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Updated: June 15, 2025
You'll find them out by the windbreak. I had to kill them." Lawler saw the men behind Warden grow rigid; Warden's face grew ghastly. Lawler's smile had gone. He was coldly alert, watching the men behind Lawler, aware that his news was a shock to them; divining they would not hesitate to do violence if an explanation was not quickly offered.
Winter is close, and they've got things pretty well blocked. They figured on the late round-up, I reckon. Sell to Warden and wind the thing up that's the easiest way." Caldwell grasped Lawler's hand and shook it vigorously. "I thought you'd show right disappointed over us givin' in, after what you tried to do, Lawler. You're sure a square man." He laughed.
He saw now that he should not have left his men; that he had made a mistake in coming alone to meet Lawler. He was certain of it now, when he heard Lawler's voice, saw the cold, smiling light in his eyes. "You're wanting my cattle, Antrim. Your men have been trailing me for two weeks. You don't get them. You've got thirty-nine men, and there are only twenty-three Circle L men over there.
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 retard the movement, were flopping back and forth wildly, and his teeth rattled despite his efforts to clench them.
Therefore, aware that he could not meet this man on the basis of friendliness that had distinguished all his relations with Jim Lefingwell, Lawler's voice was crisp and businesslike: "You're Gary Warden?" At the latter's short, affirmative nod, Lawler continued: "I'm Kane Lawler, of the Circle L. I've come to make arrangements with you about buying my cattle.
He turned at the sound of the door opening, and faced Lawler inquiringly. Perhaps in Lawler's eyes there still remained a trace of the cold passion that had seized him in the schoolhouse; it may have been that what Lawler had heard of Gary Warden was reflected in his gaze a doubt of Warden's honorableness.
The movement brought him against the muzzle of Lawler's horse. He halted jerkily, retreated a step, and looked up, to see Lawler looking at him from behind the muzzle of the big pistol that had leaped into his hand. There was no word spoken none could be heard at the moment. What followed was grim pantomime, with tragedy lurking near. The tall man held his position.
Lawler watched both men derisively. "Then, when you saw no one was here, and that it was likely the norther would keep anyone from coming, you cut the fence. That's it, eh?" The two men did not answer, regarding him sullenly. Lawler smiled. This time there was a cold mirth in his smile that caused the two men to look quickly at each other. They paled and scowled at what they saw in Lawler's eyes.
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.
Oddly, at the instant Warden's memory was dwelling upon the incident of Lawler's return to Willets, Lafe Corwin, the storekeeper, was mentally reviewing the incident. Willets was a cow-town, and for the winter its activity was over.
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