The Argosy, March 27, 1920 — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

260 THE ARGOSY. 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 por- tion of the trail herd had affected him. But it had affected him, It had aroused him as he had never 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 de- sire 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 stand- ing 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. He heard no further sound, and he sup- posed 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 she 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 ap- peal. Tt 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 was seemingly 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, carry- ing 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 bun- dle, 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 COomMmicbooksscom —