The Trail Horde Part 2

"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, d.a.m.n 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, d.a.m.n your hide you ain't goin' to take me; I'll blow you to h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.ned 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 s.h.i.+ftless, 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 gra.s.s 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 relations.h.i.+p.

"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 surrept.i.tious. 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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 pa.s.sion 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 d.a.m.ned, weak-kneed polecats. You've got a girl who is good as gold, and you're making a regular h.e.l.l 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--d.a.m.n 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 sh.o.r.es of civilization, rested, while begrimed, overalled men adjusted a metal spout which poured refres.h.i.+ng water into gaping reservoirs.

In that day Willets sat in the center of a dead, dry section, swathed in isolation so profound that pa.s.sengers in the coaches turned to one another with awe in their voices and spoke of G.o.d 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 a.s.sured of a future. Cattlemen in the Wolf River section began to s.h.i.+p stock from the new station, rather than drive to Red Rock--another s.h.i.+pping 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.