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Plainly, Singleton had recovered from the first blow, and had received another. Lawler's voice again reached her. It was low, vibrant with passion. "Singleton, I ought to kill you. I will kill you if you ever tell that girl that you know her father is a rustler. Damn your hide, she knows it now and it's breaking her heart! "I'm warning you. Don't you ever go near the Two Bar again.
"Easy, there, Simmons." There was a chill in Lawler's voice that brought Simmons rigid with a snap as though he had suddenly been drenched with cold water. The flush left his face; he drew a deep, quick breath; then stood with open mouth, watching Lawler. "Simmons," said the latter; "it has been my experience that whenever a man is touchy about his veracity, he will bear watching.
"One would think we were facing a cataclysm, whereas business men are merely just beginning to take advantage of some of the opportunities that are everywhere around them. It is all perfectly legal, isn't it? I have heard my father say that it is." Lawler's smile grew slightly bitter.
But there was cold malice in Lawler's heart toward Warden; and he stood, silent, watchful, until Warden recovered from his astonishment. He was determined to compel Warden to ask the question that, plainly, was in his mind. And at last Warden asked it: "What did you kill them for?" "I caught them cutting my fence, Warden. At just about the time the storm struck.
"When were you to cut the fence?" "When the norther struck." "You saw us cache grub in the cabin?" The man nodded. "What if you had found a couple of line riders here? What were you told to do if you found line riders here? I'm wanting the truth all of it!" The man hesitated. Lawler's pistol roared, the concussion rocking the air of the cabin.
There lingered in his mind at this minute as it had dwelt during all the days he had known Lawler the knowledge that Lawler's father had been a gunman of wide reputation, and that he had taught his son the precision and swiftness that had made him famous in the deadly art.
You're to run off them cattle of Lawler's three thousand head which he euchered me out of last fall. You're takin' three thousand head, Slade not a one less. If you take less you're through with me. You'll run 'em down through Kinney's cañon, clear through to the big basin beyond. At the other end you'll head 'em south, to Mexico where we've been runnin' 'em for three years past.
I'd like to have you give me a certificate of ownership tonight, so we can start to drive before daylight." Jordan's face whitened, and then grew crimson. He essayed to look up, to meet Lawler's eyes, raising his head and then lowering it again without achieving his desire. He cleared his throat, shifted his body and scuffed his feet on the floor.
The whole was thoroughly commanded from the height west of the river. At the upper end of the bayou there was a strip of uncleared land which afforded a cover for a portion of our men. Carr's division was deployed on our right, Lawler's brigade forming his extreme right and reaching through these woods to the river above.
Lawler's smile, cold and mirthless, brought a pulse of apprehension through him, and Lawler's voice, slow, clear, and distinct, forced the blood from his face, leaving it pale: "I don't let any man twist my words so that they mean something I don't intend them to mean, Mister Man. If I intended to call you a liar, I'd have said it to you mighty plain, so there'd be no doubt in your mind about it.
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