CHAPTER XVII
THE LINE CABIN
The two men had walked to a point near the big fireplace that occupiedthe greater part of one end of the cabin. The hatless one, big,assertive, belligerent, grinned defiantly, saying nothing in answer toLawler's words.
The other man, slighter, and plainly apprehensive, glanced swiftly athis companion; then dropped his gaze to the floor.
"You skunks bunked here last night!" charged Lawler, sharply. "When Iwas here, yesterday, these bunks were made up. Look at them now! Talkfast. Were you here last night?"
The smaller man nodded.
"Why didn't you cut the fence last night?"
The smaller man grinned. "We wasn't aimin' to get caught."
"Expected there'd be line riders here, eh?"
The other did not answer. Lawler watched both men derisively.
"Then, when you saw no one was here, and that it was likely the northerwould keep anyone from coming, you cut the fence. That's it, eh?"
The two men did not answer, regarding him sullenly.
Lawler smiled. This time there was a cold mirth in his smile that causedthe two men to look quickly at each other. They paled and scowled atwhat they saw in Lawler's eyes.
Half a dozen bunks ranged the side walls of the cabin, four on one side,two on the other, arranged in tiers, upper and lower. A rough, squaretable stood near the center of the room, with a low bench on one side ofit and several low chairs on the other. A big chuck-box stood in acorner near the fireplace, its top half open, revealing the supplieswith which the receptacle was filled; some shelves on the other side ofthe fireplace were piled high with canned foods and bulging packages.The bunks were filled with bedclothing; and an oil-lamp stood on atriangular shelf in a corner near the door. The walls were bare with theexception of some highly colored lithographs that, evidently, had beenplaced there by someone in whom the love of art still flourished.
It was cold in the cabin. A window in the north wall, with four smallpanes of glass in it, was slowly whitening with the frost that wasstealing over it. In the corners of the mullions were fine snow drifts;and through a small crevice in the roof a white spray filtered,ballooning around the room. The temperature was rapidly falling.
During the silence which followed Lawler's words, and while the twofence cutters watched each other, and Lawler, all caught the voice ofthe storm, raging, furious, incessant.
With his free hand Lawler unbuttoned his coat, tossed his cap into abunk and ran a hand through his hair, shoving it back from his forehead.His movements were deliberate. It was as though catching fence cutterswas an everyday occurrence.
Yet something in his eyes--the thing the two men had seen--gave the lieto the atmosphere of deliberate ease that radiated from him. In his eyeswas something that warned, that hinted of passion.
As the men watched him, noting his muscular neck and shoulders; the slimwaist of him, the set of his head--which had that hint of consciousstrength, mental and physical, which marks the intelligent fighter--theyshrank a little, glowering sullenly.
Lawler stood close to the door, the pistol dangling from his right hand.He had hooked the thumb of the left hand into his cartridge belt, andhis eyes were gleaming with feline humor.
"There's a heap to be told," he said. "I'm listening."
A silence followed his words. Both men moistened their lips; neitherspoke.
"Get going!" commanded Lawler.
"We was headin' south," said the small man. "We cut the fence to gitthrough."
Lawler's eyelids flickered slightly. The heavy pistol swung upward untilthe dark tube gaped somberly into the small man's eyes.
"I've got loads of time, but I don't feel like wasting it," said Lawler."You've got one minute to come clean. Keep your traps shut for that timeand I bore you--both--and chuck you outside!"
His smile might have misled some men, but the small man had correctlyvalued Lawler.
"Gary Warden hired us to cut the fence."
The man's voice was a placative whine. His furtive eyes swept Lawler'sface for signs of emotion.
There were no signs. Lawler's face might have been an expressionlessmask. Not a muscle of his body moved. The offense was a monstrous one inthe ethics of the country, and the fence cutter had a right to expectLawler to exhibit passion of some kind.
"Gary Warden, eh?" Lawler laughed quietly. "If you're lying----"
The man protested that he was telling the truth.
At this point the tall man sneered.
"Hell," he said; "quit your damn blabbin'!"
"Yes," grinned Lawler, speaking to the small man. "You're quitting yourtalk. From now on your friend is going to do it. I'm asking questions aheap rapid, and the answers are going to jump right onto the tails ofthe questions. If they don't, I'm going to see how near I can come toboring a hole in the place where he has his brains cached."
The man glared malignantly at Lawler; but when the first question cameit was answered instantly:
"How much did Warden pay you?"
"A hundred dollars."
"When were you to cut the fence?"
"When the norther struck."
"You saw us cache grub in the cabin?"
The man nodded.
"What if you had found a couple of line riders here? What were you toldto do if you found line riders here? I'm wanting the truth--all of it!"
The man hesitated. Lawler's pistol roared, the concussion rocking theair of the cabin. The man staggered back, clapping a hand to his head,where, it seemed to him, the bullet from the pistol had been aimed.
The man brought up against the rear wall of the cabin, beside thefireplace; and he leaned against it, his face ghastly with fright, hislips working soundlessly. The little man cowered, plainly expectingLawler would shoot him, too. And Lawler's gun did swing up again, butthe voice of the tall man came, blurtingly:
"Warden told us to knife any men we found here."
Lawler's lips straightened, and his eyes glowed with a passion sointense that the men shrank, gibbering, in the grip of a mightyparalysis.
Lawler walked to the table and sat beside it, placing the gun near hisright hand. The men watched him, fascinated; noting his swift movementsas he plunged a hand into a pocket and drew out a small pad of paper anda pencil. He wrote rapidly upon a leaf of the pad; then got up, steppedback and ordered the tall man to approach the table.
"Write your name below what I have written--and date it."
When both men had signed the paper, Lawler folded it, stuck it betweensome leaves of the pad, and replaced pad and pencil in his pocket.
"That's all," he said. "You'll hang out here until the norther blowsitself out; then you'll hit the trail to town and tell your story to thesheriff. I'll be doing the honors."
He sheathed his gun and flung open the door, stepping back as a whiteavalanche rushed in; grinning broadly as he saw the men shrink from it.He divined that the men thought he was going to force them out into thestorm immediately, and he grinned coldly.
"You can be tickled that I'm not sending you out into it, to drift withthe cattle you tried to kill," he said. "You'd deserve that, plenty.You'll find wood beside the dugout. Get some of it in here and start afire. Move; and don't try any monkey business!"
He closed the door as the men went out. He had no fear that they wouldtry to escape--even a threat of death could not have forced them toleave the cabin.
When they came in they kindled a fire in the big fireplace, hoveringclose to it after the blaze sprang up, enjoying its warmth, for theinterior of the cabin had become frigid.
Lawler, however, did not permit the men to enjoy the fire. He sent themout for more wood, and when they had piled a goodly supply in a corner,and had filled a tin water pail from a water hole situated about ahundred feet straight out from the door of the cabin, he sent them againto the dugout after their ropes. With the ropes, despite the sullenobjections of the men, he bound their hands and feet tightly, afterwardpicking the men up and tos
sing them ungently into upper bunks onopposite sides of the room.
He stood, after watching them for a time, his face expressionless.
"That's just so you won't get to thinking you are company," he said."We're holed up for a long time, maybe, and I don't want you to botherme, a heap. If you get to bothering me--disturbing my sleep trying tountangle yourselves from those ropes, why----"
He significantly tapped his pistol. Then he pulled a chair close to thefire, dropped into it, rolled a cigarette, and calmly smoked, watchingthe white fleece trail up the chimney.