he soft
moonlight that flooded the plains between the cabin and Willets.

* * * * *

The ivory-handled pistols were still on Lawler's desk when his secretary
softly opened a door and entered. The secretary smiled slightly at sight
of the weapons, but he said no word as he advanced to the desk and
placed a telegram before Lawler.

He stood, waiting respectfully, as Lawler read the telegram. It was from
Moreton:

"Governor Lawler: There's something mighty wrong going on in Willets.
Slade and his gang struck town this morning. He was with Warden all day
in the Wolf. Don't depend on the new sheriff."

Lawler got up, his face paling. He dismissed the secretary and then
stood for several minutes looking down at the pistols on the desk. They
offered a quick solution of the problem that confronted him.

At this minute he was conscious of one thing only--that Slade was in
Willets. Slade, who had led the gang that had killed his men--Slade,
whose face haunted Blackburn's dreams--the man the Circle L outfit held
responsible for the massacre that day on the plains above the big
valley.

Lurking in the metal cylinders of the two weapons on the desk was that
death which Warden, Singleton, Slade, and the others deserved at his
hands. He took up the pistols, nestling their sinister shapes in his
palms, while his blood rioted with the terrible lust that now seized
him--the old urge to do violence, the primal instinct to slay, to which
he had yielded when Shorty told him of the things Blondy Antrim had
done.

Another minute passed while he fondled the weapons. Twice he moved as
though to buckle the cartridge belt around his waist--shoving aside the
black coat he wore, which would have hidden them. But each time he
changed his mind.

He knew that if he wore them he would use them. The driving intensity of
his desire to kill Warden, Singleton, and Slade would overwhelm him if
he should find they had harmed Ruth. The deadly passion that held him in
a mighty clutch would take no account of his position, of his duty to
the state, or of the oath he had taken to obey and administer the laws.

While he silently fought the lust that filled his heart the secretary
came in. He started and then stood rigid, watching Lawler, seeming to
divine something of the struggle that was going on before his eyes. He
saw how Lawler's muscles had tensed, how his chin had gone forward with
a vicious thrust--noted the awf