I hear,
Kane ain't goin' to marry no ignoramus exactly, for he's took a shine to
Ruth Hamlin, Willets' school teacher. She's got a heap of brains, that
girl, an' I reckon she'd lope alongside of Kane, wherever he went."

The woman frowned. "Is Mr. Lawler going to marry Ruth Hamlin?"

Corwin looked sharply at her. "What do you suppose he's fannin' up to
her for?" he demanded. "Neither of them is a heap flighty, I reckon. An'
Kane will marry her if she'll have him--accordin' to the way things
generally go."

The woman smiled as she left Corwin and joined the older woman at the
front of the store. She smiled as she talked with the other woman, and
she smiled as they both walked out of the store and climbed into a
buckboard. The smile was one that would have puzzled Corwin, for it was
inscrutable, baffling. Only one thing Corwin might have seen in
it--determination. And that might have puzzled him, also.

CHAPTER VI

THE INVISIBLE POWER

Jay Simmons, the freight agent, was tilted comfortably in a chair near a
window looking out upon the railroad platform when Lawler stepped into
the office. The office was on the second floor, and from a side window
the agent had seen Lawler coming toward the station from Warden's
office. He had been sitting near the side window, but when he saw Lawler
approaching the station he had drawn his chair to one of the front
windows. And now, apparently, he was surprised to see Lawler, for when
the latter opened the door of the office Simmons exclaimed, with assumed
heartiness:

"Well, if it ain't Kane Lawler!"

Simmons was a rotund man, bald, with red hair that had a faded,
washed-out appearance. His eyes were large, pale blue in color, with a
singularly ingratiating expression which was made almost yearning by
light, colorless lashes.

Simmons' eyes, however, were unreliable as an index to his character.
One could not examine very far into them. They seemed to be shallow,
baffling. Simmons did not permit his eyes to betray his thoughts. He
used them as masks to hide from prying eyes the things that he did not
wish others to see.

"Come a-visitin', Lawler?" asked Simmons as Lawler halted midway in the
room and smiled faintly at the greeting he received.

"Not exactly, Simmons."

"Not exactly, eh? I reckon that means you've got some business. I'll be
glad to help you out--if I can."

"I'm going to ship my stock East, Simmons, and I'm wanting cars for
them--eight thousand