CHAPTER XXXVI
A MAN MEDITATES VENGEANCE
It had always been lonely at the Hamlin cabin, and it grew more lonelyafter Kane Lawler left the Circle L. For the barrier between Ruth andthe happiness she had a right to expect seemed to grow higher and moreimpassable daily.
After receiving official notification of his nomination, Lawler had goneaway 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 hadrenewed his pleas to Ruth. But the girl, rigidly adhering to herdetermination not to permit the shadow of her father's reputation toembarrass 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 beenchosen by a record vote, she watched him ride away with a consciousnessthat the world had grown to gigantic proportions and that Lawler wasgoing to its extreme farther limits, leaving behind him a gulf of space,endless and desolate.
Dorgan, the country prosecutor, had been defeated for re-election by aman named Carney--who was known to be friendly to Singleton. Moreton hadalso been defeated--by "Slim" McCray, who hailed from a little towncalled Keegles, southeast from Willets. It was rumored--after theelection--that Slim McCray had been friendly to Antrim, though no oneadvanced any evidence in support of the rumor.
McCray--because Willets was the county seat--came to the office that hadformerly been Moreton's, immediately following his election. He wasslender, tall, and unprepossessing, and instantly created a badimpression.
This news came to Ruth through her father, for she had not visited townsince she had gone there to help Mrs. Lawler care for her son. She feltthat she did not dare to leave the cabin. For one night, after herfather had acted strangely, he got up suddenly and went out of the door.And after a while, growing suspicious, she blew out the light andstepped 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 thecapital to assume his duties as governor. She suspected her father hadtalked with Singleton since, though she had never seen them togetherfrom that time until now.
Lawler had been gone a month. She had heard through variousmediums--mostly from cowboys from nearby ranches who occasionally passedthe cabin--that Lawler was "making good"--in the vernacular of thecowpuncher; and "makin' them all set up an' take notice." Those terms,of course, would seem to indicate that Lawler was a good governor andthat he was attracting attention by the quality of his administration.
But it seemed that more than a month had passed since Lawler had goneto 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 shemade to the Circle L, to visit Lawler's mother--and by the presence ofMary Lawler, who had come home for her vacation, during the summer, andduring Lawler's absence on his speaking tour.
Ruth had heard with satisfaction that the Circle L trail herd, attendedby Blackburn, Shorty, and other Circle L men, had not been molested onthe trip to Red Rock. Caldwell and the others had driven their cattle toRed Rock also--not one of them visiting Warden to arrange for cars.Lawler's influence, and the spirit he had revealed in undertaking thelong drive the previous season, had had its effect upon the otherowners.
It seemed to Ruth that the fight between the Circle L men and therustlers had made the latter cautious; and that even Warden had decidedthat discretion was necessary. At any rate, the surface of life inWillets and the surrounding country had become smooth, no matter whatforces were at work in the depths. It appeared that the men who hadfought Lawler in the past, were now careful to do nothing that wouldbring upon them a demonstration of his new power.
* * * * *
Gary Warden, however, was not fearful of Lawler's official power. Infact, he was openly contemptuous when Lawler's name was mentioned in hispresence. Face to face with Lawler, he was afflicted with an emotionthat was akin to fear, though with it was mingled the passionate hatredhe had always felt for the man.
While Lawler had been at the Circle L he had fought him secretly, withmotives that arose from a determination to control the cattle industry.Warden had had behind him the secret power of the state government andthe clandestine cooperation of the railroad company. His fight againstLawler had been in the nature of business, in which the advantage hadbeen all on his side.
Now, however, intense personal feeling dominated Warden. Lawler hadbeaten him, so far, and the knowledge intensified his rage against hisconqueror. The railroad company's corral had yawned emptily during theentire fall season. Not a hoof had been shipped through Willets. All thecattlemen of the district had driven their stock to Red Rock. And Wardenno 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 thewindows of his office watching Della Wharton wave a handkerchief atLawler. She had been riding out of town in a buckboard, with AuntHannah beside her, and Lawler had just come from the railroad station.That incident had spread the poison of jealousy in Warden's veins; therecollection of it had caused him to doubt Della's story of what hadhappened at the line cabin during the blizzard of the preceding winter;it had filled him with the maddening conviction that Lawler haddeliberately tried to alienate Della's affections--that Lawler, knowingDella to be vain and frivolous, had intentionally planned the girl'svisit to the line cabin.
He did not blame Della for what had happened. Upon Lawler was the blamefor the affair; Lawler had planned it all, merely to be revenged uponhim for his refusal to keep the agreement that had been made withLefingwell.
Warden sneered as his thoughts went to that day in Jordan's office whenLawler, a deadly threat in his eyes, had leaned close to him to warnhim. Warden remembered the words--they had flamed in his consciousnesssince.
"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 theother day. God'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 surewill I kill you, no matter who your friends are!"
Apparently, in Lawler's code of morals, it was one thing to force one'sattentions upon a pretty woman, and another thing to steal theaffections of a woman promised to another man.
But Warden's passion permitted him to make no distinction. And his ragewas based upon the premise that Lawler was guilty. Warden's thoughtsgrew abysmal as he stood at the window; and considerations of businessbecame unimportant in his mind as the Satanic impulse seized him. Hestood for a long time at the window, and when he finally seized hat andcoat and went down into the street he was muttering, savagely:
"God's grace and a woman's mercy. Bah! Damn you, Lawler; I'll make yousquirm!"
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