Nothing happened.  And Red King thundered down the trail where it doubled half a mile from the Dickman cabin, and swept out upon the level that surrounded the place, his speed unslackened, his rider still urging him.

Lawler had forgotten Shorty.  Half a mile behind him the giant’s horse labored, making better time on the level river trail than he had made over the plains.  But Lawler did not even think of Shorty.  His brain was upon the work that was before him, his thoughts were definitely centered upon Antrim and the Circle L men that Antrim and his men had killed.  It was concentration of a sinister character that had seized Lawler, and in it was a single purpose, a single determination—­to kill Antrim.

He saw the cabin as he crossed the level—­a patch of bare, sandy earth surrounding it; and the other buildings, with no sign of life near them.  His gaze swept the corral, and he saw no horse in it.  As he guided Red King toward the cabin he peered vainly for sight of Antrim’s horse.

Not a living thing was in sight.  The buildings were silent, seemingly deserted.  And the atmosphere of the place seemed to be pregnant with a lurking threat, a hint of hidden danger.

He grinned as he plunged Red King to the door of the cabin—­a grin which meant that he expected Antrim would be waiting for him, but which expressed his contempt of ambuscades and traps.

As he slipped from Red King he drew his pistol and lunged forward, bringing up against the cabin door and sending it crashing inward, against the wall.

He halted just inside the door, his pistol rigid in his right hand, which was pressed tightly to his side; for directly in front of him, standing, his arms folded over his chest, was Antrim, a huge, venomous grin on his face.

“Well, you got here, Lawler,” he said, huskily.  “You come a-runnin’, didn’t you?  Well, I had your cattle run off, an’ I burned your buildin’s.  What are you aimin’ to do about it?”

Lawler did not move.  He might have killed Antrim, for the man’s weapon was in the holster at his hip—­Lawler could see the stock sticking above the leather.  He had expected Antrim would be in the cabin when he opened the door; he anticipated that the outlaw would shoot on sight, and he had been prepared to do the same.

But there was something in the outlaw’s manner, in the cold, measured tone of his voice, in his nonchalant disregard of the pistol in Lawler’s hand that brought a swift suspicion into Lawler’s mind.  It was a presentiment that the outlaw was not alone in the cabin; that he had carefully laid his plans, and that they did not include a gun fight in which he would have to face Lawler upon equal terms.

Lawler did not look around.  He kept his gaze unwaveringly upon the outlaw, knowing that if other men were in the cabin with him they were waiting for Antrim to give the word to shoot him.  Otherwise they would have shot him down when he had entered.