The Trail Horde by Charles Alden Seltzer (i read book .TXT) 📖

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