Then, for a time, he lounged in the chair, gazing meditatively at the north window, noting how the fine, frozen snow meal clung to the glass; watching the light fade, listening to the howling white terror that had seized the world in its icy grip.

At the end of an hour it grew dark in the cabin.  Lawler got up, lighted the kerosene lamp, placed it on the table, seated himself on a bench and again meditatively watched the leaping flames in the fireplace.

Satisfaction glowed in his eyes as he thought of what would have happened had he not decided to substitute for Davies and Harris.  Undoubtedly by this time the two men were on their way to the camp.  They would certainly have noticed the warning bleak northern sky and other indications of the coming storm.  And undoubtedly, if they had started toward the camp, they were by this time being punished for their dereliction.  They would make the camp, though, he was sure, for they had the wind at their backs, and they knew the trail.  He expected, any minute, to hear them at the door.  He grinned, his face a trifle grim as he anticipated their astonishment at finding him there, with the two fence cutters occupying the bunks.

He had not followed the herd to the Circle L shelters because he had had small hope of keeping close to the fence cutters in the storm.  And he had brought them back to the cabin to make sure of them.  As he sat at the table he drew out the paper the men had signed and read their names: 

“Lay Givens.”

“Ben Link.”

Their confession would convict Gary Warden of a crime that—­if it did not open the doors of the penitentiary to him—­would bring upon him the condemnation of every honest man in the state.  In his anxiety to inflict damage upon Lawler, Warden had overstepped himself.

Lawler had betrayed no passion that day when he had got off the train at Willets with his men and Blondy Antrim.  He had not permitted any of them to suspect that the incident of the attempted theft of a portion of the trail herd had affected him.  But it had affected him.  It had aroused him as he never had been aroused before; it had filled him with a passionate hatred of Gary Warden so intense that when his thoughts dwelt upon the man he felt a lust to destroy him.  Not even Lafe Corwin, watching him that day at Willets, knew how he had fought to overcome the driving desire to kill Warden, Singleton, and Antrim, as they had stood there on the platform.

His eyes chilled now, as he thought of Warden and the others.  He got up, his blood pulsing heavily, and started toward the fire.  He had reached it, and was standing before it, when he heard a sound at the door—­a faint knocking, and a voice.

Davies and Harris were coming now.  They were cold, he supposed, had seen the light in the window—­perhaps had tried the door; the wind drowning the noise so that he had not heard it before.  They were in a hurry to get in, to the warmth the cabin afforded.