“There’s a heap to be told,” he said.  “I’m listening.”

A silence followed his words.  Both men moistened their lips; neither spoke.

“Get going!” commanded Lawler.

“We was headin’ south,” said the small man.  “We cut the fence to git through.”

Lawler’s eyelids flickered slightly.  The heavy pistol swung upward until the dark tube gaped somberly into the small man’s eyes.

“I’ve got loads of time, but I don’t feel like wasting it,” said Lawler.  “You’ve got one minute to come clean.  Keep your traps shut for that time and I bore you—­both—­and chuck you outside!”

His smile might have misled some men, but the small man had correctly valued Lawler.

“Gary Warden hired us to cut the fence.”

The man’s voice was a placative whine.  His furtive eyes swept Lawler’s face for signs of emotion.

There were no signs.  Lawler’s face might have been an expressionless mask.  Not a muscle of his body moved.  The offense was a monstrous one in the ethics of the country, and the fence cutter had a right to expect Lawler to exhibit passion of some kind.

“Gary Warden, eh?” Lawler laughed quietly.  “If you’re lying——­”

The man protested that he was telling the truth.

At this point the tall man sneered.

“Hell,” he said; “quit your damn blabbin’!”

“Yes,” grinned Lawler, speaking to the small man.  “You’re quitting your talk.  From now on your friend is going to do it.  I’m asking questions a heap rapid, and the answers are going to jump right onto the tails of the questions.  If they don’t, I’m going to see how near I can come to boring a hole in the place where he has his brains cached.”

The man glared malignantly at Lawler; but when the first question came it was answered instantly: 

“How much did Warden pay you?”

“A hundred dollars.”

“When were you to cut the fence?”

“When the norther struck.”

“You saw us cache grub in the cabin?”

The man nodded.

“What if you had found a couple of line riders here?  What were you told to do if you found line riders here?  I’m wanting the truth—­all of it!”

The man hesitated.  Lawler’s pistol roared, the concussion rocking the air of the cabin.  The man staggered back, clapping a hand to his head, where, it seemed to him, the bullet from the pistol had been aimed.

The man brought up against the rear wall of the cabin, beside the fireplace; and he leaned against it, his face ghastly with fright, his lips working soundlessly.  The little man cowered, plainly expecting Lawler would shoot him, too.  And Lawler’s gun did swing up again, but the voice of the tall man came, blurtingly: 

“Warden told us to knife any men we found here.”

Lawler’s lips straightened, and his eyes glowed with a passion so intense that the men shrank, gibbering, in the grip of a mighty paralysis.