He was in no hurry to let them in, and he walked deliberately to the table and stood beside it, his back to the fire, smiling ironically.

He heard no further sound, and he supposed the men had gone to the dugout to turn their horses into its shelter before again trying the door.

He was in a grimly humorous mood now, and he stooped, blew out the light and stepped toward the door, standing back of it, where it would swing against him when the men opened it.

He loosened the fastenings, stealthily.  He wanted them to come in and find the two fence cutters there.

He stood for a long time at the door, listening, waiting.  No sound reached his ears, and he scowled, puzzled.  Then, above the wailing voice of the storm, came the shrill, piercing neigh of a horse.

Several times in his life had Lawler heard that sound—­once when a cow-pony which had been bogged down in quicksand had neighed when he had been drawn under; and again when a horse which he had been riding had stepped into a gopher hole and had broken a leg.  He had been forced to shoot the animal, for which he had formed a sincere attachment; and it had seemed to him that when he drew the pistol the horse knew what impended—­for its shrill neigh had been almost human in its terrible appeal.

It was such a sound that now reached his ears above the roar of the storm.

Davies and Harris were in trouble.

With a bound Lawler tore the door open and stood, leaning against the terrific wind, trying to peer out into the white smother that shrieked around him.  When he made out the outlines of a horse not more than half a dozen feet from the open doorway—­the animal so encrusted with snow that he looked like a pallid ghost—­and a shapeless bundle on his back that seemingly was ready to pitch into a huge drift that had formed in front of the cabin—­he leaped outward, a groan of sympathy breaking from him.

In an instant he was inside again, carrying the shapeless bundle, his lips stiff and white as he peered close at it as he tenderly laid it on the floor of the cabin.

With swift movements he lighted the lamp again, and then returning to the bundle, leaned over it, pulling away a scarf that covered its head and disclosing a white, drawn face—­the face of the woman he had met, in Willets, at the foot of the stairs leading to Gary Warden’s office!

Lawler wheeled swiftly, leaping to first one and then to the other of the bunks where the fence cutters lay, tearing the ropes from them.

The tall man tumbled out first, urged by what he had seen and by the low tense voice of his captor.  He seized a tin pan and dove out of the open doorway, returning instantly, the pan heaped high with snow.  The other man, following the first quickly, dove through the snow drifts to the dugout where he fumbled in the slicker on Lawler’s saddle until he found a flask.

By the time the little man returned the woman was in one of the lower bunks.  A pair of bare feet, small and shapely, were sticking out over the edge of the bunk, and the tall fence cutter was vigorously rubbing snow upon them.  A pair of small, high-top riding boots of soft, pliable leather, was lying beside the bunk near some pitiably thin stockings.