floor when he felt Lawler's fingers at his throat.

To his astonishment, the fingers did not sink into the flesh. They
touched his throat lightly, and he dazedly met Lawler's eyes, burning,
with a passion he never had seen in them before. And Lawler's voice was
dry and light, but steady--so steady and cold that Hamlin realized that
only the man's complete mastery of himself had kept him from committing
murder.

"Hamlin, I ought to kill you. I'm letting you off on one condition--that
you break off with Singleton, and that you keep silent about the things
we both know. If you confess to Ruth that you've been rustling cattle,
or if you tell her--or hint of it--that I know you've been
rustling--I'll tear you apart!

"You're like a lot of other damned, weak-kneed polecats. You've got a
girl who is good as gold, and you're making a regular hell for her.
She's wise to what you've been doing--she suspects you. And from now on
you're going to show her that she was wrong--that you're straight and
square.

"There's a job for you over at the Circle L--if you want it. I'll throw
things in your way; I'll put you on your feet again--give you stock and
tools, and pretend I've sold them to you. I'll do anything to keep you
square. But if you tell Ruth, I'll kill you as sure as my name is
Lawler!"

"I'm agreein'," said Hamlin, thickly. "I ain't wanted to do the things
I've been doin'. But things didn't go right, an' Singleton--damn it,
Lawler; I never liked the man, an' I don't know _why_ I've been doin' what
I have been doin'. But I've wanted to do somethin' for Ruth--so's she
could quit teachin' an' live like a lady. I thought if I could get a
bunch of coin together that mebbe she'd have----"

"She'd see you dead before she'd touch it," scoffed Lawler.

"Mebbe I'd be better off if I was dead," said Hamlin, glumly.

"You'll die, right enough, if you don't keep your word to me," grimly
declared Lawler.

He strode to the door, leaped upon Red King and rode away.

Inside the cabin, Hamlin got to his feet and swayed toward the door,
reaching it and looking out, to see Lawler riding rapidly toward
Willets.

CHAPTER III

A WOMAN'S EYES

There had been a day when Willets was but a name, designating a water
tank and a railroad siding where panting locomotives, hot and dry from a
long run through an arid, sandy desert that stretched westward from the
shores of civilization, rested, while begrimed, overalled men adjusted