The Trail Horde Part 11

"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 pa.s.sions in check, fighting back a l.u.s.t 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.