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!"