncomfortable for us."

"This is a free country, Caldwell. So far as I'm concerned every man runs his own ranch and sells for what he thinks is a fair price. If we go to interfering with them, we'd be as bad as Warden and the railroad company."

"Lawler, you're right," agreed Caldwell, after reflecting a moment. "I didn't realize that, at first. A man don't think, when he's mad clear through. But it's mighty plain—we've got to stand on our own feet, if we stand at all."

Barthman, a tall, lean-faced man, cleared his throat.

"Lawler, you're the man to handle this thing. You've got the most money, the most brains, an' you're known all over the state—on account of them slick Herefords you've been raisin', an' on account of headin' the delegation to the state convention last fall, from this county. You can talk, for you mighty near stampeded that convention last fall. If you'd said the word you'd have been governor today instead of that dumb coyote which is holdin' down the office now. You've got the reputation an' the backbone—an' they've got to listen to you. I've heard that cattle owners all over the state are gettin' the same deal." Barthman's eyes gleamed with passion. "I propose that you be elected chairman of this meetin', an' that you be instructed to hop on the mornin' train an' go to the railroad commissioner at the capital an' tell him that if he don't give orders to bust up this thievin' combination the cattle owners of this county will come down there an' yank off his hide!"

CHAPTER VIII

A WOMAN'S MERCY

Gary Warden did not stand at the office window many minutes after he saw Lawler on the street. He drew on his coat, took his hat from a hook, on the wall and descended the stairs. At the street door he glanced swiftly around, saw Red King standing at the hitching rail in front of the building, and several other horses farther up the street. There were several men on the sidewalks, but he did not see Lawler.

Grinning crookedly, Warden crossed the street and made his way to the station building, where a few minutes later he was talking with Simmons. Simmons was visibly excited. There was curiosity in Warden's gaze.

"He's wise," said Simmons. He was still wiping perspiration from his forehead, and he mechanically repeated to Warden the words he had uttered to himself immediately after Lawler left his office: "I'm glad it's over. I've been dreadin' it. He's the only one in the whole bunch that I was afraid of. There'll be hell to pay in this section, now—pure, unadulterated hell, an' no mistake!" And then he added something that had occurred to him afterward: "If the big guys back of this thing knowed Kane Lawler as well as I know him, they'd have thought a heap before they started this thing!"

"Bah!" sneered Warden; "you're raving! We know what we are doing. You do as you're told—that's all. And keep your mouth shut. Just keep on telling them there are no cars. That's the truth, isn't it?" He grinned gleefully at Simmons.

"So he's wise, eh?" he added. "Well, I'm damned glad of it—the sagebrush rummie! We'll make him hump before we get through with him!"

Hatred of Lawler had seized Warden—a passion that ran through his veins with the virulence of a strong poison. It had been the incident of the fluttering handkerchief that had aroused him. Until then he had merely disliked Lawler, aware of the latent strength of him, his rugged manliness, and his quiet confidence. All those evidences of character had irritated him, for they had brought an inevitable contrast between himself and the man, and he knew he lacked those things which would have made him Lawler's equal. He felt inferior, and the malevolence that accompanied the conviction was reflected in his face as he faced Simmons.

"No cars, now—damn them! Not a single car! Understand, Simmons? No cars—you can't get them! No matter what happens, you can't get cars—for anybody!"

He left Simmons and descended to the street. As he passed the front of the Willets Hotel he saw Lawler and his friends inside; but Lawler had his back turned, and the others were interestedly watching him, gesturing and talking.

Warden entered the front door of the Wolf. He stopped at the bar for a drink, and the barkeeper told him, in reply to his question, that Singleton was in a rear room.

Singleton was alone. He was sitting in a chair at a table, with a glass in front of him, and he was staring abstractedly at the floor when Warden entered, closing the door behind him.

Warden drew a chair up to the table and dropped into it. And then for the first time he looked closely at Singleton's face and saw the gash on his left cheek. The wound had been treated, but beneath the cloth at one end Warden could see the open flesh.

"What in blazes has happened to you?" inquired Warden.

"Lawler," growled Singleton; "he walloped my kid down at the schoolhouse, an' when I went down there to take the kid's part, he walloped me, too." He grinned lugubriously. "I didn't know the cuss could hit so hard," he muttered. "Warden, he salivated me—hit me so durned hard I thought the roof had dropped on me."

Warden stiffened; then leaned forward, his lips loose, his eyes malignant. "What do you carry those two guns for, Singleton? I thought you knew how to use them. Men have told me you know."

"Bah!" exclaimed Singleton. His gaze met Warden's, his eyes gleaming with resentment. "What do you know about Kane Lawler?"

"I hate him, Singleton."

"Well, I reckon you ain't the only one. I ain't exactly in love with the cuss, myself. I was thinkin' of my guns when I was with him in the schoolhouse, but somehow I didn't feel like takin' a chance on slingin' 'em. I ain't tryin' to explain nothin'—I just couldn't make my hands go for 'em, that's all. Hell! I reckon the man who can draw a gun on Kane Lawler when he's lookin' at him ain't been born yet. But I'm gettin' square with him for wallopin' me—I'm lettin' you know that, right enough!"

"You'll have your chance, Singleton. Lawler will have to trail his cattle—as far as Red Rock, anyway."

Singleton's eyes glowed with venomous satisfaction. He grinned evilly at Warden.

"So he wouldn't do business with you, eh? I knowed it, an' I've been gettin' ready. Ha, ha! He'll wish he had. Blondy Antrim rode in as far as Kinney's cañon last night. I met him an' had a long talk with him. He's keen for it—says he admires any guy which can plan a thing that big. Grinned like a hyena when I told him the big guys back of it wouldn't let any law interfere. He's got seventy men, he says—dare-devil gun-fighters from down south a piece which will do anything he tells 'em an' howl for more."

Warden moistened his lips as he grinned his satisfaction.

"There's only one trail, Singleton—you are sure of that?"

"One trail—the Tom Long trail. The devil himself couldn't find another through that country."

Warden leaned back in his chair, laughing lowly. Into his manner as he sat there came a confidence that had not been there before—bold, arrogant. His laugh had a sinister quality in it; in his eyes was the light of greed.

And as he watched Singleton something else came into his eyes—something abysmal, causing them to narrow and glow with a bestial light.

"Singleton," he said, his voice thick and throaty; "when I stepped into Jim Lefingwell's boots the county board of education appointed me to succeed Lefingwell as school commissioner for Willets. It strikes me that something ought to be done about the teacher punishing your boy. I think I had better have a talk with her."

"Shucks," growled Singleton; "I reckon the kid deserved what he got. He was tryin' to wallop her when Lawler come in. I ain't admirin' Ruth Hamlin none, but I reckon she wasn't to blame for that. If you was figgerin' to see Lawler, now, why that would be more to the point." He grinned crookedly at Warden, slight mockery in his gaze.

Warden scowled. "That's your job, Singleton. If he tries to 'wallop' me as he walloped you, I'll have something to say to him."

"It's safer to telegraph to the cuss," grinned Singleton, sourly.

Warden apparently did not hear Singleton's last words, for he was gazing meditatively past him. He took leave of Singleton and walked to the front of the saloon, where he stood for many minutes leaning on the bar, thoughtfully looking out into the street.

The shadows of the buildings across the street from him had grown long, and the light from the sun was mellowing when Warden walked to the front door and stood for an instant on the threshold.

Down the street in front of his office stood Red King. Other horses were hitched here and there, but there was no human being in sight. The quiet peace of the waning afternoon had settled over town; it was the period when human activity slackens.

Warden stepped down upon the sidewalk. There was a furtive gleam in his eyes, his face was flushed; he was in the grip of a passion that thoughts of Ruth Hamlin had brought to him. He had seen the girl a number of times; he had talked with her twice. Each time when he had talked with her he had felt the heat of a great desire seize him. And during his talk with Singleton he had yielded to the impulse that was now driving him.

Just why the impulse had come to him at that instant he could not have told. He knew Kane Lawler's name had been mentioned in connection with the girl's; and it might have been that his hatred of Lawler, and the sudden jealousy that had developed in him over the incident of the fluttering handkerchief, had gripped him. But he was aware that just at this time he was risking much—risking his life and jeopardizing the business venture in which he was engaged. Yet the impulse which was driving him had made him reckless; it had dulled his sense of responsibility; had swept away all considerations of caution. When he saw there was no one on the street he walked eastward to the livery stable where he kept his horse, saddled and bridled it, mounted and rode away.

His ranch, the Two Diamond, was fifteen miles southwestward. Warden rode directly east, bearing a little south after he had traveled some distance from town, striking a narrow trail that wound a sinuous course over the plains.

The passion that had seized Warden still held him. He told himself that he really intended merely to call upon Ruth professionally, in his rôle of school commissioner; he assured himself that she must be made to understand that the forcible disciplining of her pupils would not be tolerated. Yet as he rode he kept glancing backward apprehensively, though he knew that if he made his visit merely official he need have nothing to fear from anyone.

Twice, as Warden rode, he halted his horse and debated the wisdom of returning. And twice he rode on again telling himself he had a right to visit the girl, and that he meant no harm.

At most he desired merely to see the girl again, to experience the thrills that he had felt upon the other occasions he had talked with her. And when at dusk he came in sight of the Hamlin cabin he felt that he had really come on an official visit.

He saw Ruth's pony saddled and bridled, standing at a corner of the corral, where she had left him when she had returned from the schoolhouse some hours before.

She had found the house unoccupied when she arrived; there was evidence that her father had left shortly after breakfast—for the dishes were unwashed and the floor unswept—two duties that he always had performed, knowing that in the morning she had a ten-mile ride before her.

Table and floor had been attended to by the girl. But she had done little else. For hours she had sat in a chair near the front door, thinking of what had happened in the schoolhouse—of what she had heard—the evidence that Kane Lawler knew what her father had been doing, and that he was trying to protect her.

She believed it was the latter knowledge that made her feel so small, so insignificant, so utterly miserable. For while she was convinced that he would think no less of her, no matter what her father had done, the fact that Lawler was trying to keep the knowledge of her father's guilt from her told her that he appreciated the keen disgrace that threatened her.

When Warden dismounted near the cabin door she thought it was her father returning, and she got up and went to the stove, where she stood, lifting the iron lids, preparatory to starting a fire.

She felt that she could not look at her father, after what had happened; and so she laid some wood in the stove, deliberately keeping her back to the door, trying to think of something to say to her father—for she had determined to tell him about the incident of the morning.

She was forced to go to a shelf for matches, however, and when she turned, her eyes flashing with accusation, she saw Warden standing in the open doorway, watching her. She stood very still, and spoke no word.

When Warden noted the swift change of expression that came over her face—the astonishment that instantly dominated all else, he grinned smoothly.

"Surprised to see me, Miss Hamlin? You shouldn't be, after what happened at the schoolhouse today. I have called to have a talk with you about it."

The girl's quick smile was cold and indifferent. What happened to her now was of little importance. She supposed Warden had come to tell her she had been discharged; but that made little difference to her. She felt that she had done right in attempting to chastize Jimmy Singleton; and she would do it again under the same circumstances.

"Is it necessary to talk?" she questioned, coldly. "I am not sorry for what I did. I suppose you have come to notify me of my dismissal."

"On the contrary, I have come to assure you that you did what was right—exactly what I would have done," smiled Warden. "The only criticism I have is that you should not have dismissed school; you should have stayed right there and had it out."

Warden stepped inside and walked close to Ruth.

"I want to shake hands with you, Miss Hamlin; you have the necessary spirit."

Some color surged into Ruth's face. She realized now, that she did not want to lose the position—that it meant much to her. It meant at least her independence from her father, that she could support herself without depending upon the money he gained from his guilty practices. It meant, too, that the additional disgrace of being summarily dismissed would not descend upon her.

Impulsively, she took Warden's hand. She looked inquiringly at him though, when he gripped it tightly, and the color that had come into her face fled, leaving it pale, when Warden continued to hold the hand, gripping it so hard that she could not withdraw it. She looked intently at him, over the few feet of space that was between them, noting the queer light in his eyes—a glow of passion; watching the crimson tide that rose above his collar, staining his face darkly.

For the driving desire that had seized Warden had conquered him. Physical contact with the girl had brought his passions to life again. They had overwhelmed him, had sent his grain skittering back into those dead and gone periods when man's desires surmounted laws.

Warden no longer considered the risks whose ghosts had haunted him on his ride to the Hamlin cabin; his fears had been swallowed by the oblivion of mental irresponsibility. He had only the vivid knowledge that he was alone in the cabin with the girl.

"But there are people in Willets who are determined that you shall go," he said. "I can keep you on the job in spite of them, my dear—and I'll do it. But there are certain conditions—certain——"

She struck him, then, bringing her free hand around with a wide, full sweep. The open hand landed on the side of his face with a smack that resounded through the cabin, staggering him, causing him to release the other hand.

A great, red welt appeared on his cheek where the hand had struck; and he felt of his cheek with his fingers, amazed, incredulous. For an instant only, however, he stood, trying to wipe the sting of the blow away. Then he laughed throatily and started after her—she having retreated behind the table, where she stood, watching him, her eyes wide, her face dead white.

Warden, leaning far over the table, saw her eyes close as she stood there; saw her fingers grip the edge of the table; noted that her chin had dropped and that she seemed to be on the point of fainting.

Warden's back was toward the front door; he had to slip sideways to get around the table, and as he did so his profile was brought toward the door. He saw a shadow at his feet—a shadow cast by the last effulgent glow of the setting sun—a shadow made by a man standing in the doorway.

Warden halted and held hard to the table edge. Reason, cold, remorseless reason surged back into his brain, accompanied by a paralyzing fear. Some prescience told him that the man in the doorway was Kane Lawler. And though he was convinced of it, he was a long time lifting his head and in turning it the merest trifle toward the door. And when he saw that the dread apparition was indeed Lawler, and that Lawler's heavy pistol was extending from his side, the hand and arm behind it rigid, he stiffened, flung himself around and faced Lawler, his mouth open, his eyes bulging with the terrible dread of death and the awful certainty that death was imminent.

For an instant there was a silence—breathless, strained, pregnant with the promise of tragedy. Then the silence was rent by Lawler's voice, dry, light, and vibrant:

"Warden, if you move a quarter of an inch I'll blow you to hell!"

Lawler walked slowly to Ruth, took her by the shoulders and steadied her.

"It's Lawler, Ruth," he said reassuringly. "I want you to tell me what's wrong here." He shook her, gently, and she opened her eyes and looked at him dazedly. Then, as she seemed to recognize him, to become convinced that it was really Lawler whom she had seen in the doorway, she smiled and rested her head on his shoulder, her hands patting his arms and his back as though to convince herself beyond doubt.

For an instant she stood there, holding tightly to him; and then she released herself, stepping back with flushed cheeks and shamed eyes.

"Kane, I am so glad you came!" she said. "Why, Kane! that man—" She shuddered and covered her face with her hands.

"I reckon that's all!" said Lawler. There was a cold, bitter grin on his lips as he stepped around the table and stood in front of Warden.

"Warden, I'm going back to town with you. We're going right now. Go out and get on your horse!"

Lawler's voice, the cold flame in his eyes and his icy deliberation, told Ruth of a thing that, plainly, Warden had already seen—that though both men would begin the ride to "town," only Lawler would reach there.

Ruth watched, fascinated, her senses dulled by what she saw in Lawler's manner and in the ghastly white of Warden's face. Warden understood. He understood, and his breath was labored, his flesh palsied—and still he was going to obey. For Ruth saw him move; saw him sway toward the door; saw Lawler watching him as though he was fighting to hold his passions in check, fighting back a lust to kill the man where he stood.

Warden had reached the door; he was crossing the threshold—his head bowed, his shoulders sagging, his legs bending at the knees—when Ruth moved. She ran around the table and got between Lawler and Warden, stretching her arms in the open doorway, barring Lawler's way. Her eyes were wild with terror.

"Don't, Kane!" she begged; "don't do that! Oh, I know what you mean to do. Please, Kane; let him go—alone. He didn't do—what—what—" She paused, shuddering.

Lawler's eyes softened as he looked at her; he smiled faintly, and she knew she had won. She did not resist when he drew her gently away from the door. Standing just inside, she saw him go out to where Warden stood, pale and shaking, looking at both of them. Then she heard Lawler's voice as he spoke to Warden:

"Warden, I'm letting you off. Miss Ruth is going to teach school where she's been teaching it. The schoolhouse is your deadline—the same as this cabin. Whenever you step into one or the other, your friends are going to mourn for you. Get going!"

It was a long time before Lawler moved. And when he did re-enter the cabin Ruth was nowhere to be seen.

Lawler paused near the center of the big room and gazed about him. The door leading to one of the rooms that ran from the big room was open. The other was closed. He walked to the closed door and stood before it, his lips set in grim lines, his eyes somber.

"Ruth!" he called, lowly.

There was no answer; and again he called. This time a smothered voice reached him, quavering, tearful:

"Please go away, Kane; I don't want to see you. I'm so upset."

"I reckon I'll go, Ruth." But still he lingered, watching the door, now smiling faintly, understandingly. Beyond the door were the sounds of sobbing.

Lawler folded his arms over his chest and with the fingers of one hand caressing his chin, watched the door.

"Ruth," he said, finally; "where is your father?"

"I—I d-don't know. And I don't c-care."

Lawler started, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion as he looked at the door—it seemed that he was trying to peer through it.

"Ruth," he said slowly; "I saw you looking into the schoolhouse through the broken window, after I hit Singleton the second time, and while I was talking to him. What did you hear?"

"Everything, Kane—everything." The sobs were furious, now.

Lawler frowned through a silence during which his eyes glowed savagely. Then, after a while, he spoke again.

"I've known it for a long time, Ruth."

"Oh!" she sobbed.

"It was Singleton's fault. He won't do it any more."

There was no answer; a brooding silence came from beyond the door.

Then Lawler said gently: "Ruth, I'm asking you again: Will you marry me?"

"I'll never marry you, now, Kane—never, never, never!"

The sobs had ceased now; but the voice was choked with emotion.

"All right, Ruth," said Lawler; "I'll ask you again, sometime. And the next time you won't refuse."

He crossed the floor and stepped outside. Leaping into the saddle he sent Red King thundering away from the cabin into the dusk that swathed the southern distance.

A yellow moon was rising above the peaks of the hills at the far edge of the Wolf River valley when Lawler dismounted from Red King and strode to the big Circle L bunkhouse. Inside a kerosene lamp burned on a table around which were several men.

The men looked up in astonishment as Lawler entered; then got to their feet, looking at Lawler wonderingly, for on his face was an expression that none of them ever had seen there before.

"Have any of you seen Joe Hamlin?" said Lawler.

A yellow-haired giant among them grinned widely and pointed eloquently toward a bunk, where a man's body, swathed in blankets, could be seen.

"That's him," said the yellow-haired giant. "He hit here this mornin', sayin' you'd hired him, an' that he was standin' straight up on his legs like a man, hereafter. We took him on under them conditions."

Lawler strode to the bunk. He deliberately unrolled the blankets, seized Hamlin by the middle and lifted him, setting him down on the floor ungently.

By the time Lawler released him, Hamlin had his eyes open, and he blinked in bewilderment at the faces of the men, opening his mouth with a snap when he saw Lawler.

"Lawler, what in blazes is the matter—I ain't done nothin'!"

"You're going to do something!" declared Lawler. He waited until Hamlin dressed, then he led him outside. At an end of the corral fence, where no one could hear, Lawler talked long and earnestly to Hamlin. And when Hamlin left, riding a Circle L horse, he was grinning.

"It's a straight trail, Hamlin," said Lawler gravely, as Hamlin rode away; "a straight trail, and not a word to Ruth!"

"Straight it is, Lawler," answered Hamlin. "I'm testifyin' to that!"

CHAPTER IX

THE ARM OF POWER

Lawler stayed long enough at the Circle L to speak a word with his mother. His sister Mary had gone to bed when he stepped into the front door of the ranchhouse, to be greeted by Mrs. Lawler, who had heard him cross the porch, recognized his step and had come to meet him.

He smiled at her, but there was a stiffness about his lips, and a cold, whimsical light in his eyes, that told her much.

She drew a deep breath, and smiled faintly.

"You have disagreed with Gary Warden," she said. "He will not keep Lefingwell's agreement."

"Said he never heard of any agreement," said Lawler. "I rode in to tell the boys to hold the herd here until I got back from the capital. I'm going to see the railroad commissioner—about cars. Simmons says there isn't a car in the state. If we can't get cars, we'll drive to Red Rock." He took her face in his hands and patted her cheeks gently. "Blackburn will probably bed the trail herd down on the Rabbit Ear. I'm joining him there, and then I'm going to the capital in the morning."

Mrs. Lawler was standing on the porch when he mounted Red King; she was still standing there when Lawler looked back after he had ridden half a mile.

Lawler found Blackburn and the herd on the Rabbit Ear, as he had anticipated. The Rabbit Ear was an insignificant creek that intersected the Wolf at a distance of about fifteen miles from the Circle L; and the outfit had selected for a camp a section of plain that ran to the water's edge. It was a spot that had been used before by the men of the outfit, and when Lawler rode up the men were stretched out in their blankets around a small fire.

Blackburn grinned wickedly when informed of Gary Warden's refusal to keep Lefingwell's agreement.

"Didn't I hit him right," he sneered. "I aim to be able to tell a coyote first pop, whether he's sneakin' in the sagebrush or settin' in a office. They ain't no difference. No cars, eh? Bah! If you say the word, me an' the boys'll hit the breeze to town an' run Warden and Simmons out!

"You're wastin' your time, goin' to see Morgan Hatfield, the commissioner. Don't I know him? He tin-horned over at Laskar for two or three years before he got into politics; an' now he's tin-hornin' the cattle owners of the state. He'll grin that chessie-cat grin of his an' tell you he can't do nothin'. An' he'll do it! Bah! This country is goin' plumb to hell. Any country will, when there's too much law hangin' around loose!"

He scowled and looked hard at Lawler. "We'll hold 'em at Willets, all right an' regular, until you give us the word to hit the Tom Long trail. But while you're gone I'm gettin' ready to travel—for there won't be any cars, Lawler, an' don't you forget it!"

Lawler said nothing in reply to Blackburn's vitriolic speech. So unperturbed did he seem that Blackburn remarked to one of the men—after Lawler wrapped himself in a blanket and stretched out near the fire—that, "the more Lawler's got on his mind the less he talks."

Long before dawn Lawler saddled up and departed. When Blackburn awoke and rubbed his eyes, he cast an eloquent glance at the spot where Lawler had lain, grinned crookedly and remarked to the world at large: "Anyway, we're backin' his play to the limit—an' don't you forget it!"

Lawler left Red King at the stable from which, the day before, Gary Warden had ridden on his way to the Hamlin cabin; and when the west-bound train steamed in he got aboard, waving a hand to the friends who, the day before in the Willets Hotel had selected him as their spokesman.

It was afternoon when Lawler stepped from the train in the capital. He strode across the paved floor of the train shed, through a wide iron gate and into a barber-shop that adjoined the waiting-room.

There he gave himself to the care of a barber who addressed him as Mr. Lawler in a voice of respect.

"I've shaved you before, Mr. Lawler," said the man. "I think it was when you was down here last year, to the convention. I heard the speech you made that time, nominating York Falkner for governor. Too bad you didn't run yourself. You'd have made it, saving the state from the tree-toad which is hanging to it now."

During his short stay at the Circle L the night before, Lawler had changed from his cowboy rigging to a black suit of civilian cut, with tight trousers that were stuffed into the tops of soft boots of dull leather. The coat was long, after the fashion of the period, cut square at the bottom, and the silk lapels matched the flowing tie that was carelessly bowed at the collar of a shirt of some soft, white material. He wore a black, felt hat; and out of consideration for the custom and laws of the capital, he had shoved his six-shooter around so that it was out of sight on his right hip. However, the cartridge-studded belt was around his waist; he kept the black coat buttoned over it, hiding it.

He had been in the capital often, and had no difficulty in finding his way to the capitol building. It was at the intersection of two wide streets—a broad, spacious structure of white stone, standing in the center of a well-kept grass plot. It was imposing, hinting of the greatness of the state that had erected it, suggesting broadness of vision and simple majesty.

The state was not at fault, Lawler reflected as he mounted the broad stone stairs that led upward to the interior of the building; the state was founded upon principles that were fundamentally just; and the wisdom of the people, their resources, their lives, were back of it all. This building was an expression of the desire of the people; it represented them; it was the citadel of government from which came the laws to which they bowed; it was the visible arm of power.

Lawler crossed the big rotunda, where the light was subdued; and walked down a wide corridor, pausing before a door on which was the legend: "State Railroad Commissioner." A few minutes later, after having given his name to an attendant, he was standing in a big, well-lighted and luxuriously furnished room—hat in hand, looking at a tall, slender man who was seated in a swivel chair at a big, flat-top desk.

The man was older than Lawler, much older. The hair at his temples was almost white, but heavy and coarse. An iron-gray wisp straggled over his brow, where he had run a hand through it, apparently; his eyes were gray, keen, with a light in them that hinted of a cold composure equal to that which gleamed in Lawler's. The long, hooked nose, though, gave the eyes an appearance of craftiness, and the slightly downward droop at the corners of his mouth suggested cynicism.

He smiled, veiling an ironic flash in his eyes by drooping the lids, as he spoke to his visitor.

"Hello, Lawler," he said, smiling faintly, "take a chair." He waved a hand toward one, on the side of the desk opposite him. "It's been a long time since you struck town, hasn't it—since the last state convention—eh?"

There was a hint of laughter in his voice, a suggestion of mockery in the unspoken inference that he remembered the defeat of Lawler's candidate.

Lawler smiled. "Well, you did beat us, that's a fact, Hatfield. There's no use denying that. But we took our medicine, Hatfield."

"You had to," grinned the other. "Whenever the people of a state——"

"Hatfield," interrupted Lawler, gravely, "it seems to me that the people of this state are always taking medicine—political medicine. That's what I have come to talk with you about."

Hatfield's smile faded. His eyes gleamed coldly.

"What's wrong, Lawler?"

"It's cars, Hatfield—or rather no cars," he added, grimly. "Usually, at this season of the year, there will be a hundred or two empty cars on the siding at Willets—with other hundreds on the way. This year the siding is empty, and Jay Simmons says there are no cars to be had. He tells me there isn't an empty car in the state. Caldwell, of the Star, and Barthman, Littlefield, Corts, Sigmund, and Lester—who are ranch owners near Willets—told me to come down here and ask you what can be done. I'm asking you."

Hatfield eyed Lawler steadily as the latter talked; his gaze did not waver as Lawler concluded. But a slight stain appeared in his cheeks, which instantly receded, leaving them normal again. But that slight flush betrayed Hatfield to Lawler; it told Lawler that Hatfield knew why there were no cars. And Lawler's eyes chilled as his gaze met Hatfield's.

"I've talked that matter over with the railroad people several times," said Hatfield, in an impersonal, snapping voice. "They tell me that you cattle owners are to blame. You seem to think that it is the business of the railroad company to guess how many cars you will want. You wait until the round-up is over before you begin to think about cars, and then you want them all in a bunch."

"You are mistaken, Hatfield. Along about the middle of the season every prudent cattle owner arranges with a buyer or with the railroad company for the necessary cars. In my case, I made arrangements with Jim Lefingwell, the buyer at Willets, as long ago as last spring. But Lefingwell isn't buyer any more, and Gary Warden, the present buyer, refuses to recognize my agreement with Lefingwell."

"A written agreement?"

"Unfortunately not. Lefingwell's word was always good."

Hatfield's smile was very near a sneer. "If you neglect the rudiments of business it seems to me that you have only yourselves to blame. In your case, Lawler, it is rather astonishing. You have quite a reputation for intelligence; you own one of the biggest ranches in the state; you are wealthy; and last year you tried to tell the people of the state how to run it. You even went so far as to make a speech in the convention, naming the man you preferred for governor."

Lawler smiled, though his gaze was level.

"Don't be unpleasant, Hatfield. You understand I am not here as a politician, but as a mere citizen petitioning you to act in this railroad case. What I have done or said has no bearing on the matter at all. The railroad company will not provide cars in which to ship our stock East, and I am here to ask you to do something about it."

Hatfield appeared to meditate.

"Warden offered to buy your cattle, you say?"

Lawler nodded. But he had not mentioned to Hatfield that Warden had offered to buy the cattle—Hatfield had either surmised that, or had received information through other sources. Lawler suspected that the railroad commissioner had been informed through the various mediums at his command, and this was evidence of collusion.

"And Simmons says there are no cars," mused Hatfield. "Well, that seems to leave you shippers in a bad predicament, doesn't it? Can't you drive to some other point—where you can arrange to get cars?"

"Five hundred miles, to Red Rock, over the Tom Long trail—the worst trail in the country."

"What price could you get at Red Rock?"

"The market price—about thirty dollars."

"And what did Warden offer?"

"Twenty-five."

"H'm. It seems to me, considering the inconvenience of driving over the Tom Long trail, you'd be better off taking Warden's offer. It's remarkable to what lengths you cattle owners will go for a few dollars."

"Five dollars a head on a herd of eight thousand amounts to forty thousand dollars, Hatfield," Lawler reminded him.

"Hatfield, this isn't a question of dollars, it's a question of principle. This situation is a result of a scheme to hold up the cattle owners of the state. It's mighty plain. The railroad company refuses cars to the cattle owners, but will supply them to buyers like Warden. The buyers must have some assurance of getting cars, or they wouldn't buy a single hoof. What we want is to force the railroad to supply cattle owners with cars."

"Why not hold your stock over the winter?" suggested Hatfield, with a faint, half-smile.

"Hatfield, you know that can't be done. There isn't a cattle owner in the country who is prepared to winter his stock. Had we known this situation was to develop we might have laid in some feed—though that is an expensive method. Nothing has been done, for we expected to ship by rail as usual. Almost every owner has a stock of feed on hand, but that is for breeders, and for other stock that doesn't grade up. If we are forced to winter our stock on the ranges half of them would die of starvation and exposure before spring."

Hatfield narrowed his eyes and studied Lawler's face. He half pursed his lips for a smile, but something in the grave, level eyes that looked into his dissuaded him, and he frowned and cleared his throat.

"It looks mighty bad, for a fact," he said. "The buyers seem to have you owners in something of a pocket. The worst of it is, that the thing is general. I have complaints from all over the state. The railroad people say there is nothing they can do. I've taken it up with them. The explanation they offer is that during the summer they sent most of their rolling stock East, to take care of an unprecedented demand there. For some reason or other—which they don't attempt to explain—the cars haven't been coming back as they should. It looks to me, Lawler, like you owners are in for a bad winter."

"What about the law, Hatfield; can't we force them to supply cars?"

Hatfield's smile came out—it was sarcastic.

"The wise law-makers of the state, who gave the railroad company a franchise, neglected to provide a punitive clause. There isn't a tooth in the law—I've looked it over from one end to the other, and so has the attorney-general. This office is helpless, Lawler. I would advise you to accept the offer of your resident buyer. It may be that those fellows have an agreement with the railroad company, but we haven't any evidence, and without evidence we couldn't do anything, even if there were teeth in the law."

Lawler smiled and went out. As the door closed behind him Hatfield sank back into his chair and chuckled gleefully.

"Swallowed it!" he said in an undertone; "swallowed it whole. And that's the guy I was most afraid of!"

Lawler walked down the big corridor, across the rotunda, and into another corridor to the door of the governor's office. As he passed through the rotunda he was aware that several persons congregated there watched him curiously; and he heard one of them say, guardedly:

"That's Kane Lawler, of Wolf River. He'd have been governor, right now, if he'd said the word last fall. Biggest man in the state!"

There was truth in the man's words, though Lawler reddened when he heard them. Three times in the days preceding the convention which had nominated Perry Haughton, the present governor, delegations from various sections of the state had visited Lawler at the Circle L, endeavoring to prevail upon him to accept the nomination; and one day the editor of the most important newspaper in the capital had journeyed to the Circle L, to add his voice to the argument advanced by the delegations.

But Lawler had refused, because previously to their visits he had given his word to York Falkner. And he had championed Falkner's candidacy with such energy and enthusiasm that in the end—on the day of the convention—his name was better known than that of his candidate. And at the last minute the convention was in danger of stampeding to him, threatening to nominate him despite his protests. He had been forced to tell them plainly that he would not serve, if nominated and elected, because he had pledged his support to Falkner. And Falkner, at home in a distant county while the convention was in session, remained silent, refusing to answer the frantic requests that he withdraw in favor of Lawler. That attitude had defeated Falkner, as his loyalty to his friend had increased his popularity.

Now, pausing before the door of the governor's office, Lawler was aware of the completeness of the sacrifice he had made for Falkner. His face paled, his eyes glowed, and a thrill ran over him. At this moment—if he had not made the sacrifice—he might have been sitting in the governor's office, listening to Caldwell, or Sigmund, or others from his own section,—perhaps from other sections of the state—advising them, seeking to help them. For one thing, Morgan Hatfield would not have been his railroad commissioner!

As it was, he was going to enter the governor's office as a mere petitioner, not sure of his reception—for Perry Haughton had beaten Falkner, and owed Lawler nothing. Indeed, after his election, Haughton had referred sarcastically to Lawler.

When Lawler found himself in the presence of the governor he was in a grimly humorous mood. For despite the sarcastic flings he had directed at Lawler, the governor ponderously arose from a big chair at his desk and advanced to meet him, a hand outstretched.

"Hello, Lawler!" he said; "glad to see you. Where have you been keeping yourself?"

Lawler shook the governor's hand, not replying to the effusive greeting. Lawler smiled, though, and perhaps the governor saw in the smile an answer to his question. He led Lawler to a chair, and returned to his own, where he sat, leaning back, watching his visitor with a speculative gaze.

Perry Haughton was a big, florid man with sleek, smooth manners, a bland smile and an engaging eye, which held a deep gleam of insincerity. The governor posed as a genial, generous, broad-minded public official—and it had been upon that reputation that he had been nominated and elected—but the geniality had been adopted for political reasons. The real man was an arrogant autocrat, lusting for power and wealth.

He disliked Lawler—feared him. Also, since the convention he had felt vindictive toward Lawler, for Lawler had offended him by his tenacious championship of Falkner. He had almost lost the nomination through Lawler's efforts.

"Been in town long?" he queried.

"Just long enough to have a talk with Hatfield."

The governor smiled wanly. "Hatfield has been having his troubles, Lawler. An unprecedented situation has developed in the state. The railroad company seems to be unable to supply cars for cattle shipments. We have investigated, and so far we have been unable to discover whether the shortage is intentional or accidental. Whatever the cause, it is a bad situation—very bad. We've got to take some action!"

"Whatever action you take ought to be immediate, Governor," said Lawler. "The round-up is over and cattle must move. That is why I am here—to ask you what can be done."

"I have taken the matter up with the attorney-general, Lawler. The law is vague and indefinite. We can't proceed under it. However, we are going to pass new laws at the next session of the legislature."

"That will be in January," said Lawler. "Half the cattle in the state will starve before that time."

The governor flushed. "That's the best we can do, Lawler."

"Why not call a special session, Governor?"

Haughton laughed. "Do you keep yourself informed, Lawler?" he said, a suspicion of mockery in his voice. "If you do, you will remember that the legislature has just adjourned, after acting upon some important matters."

"This matter is important enough to demand another session immediately!" declared Lawler.

The governor cleared his throat and gazed steadily at Lawler, his eyes gleaming with a vindictive light that he tried to make judicial.

"As a matter of fact, Lawler, this question of shipping cattle is not as important as you might think—to the state at large, that is. If you take all the packing out of the case you will find at the bottom that it is merely a disagreement between cattle owners and cattle buyers. It seems to me that it is not a matter for state interference. As I understand, the cattle buyers have offered a certain price. The owners ask another; and the owners want the state to force the buyers to pay their price. I can't see that the state has any business to meddle with the affair at all. The state can't become a clearing-house for the cattle industry!"

"We are not asking the state to act in that capacity, Haughton. We want the state to force the railroad company to provide cars."

"It can't be done, Lawler! There is no provision in the law under which we can force the railroad company to provide cars."

Lawler laughed mirthlessly and got to his feet, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the governor. For a time there was silence in the big room, during which the governor changed color several times, and drooped his eyes under Lawler's grimly humorous gaze. Then Lawler spoke:

"All right, Haughton," he said; "I'll carry your message back to my friends at Willets. I'll also carry it to Lafe Renwick, of the News, here in the capital. We'll make it all plain enough, so that your position won't be misunderstood. The railroad company is not even a resident corporation, and yet you, as governor, refuse to act in the interests of the state cattle owners, against it—merely to force it to play fair. This will all make interesting conversation—and more interesting reading. My visit here has proved very interesting, and instructive. Good-day, sir."

He strode out, leaving Haughton to glare after him. Ten minutes later he was in the editorial office of the News, detailing his conversation with Hatfield and the governor to a keen-eyed man of thirty-five, named Metcalf, who watched him intently as he spoke. At the conclusion of the visit the keen-eyed man grinned.

"You've started something, Lawler," he said. "We've heard something of this, but we've been waiting to see just how general it was. You'll understand, now, why I was so eager to have you run last fall. You'll not escape so easily next time!"

Late that night Lawler got off the train at Willets; and a few minutes later he was talking with Caldwell and the others in the Willets Hotel.

"It's a frame-up, men," he told them. "Hatfield and the governor both subscribe to the same sentiments, which are to the effect that this is a free country—meaning that if you don't care to accept what the buyers offer you can drive your cattle out of the state or let them starve to death on the open range."

The big hanging-lamp swinging from the ceiling of the lounging-room flickered a dull light into the faces of the men, revealing lines that had not been in them some hours before. Somehow, it had seemed to them, Lawler would straighten things out for them; they had faith in Lawler; they had trusted in his energy and in his mental keenness. And when they had sent him to the capital they had thought that the governor would not dare to refuse his request. He was too great a man to be trifled with.

It was plain to them, now, that the invisible power which they had challenged was a gigantic thing—for it had not been impressed by their champion.

Their faces betrayed their disappointment; in their downcast eyes and in their furtive glances at one another—and at Lawler—one might have read evidence of doubt and uncertainty. They might fight the powerful forces opposed to them—and there was no doubt that futile rage against the power surged in the veins of every man in the group about Lawler. But there seemed to be no way to fight; there seemed to be nothing tangible upon which to build a hope, and no way to attack the secret, subtle force which had so arrogantly thwarted them.

There was an uneasy light in Caldwell's eyes when he finally looked up at Lawler. He frowned, reddened, and spoke haltingly, as though ashamed:

"Lawler, I reckon they've got us foul. It's late—today's the twenty-eighth of October. Not anticipatin' this deal, we delayed the round-up too long. It's a month's drive to Red Rock, over the worst trail in the country. We all know that. If we'd happen to run into a storm on the Tom Long trail we wouldn't get no cattle to Red Rock at all. An' if we winter them on the open range there wouldn't be a sound hoof left by spring, for we've got no feed put by. It's too certain, men; an' a bad year would bust me wide open. I reckon I'll sell my stock to Gary Warden. I hate it like poison, but I reckon it's the only thing we can do."

The others nodded, plainly having determined to follow Caldwell's example. But they kept their eyes lowered, not looking at Lawler, for they felt that this surrender was not relished by him. Caldwell almost jumped with astonishment when he felt Lawler's hands on his shoulders; and he looked hard at the other, wondering, vastly relieved when Lawler laughed.

"I reckon I don't blame you," said Lawler. "It's a mighty blue outlook. Winter is close, and they've got things pretty well blocked. They figured on the late round-up, I reckon. Sell to Warden and wind the thing up—that's the easiest way."

Caldwell grasped Lawler's hand and shook it vigorously.

"I thought you'd show right disappointed over us givin' in, after what you tried to do, Lawler. You're sure a square man." He laughed. "You'll be the first to sell to Warden, though," he added, with a faint attempt at humor; "for I seen Blackburn an' some more of your outfit trailin' about a thousand head in tonight. They've got them bedded down about a mile from town. I reckon you'll be runnin' them into the company corral in the mornin'."

"Not a hoof goes into the company corral, Caldwell," smiled Lawler.

"No?" Caldwell's amazement bulged his eyes. "What then? What you aimin' to do with them?"

"They're going to Red Rock, Caldwell," declared Lawler, quietly. "The thousand Blackburn drove over, and the seven thousand the other boys are holding at the Circle L. I wouldn't sell them to Warden if he offered fifty dollars a head."

It was late when Caldwell and the others rode out of town, heading into the darkness toward their ranches to prepare their herds for the drive to the company corral at Willets. But before they left, Caldwell visited Warden's office, in which, all evening, a light had glowed. Warden's expression indicated he had expected the cattlemen to surrender.

With shamed face Caldwell carried to Warden the news of the surrender; speaking gruffly to Simmons, whom he found in the office with Warden.

"I reckon there'll be cars—now?" he said.

Simmons smiled smoothly. "Them that contracted for cars last spring will probably get them," he said. "I reckon the cause of all this mix-up was that the company wasn't aimin' to play no hit-an'-miss game."

"There'll be a day comin' when the cattlemen in this country will jump on you guys with both feet!" threatened Caldwell. "It's a mighty rotten deal, an' you know it!"

"Is Lawler accepting my price, Caldwell?" interrupted Warden, quietly; "I saw a Circle L trail herd headed toward town this evening."

"Hell!" declared Caldwell; "Lawler ain't so weak-kneed as the rest of us critters. He just got through tellin' me that he wouldn't sell a hoof to you at fifty! He's drivin' to Red Rock—eight thousand head!"

When Caldwell went out, breathing fast, Warden smiled broadly at Simmons.

"Wire for cars tonight, Simmons," he said. "But don't get them to coming too fast. We'll make them hold their cattle here, we'll keep them guessing as to whether you were telling them the truth about cars. Cars and fools are plentiful, eh, Simmons?"

He got up, donned coat and hat and put out the light. At the foot of the stairs he parted from Simmons, walked down the street to the Wolf and entered.

He found Singleton in the barroom and drew him into a corner.

"He's driving his cattle to Red Rock, Singleton. And he's the only one. The others are selling to me. We've got him now, damn him! We've got him!" he said, his eyes glowing with malignant triumph.

CHAPTER X

THE SECOND OBSTACLE

Lawler went outside with Caldwell and the others—after Caldwell returned from his visit to Gary Warden—and, standing in the flickering glare of light from inside the hotel, he watched the men ride away.

There was a smile on his lips as he saw them fade into the yawning gulf of moonlit distance,—going in different directions toward their ranches—an ironic smile, softened by understanding and friendship.

For he bore the men no ill will because their decision had not agreed with his. He had not expected them to do as he was determined to do. And he had not asked them.

Had it not been for the agreement he had made with Jim Lefingwell the previous spring, Lawler might also have accepted Gary Warden's price rather than face the hazards of the long drive to Red Rock.

Warden's attitude, however, his arrogance, and the hostile dislike in his eyes, had aroused in Lawler a cold contempt for the man. Added to that was disgust over the knowledge that Warden, and not Jim Lefingwell, was a liar—that Warden had no respect for the sacredness of his word, given to Lefingwell. The man's honor must be wrapped in a bond or a written contract.

The incident in the Hamlin cabin had contributed hatred to the other passions that contact with Warden had aroused in Lawler; but it had been his visit to Simmons and his talks with Hatfield and the governor that had aroused in him the fighting lust that gripped him now.

The ironic smile had faded when he reached the stable where he had left Red King. It had set in serious lines and his chin had taken on a pronounced thrust when he mounted the big horse and sent him southeastward into the glowing moonlight.

He brought Red King to a halt at a spot on the plains where the herd of Circle L cattle were being held for the night, with some cowboys riding monotonous circles around them.

Blackburn had seen him coming, and recognizing him, met him near the camp fire.

The range boss listened, his lips grimming, then silently nodded.

It was past midnight when Lawler reached the Circle L. He let himself into the house noiselessly, changed his clothes, donning the corduroy, the woolen shirt, and the spurred boots that he had worn before beginning his trip to the capital. Then, penning a note to his mother, informing her that he was going to Red Rock with his men, he went out and rode down into the valley, where the other men of the outfit were guarding the main herd, which had been held in the valley at his orders.

Long before dawn the big herd was on the move, heading northward, toward Willets, the twenty men of the outfit flanking them, heading them up the great slope that led out of the valley.

The progress of the herd was slow, for there was good grazing and the cattle moved reluctantly, requiring the continued efforts of the men to keep them moving at all. And yet when darkness came that night they had reached the Rabbit Ear—where two nights before Blackburn had held the first herd.

It was late in the afternoon of the second day when Lawler and his men came within sight of Willets. They drove the second herd to where Blackburn and his men were holding the first. Leaving Blackburn to make arrangements for camp, Lawler rode on into Willets. From a distance he saw that the company corral was well filled with cattle; and when he saw Lem Caldwell talking with some other men in front of the hotel, he knew the cattle in the corral bore Caldwell's brand.

He waved a hand to Caldwell and the others as he rode past the hotel; but he kept on until he reached the station, where he dismounted, hitched Red King to a rail and crossed the railroad track.

A frame building, small, with a flat shedlike roof, stood near the corral fence—between the tracks and the big gates—and Lawler entered the open door, to find a portly, bald-headed man sitting at a rough, flat-top desk. The man was busy with a pencil and a pad of papers when Lawler entered, and he continued to labor with them, not seeming to notice his visitor.

Lawler halted just inside the door, to await the man's leisure. And then he saw Gary Warden lounging in a chair in a far corner. Warden did not appear to see Lawler, either; he was facing the back of the chair, straddling it, his elbows crossed on the back, his chin resting on his arms, his gaze on the rough board floor.

Lawler noted, his lips straightening a little, that in the movements of the man at the desk was a deliberation that was almost extravagant. The man was writing, and the pencil in his hand seemed to lag. He studied long over what he wrote, pursing his lips and scratching his head. But not once did he look up at Lawler.

"Wrestling with a mighty problem, Jordan?" finally asked Lawler, his patience strained, his voice in a slow drawl.

The bald man started and glanced up. Instantly, he reddened and looked down again, leaving Lawler to wonder how it was that every official with whom he had conversed within the past few days had exhibited embarrassment.

"Excuse me, Lawler," said Jordan; "I didn't know you was here. I'll be with you in a second—just as soon as I check up this tally. Caldwell drove in here not more'n two hours ago, an' I ain't got his tally straightened up yet."

Lawler turned his back to Warden and gazed out through the open doorway. On the siding was a long string of empty box cars, plainly awaiting Caldwell's cattle.

After a glance at the cars, Lawler wheeled and faced Warden, who was still gazing meditatively downward.

"I see that cars came quickly enough when you ordered them, Warden," he said.

Warden raised his head slowly and gazed straight at Lawler, his eyes gleaming challengingly.

"Yes," he said: "Simmons finally unearthed enough to take care of Caldwell's cattle. There'll be more, as soon as Simmons can find them. And he'll have to find them pretty soon or his company will face a lawsuit. You see, Lawler, I ordered these cars months ago—got a written contract with the railroad company for them. They've got to take care of me."

"I reckon you knew they'd take care of you, Warden. You were as certain of that as you were that they wouldn't take care of any owner who wouldn't sell to you."

"What do you mean, Lawler?" demanded Warden, his face flushing.

"What I said, Warden. It takes gall to do what you and your friends are doing. But, given the power, any bunch of cheap crooks could do it. You understand that I'm not complimenting you any."

It was apparent to Warden, as it was apparent to Jordan—who poised his pencil over the pad of papers and did not move a muscle—that Lawler's wrath was struggling mightily within him. It was also apparent that Lawler's was a cold wrath, held in check by a sanity that forbade surrender to it—a sanity that sternly governed him.

It was the icy rage that awes with its intensity; the deliberate bringing to the verge of deadly action the nerves and muscles that yearn for violent expression—and then holding them there, straining tensely, awaiting further provocation.

Both men knew what impended; both saw in the steady, unwavering gleam of Lawler's eyes the threat, the promise of violence, should they elect to force it.

Jordan was chastened, nerveless. The pencil dropped from his fingers and he slacked in his chair, watching Lawler with open mouth.

Warden's face had grown dead white. The hatred he bore for this man glared forth from his eyes, but the hatred was tempered by a fear that gripped him.

However, Warden was instinctively aware that Lawler would not force that trouble for which he plainly yearned; that he would not use the gun that swung from the leather at his hip unless he or Jordan provoked him to it.

And Warden wore no gun. He felt secure, as he sat for an interval after considering the situation, and yet he did not speak at once. Then, with the urge of his hatred driving him, he said, sneeringly:

"Cheap crooks, eh? Well, let me tell you something, Lawler. You can't intimidate anybody. My business is perfectly legitimate. I am not violating any law. If I have the foresight to contract for cars in time to get them for shipment, that is my business. And if I offer you—or any man—a price, and it doesn't suit you, you don't have to accept it."

He saw a glint of humor in Lawler's eyes—a sign that the man's passions were not to be permitted to break the leash in which he held them—and he grew bolder, his voice taking on a vindictive note.

"And I want to tell you another thing, Lawler. As long as I am resident buyer at Willets you'll never ship a hoof through me. Understand that! You can drive to Red Rock and be damned! If you'd been halfway decent about this thing; if you hadn't come swaggering into my office trying to dictate to me, and calling me a liar, I'd have kept Lefingwell's agreement with you!"

"Then Lefingwell wasn't the liar," smiled Lawler; "you're admitting it."

Warden's face grew poisonously malevolent. He laughed, hoarsely.

"Bah!" he jeered. "We'll say I lied. What of it! I didn't want to antagonize you, then. Only a fool is truthful at all times." He laughed again, mockingly. "I'm truthful when I want to be."

He saw the frank disgust in Lawler's eyes, and the desire to drive it out, to make the man betray some sign of the perturbation that must be in him, drove Warden to an indiscretion.

"You're a wise guy, Lawler," he jeered. "A minute ago you hinted that this thing was being engineered by a bunch of cheap crooks. Call them what you like. They're out to break you—understand? You suspect it, and I'm telling you. You went around last fall with a chip on your shoulder, making trouble far Haughton and his friends. And now they're going to bust you wide open and scatter your remains all over the country. They're going to fix you so that you'll never shoot off your gab about conditions in the state again. Governor—hell! you'll be a bum before that gang gets through with you!"

He paused, breathing rapidly, his face pale with passion; his eyes glowing with hatred, naked and bitter.

He heard Lawler's short, mirthless laugh; he saw Lawler's eyes narrow and gleam with a cold flame as he took a step forward and stood over him.

"Get up, Warden," came Lawler's voice, low and vibrant. "You'll understand what I'm going to say a whole lot better if you're on your feet, like a man."

Warden got up, defiantly, and for an instant the two men stood looking into each other's eyes, both understanding the enmity that was between them, and both seemingly exulting in it.

"I'm thanking you, Warden, for telling me. But I've known, since I talked with Simmons about the cars, just what it all meant. My talks with Hatfield and Governor Haughton convinced me beyond all reasonable doubt. I'm the man they are after, of course. But incidentally, they're going to mulct every other cattle owner in the state. It's a mighty big scheme—a stupendous robbery. The man who conceived it should have been a pirate—he has all the instincts of one.

"But get this straight. You've got to fight me. Understand? You'll drag no woman into it. You went to the Hamlin ranch the other day. God's grace and a woman's mercy permitted you to get away, alive. Don't let it happen again. Just as sure as you molest a woman in this section, just so sure will I kill you no matter who your friends are! Do you understand that, Warden?"

Warden did not move a muscle. He tried to look steadily into Lawler's eyes, found that he could not endure the terrible intensity of them—and drooped his own, cursing himself for the surrender.

He heard Lawler laugh again, a sound that sent a cold shiver over him; and then he saw Lawler standing beside the desk at which Jordan sat.

"Jordan," said Lawler, shortly; "I want you to vent my cattle. There's eight thousand head, approximately. They're being held just out of town—about a mile. I'd like to have you give me a certificate of ownership tonight, so we can start to drive before daylight."

Jordan's face whitened, and then grew crimson. He essayed to look up, to meet Lawler's eyes, raising his head and then lowering it again without achieving his desire. He cleared his throat, shifted his body and scuffed his feet on the floor. At last, after clearing his throat again, he spoke, huskily:

"We ain't ventin' any trail herds this fall, Lawler."

Lawler stiffened, looked from Jordan to Warden, and then back again at Jordan, who had taken up the pencil again and was nervously tapping with it upon the desk top.

"Not venting trail herds, eh?" said Lawler. "Whose orders?"

"The state inspector—headquarters," replied Jordan, hesitatingly.

"Would you mind letting me see the order, Jordan?" asked Lawler, calmly.

Jordan succeeded in looking up at Lawler now, and there was rage in his eyes—rage and offended dignity.

Both were artificial—Lawler knew it. And his smile as he looked into Jordan's eyes told the other of the knowledge.

Jordan got up, stung by the mockery in Lawler's eyes.

"Hell's fire, Lawler!" cursed Jordan; "can't you take a man's word?" He stepped back, viciously pulled open a drawer in the desk, drew out a paper—a yellow telegraph form, and slapped it venomously down on the desk in front of Lawler.

"It's ag'in' orders, but I'm lettin' you see it. Mebbe you'll take a man's word after this!" he sneered.

Lawler read the order. Then he calmly placed it on the desk. He looked at Jordan, whose gaze fell from his; he turned to Warden, who smiled jeeringly.

"There is nothing like thoroughness, whenever you do anything on a big scale, Warden," he said. "This order forces cattle owners in this section to drive cattle over a trail without proof of ownership. We fought for that vent law for a good many years, as a weapon against rustlers. This order leaves a cattle owner without protection against the horde of rustlers who infest the state. And the order is dated yesterday. This thing begins to look interesting."

He turned and walked out, not glancing back at the two men inside, who stood for a long time looking at each other, smiling.

CHAPTER XI

THE LONG TRAIL

After leaving Jordan and Warden, Lawler walked across the railroad tracks and entered the station, where he sent a telegram to Keppler, the buyer at Red Rock. Then he drew a chair over near the door and sat down to await an answer. At the end of an hour the agent walked over to Lawler and gave him the reply. It was from Keppler, saying that he would be glad to buy all of the Circle L cattle at thirty dollars a head.

Lawler stuck the telegram in a pocket and went out, mounting Red King and riding through Willets. Darkness had come, and there were few persons on the street, and Lawler did not stop. A little later he was talking with Blackburn at the camp fire, his voice low and earnest.

Blackburn's face was seamed with wrath over the news Lawler had communicated.

"So that's the polecat scheme they're runnin'!" he said, hoarsely. "I reckon they know that between here an' Red Rock there's a dozen big gangs of buzzards which make a business of grabbin' cattle from every herd that hits the Tom Long trail!"

"Blackburn," said Lawler gravely; "do you know of any other trail?"

"No; nor you don't neither!" declared the range boss. "What you meanin'?" he added, peering intently at Lawler.

"It's mighty plain," said Lawler; "if we travel at all, we'll have to take the Tom Long trail. It's been used before, Blackburn, by all the cattle owners in the section—before the railroad came. It hasn't been used much lately, though, and so I reckon it isn't worn out."

"You're startin' at daybreak, I reckon?"

"Yes." Lawler looked straight at the range boss. "Some of the boys who are with us don't know the Tom Long trail, Blackburn. You'd better tell them there are prospects for trouble. No man goes on that trail with my cattle under regular working orders. It's volunteer work. But you might mention to them that if we get through the difference between what Warden offered me and what I get from Keppler, will be divided among the men of the outfit. That will be in addition to regular trail herd wages."

"That's mighty white of you, Boss. But I reckon there'd be no back-slidin'. The boys ain't admirin' the deal you're gettin'. I'm tellin' them."

He took a step away from Lawler, and then halted, uncertainly.

"Lawler," he said; "you've been over the Tom Long trail—you know what it is. There's places where we'll find eight thousand head to be a mighty big herd. A herd that big will be powerful hard to handle in some of them long passes. An' if they'd get in some of that timber we'd never get them out. We've got twenty-eight men. If we'd have an open winter we'd likely be able to take care of about three thousand head by watchin' them close. Now, if we'd leave about three thousand head at the Circle L—with four or five of the boys to keep an eye on them, that would leave us about twenty-three or twenty-four men for trail herd work. That won't be any too many for five thousand head of cattle on the Tom Long trail. Unless you're figgerin' to hire some hands from another outfit?"

"We're asking no favors," said Lawler. "We're driving five thousand, as you suggest. I'm leaving the selecting of the trail crew to you—you know your men."

At dawn the following morning the big herd was divided into about the proportions suggested by Blackburn. The smaller section, escorted by five disgruntled Circle L cowboys, moved slowly southward, while the main herd headed eastward, flanked at the sides by grim-faced Circle L riders; at the rear by a number of others and by Lawler, Blackburn; the "chuck-wagon" driven by the cook—a portly, solemn-visaged man of forty with a thin, complaining voice; the "hoodlum" wagon, equipped with bedding and a meager stock of medicines and supplies for emergencies—driven by a slender, fiercely mustached man jocosely referred to as "Doc;" and a dozen horses of the remuda, in charge of the horse-wrangler and an assistant.

It was the first trail herd that had been started eastward since the coming of the railroad. To some of the Circle L men it was a novel experience—for they had begun range work since the railroad had appeared. There were several others, rugged, hardy range riders of the days when the driving of a trail herd was an annual experience, it was a harking back to the elemental and the crude, with the attendant hardships and ceaseless, trying work. The younger men were exultant, betraying their exuberance in various ways—shouting, laughing, singing, gayly bantering one another as they capered beside the cattle; but the older men rode grimly on, grinning tolerantly, knowing that the time would come when the faces of the younger men would grow stern and set from the ceaseless activity, the long night watches, the deadly monotony and the thousand inconveniences of the long drive.

Many of Willets' men were watching the departure of the herd. They stood on the street, in doorways; and in some windows were women. For rumor had been whispering during the past few days, and it was known that Kane Lawler had defied the powerful forces which were attempting to control the mediums of trade in the section; and there were many of the watchers who sent silent applause after the departing herd. They were aware of the hazards that confronted Lawler and his men—hazards enough without the additional menace of the invisible power, of which most of the inhabitants of Willets knew nothing.

However, Caldwell knew. He was standing in the doorway of the Willets Hotel; and his face was drawn and seamed with gravity as he watched.

Gary Warden knew. For he stood in the street in front of the Wolf, watching, his eyes glowing with malice.

Singleton knew. He was standing near Warden, in the grip of a malign anticipation. His lips were bestially pouted.

"Showed yellow at the last minute," he whispered to Warden; "only drivin' about half of them. Well, we'll take care of them he's leavin' before the winter's over."

CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT WIND'S MYSTERY

After the departure of Lawler on the night of Gary Warden's visit to the Hamlin cabin, silence, vast and deep reigned inside. The last golden shadows from the sinking sun were turning somber shades of twilight as Ruth came to the door and peered outward, to see Lawler riding away.

For a long time the girl watched Lawler, her face burning with shame over what had happened, her senses revolting from the realization of the things Lawler knew concerning her father. Then she seated herself on the threshold of the doorway, watching the long shadows steal over the plains.

She loved Lawler; she never had attempted to deny it, not even to herself. And she had found it hard to restrain herself when he had stood outside the door of her room gravely pleading with her. Only pride had kept her from yielding—the humiliating conviction that she was not good enough for him—or rather that her father's crimes had made it impossible for her to accept him upon a basis of equality.

She felt that Lawler would take her upon any terms—indeed, his manner while in the cabin shortly before convinced her of that; but she did not want to go to him under those conditions. She would have felt, always, as though pity for her had influenced him. She felt that she would always be searching his eyes, looking for signs which would indicate that he was thinking of her father. And he was certain to think of him—those thoughts would come in spite of his efforts to forget; they would be back of every glance he threw at her; they would be lurking always near, to humiliate her. The conviction sent a shudder over her.

The girl's mental processes were not involved; they went directly, unwaveringly, to the truth—the truth as her heart revealed it, as she knew it must be. If there was any subconscious emotion in her heart or mind from which might spring chaotic impulses that would cloud her mental vision, she was not aware of it. Her thoughts ran straight and true to the one outstanding, vivid, and overwhelming fact that she could not marry Kane Lawler because to marry him would mean added humiliation.

Greatness, Ruth knew, was hedged about by simplicity. Lawler was as direct in his attitude toward life—and to herself—as she. There was about him no wavering, no indecision, no mulling over in his mind the tangled threads of thought that would bring confusion. The steel fiber of his being was unelastic. He met the big questions of life with an eagerness to solve them instantly.

He wanted her—she knew. But she assured herself that she could not bring upon him the shame and ignominy of a relationship with a cattle thief, no matter how intensely he wanted her. That would be doing him an injustice, and she would never agree to it.

But it hurt, this knowledge that she could not marry Lawler; that she must put away from her the happiness that might be hers for the taking; that she must crush the eager impulses that surged through her; that she must repulse the one man who could make her heart beat faster; the man for whom she longed with an intensity that sometimes appalled her.

She got up after a while and lighted an oil-lamp, placing it upon the table in the big room. She closed the door and then dropped listlessly into a chair beside the table, her eyes glistening, her lips quivering.

The future was somber in aspect, almost hopeless, it seemed. And yet into her mind as she sat there crept a determination—a resolution to tell her father what she knew; to tell him that she could no longer endure the disgrace of his crimes.

That meant of course that she would have to leave him, for she knew he was weak, and that he had been drawn into crime and had not the moral strength to redeem himself.

When about midnight she heard the beating of hoofs near the cabin she sat very quiet, rigid, still determined, her eyes flashing with resolution.

She was standing near the door of her room when her father entered, and as he stood for an instant blinking at the light, trying to accustom his eyes to it after riding for some time through the darkness; she watched him, noting—as she had noted many times before—the weakness of his mouth and the furtive gleam of his eyes.

He had not always been like that. Before the death of her mother she had always admired him, aware of the sturdiness of his character, of his rugged manliness, and of his devotion to her mother.

Adversity had changed him, had weakened him. And now, watching him, noting the glow in his eyes when he saw her—the pathetic worship in them—her heart protested the decision that her cold judgment had made, and she ran to him with a little, quavering, pitying cry and buried her face on his shoulder, shuddering, murmuring sobbingly:

"O Daddy; O Daddy, what have you done!"

He stood rigid, his eyes wide with astonishment, looking down at her as she clung to him as though wondering over a sudden miracle. For he knew she was not an emotional girl, and this evidence of emotion almost stunned him.

"Why, Honey!" He patted her hair and her cheeks and hugged her tightly to him. And presently he gently disengaged himself and held her at arm's length, peering into her face.

And then, when her clear eyes met his—her gaze direct and searching even though her cheeks had paled, his eyes drooped, and his arms fell to his sides.

"I've done enough, Ruth," he said, soberly.

"Why, Daddy—why did you do it? Oh, you have made it so hard for me!"

"There, there, Honey," he consoled, reaching out and patting her shoulders again. "I've been a heap ornery, but it ain't goin' to happen again." His eyes shone through a mist that had come into them.

"I've been talkin' with Kane Lawler, an' he opened my eyes. I've been blind, Ruth—blind to what it all meant to you. An' from now on I'm goin' straight—straight as a die!"

"Ruth," he went on, when he saw incredulity in her gaze; "I wasn't to tell you. I reckon Lawler would half kill me if he know'd I was tellin' you. But there ain't no use, I've got——"

"Did you give your word to Lawler, Daddy?"

"I sure did. But I've got to tell you, Ruth. Mebbe you knowin' will sort of help me to go through with it.

"Kane Lawler was here this mornin'—he come here to see me about a Circle L cow that I was runnin' my brand on the night before. He talked mighty plain to me—an' earnest. He offered me a job over to the Circle L, an' I took it. I rode over there this afternoon an' Lawler's straw boss put me to work. Then tonight Lawler rode in an' took me out by the corral. He gave it to me straight there. He's goin' to restock my place an' give me a chance to get on my feet. He's goin' to put his shoulder behind me, he says, an' make me run a straight trail—takin' a mortgage on the place to secure him. He give me a letter to his mother, sayin' I was to have what stock I wanted. An' I'm to repay him when I get around to it. Honey, I've got a chance, an' I'm never goin' to slip again!"

Ruth walked to the door and threw it open, standing on the threshold and gazing out into the dull moonlight, across the vast sweep of plain from which came the low moaning of the night wind, laden with mystery.

For a long time, as she stood there, pride fought a savage battle with duty. Her face was pallid, her lips tight-clenched, and shame unutterable gripped her. To be sure, Lawler had enjoined her father to silence, and it was evident that she was not to know. Still, she did know; and Lawler had added an obligation, a debt, to the already high barrier that was between them. Yet she dared not evade the obligation, for that would be robbing her father of a chance over which he seemed to exult, a chance which promised the reformation, for which she had prayed.

Her heart was like lead within her—a dull weight that threatened to drag her down. And yet she felt a pulse of thankfulness. For if her father really meant to try—if he should succeed in redeeming himself in Lawler's eyes and in her own, she might one day be able to go to Lawler with no shame in her eyes, with the comforting assurance that her father had earned the right to hold his head up among men. To be sure, there always would be the shadow of the past mistake lurking behind; but it would be the shadow of a mistake corrected, of a black gulf bridged.

Her father was waiting when she finally turned to him—waiting, his chin on his chest, his face crimson with shame.

"Ruth, girl—you ain't goin' to judge me too harsh, are you?" he begged. Once more she yielded to the pathetic appeal in his eyes. She ran to him again, holding him tightly to her. A cool gust swept in through the open doorway—the night wind, laden with mystery. But the girl laughed and snuggled closer to the man; and the man laughed hoarsely, vibrantly, in a voice that threatened to break.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INVISIBLE MENACE

At the close of the second day the big trail herd halted at the edge of the vast level over which it had come. The herd had been driven forty miles. Cattle, men, and horses had passed through a country which was familiar to them; a country featured by long grama grass, greasewood, and cactus plants.

There was no timber on the plains. The gray of the grama grass and the bare stretches of alkali shone white in the glare of a sun that swam in a cloudless sky of deepest azure. Except for the men, the cattle, the horses, and the two slow-moving, awkward-looking canvas-covered wagons, there had been no evidence of life on the great plain. In a silence unbroken save by the clashing of horns, the bleating and bawling of the cattle, the ceaseless creaking of the wagons, and the low voices of the men, the cavalcade moved eastward.

The wind that swept over the plains was chill. It carried a tang that penetrated; that caused the men, especially in the early morning, to turn up the collars of their woolen shirts as they rode; a chill that brought a profane protest from the tawny-haired giant who had disclosed to Lawler the whereabouts of Joe Hamlin that night in the Circle L bunkhouse.

The first camp had been made on the Wolf—at a shallow about five miles north of the Two Bar, Hamlin's ranch. And with the clear, sparkling, icy water of the river on his face, and glistening beads of it on his colorless eyelashes, the giant had growled to several of his brother cowboys, who were likewise performing their ablutions at the river:

"This damn wind is worse'n a Kansas regular. You lean ag'in' it an' it freezes you; you turn your back to it an' you've got to go to clawin' icicles out of your back. Why in hell can't they have a wind that's got some sense to it?"

"It ain't c-cold, Shorty," jibed a slender puncher with a saturnine eye and a large, mobile mouth.

"Kells," grinned the giant; "your voice is froze, right now!"

And yet the men enjoyed the cold air. It had a tonic effect upon them; they were energetic, eager, and always ravenously hungry. The cook offered testimony on that subject, unsolicited.

"I never seen a bunch of mavericks that gobbled more grub than this here outfit!" he stated on the second morning. "Or that swilled more coffee," he added. "Seems like all they come on this drive for is to eat!"

Toward the close of the second day corrugations began to appear in the level. Little ridges and valleys broke the monotony of travel; rocks began to dot the earth; the gray grass disappeared, the barren stretches grew larger and more frequent, and the yucca and the lancelike octilla began to appear here and there. The trend of the trail had been upward all afternoon—gradual at first, hardly noticeable. But as the day drew to a close the cattle mounted a slope, progressing more slowly, and the horses hitched to the wagons began to strain in the harness.

The rise seemed to be endless—to have no visible terminus. For it went up and up until it melted into the horizon; like the brow of a hill against the sky. But when, after hours of difficult travel, herd and men gained the summit, a broad, green-brown mesa lay before them.

The mesa was miles wide, and ran an interminable distance eastward. Looking back over the way they had come, the men could see that the level over which they had ridden for the past two days was in reality the floor of a mighty valley. Far away into the west they could see a break in the mesa—where it sloped down to merge into the plains near Willets. The men knew that beyond that break ran the steel rails that connected the town with Red Rock, their destination. But it was plain to them that the rails must make a gigantic curve somewhere in the invisible distance, or that they ran straight into a range of low mountains that fringed the northern edge of the mesa.

Lawler enlightened the men at the camp fire that night.

"The railroad runs almost straight from Willets," he said. "There's a tunnel through one of the mountains, and other tunnels east of it. And there's a mountain gorge with plenty of water in it, where the railroad runs on a shelving level blasted out of the wall. The mountains form a barrier that keeps Willets and the Wolf River section blocked in that direction. It's the same south of here, the only difference being that in the south there is no railroad until you strike the Southern Pacific. And that's a long distance to drive cattle."

When the herd began to move the following morning, Blackburn sent them over the mesa for several miles, and then began to head them down a gradual slope, leaving the mesa behind. There was a faint trail, narrow, over which in other days cattle had been driven. For the grass had been trampled and cut to pieces; and in some places there were still prints of hoofs in the baked soil.

The slope grew sharper, narrowing as it descended, and the cattle moved down it in a sinuous, living line, until the leaders were out of sight far around a bend at least a mile distant.

Blackburn was at the head of the herd with three men, riding some little distance in front of the cattle, inspecting the trail. Lawler and the others were holding the stragglers at the top of the mesa, endeavoring to prevent the crowding and confusion which always results when massed cattle are being held at an outlet. It was like a crowd of eager humans attempting to gain entrance through a doorway at the same instant. The cattle were plunging, jostling. The concerted impulse brought the inevitable confusion—a jam that threatened frenzy.

By Lawler's orders the men drew off, and the cattle, relieved of the menace which always drives them to panic in such a situation, began to filter through and to follow their leaders down the narrow trail.

Down, always down, the trail led, growing narrower gradually, until at last cattle and men were moving slowly on a rocky floor with the sheer wall of the mesa on one side and towering mountains on the other.

The clatter of hoofs, the clashing of horns, the bellowing, the rumble of the wagons over the rocks and the ring of iron-shod hoofs, created a bedlam of sound, which echoed and re-echoed from the towering walls until the uproar was deafening.

Shorty, the tawny-haired giant, was riding close to Lawler.

He never had ridden the trail, though he had heard of it. He leaned over and shouted to Lawler:

"Kinney's cañon, ain't it?"

Lawler nodded.

"Well," shouted Shorty; "it's a lulu, ain't it?"

For a short time the trail led downward. Then there came a level stretch, smooth, damp. The day was hours old, and the sun was directly overhead. But down in the depths of the cañon it was cool; and a strong wind blew into the faces of the men.

The herd was perhaps an hour passing through the cañon; and when Lawler and Shorty, riding side by side, emerged from the cool gloom, they saw the cattle descending a shallow gorge, going toward a wide slope which dipped into a basin of mammoth size.

Lawler knew the place; he had ridden this trail many times in the years before the coming of the railroad; and when he reached the crest of the slope and looked out into the hazy, slumbering distance, he was not surprised, though his eyes quickened with appreciation for its beauty.

Thirty miles of virgin land lay before him, basking in the white sunlight—a green-brown bowl through which flowed a river that shimmered like silver. The dark bases of mountains loomed above the basin at the eastern edge—a serrated range with lofty peaks that glowed white in the blue of the sky. South and north were other mountains—somber, purple giants with pine-clad slopes and gleaming peaks—majestic, immutable.

Looking down from where he sat on Red King, Lawler could see the head of the herd far down the ever-broadening trail. The leaders were so far away that they seemed to be mere dots—black dots moving in an emerald lake.

The cattle, too, had glimpsed the alluring green that spread before them; and at a little distance from Lawler and several of the other men they were running, eager for the descent.

"She's a whopper, ain't she?" said Shorty's voice at Lawler's side. "I've seen a heap of this man's country, but never nothin' like that. I reckon if the Lord had spread her out a little mite further she'd have took in mighty near the whole earth. It's mighty plain he wasn't skimpin' things none, anyway, when he made this here little hollow."

He grinned as he rode, and then waved a sarcastic hand toward the cattle.

"Look at 'em runnin'! You'd think, havin' projected around this here country for a year or so, they'd be better judges. They're thinkin' they'll be buryin' their mugs in that right pretty grass in about fifteen seconds, judgin' from the way they're hittin' the breeze toward it. An' it'll take them half a day to get down there."

Shorty was a better judge of distance than the cattle. For it was afternoon when the last of the herd reached the level floor of the basin. They spread out, to graze industriously; the men not caring, knowing they would not stray far from such a wealth of grass.

By the time the chuck-wagon had come to a halt and the cook had clambered stiffly from his seat to prepare the noonday meal, Lawler and the others saw the horse-wrangler and his assistant descending the long slope with the remuda. The horses had fallen far behind, and Lawler rode to meet them, curious to know what had happened.

When he rode up, the horse-wrangler, a man named Garvin—a stocky individual with keen, inquiring eyes—advanced to meet him.

"Boss," he said, shortly; "there's somethin' mighty wrong goin' on behind us. Me an' Ed—my helper—has been kind of hangin' back, bein' sort of curious. They's a bunch of ornery-lookin' guys trailin' us. I first saw 'em after we'd struck the bottom of that cañon. They was just comin' around that big bend, an' I saw 'em. They lit out, turnin' tail—mebbe figurin' I hadn't seen 'em; but pretty soon I seen 'em again, sort of sneakin' behind us. I reckon if they was square guys they wouldn't be sneakin' like that—eh?"

CHAPTER XIV

LAWLER'S "NERVE"

When Lawler spoke to Blackburn regarding the news that had been communicated to him by the horse-wrangler, Blackburn suggested that himself and several of the Circle L men ride back to ascertain the object of the trailers.

"We'll ride back an' make 'em talk!" he declared, heatedly.

Lawler, however, would not agree, telling Blackburn that the trail was free, and that, until the men made some hostile move, there was no reason why they should be approached.

So the men ate, selected new mounts from their "strings" in the remuda, and again started the big herd forward.

Lawler rode for a time with Garvin, keeping an alert eye on the back trail. But though he could see far up the cañon, where the trail—white with dust from the passing of the herd—wound its sinuous way upward into the dark recesses between the towering mesa walls, he could see no sign of life or movement.

The nonappearance of the mysterious riders was suspicious, for if their intentions were friendly they would have come boldly on. In fact, if they were abroad upon an honest errand, they must have found the slowness of the herd ahead of them irksome; and they would have passed it as soon as possible, merely to escape the dust cloud raised by the cattle.

When the afternoon began to wane the herd was far out in the basin, traveling steadily toward a point where the little river doubled, where Blackburn intended to camp for the night. And though both Blackburn and Lawler scanned the back trail intently at intervals, there was still no sign of the riders Garvin had mentioned.

Nor did the riders pass the herd in the night. Blackburn threw an extra guard around the cattle, making the shifts shorter and more frequent; and when daylight came a short conference among the Circle L men disclosed the news that no riders had passed. If any riders had passed the cowboys must have seen them, for there had been a moon, and the basin afforded in the vicinity of the herd, was clear and unobstructed.

Enraged at the suspicious nature of the incident, Blackburn took half a dozen cowboys and rode back, while the remainder of the trail crew sent the herd eastward. It was late in the afternoon when Blackburn returned, disappointed, grim, and wrathful.

"There's a bunch trailin' us, all right," he told Lawler; "about a dozen. We seen where they'd stopped back in the cañon a ways—where Garvin said he'd seen 'em sneakin' back. We lost their tracks there, for they merged with ours an' we couldn't make nothin' of 'em. But at the foot of the slope we picked 'em up again. Looks like they separated. Some of them went north an' some went south. I reckon that durin' the night they sneaked around the edge of the basin. It's likely they're hidin' in the timber somewhere, watchin' us. If you say the word I'll take some of the boys an' rout 'em out. We'll find what they're up to, damn 'em!"

"As long as they don't bother us we won't bother them," said Lawler. "It's likely they won't bother us."

Again that night the men worked in extra shifts; and the following morning the herd climbed out of the basin and straggled up a narrow trail through some foothills. At noon they passed through a defile between two mighty mountains; and when twilight came they had descended some low hills on the other side and went to camp for the night on a big grass level near the river they had followed for three days.

The level upon which they camped was much lower than the floor of the big basin, for the water from the river came tumbling out of a narrow gorge between the hills through which the herd had passed.

They were in a wild section, picturesque, rugged. There was plenty of water; and Blackburn and Lawler both knew that there would be water enough for the herd all the way to Red Rock. There was a section of desert before them, which they would strike before many days; but they would cross the desert in one day, barring delay; and there seemed to be no reason why the long drive should not prove successful despite the mountain trails—most of them hazardous—through which they must still pass.

And yet the men were restless. The continued presence of an invisible menace near them, disturbed the men. They had not seen the mysterious riders again, but there was not a man in the outfit who did not feel them—not a man but was convinced that the riders were still trailing them, watching them.

Long ago the younger men had ceased to laugh and joke. During the day they kept gazing steadily into the gulf of space that surrounded them, carefully scrutinizing the timber and the virgin brush which might form a covert; and at night they were sullen, expectant; every man wearing his gun when he rolled himself in his blanket.

It was not fear that had seized them. They were rugged, hardy, courageous men who had looked death in the face many times, defying it, mocking it; and no visible danger could have disturbed them.

But this danger was not visible; it was stealthy, secret, lurking near them, always threatening, always expected. It might stalk behind them; it might be flanking them as they rode; or it might creep upon them in the night.

Blackburn had fallen into a vicious mood. His eyes glowed with the terrible, futile rage that surged in his veins, it was a reflection of a wrath that grew more and more intolerant as the days passed and the danger that portended did not materialize.

"Boss," he said to Lawler on the tenth day following that on which Garvin had reported the presence of the riders behind them; "the boys is gettin' jumpy. They're givin' one another short answers, an' they're growlin' about things they never noticed before.

"I'm gettin' fed up on this thing, too. It's a cinch them riders is following us. I seen 'em dustin' north of us this mornin'. I ain't said anything to the boys, but it's likely they've seen 'em, too—for they've got their eyes peeled. It's gettin' under my skin, an' if they don't come out into the open pretty soon and give us an idee of what game they're playin', me an' some of the boys is goin' to drag 'em out!"

Yet Blackburn did not carry out his threat. He knew pursuit of the riders would be futile, for there were no further signs of them for several days, and Blackburn knew the riders would have no trouble in eluding them in the vast wilderness through which the herd had been passing for a week. They went on, continuing to watch, though there were no further signs of the men.

They had been on the trail twenty days when at dusk one day they moved slowly down a wide, gradual slope toward a desert. At the foot of the slope was a water hole filled with a dark, brackish fluid, with a green scum fringing its edges. The slope merged gently into the floor of the desert, like an ocean beach stretching out into the water, and for a distance out into the floor of the desert there was bunch grass, mesquite, and greasewood, where the cattle might find grazing for the night. Beyond the stretch of grass spread the dead, gray dust, of the desert, desolate in the filmy, mystic haze that was slowly descending.

The cattle came down eagerly, for they had grazed little during the day in the mountainous region through which they had passed. They were showing the effects of the drive. They had been sleek and fat when they started from the Circle L; they were growing lean, wild, and they were always ravenously hungry.

But where they could feed they required little attention; and the cowboys, after halting them, helped Garvin establish the lines of a rope corral into which they drove the remuda. Then they built a fire and squatted wearily around it—at a respectful distance—to watch the cook—and to listen to him as he complainingly prepared supper.

The men had finished, and the long shadows of the dusk were stealing out over the desert, when Lawler—sitting on the chuck-box—heard Blackburn exclaim sharply:

"Hell's fire! Here they come!"

Blackburn had sprung to his feet, his eyes blazing with the pent-up wrath that had been in them for many days. He was tense, his muscles straining; and his fingers were moving restlessly near the butt of the huge pistol that swung at his hip. The fingers were closing and unclosing, betraying the man's passion.

Lawler got to his feet. Following the direction of Blackburn's flaming eyes, he saw, perhaps a mile away, a large body of horsemen. They were descending the long slope over which the herd had been driven.

Lawler counted them—thirty-nine. But the menace was no longer invisible; it was now a material thing which could be met on such terms as might be, with the law of chance to govern the outcome.

Lawler did not doubt that the on-coming riders were hostile. He had felt that when he first had been made aware of their presence behind the herd. He saw, too, that the men of his outfit felt as he did; for they were all on their feet, their faces grim, their eyes glowing with the rage that had gripped them over the presence of the unseen menace; their muscles were tensed and their lips were in the sullen pout which presages the imminence of action.

Shorty, the tawny giant, was a terrible figure. He seemed to be outwardly cool, and there was not a sign of passion in his manner. His hands swung limply at his sides, not a muscle in his body seeming to move. Unlike the other men, he was calm, seemingly unperturbed. So striking was the contrast between him and the other men that Lawler looked twice at him. And the second time he saw Shorty's eyes—they were gleaming pools of passion, cold, repressed.

"Easy, boys!" Lawler called to the men. "Don't let them suspect you know they've been trailing us. They've got us two to one, almost—if they mean trouble we'll have to work easy!"

He saw the men relax; and several of them resumed their former positions at the fire.

The strange riders were coming steadily onward; they were not more than a hundred yards distant when Blackburn exclaimed, hoarsely:

"Lawler; it's Blondy Antrim an' his gang! Damn his hide! We're in for it!"

For the first time since Garvin had told him of the presence of the men on the trail behind the herd, Lawler's face betrayed passion—the glow in his eyes rivaled that in the giant's.

During the past year or so word had reached him—rumor unfounded, but insistent—that more than once Singleton and Blondy Antrim, the outlaw, had been seen together. He had placed no credence in the rumors, ascribing them to the imaginations of mischievous brains, prejudiced against Singleton because of his bluff, dominant manner. He first had suspected there might be truth in them when Joe Hamlin had told him that he had rustled cattle for Singleton. He now believed that Singleton had disposed of the stolen cattle through Antrim and the conviction that Singleton was behind the action of the outlaw in trailing the herd through the country seized him.

In an instant—following Blackburn's exclamation—he was aroused to the danger that confronted himself and his men. As though by previous arrangement, the men looked at him, noted the tenseness that had come over him, listened attentively when he spoke.

"Boys; don't offer to throw a gun. I know Antrim. He's a killer, and his men are like him. Take it easy—keep cool. The man who loses his temper will be guilty of the wholesale murder that will follow. When Antrim rides up, send him after me!"

He had not unsaddled Red King. He strode to the horse, swung into the saddle, and rode eastward, away from the advancing riders.

Blank astonishment, puzzled bewilderment shone in the eyes of the Circle L men as they watched him, and into the hearts of some of them crept the conviction that Lawler had deserted them; that he was afraid of the outlaw chief.

Blackburn saw what they thought, and his burning eyes bored into them with sarcasm unutterable. He laughed, hoarsely, with a grim mirth that startled them.

"Don't you worry about Lawler's nerve, boys; he's got more of it than the bunch of us put together! He's got some scheme in mind. You guys just set tight until you find out what it is. Do as he told you. Don't let that scurvy gang know that you're flabbergasted!"

When Lawler rode away there was a noticeable commotion in the group of advancing horsemen. One of them left the group, spurring his horse in the direction taken by Lawler. He must have been called back, for he wheeled his horse after he had ridden a dozen paces or so, and rejoined the group, which came on as before.

When the horsemen came to a halt near the fire, they were spread in a semi-circle about the Circle L men, and in their bronzed immobile faces was no answer to the question that agitated Blackburn and the other men. They had halted at a little distance from the fire, and one of them, a tall, slender, keen-eyed, thin-lipped man, urged his horse out of the circle and insolently inspected Blackburn and his cowboys. He lounged loosely in the saddle.

There was a sinister light in his eyes, a lurking threat in his manner.

"What outfit is this?" he demanded.

"Circle L, from Wolf River," answered Blackburn.

"Where you headin'?"

"To Red Rock."

"Railroad out of business?" jeered the outlaw.

"Far as the Circle L is concerned, it is, Antrim," smiled Blackburn. "We had a fuss, an' quit 'em."

The outlaw peered intently at the other. Then he grinned.

"It's Andy Blackburn!" he said. "Glad to meet you, Blackburn. This seems like old times—before the railroad went through; when old Luke Lawler used to jam 'em to Red Rock—sometimes—when he didn't pick up too many strays on the way." He laughed as though pleased over the recollection. "Got this stock vented, Blackburn?"

"Nary a vent, Antrim; the inspector wasn't feelin' in the humor."

"Ha!" exclaimed Antrim; "so you didn't get no vent. Well, we're aimin' to look through your herd. We've been missin' cattle all summer—from my ranch, the Circle Bar. About three thousand head. We've traced 'em as far as Kinney's cañon, an' lost 'em. But we've been thinkin', Blackburn, that it ain't no hard job to make a passable Circle L out of a Circle Bar. That's why we aim to look your cattle over."

He grinned slightly at Blackburn's scowl, aware of the impotent rage the latter felt over the worst insult that could be offered an honest cattleman. For an instant he watched Blackburn keenly, his lips sneering; and then when he saw that Blackburn had mastered his rage, he said, sharply:

"Who was that guy that rode away as we come up?"

"Lawler," said Blackburn. "He's figurin' on seein' you alone, looks like. He left word that when you come I was to tell you he wanted to see you."

The outlaw's eyes glowed with swift suspicion.

"He knowed me, eh?" he said. He glanced keenly over the level floor of the desert. Dimly, in the dusk, he could see Lawler riding near the herd. For an instant Antrim hesitated, plainly debating the wisdom of leaving his men; then he smiled with whimsical recklessness. And his movements became rapid, jerky.

"Slade," he said, addressing a rider near him; "you're runnin' things till I get back."

He wheeled his horse and sent him into the dusk toward the herd, riding cautiously, evidently not entirely convinced of the peaceableness of Lawler's intentions.

He rode a quarter of a mile before he came upon Lawler; and though the light was fading he could plainly see Lawler's face, set, expressionless.

The outlaw brought his horse to a halt within three or four paces of Red King. Antrim's manner exuded the insolent tolerance of the master, who has the confidence that comes from thoughts of an overwhelming advantage.

He knew Lawler; knew him as perhaps no other man in the section knew him. For he had seen Lawler using his gun. It had been some years before, when Lawler had been proving himself—proving that he had a right to the respect and consideration of his fellow-men; proving that no man could trifle with him.

Antrim had been a witness to the shooting. He had marked Lawler's coolness, the evenness of his temper; and had noted the deadly swiftness and precision of his movements when he had drawn his pistol. Lawler had not been the aggressor—a dozen other men had testified to that.

Antrim had not seen Lawler since, until now. And as he looked at him he saw that the years had brought a change in the man. He had been a tall, bold, reckless-looking youth then, with a certain wild waywardness in his manner that might have destroyed him, had he yielded to it. Now he was cold, calm, deliberate, imperturbable. The recklessness had disappeared from his eyes; they were now aglow with quiet determination. The waywardness had gone—ironlike resolution marked his manner.

And yet behind it all, Antrim could see the threat of those youthful passions; the lurking eagerness for violent action; the hint of preparedness, of readiness.

Antrim was startled, uneasy. He saw now that he should not have left his men; that he had made a mistake in coming alone to meet Lawler.

He was certain of it now, when he heard Lawler's voice, saw the cold, smiling light in his eyes.

"You're wanting my cattle, Antrim. Your men have been trailing me for two weeks. You don't get them. You've got thirty-nine men, and there are only twenty-three Circle L men over there. I'm not getting any of them killed. This thing is between you and myself. Get your hand away from your gun or I'll bore you!"

He moved his hand—where it had been—seemingly—lying on Red King's neck, under the mane; and Antrim saw the dark muzzle of a pistol showing in the hand.

"I'm not taking any chances, Antrim—you can see that. I'm not going to take any. If you do anything to attract the attention of your men, I'll kill you. Drop your guns, using your thumbs and forefingers." He waited, watching keenly, until the outlaw had complied with the demand, the two big pistols thudding dully into the sand beside his horse.

Then Lawler resumed, his voice low and even, as before:

"Now we're riding back to the fire, Antrim. Listen hard, for this means life or death to you.

"We're going back to the fire. You're going to act as though nothing had happened; and you are to tell your men that you have changed your mind about the cattle—you are to tell them that you are going with me to Red Rock; and you are sending them back to where you came from, to wait for you."

Antrim stiffened, and his face bloated poisonously. But he did not answer, for there was that in Lawler's eyes that convinced him of the futility of attempting resistance.

"You're going to Red Rock with me," went on Lawler. "I'm going to be personally responsible for you. I'm going to watch you; you're going to ride ahead of me. If you talk, or make any motion that brings any of your men back, you'll die so quick you won't know it happened! Do you understand?"

"Damn you, Lawler; you'll pay for this!" muttered the outlaw. "I'll go on your trail and I'll never let up till I get you!"

Lawler laughed, lowly. "Just be careful not to get any of that poison in your voice when you tell your men what I told you, Antrim, or you'll never go on anybody's trail. Get going, now; and be careful."

Antrim wheeled his horse, and Lawler spurred Red King beside him.

"I'll be watching you, Antrim," he warned. "If your men show they suspect anything wrong you go down, mighty rapid. You don't get off your horse until your men go. And there is to be no playing for time. You talk fast and earnest, and carefully. Go ahead."

Riding slightly in Antrim's rear, Lawler followed the outlaw to the fire. There had come no change in the positions of the outlaws or of the Circle L men. And when Antrim and Lawler rode up there was a silence during which the men of both factions looked interrogatively at their leaders.

Antrim's face was pale, and his voice was vibrant with emotion. But he did not hesitate.

"Slade," he said to the man he had left in charge; "I've changed my mind about those cattle. Lawler has given me proof that none of our stock is with them. I'm hittin' the trail to Red Rock with Lawler. You take the boys back to the ranch an' wait for me."

Slade's eyes widened; he flushed and peered keenly at Antrim. "You—why, hell's fire, Antrim; we——"

"Slade, do as I tell you!" said Antrim, coldly. "Are you runnin' my affairs? You hit the breeze, right now—you hear me!"

Slade grinned venomously, and waved a violent hand around the circle. "You hear your boss, boys!" he said; "Slope!"

The men hesitated an instant, sending sharp, incredulous glances at their leader. But Antrim, pale, knowing that if he betrayed the slightest sign of insincerity his men would suspect, met their looks steadily. The men wheeled their horses, muttering profanely, and rode slowly westward into the growing darkness.

When they had disappeared, Lawler smiled faintly at the outlaw chief.

"You can get down, now, Antrim." He drew the pistol from Red King's mane, where it had been concealed during Antrim's talk with his men, and sheathed it. And then Blackburn, who had been a silent, amazed witness to what had occurred, whistled softly, covertly poking Shorty in the ribs.

"There's one thing that's as good as a vent, ain't there, Shorty?" he said. "That's a gun in the hand of a man who's got plenty of nerve!"

CHAPTER XV

CONCERNING AN OUTLAW

Early in the afternoon of the first day of December the sky darkened, and a cold, raw wind began to shriek through Willets. The company corral was empty; and again, as on the day before Kane Lawler had visited him, Gary Warden stood at one of the windows of his office smiling. Warden was almost satisfied.

Only one disturbing thought persistently recurred; Lawler had got his cattle through to Red Rock.

A crimson stain appeared in Warden's cheeks as his thoughts reverted to Lawler's return to Willets, after disposing of his cattle to the Red Rock buyer. And Warden's shoulders sagged a little, the smile faded and he glared malignantly at the bleak, gray clouds that sailed over town on the chill, bitter wind.

Oddly, at the instant Warden's memory was dwelling upon the incident of Lawler's return to Willets, Lafe Corwin, the storekeeper, was mentally reviewing the incident.

Willets was a cow-town, and for the winter its activity was over. All the beef cattle in the section, with the exception of three thousand head still held by Lawler, at the Circle L, had been shipped eastward, and Willets would now descend to supine indifference to considerations of gain.

Lafe Corwin was tilted back in a big wooden chair near the big, roaring-hot stove in the lounging-room of the Willets Hotel. His clerk could attend to the store. Until spring came, Corwin would spend much of his leisure near the big stove in the hotel, talking politics and cattle—two subjects of paramount importance.

But just at this instant Corwin was thinking of Lawler's return to Willets. Little wrinkles gathered around his eyes—which were twinkling; and he chuckled lowly as his gaze roved from one to the other of the men who, like himself, were enjoying the warmth of the stove and listening, between words, to the howling and moaning of the wind.

Three or four times, during silences, Corwin chuckled. And when at last he saw Dave Rankin, the blacksmith, watching him curiously, he guffawed aloud, rubbing his hands gleefully.

"I don't reckon I ever seen no mournfuller sight than that!" he declared.

"Meanin' which?" asked the blacksmith, his eyes alight with truculent inquiry. The others sat erect, attentive.

"Meanin' that mornin' when Kane Lawler hopped off the train with his bunch of cowhands—an' Blondy Antrim," snickered Corwin. "Dave Singleton an' Gary Warden an' Jordan an' Simmons an' that pony-built girl which is stayin' over to the Two Diamond with that ossified woman she calls 'Aunt Hannah,' was on the platform waitin' for the six o'clock train from the east. It appears that pony-built—Della Wharton, her name is—was expectin' some gimcracks, an' Warden an' her was waitin' for them. Anyways, they was there. It sure was medium mournful!" declared Corwin.

He appeared to hesitate; and Rankin grinned.

"We've heard it before; but I reckon we can stand listenin' ag'in. Tell it, Corwin."

"As I was sayin' when you interrupted me—it was medium mournful," resumed Corwin. "Shorty—who was with Lawler on the drive—has told me since; but at that time I didn't know—that Jordan had refused to vent Lawler's cattle.

"Well, I'd come down to see the train come in, too. We was all standin' there when she come a-steamin' up, an' stopped. An' who clumb off but Lawler an' his trail crew—twenty-three of 'em. An' Blondy Antrim in the midst of 'em, lookin' like a sheep-killin' dog.

"Well, gentlemen, they was a scene. Warden got his face all screwed up an' couldn't get it unscrewed ag'in. He looked like he'd swallered a hot brandin' iron an' it didn't lay easy on his stummick. Singleton was a-standin' there with his mouth open an' his eyes a-poppin' out; an' Jordan was plumb flabbergasted. Simmons was leanin' ag'in' the side of the station buildin', lookin' like he was expectin' to be shot the next minute.

"That Della Wharton girl was the only one that seemed to have any wits a-tall. I seen her grin eloquent at Lawler, an' look him straight in the eye like she was tellin' him somethin' intimate.

"Well, as I was sayin', Lawler an' his boys got off with Blondy Antrim. Antrim looks wild an' flighty—like you've seen a locoed steer on the prod. His eyes was a-glarin' an' he was mutterin' cusses by the mouthful. All of which didn't seem to faze Lawler none.

"Lawler was as cool as an iceberg which had just arrove from the North Pole—an' then some. An' he got a mean, mild grin on his face when he saw the reception committee that had come to meet him. They was a twinkle in his eyes when he looked at Della Wharton; but when Warden blows into his line of vision he looked mighty wicked.

"Lawler an' his gang had brought their hosses from Red Rock in two cars—they'd sold some of the remuda in Red Rock, not carin' to ship 'em home. Anyways, the gang didn't appear in no hurry to unload the hosses; an' a trainman yells to them, sayin' they'd have to hurry.

"But the boys was too interested just then. 'Unload 'em yourself, you sufferin' yap!' yells Shorty. 'If you pull out of here with them hosses I'll blow your damned railroad over into the next county!' Shorty sure does love the railroad!

"As I was sayin' when you interrupted me: Lawler looked mighty wicked. But he's cold an' polite—an' ca'm. An' he escorts Antrim over to where Warden was standin', an' says, quiet an' low:

"Warden, I have brought back my vent. He sure was a heap of trouble, an' he got himself attached to us right close. But as we haven't got no further use for him we're turnin' him over to you. I reckon he's lookin' to you an' Singleton to pay him for the trouble of trailin' us for two weeks, an' for keepin' me company as far as Red Rock, to see that my herd got there right an' proper. 'Antrim,' he says; 'go to your boss!' And he gives him a little shove toward Warden.

"Warden didn't say nothin'—he'd lost his voice, I reckon. But Antrim goes off the handle complete.

"'The damned sneak lifted my guns!' he yells.

"'You wantin' a gun?' says Lawler, cold an' ca'm. He backs up an' lifts one of Shorty's. Then he walks close to Antrim an' shoves it into his right hand.

"'There's a gun, you polecat,' he says. 'Fan it. I'd admire to blow the gizzard outen you!'

"But Antrim didn't seem to be none tickled, now that he'd got the gun. He stood, lookin' at it, like it was somethin' strange an' unusual, an' he was wonderin' whether he ought to hang onto it or drop it. Finally he grins sorta sheepishlike, an' hands it back to Lawler, butt first.

"'I ain't aimin' to fight you today, Lawler,' he says, his face bloomin' like a cactus.

"Lawler laughs, an' gives Shorty his gun back. Shorty grins like a tiger. 'Mebbe Singleton wouldn't mind acceptin' your kind offer, Boss?' he says.

"But Singleton don't break his neck reachin' for his gun, neither. He stands there, lookin' like a calf that's lost its mother. An' then Lawler laughs again, an' says:

"'Well, boys, seein' that the reception committee has received us, an' the honors has all been done, I reckon we'd better get the hosses off the cars an' hit the breeze for home!'

"An' they done so. But before they went they smoked up the town considerable—as you all seen. Them boys had divided twenty-five thousand dollars between them, which Lawler give 'em for makin' the drive. An' they sure did celebrate. Except Lawler. He went right home, an' I ain't seen him since. But I reckon Warden an' the rest of them ain't had no regrets. I ain't never seen no mournfuller sight than them folks sneakin' away from the station. All but Della Wharton. She was a-grinnin' sorta slylike, as though somethin' pleased her."

CHAPTER XVI

A "NORTHER"

When Lawler returned to the Circle L ranchhouse he found that Mary had gone East, to school. She had left for Willets on the second day following Lawler's departure; and Mrs. Lawler had already received two letters from her. Mrs. Lawler watched her son keenly when she told him that Joe Hamlin had brought a letter stating that Hamlin was to be permitted to take a number of mixed cattle from the Circle L—and that he had driven away one hundred. She smiled gently when she told Lawler that on the day before her departure Mary had visited Ruth Hamlin—had spent the whole day with her, and had come home, mysteriously delighted. Ruth had given up the school.

"Mary loves her, Kane," said Mrs. Lawler. And she smiled again when she saw a flush reach Lawler's face.

Lawler intended to ride to the Hamlin cabin this morning. It was the third day following his arrival at the ranch; and until now he had had no time for anything except to attend to the many details of work that had been neglected during his absence.

There were still three thousand head of cattle on the Circle L range—the men had held them in the valley for a time during his absence on the trail, but the grass had grown sparse, and the herd was now grazing on the big plain beyond the northern slope of the valley.

During the time he had been home the outfit had been busy. The Circle L had a dozen line camps—little adobe cabins scattered over the range, occupied during the winter by Circle L cowboys whose duty it was to guard the cattle against the aggressions of timber wolves, rustlers, cold, and starvation.

For two days the chuck-wagon had been sent rattling to the various line camps, stocking them with supplies against the winter. As the weather was threatening the hoodlum wagon had been pressed into service this morning; and all the men, with the exception of the blacksmith—who was working diligently in his shop near the corral; and two punchers—Davies and Harris, who had been assigned to Number One camp—were away with the two wagons.

Davies and Harris had not been able to resist the lure of "town." The prosperity that had descended upon them had made them restless, and the night before they had importuned Lawler to permit them to spend "one more night in town before holin' up for the winter."

Lawler had consented; and now he was wishing that he hadn't. For when he emerged from the ranchhouse this morning he saw a dark cloud bank far in the north, moving southward on the chill wind.

The herd, he knew, was somewhere on the big level beyond the slope of the valley, in the vicinity of Number One line camp. It was an isolated section, off the trail that led to town—a section of featureless level near a big break in the valley. The break opened upon another big level that stretched southward for a hundred miles. In other days Luke Lawler had lost many cattle here; they had drifted through the break by hundreds, with a blizzard behind them; and had been swallowed by the great waste.

Two years before—aware of the previous losses—Lawler had erected a wire fence across the big break, extending from a craggy mountain wall on the western end, to a sheer butte that marked the end of the break, eastward.

Lawler had sent Red King to the crest of the valley on his way to the Hamlin cabin, when he noted that the cloud bank in the north had grown denser, nearer. The wind had increased in velocity, and he had to lean against it as he rode; and it was so cold and raw that he drew his heavy cap down over his eyes to shield them, and drew over his mouth the heavy woolen scarf he wore around his neck.

He rode on a short distance, casting troubled glances into the north. He found himself wondering if Davies and Harris had gone to the line camp. If they hadn't, and a storm broke, the herd on the big level was in danger.

He brought Red King to a halt. The big horse pranced, whistling eagerly. He champed on the bit, tossed his head, raising it finally and staring straight into the north.