Chapter 18

STORM-DRIVEN

For an hour there was no sound in the cabin. Lawler smoked several cigarettes. Once he got up and threw more wood upon the fire, standing in front of the blaze for several minutes stretching his long legs, watching the licking tongues as they were sucked up the chimney by the shrieking wind.

Then, for a time, he lounged in the chair, gazing meditatively at the north window, noting how the fine, frozen snow meal clung to the glass; watching the light fade, listening to the howling white terror that had seized the world in its icy grip.

At the end of an hour it grew dark in the cabin. Lawler got up, lighted the kerosene lamp, placed it on the table, seated himself on a bench and again meditatively watched the leaping flames in the fireplace.

Satisfaction glowed in his eyes as he thought of what would have happened had he not decided to substitute for Davies and Harris. Undoubtedly by this time the two men were on their way to the camp. They would certainly have noticed the warning bleak northern sky and other indications of the coming storm. And undoubtedly, if they had started toward the camp, they were by this time being punished for their dereliction. They would make the camp, though, he was sure, for they had the wind at their backs, and they knew the trail. He expected, any minute, to hear them at the door. He grinned, his face a trifle grim as he anticipated their astonishment at finding him there, with the two fence cutters occupying the bunks.

He had not followed the herd to the Circle L shelters because he had had small hope of keeping close to the fence cutters in the storm. And he had brought them back to the cabin to make sure of them. As he sat at the table he drew out the paper the men had signed and read their names:

"_Lay Givens._"

"_Ben Link._"

Their confession would convict Gary Warden of a crime that--if it did not open the doors of the penitentiary to him--would bring upon him the condemnation of every honest man in the state. In his anxiety to inflict damage upon Lawler, Warden had overstepped himself.

Lawler had betrayed no passion that day when he had got off the train at Willets with his men and Blondy Antrim. He had not permitted any of them to suspect that the incident of the attempted theft of a portion of the trail herd had affected him. But it had affected him. It had aroused him as he never had been aroused before; it had filled him with a passionate hatred of Gary Warden so intense that when his thoughts dwelt upon the man he felt a lust to destroy him. Not even Lafe Corwin, watching him that day at Willets, knew how he had fought to overcome the driving desire to kill Warden, Singleton, and Antrim, as they had stood there on the platform.

His eyes chilled now, as he thought of Warden and the others. He got up, his blood pulsing heavily, and started toward the fire. He had reached it, and was standing before it, when he heard a sound at the door--a faint knocking, and a voice.

Davies and Harris were coming now. They were cold, he supposed, had seen the light in the window--perhaps had tried the door; the wind drowning the noise so that he had not heard it before. They were in a hurry to get in, to the warmth the cabin afforded.

He was in no hurry to let them in, and he walked deliberately to the table and stood beside it, his back to the fire, smiling ironically.

He heard no further sound, and he supposed the men had gone to the dugout to turn their horses into its shelter before again trying the door.

He was in a grimly humorous mood now, and he stooped, blew out the light and stepped toward the door, standing back of it, where it would swing against him when the men opened it.

He loosened the fastenings, stealthily. He wanted them to come in and find the two fence cutters there.

He stood for a long time at the door, listening, waiting. No sound reached his ears, and he scowled, puzzled. Then, above the wailing voice of the storm, came the shrill, piercing neigh of a horse.

Several times in his life had Lawler heard that sound--once when a cow-pony which had been bogged down in quicksand had neighed when he had been drawn under; and again when a horse which he had been riding had stepped into a gopher hole and had broken a leg. He had been forced to shoot the animal, for which he had formed a sincere attachment; and it had seemed to him that when he drew the pistol the horse knew what impended--for its shrill neigh had been almost human in its terrible appeal.

It was such a sound that now reached his ears above the roar of the storm.

Davies and Harris were in trouble.

With a bound Lawler tore the door open and stood, leaning against the terrific wind, trying to peer out into the white smother that shrieked around him. When he made out the outlines of a horse not more than half a dozen feet from the open doorway--the animal so encrusted with snow that he looked like a pallid ghost--and a shapeless bundle on his back that seemingly was ready to pitch into a huge drift that had formed in front of the cabin--he leaped outward, a groan of sympathy breaking from him.

In an instant he was inside again, carrying the shapeless bundle, his lips stiff and white as he peered close at it as he tenderly laid it on the floor of the cabin.

With swift movements he lighted the lamp again, and then returning to the bundle, leaned over it, pulling away a scarf that covered its head and disclosing a white, drawn face--the face of the woman he had met, in Willets, at the foot of the stairs leading to Gary Warden's office!

Lawler wheeled swiftly, leaping to first one and then to the other of the bunks where the fence cutters lay, tearing the ropes from them.

The tall man tumbled out first, urged by what he had seen and by the low tense voice of his captor. He seized a tin pan and dove out of the open doorway, returning instantly, the pan heaped high with snow. The other man, following the first quickly, dove through the snow drifts to the dugout where he fumbled in the slicker on Lawler's saddle until he found a flask.

By the time the little man returned the woman was in one of the lower bunks. A pair of bare feet, small and shapely, were sticking out over the edge of the bunk, and the tall fence cutter was vigorously rubbing snow upon them. A pair of small, high-top riding boots of soft, pliable leather, was lying beside the bunk near some pitiably thin stockings.

At the other end of the bunk Lawler was bathing, with ineffable tenderness and care, a face that had been swathed in the scarf he had previously removed. The long, glistening, black hair had been brushed back from its owner's forehead by Lawler; and a corner of a blanket had been modestly folded over a patch of white breast, exposed when Lawler had ruthlessly torn away the flimsy, fluffy waist.

"It was the scarf that saved her face," said Lawler, after he had worked over the unconscious form for a quarter of an hour. The face was flushed, now--which was a good sign; and the feet and ankles were beginning to show signs of restored circulation also--though more reluctantly.

"How she ever got through it I'm not pretending to say," declared Lawler, grimly. "But she did it, and the frost didn't get her, much. She'll be fresh as a daisy in a couple of hours."

The tall man--Link--had ceased his labors with the woman, and was standing near Lawler. He grinned at Lawler's words.

His face was flushed, his eyes were glowing with passion as he watched the inert form on the bunk.

"She's a peach," he said, thickly. Lawler was not looking at him; he was giving all his attention to the woman.

"Della Wharton," continued Link. "I've seen her at the Two Diamond--runnin' around with Warden. Warden's took a shine to her. Don't blame him." He muttered something else that Lawler did not hear, for Lawler was paying no attention to him.

Lawler held the flask to the woman's half-open mouth, and smiled when several drops of the strong spirits trickled over her tongue. Then he walked to the wood pile and replenished the fire. Returning, he saw Link standing close to the bunk, smiling bestially at the upturned face. When Lawler caught sight of him he was fingering the disordered hair, lifting it and letting it filter through his fingers.

Without a word, Lawler leaped and struck with bitter malignance. Not a sound escaped Link as he fell. Lawler lifted him bodily, threw him upon the pile of wood in the corner, where he lay huddled up, unconscious.

Wheeling swiftly, his eyes ablaze with the terrible passion that had seized him, Lawler faced the bunk. The woman's head was moving slowly from side to side, as though she were making an effort to lift it; her eyelids were fluttering, and her hands were straying over the bedclothing, the fingers closing and unclosing.

Lawler made a horrible grimace at Givens.

"Get out of here, damn you!" he said. "Go out and take care of her horse--anything! If you are in here when she wakes up, I'll kill you! And take that other skunk out of here, too--take him to the dugout, and don't come back here for an hour!"

He watched impatiently while Givens seized his companion and dragged him outside. Then Lawler fastened the door, and standing near it, watched the woman.

Her eyes were open. He could see them, even though he stood slightly behind her. She moved her head, lifted it and gazed around the room, seemingly bewildered at what she saw. Then she twisted her body around; saw her bare feet, and quickly drew an end of the bunk blanket over them.

And then she saw Lawler. Her eyes opened wide, filling with satisfaction, and she sat up, holding one hand to her throat, tight against the flesh, covering it with the other.

"Oh!" she said, thinly; "I--I got here, didn't I? But I didn't expect to find you here!"