“But if there are no cars?” smiled Lawler.

Again he saw Warden’s face redden.

“A shortage of cars would mean a shortage of cattle in the East, I reckon,” went on Lawler.  “And a shortage of cattle would mean higher prices for those that got through.  But I’m not arguing—­nor am I accepting twenty-five for my cattle.  I reckon I’ll have to ship my stock East.”

“Well, I wish you luck,” said Warden.

He turned his back to Lawler, bending over his desk.

Something in his voice—­a hint of mockery tempered with rage—­brought Lawler to a pause as he crossed the threshold of the doorway.  He turned and looked back at Warden, puzzled, for it seemed to him that Warden was defying him; and he seemed to feel the atmosphere of complacence that surrounded the man.  His manner hinted of secret knowledge—­strongly; it gave Lawler an impression of something stealthy, clandestine.  Warden’s business methods were not like Lefingwell’s.  Lefingwell had been bluff, frank, and sincere; there was something in Warden’s manner that seemed to exude craft and guile.  The contrast between the two men was sharp, acute, startling; and Lawler descended the stairs feeling that he had just been in contact with something that crept instead of walking upright like a man.

A recollection of the woman he had met at the foot of the stairs came to Lawler as he descended, and thought of her did much to erase the impression he had gained of Warden.  He grinned, thinking of how he had caught her watching him as he had mounted the stairs.  And then he reddened as he realized that he would not have known she was watching him had he not turned to look back at her.

He found himself wondering about her—­why she had been in Warden’s office, and who she could be.  And then he remembered his conversation with Blackburn, about “chapper-owns,” and he decided she must be that woman to whom Blackburn had referred as “a woman at Lefingwell’s old place, keepin’ Warden company.”  He frowned, and crossed the street, going toward the railroad station building, in which he would find the freight agent.

And as he walked he was considering another contrast—­that afforded by his glimpse of the strange woman and Ruth Hamlin.  And presently he found himself smiling with pleasure, with a mental picture of Ruth’s face before him—­her clear, direct-looking, honest eyes, with no guile in them like that which had glowed in the eyes that had gazed into his at the foot of the stairs.

Over in Corwin’s store, where “Aunt Hannah,” had gone to make some small purchases, the woman who had encountered Lawler in the hall was talking with the proprietor.  Aunt Hannah was watching a clerk.

“Della,” she called; “do you want anything?”

“Nothing, Aunty,” returned the woman.  Then she lowered her voice, speaking to Corwin: 

“So he owns the Circle L?  Is that a large ranch?”

“One of the biggest in the Wolf River section,” declared Corwin.