longing that he often had yielded to in the old
days--before he had learned to control his passions. There were times
when he was almost persuaded to break the laws for which he had fought
in the old days--moments when it seemed to him that further toleration
of the attacks of his enemies would be a sign of weakness. But he had
conquered those surges of passion, though the victory always left him
with a smile on his face that would have awed Warden, had he seen it.

Something of that passion was in his heart now, as he rode toward the
Circle L. It had become plain to him that Warden would adopt any means
to destroy him; that in the man's heart was a malignant hatred that was
driving him to a boldness that could mean nothing but that in the end
they must settle their differences as man to man. Lawler would not
always be able to control the passion that lurked in him. He knew it.
One day Warden would press him too hard. And then----

His thoughts had made him oblivious to his surroundings. A whinney from
Red King brought him out of his ruminations, and he looked swiftly up,
and then directly ahead, to see a horseman racing toward him; the rider
crouched in the saddle, the horse running low, coming toward him at a
speed that brought him out of depressions with light, flying bounds, and
over the crests of small hills with a velocity that was dizzying.

The running horse and the crouching rider were still a mile from Lawler;
but even at that distance Lawler recognized Shorty, and he urged Red
King on to meet him, suspecting that nothing but a stern emergency would
make the man race his horse at that speed.

Lawler glanced back as he rode. He had come several miles, and the
rolling character of the plains behind him had blotted Willets out. He
saw, too, that he had reached a point where three trails converged.
One--which Shorty was traveling--came westward from the Two
Bar--Hamlin's ranch; the other, leading almost straight southward, was
the Circle L trail; the third, leading southward also, though inclining
in a westward direction, ran to the Rabbit Ear, near the Dickman
cabin--the ranch where Antrim and his men had established themselves.

Shorty came on at cyclonic speed. When he reached a point within a
hundred yards of Lawler, the latter observed that Shorty's face was
pale; that his jaws were set and his eyes glowing with a wild, savage
light.

Stiffening, his lips straightening, a responsive passion assailing him