Blackburn gulped.  He was puzzled, and his eyes were glazed with the incomprehension which had seized him.  Twice again as he watched Lawler’s grave face he gulped.  And then he eyed Lawler belligerently.

“I reckon them monitors is eastern.  I’ve never seen one galivantin’ around these parts.”

“They’re a lot eastern,” assented Lawler.  “I’ve never seen one, but I’ve read about them in books.  And once my mother saw one—­she tells me the East raises them by the hundred.”

“That accounts for it,” declared Blackburn; “anything which comes from the East is likely to be a heap shy on hoss sense.”

He now squinted at Lawler, watching him keenly.

“Accordin’ to report Joe Hamlin ought to go around draggin’ one of them monitors.”

Blackburn shrewdly noted the quickening of Lawler’s eyes, and the dull red that stole into his face.

“What do you mean, Blackburn?”

“Davies an’ Harris hit town ag’in last night; an’ comin’ back they run plumb into Joe Hamlin.  He was in the upper end of the box arroyo.  He’d roped an’ hog-tied a Circle L cow an’ was blottin’ our brand out.”

“What happened?” Lawler’s lips were set in grim lines.

“Nothin’—­followin’ your orders regardin’ the cuss.  Davies an’ Harris let him go—­after warnin’ him.  Somethin’ ought to be done.  It ain’t addin’ a heap to the morals of the outfit for the men to know a man can rustle cattle that promiscuous—­an’ the boss not battin’ an eyewinker.  This is the fourth time he’s been caught with the goods—­to say nothin’ of the times he’s done it without nobody gittin’ wise—­an’ the boys is beginnin’ to ask questions, bein’ a heap puzzled because somethin’ don’t happen to Joe.”

Lawler’s face was expressionless.  Except for the flush in his cheeks he seemed to be unaffected by Blackburn’s words.  His voice was a trifle cold when he spoke: 

“I’ll attend to Hamlin.  I’ll stop at the Two Bar on my way to Willets.  By the time you reach town with the cattle I’ll have the deal with Warden clinched.”

Blackburn nodded, and Lawler wheeled the bay, heading him northward.

As he rode, Lawler’s face changed expression.  He frowned, and his lips set stiffly.

What he had been almost on the point of telling his mother was that he knew why Ruth Hamlin had refused him.  It was pride, nothing less.  Lawler suspected that Ruth knew her father was a rustler.  In fact, there had been times when he had seen that knowledge lying naked in her eyes when she looked at her parent.  Accusation and disgust had been there, but mingling with them was the persistent loyalty that had always governed the girl; the protective instinct, and a hope of reformation.

The pride that Mrs. Lawler had exhibited was not less strong in the girl’s heart.  By various signs Lawler knew the girl loved him; he knew it as positively as he knew she would not marry him while the stigma of guilt rested upon her parent.  And he was convinced that she was ignorant of the fact that Lawler shared her secret.  That was why Lawler had permitted Hamlin to escape; it was why he had issued orders to his men to suffer Hamlin’s misdeeds without exacting the expiation that custom provided.  Lawler did not want Ruth to know that he knew.