The temperature was rapidly falling.
During the silence which followed Lawler's words, and while the two fence cutters watched each other, and Lawler, all caught the voice of the storm, raging, furious, incessant.
With his free hand Lawler unbuttoned his coat, tossed his cap into a bunk and ran a hand through his hair, shoving it back from his forehead.
His movements were deliberate.

It was as though catching fence cutters was an everyday occurrence.
Yet something in his eyes--the thing the two men had seen--gave the lie to the atmosphere of deliberate ease that radiated from him.

In his eyes was something that warned, that hinted of passion.
As the men watched him, noting his muscular neck and shoulders; the slim waist of him, the set of his head--which had that hint of conscious strength, mental and physical, which marks the intelligent fighter--they shrank 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, and his 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; neither spoke.
"Get going!" commanded Lawler.
"We was headin' south," said the small man.