A recollection of the woman he had met at the foot of the stairs came to Lawler as he descended, and thought of her did much to erase the impression he had gained of Warden. He grinned, thinking of how he had caught her watching him as he had mounted the stairs. And then he reddened as he realized that he would not have known she was watching him had he not turned to look back at her.
He found himself wondering about her--why she had been in Warden's office, and who she could be. And then he remembered his conversation with Blackburn, about "chapper-owns," and he decided she must be that woman to whom Blackburn had referred as "a woman at Lefingwell's old place, keepin' Warden company." He frowned, and crossed the street, going toward the railroad station building, in which he would find the freight agent.
And as he walked he was considering another contrast--that afforded by his glimpse of the strange woman and Ruth Hamlin. And presently he found himself smiling with pleasure, with a mental picture of Ruth's face before him--her clear, direct-looking, honest eyes, with no guile in them like that which had glowed in the eyes that had gazed into his at the foot of the stairs.
Over in Corwin's store, where "Aunt Hannah," had gone to make some small purchases, the woman who had encountered Lawler in the hall was talking with the proprietor. Aunt Hannah was watching a clerk.
"Della," she called; "do you want anything?"
"Nothing, Aunty," returned the woman. Then she lowered her voice, speaking to Corwin:
"So he owns the Circle L? Is that a large ranch?"
"One of the biggest in the Wolf River section," declared Corwin.
The woman's eyes glowed with satisfaction.
"Well," she said; "I was just curious about him. He is a remarkably striking-looking man, isn't he?"
"You've hit it, ma'am," grinned Corwin. "I've been years tryin' to think up a word that would fit him. You've hit it. He's different. Looks like one of them statesmen with cowpuncher duds on--like a governor or somethin', which is out of place here."
The woman smiled affirmation. "So he does," she said, reflectively. "He is big, and imposing, and strikingly handsome. And he is educated, too, isn't he?"
"I reckon he is," said Corwin. "Privately, that is. His maw was a scholar of some kind back East, before she married Luke Lawler an' come out here to live with him. Luke's dead, now--died five years ago. Luke was a wolf, ma'am, with a gun. He could shoot the buttons off your coat with his eyes shut. An' he was so allfired fast with his gun that he'd make a streak of lightnin' look like it was loafin'. Luke had a heap of man in him, ma'am, an' Kane is just as much of a man as his dad was, I reckon. Luke was----"