The Trail Horde by Charles Alden Seltzer
page 12 of 338 (03%)
page 12 of 338 (03%)
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By the time you reach town with the cattle I'll have the deal with
Warden clinched." Blackburn nodded, and Lawler wheeled the bay, heading him northward. As he rode, Lawler's face changed expression. He frowned, and his lips set stiffly. What he had been almost on the point of telling his mother was that he knew why Ruth Hamlin had refused him. It was pride, nothing less. Lawler suspected that Ruth knew her father was a rustler. In fact, there had been times when he had seen that knowledge lying naked in her eyes when she looked at her parent. Accusation and disgust had been there, but mingling with them was the persistent loyalty that had always governed the girl; the protective instinct, and a hope of reformation. The pride that Mrs. Lawler had exhibited was not less strong in the girl's heart. By various signs Lawler knew the girl loved him; he knew it as positively as he knew she would not marry him while the stigma of guilt rested upon her parent. And he was convinced that she was ignorant of the fact that Lawler shared her secret. That was why Lawler had permitted Hamlin to escape; it was why he had issued orders to his men to suffer Hamlin's misdeeds without exacting the expiation that custom provided. Lawler did not want Ruth to know that he knew. He sent the big bay forward at a steady, even pace, and in an hour he had crossed the sweep of upland and was riding a narrow trail that veered gradually from the trail to Willets. The character of the land had changed, and Lawler was now riding over a great level, thickly dotted with bunch grass, with stretches of bars, hard sand, clumps of |
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