What did you hear ?" "Everything, Kane--everything." The sobs were furious, now.
Lawler frowned through a silence during which his eyes glowed savagely.
Then, after a while, he spoke again.
"I've known it for a long time, Ruth." "Oh!" she sobbed.
"It was Singleton's fault.

He won't do it any more." There was no answer; a brooding silence came from beyond the door.
Then Lawler said gently: "Ruth, I'm asking you again: Will you marry me ?" "I'll never marry you, now, Kane--never, never, never!" The sobs had ceased now; but the voice was choked with emotion.
"All right, Ruth," said Lawler; "I'll ask you again, sometime.

And the next time you won't refuse." He crossed the floor and stepped outside.

Leaping into the saddle he sent Red King thundering away from the cabin into the dusk that swathed the southern distance.
A yellow moon was rising above the peaks of the hills at the far edge of the Wolf River valley when Lawler dismounted from Red King and strode to the big Circle L bunkhouse.

Inside a kerosene lamp burned on a table around which were several men.
The men looked up in astonishment as Lawler entered; then got to their feet, looking at Lawler wonderingly, for on his face was an expression that none of them ever had seen there before.
"Have any of you seen Joe Hamlin ?" said Lawler.
A yellow-haired giant among them grinned widely and pointed eloquently toward a bunk, where a man's body, swathed in blankets, could be seen.
"That's him," said the yellow-haired giant.