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