smiled at the empty corral.

Looking out of one of his office windows this morning, Warden scowled.
He remembered a day, a year or so ago, when he had stood in one of the
windows of his office watching Della Wharton wave a handkerchief at
Lawler. She had been riding out of town in a buckboard, with Aunt
Hannah beside her, and Lawler had just come from the railroad station.
That incident had spread the poison of jealousy in Warden's veins; the
recollection of it had caused him to doubt Della's story of what had
happened at the line cabin during the blizzard of the preceding winter;
it had filled him with the maddening conviction that Lawler had
deliberately tried to alienate Della's affections--that Lawler, knowing
Della to be vain and frivolous, had intentionally planned the girl's
visit to the line cabin.

He did not blame Della for what had happened. Upon Lawler was the blame
for the affair; Lawler had planned it all, merely to be revenged upon
him for his refusal to keep the agreement that had been made with
Lefingwell.

Warden sneered as his thoughts went to that day in Jordan's office when
Lawler, a deadly threat in his eyes, had leaned close to him to warn
him. Warden remembered the words--they had flamed in his consciousness
since.

"But get this straight," Lawler had said. "You've got to fight _me_!
Understand? You'll drag no woman into it. You went to Hamlin's ranch the
other day. God's grace and a woman's mercy permitted you to get away,
alive. Just so sure as you molest a woman in the section, just so sure
will I kill you, no matter who your friends are!"

Apparently, in Lawler's code of morals, it was one thing to force one's
attentions upon a pretty woman, and another thing to steal the
affections of a woman promised to another man.

But Warden's passion permitted him to make no distinction. And his rage
was based upon the premise that Lawler was guilty. Warden's thoughts
grew abysmal as he stood at the window; and considerations of business
became unimportant in his mind as the Satanic impulse seized him. He
stood for a long time at the window, and when he finally seized hat and
coat and went down into the street he was muttering, savagely:

"God's grace and a woman's mercy. Bah! Damn you, Lawler; I'll make you
squirm!"

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE TRAP

For more than a month--or from a few days following the night on which
she had seen her father talking with Dave Singleton--Ruth Hamlin had