The Argosy, March 27, 1920 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

Cuv@erm i he frail | lorde by Chik: Alden Seltzer Author of “' Riddle Gawne,”’ “ Beau Rand,‘ “ Square Deal fae tore "@ WHAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED HE first inkling of a conspiracy. to ruin him came to Kane Lawler, of the Circle L, when Gary Warden, buyer for a cattle company at Willets, repudiated Lawler’s. oral contract with Warden’s. predecessor, Lefingwell. Lawler’s meeting with Simmons, freight agest, further strengthened this belief. Warden had stated that he could have all the cars he wanted—Simmons had said there were none. Prior to his trip to town, Eawler, who had inherited his father’s prowess with a gun, thrashed the son of Dave Smeleton for attacking Ruth Hamlin, whorm Lawler loved, anc whose father had been encouraged to rustle Lawler’s stock by Singleton. But. at Simmons’s suggestion that Lawler would make it hot for them—in the matter of the refusal of cars for the shipment of his stock—Warden sneered. Lawler went unmediately to the Willets Hotel, where, in a conversation with several ranch owners, they appointed him spokesman to visit the capital—for they were all in the same boat. Meantime, following Warden's talk with Singleton, in which the latter had spoken of a certain Blondy Antrim and Kinney’s Canon, and his encouragement of the latter’s hatred for Lawler, Warden, yielding to his passion for Ruth, attacked her at her cabin im her father’s absence. Lawler, however, coming on the scene, spared Warden at Ruth’s plea, later dispatching Hamlin—whom he had given a job at the Circle L—on a mysterious mission prior to his futile visit to the capital and his interviews with Hatheld, railroad commissioner, and Governor Haughton. Lawler was new convinced that the invisible power was widespread. Hatfield was a part of it—as well as Haughton. After giving the story of the Governor's refusal to help him to Metcalf, of the News, Lawler, returning to Willets, met with an added proof, if such were necessary, of the far-reachmg conspiracy against him; a new ordinance had been passed abrogating the old vent” law by which owners, registering their cattle, had been protected: against rustlers. Then, after leaving three thousand head at home, at Blackburn, the foreman’s suggestion, Lawler, with his men, took the Tom Long trail to Red Rock, five hundred miles away. But of the hazards which confronted them Warden knew, and Singleton knew. The latter snarled bestially. ‘Showed yellow at the last minute,” he whispered to Warden; ‘only drivin’ about half of them. Well, we'll take care of them he’s leavin’, before the winter's over,’ CHAPTER XIL. OBLIGATION. She loved Lawler; she had never at- tempted to deny it, not even to herself. And she had found it hard to restrain herself FTER the departure of Lawler on the when he had stood outside the door of her A night of Gary Warden’s visit to the room gravely pleading with her. Pride only Hamlin cabin, silence, vast and deep, had kept her from yielding—the humiliat- reigned inside. The last golden shadows ing conviction that she was not good enough from the sinking sun yielded to the somber for him—or rather that her father’s crimes shades of twilight as Ruth came to the door and peered outward, to see Lawler riding away. For a long time the girl watched Lawler, her face burning with shame over what had happened, her senses revolting from the realization of the things Lawler knew con- cerning her father. Then she seated her- self on the threshold of the doorway, watch- ing the long shadows steal over the plains. had made it impossible for her to accept Lawler upon a basis of equality, She felt that Lawler would take her upon any terms—indeed, hts manner while in the cabin shortly before convinced her of that; but she did not want to go to him under those conditions. She would have felt, al- ways, as though pity for her had infiu- enced him. She felt that she would al- ways be searching his eyes, probing them This story began in The Argosy for March 13, 6 Arcosy 241 comnliclooolks. Comin