The Trail Horde Part 42

There was a fire in the kitchen stove, for the weather during the day had been cold, and she could hear the embers crackling for more than an hour after her father went to his room. After that there followed a brief time when she heard nothing.

She drew a blanket over her, and its welcome warmth brought on a drowsiness to which she almost yielded. She was sure, however, that she would not go to sleep, and she lay there, comfortably for, it seemed merely a few minutes. And then a sound a.s.sailed her ears and she started up, realizing that she had been asleep. For a chill had come into the air of the cabin, and she knew the fire had gone out.

She sat up, breathing fast, and ran to her father's room. The bed had not been slept in; and she emerged from the room, her face pallid with resolution.

Running to the outside door she swung it open and looked out. Far out upon the clear, moonlit sweep of plain stretching toward Willets, she saw the shadowy figures of two hors.e.m.e.n.

Moving swiftly, she went to the corral, caught her pony, saddled it, threw on a bridle, mounted and rode after the two hors.e.m.e.n, urging the pony to its best efforts.

The speed at which the pony traveled did not equal the pace of the animals ahead of her, however, and she steadily lost ground, though the night was so clear that she did not lose sight of the figures in front of her until they reached the shadows of Willets' buildings. She did lose them there, though, and when she rode down the dimly lighted street she could see no sign of them.

There was no one about, and she rode back and forth on the street, searching for Hamlin's horse, which would give her a clue to Hamlin's whereabouts. And at last, peering into a vacant s.p.a.ce between two buildings she saw Hamlin's horse, and another, hitched to a rail near an outside stairway.

She got off the pony, threw the reins over its head and ran around to the front of the building, into the light of some oil-lamps that stabbed the semi-gloom of the street.

The building was occupied by the Wolf Saloon. She knew that, and it was that knowledge that caused her to hesitate as she stood in front of it.

But her father was in there, she was certain. She had recognized the horse that had been hitched close to her father's as one that Singleton had ridden to the Hamlin cabin on several of his visits, and the cold determination that had seized her at last gave her courage to swing the front door of the saloon open. She hesitated on the threshold, white, shaking with dread, almost afraid, now that she had come this far, to face the terrible men she knew she would find inside. The ill-fame of the place was notorious.

But while she hesitated, she heard her father's voice--a sound that drove her to instant action, for it was high-pitched, and carried a note of anger.

She went inside, then, no longer thinking of herself; her heart a throb with concern, courage of a high order sustaining her. She pushed the outside door open, burst through the double-swing door that screened the barroom from the street, and stood in the front of the room blinking at the lights.

The room was full of men--she did not know how many. They made a great blur in front of her; and it seemed to her that all their faces were turned to her. She had a flashing view of a mult.i.tude of inquiring eyes; she noted the thick haze that hung over the room; her nostrils were a.s.sailed by mingled odors that were nauseating. The flashing glance showed her the long bar, a cl.u.s.ter of lights overhead; card tables; a low ceiling, and a stairway leading from the barroom to a platform.

All sound had ceased with her entrance. She saw her father standing near the center of the room.

He was standing alone, in sinister isolation. Singleton was facing him, about a dozen feet distant. A few feet from Singleton stood another man--dark of face, with cruel lips, and eyes that held a wanton light. A little farther away--close to the bar--stood Gary Warden.

Her father seemed to be the only man in the room who had not seen her. A terrible rage had gripped him; he seemed to have undergone a strange transformation since she had seen him last; that manhood which she had thought had departed from him appeared to have returned.

For he made a striking figure as he stood there. He was rigid, alert; he seemed to dominate every man that faced him, that stood within sound of his voice. He had been talking when Ruth entered; he was still talking, unaware of her presence.

His voice was pitched high, it carried a note of defiance; it was vibrant with pa.s.sion. Fascinated by the change in him, Ruth stood motionless, listening.

"So that's what you brought me here for?" he said, his voice shaking with rage. He was looking at Singleton and the man who stood near the latter. "You brought me here because you wanted to be sure there'd be enough of you to down me. Well, d.a.m.n you--get goin!"

His voice rose to a screech of awful rage; and while it still resounded through the room he dropped his right hand and dragged at the pistol at his hip.

It was done so swiftly that Ruth could make no movement to interfere.

And yet as swiftly as her father's hand had dropped to the holster at his side, the dark-faced man who stood near Singleton antic.i.p.ated the movement. His right hand moved like a streak of light. It went down, then up again with the same motion. The air rocked with a crashing report, mingled with Ruth's scream of terror. And Hamlin's gun loosened in his hand, his knees doubled and he tumbled headlong, to fall face down at the feet of the dark-faced man who stood, sneering, some blue-white smoke curling upward in mocking laziness from the muzzle of his pistol.

Ruth had moved with the report of the pistol; she was at Hamlin's side when he fell, grasping one of his arms; and she went down with him, to one knee, dazed from the suddenness of the thing; palzied with horror, the room reeling around her.

How long she knelt at her father's side she did not know. It seemed only a second or two to her when she raised her head and looked around with dumb, agonized grief at the faces that seemed to fill the place. Then she heard Warden's voice; he spoke to the dark-faced man who had killed her father, and his voice was vibrant with a mocking, Satanic satisfaction.

"You've wanted her, Slade--take her!"

The dark-faced man grinned at her, b.e.s.t.i.a.lly. She leaped to her feet at the expression of his eyes, and started to run toward the door. But terror shackled her feet; it seemed that some power was dragging at her, holding her back from the door. She had not taken more than half a dozen steps when Slade was upon her.

His strength seemed to be prodigious, for despite her desperate resistance he lifted her from the floor, crushed her to him and started for the stairs. She screamed, begging the men in the room to help her.

But through the haze she saw grinning faces turned to hers; heard loud laughter and coa.r.s.e oaths. And then came oblivion.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE GOVERNOR'S GUNS

From his desk in the big, quiet room in the capitol building Lawler could look out upon a wide sweep of orderly landscape. There were trees--now stripped of their foliage--in serried array around the s.p.a.cious grounds that surrounded the building; bushes arranged in attractive cl.u.s.ters; a low stone fence with ma.s.sive posts that rose in simple dignity above white cement walks that curved gracefully toward the streets.

For nearly two months the huge building--representing the seat of government of a mighty state--had been Lawler's throne. And he had ruled with a democratic spirit and with a simple directness, that had indicated earnestness and strength. There had been a ma.s.s of detail which had required close attention; many conferences with the prominent men of his party--in which the prominent men had been made to understand that Lawler intended to be governor in fact as well as in name; and a gradual gathering up of all the loose ends of administration which had become badly tangled through the inefficiency of the former inc.u.mbent.

And now the legislature was in session.

Lawler had not been able to seize time to visit the Wolf River section.

Work, work--and more work had confronted him from the moment he had taken the oath of office on the capitol steps until this minute, when he sat at his desk looking out of a window at the bleak, artificial landscape.

There had been times when he had longed for a glance at the Wolf River section; and there had been many more times when he had sat where he was sitting now, thinking of Ruth Hamlin.

Something lacked--he was not satisfied. In the old days--when he had visited the capital and had entered the state building to sense immediately the majesty of it and to feel the atmosphere of solemn dignity that reigned within--he had felt that any man must experience the ultimate thrill--the tingling realization that he stood in a spot hallowed by the traditions of the republic.

The thought of serving the people of a great state had thrilled him mightily in the old days. It still thrilled him, but it brought with it a longing for Ruth to share it with him.

Thoughts of Ruth this morning brought Gary Warden into his mind. And he frowned as a man frowns who watches a pleasant scene turn into tragedy.

Only his collapse as he faced Warden that day in the latter's office had prevented him killing the man. He had left the d.i.c.kman cabin l.u.s.ting for Warden's life. The pa.s.sion that had surged through his veins during the long ride to Warden's office had been the only force that could have kept him going. It had burned within him like a raging fire, and it had upheld his failing strength until he had sunk beside the desk with his pa.s.sion unsatisfied.

He had thought much of the incident during the days he had lain in the room at the Willets Hotel, and later, while convalescing at the Circle L. And he had been glad his strength had failed him before he did what he had set out to do. For while there was no doubt in his mind that Warden had been implicated in all the attacks that had been made upon him, he had no legal proof--except the confession, signed by Link and Givens--that Warden was guilty.

And, now that he had been elected, he intended to keep silent regarding the confession. He hated Warden, but it was with something of the pa.s.sion a man feels who treads upon a poisonous reptile that attacks him.

He meant to be generous in the moment of victory. Those men--Warden, Perry Haughton, Hatfield, and the officials of the railroad company--had performed according to their lights, using whatever power and influence was at hand to gain their ends. But they had failed. Several bills now pending in the legislature would effectually curb the powers of those men and others of their kind; and he would see to it that there never would be another opportunity for that sort of practice.

Lawler got up after a time, and walked to one of the big windows, where he stood for some minutes looking out. Then he returned to his desk, dropped into the chair, pulled open a deep drawer and took therefrom a cartridge belt, completely studded with cartridges. Suspended from the belt were two ivory-handled pistols that had seen much service.

They had belonged to his father. Later, he had worn them himself--in the days when his character had been in process of developing, when he had earned, with them, a reputation which had made him respected throughout the state.

They were, he felt, symbols of an ancient time. The day was coming when men would ride the open range without guns, when the wearing of guns would bring upon a man the distrust and the condemnation of his kind.

Law and order would supersede the rule of the gun, and the pa.s.sions of men would have to be regulated by the statute books.

He had brought the two guns with him upon the impulse of a moment. He would be away from the Circle L for at least two years, and he wanted the guns where he could look at them occasionally. For they brought into his mind a picture of his father as he had seen him, many times, wearing them; and they reminded him of days when he, too, had worn them--days that had a romantic charm all their own.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX