The Trail Horde Part 41

Shorty had ridden to town with Lawler; and Shorty rode home with the candidate for governor--after the citizens of Willets had shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e and the prominent men who had come down from the capital had taken the evening train home.

And Shorty said nothing when Lawler veered from the Circle L trail and headed eastward, toward Hamlin's cabin. And he waited with much patience outside the cabin while Lawler went in, to stay an unconscionably long time.

Ruth was alone. And her eyes were glowing with happiness when she saw Lawler.

"Oh, I know!" she said when Lawler essayed to break the news to her. "On his way to town, Blackburn rode over and told me. All of your men were in town--didn't you know that?"

"Ruth," said Lawler; "I will be elected. Won't you come to the capital with me--to be the first lady of the state?"

She looked straight at him, her face paling.

"Wait, Kane," she said, gently. "I--I can't, just now. Oh, Kane, don't you see that the higher you go the harder it is for me. I can't have people say--what they might say--what your enemies would be sure to say!

Father is all right now. But I can't depend upon him. We will wait, Kane--until we are sure."

Shorty rode with Lawler after they left the Hamlin cabin. And the gravity of Lawler's expression was noted by the giant, and duly commented upon the following morning, in Blackburn's presence.

"The boss's trail is sure hard to antic.i.p.ate," said Shorty. "There's the state goin' loco over him--nominatin' him for governor, an' folks in Willets makin' more fuss over him than they did over the President--the time he stopped for two minutes in town. Well, you'd think a man would be sort of fussed up himself, over that kind of a deal. But what does the boss do? He rides home with me, sayin' nothin' pretty regular--with a face on him as long as the moral law--an' then some. I ain't got no rope on him--an' that's a fact. But he's all wool an' a yard wide--ain't he, Blackburn?"

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

A MAN MEDITATES VENGEANCE

It had always been lonely at the Hamlin cabin, and it grew more lonely after Kane Lawler left the Circle L. For the barrier between Ruth and the happiness she had a right to expect seemed to grow higher and more impa.s.sable daily.

After receiving official notification of his nomination, Lawler had gone away on a speaking tour of the state, and Ruth had seen little of him.

He came home once, for a few days, just before the election, and had renewed his pleas to Ruth. But the girl, rigidly adhering to her determination not to permit the shadow of her father's reputation to embarra.s.s him, had firmly refused to consent. And after the election, when he had gone to the capital to take the office to which he had been chosen by a record vote, she watched him ride away with a consciousness that the world had grown to gigantic proportions and that Lawler was going to its extreme farther limits, leaving behind him a gulf of s.p.a.ce, endless and desolate.

Dorgan, the country prosecutor, had been defeated for re-election by a man named Carney--who was known to be friendly to Singleton. Moreton had also been defeated--by "Slim" McCray, who hailed from a little town called Keegles, southeast from Willets. It was rumored--after the election--that Slim McCray had been friendly to Antrim, though no one advanced any evidence in support of the rumor.

McCray--because Willets was the county seat--came to the office that had formerly been Moreton's, immediately following his election. He was slender, tall, and unprepossessing, and instantly created a bad impression.

This news came to Ruth through her father, for she had not visited town since she had gone there to help Mrs. Lawler care for her son. She felt that she did not dare to leave the cabin. For one night, after her father had acted strangely, he got up suddenly and went out of the door.

And after a while, growing suspicious, she blew out the light and stepped softly outside, to see him, at a little distance from the house, talking with Singleton.

That incident had occurred shortly after Lawler had departed for the capital to a.s.sume his duties as governor. She suspected her father had talked with Singleton since, though she had never seen them together from that time until now.

Lawler had been gone a month. She had heard through various mediums--mostly from cowboys from nearby ranches who occasionally pa.s.sed the cabin--that Lawler was "making good"--in the vernacular of the cowpuncher; and "makin' them all set up an' take notice." Those terms, of course, would seem to indicate that Lawler was a good governor and that he was attracting attention by the quality of his administration.

But it seemed that more than a month had pa.s.sed since Lawler had gone to the capital. The days dragged and the weeks seemed to be aeons long.

And yet the dull monotony of the girl's life was relieved by trips she made to the Circle L, to visit Lawler's mother--and by the presence of Mary Lawler, who had come home for her vacation, during the summer, and during Lawler's absence on his speaking tour.

Ruth had heard with satisfaction that the Circle L trail herd, attended by Blackburn, Shorty, and other Circle L men, had not been molested on the trip to Red Rock. Caldwell and the others had driven their cattle to Red Rock also--not one of them visiting Warden to arrange for cars.

Lawler's influence, and the spirit he had revealed in undertaking the long drive the previous season, had had its effect upon the other owners.

It seemed to Ruth that the fight between the Circle L men and the rustlers had made the latter cautious; and that even Warden had decided that discretion was necessary. At any rate, the surface of life in Willets and the surrounding country had become smooth, no matter what forces were at work in the depths. It appeared that the men who had fought Lawler in the past, were now careful to do nothing that would bring upon them a demonstration of his new power.

Gary Warden, however, was not fearful of Lawler's official power. In fact, he was openly contemptuous when Lawler's name was mentioned in his presence. Face to face with Lawler, he was afflicted with an emotion that was akin to fear, though with it was mingled the pa.s.sionate hatred he had always felt for the man.

While Lawler had been at the Circle L he had fought him secretly, with motives that arose from a determination to control the cattle industry.

Warden had had behind him the secret power of the state government and the clandestine cooperation of the railroad company. His fight against Lawler had been in the nature of business, in which the advantage had been all on his side.

Now, however, intense personal feeling dominated Warden. Lawler had beaten him, so far, and the knowledge intensified his rage against his conqueror. The railroad company's corral had yawned emptily during the entire fall season. Not a hoof had been shipped through Willets. All the cattlemen of the district had driven their stock to Red Rock. And Warden no longer smiled at the empty corral.

Looking out of one of his office windows this morning, Warden scowled.

He remembered a day, a year or so ago, when he had stood in one of the windows of his office watching Della Wharton wave a handkerchief at Lawler. She had been riding out of town in a buckboard, with Aunt Hannah beside her, and Lawler had just come from the railroad station.

That incident had spread the poison of jealousy in Warden's veins; the recollection of it had caused him to doubt Della's story of what had happened at the line cabin during the blizzard of the preceding winter; it had filled him with the maddening conviction that Lawler had deliberately tried to alienate Della's affections--that Lawler, knowing Della to be vain and frivolous, had intentionally planned the girl's visit to the line cabin.

He did not blame Della for what had happened. Upon Lawler was the blame for the affair; Lawler had planned it all, merely to be revenged upon him for his refusal to keep the agreement that had been made with Lefingwell.

Warden sneered as his thoughts went to that day in Jordan's office when Lawler, a deadly threat in his eyes, had leaned close to him to warn him. Warden remembered the words--they had flamed in his consciousness since.

"But get this straight," Lawler had said. "You've got to fight _me_!

Understand? You'll drag no woman into it. You went to Hamlin's ranch the other day. G.o.d's grace and a woman's mercy permitted you to get away, alive. Just so sure as you molest a woman in the section, just so sure will I kill you, no matter who your friends are!"

Apparently, in Lawler's code of morals, it was one thing to force one's attentions upon a pretty woman, and another thing to steal the affections of a woman promised to another man.

But Warden's pa.s.sion permitted him to make no distinction. And his rage was based upon the premise that Lawler was guilty. Warden's thoughts grew abysmal as he stood at the window; and considerations of business became unimportant in his mind as the Satanic impulse seized him. He stood for a long time at the window, and when he finally seized hat and coat and went down into the street he was muttering, savagely:

"G.o.d's grace and a woman's mercy. Bah! d.a.m.n you, Lawler; I'll make you squirm!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE TRAP

For more than a month--or from a few days following the night on which she had seen her father talking with Dave Singleton--Ruth Hamlin had been aware that her parent was acting strangely. There had been an interval--directly after that night when he had told her about his talk with Lawler, when Lawler had offered to help him to regain his place among men--that Hamlin had seemed to "go straight," as he had promised.

During that interval he had taken her into his confidence many times, to discuss with her the new prospects that the future seemed to offer, and to renew his a.s.surances to her. It had seemed, then, that there was hope for him.

Of late, though, a change had come over him. He no longer confided in her; his eyes were beginning to take on again the expression of guilt she had seen in them in the old days; his glances at her were no longer direct, but furtive, as though he feared she might learn something of his actions should she meet his gaze.

In the old days Ruth had pa.s.sively endured the shame that Hamlin's crimes had brought upon her. They had been so unexpected that they had stunned her--they had been so miserably mean that she had not dared to take anyone into her confidence.

However, the days of pa.s.sive endurance were over. Lawler knew, and Lawler had helped her father. And now, she was certain, her father had again fallen.

She steeled herself against pity for him, determined that she would not stand idly by and watch him betray Lawler. She did not know what she intended to do, or what she could do, to prevent the stealing of the Circle L cattle; but she determined to watch her father, hopeful that she might devise some way to prevent the thefts.

She had pa.s.sed many sleepless nights, having become aware that her father was habitually absenting himself after nightfall, but she had never been able to catch him in the act of leaving the cabin at those times, though many nights she had purposely stayed awake.

Tonight she had gone to her room, to lie awake on the bed, fully dressed. She had left the oil-lamp burning, for Hamlin had been sitting at a table reading. She heard him get up after a while; saw the light flicker and go out; heard her father cross the floor and go to his room.