On the second day following his return to consciousness Lawler had called in a contractor and had made arrangements for reconstruction.
A temporary cabin--to be used afterward by Blackburn--had been erected near the site of the bunkhouses, and into this Lawler and his mother moved while the ranchhouse and the other buildings were being rebuilt.
Blackburn was slowly engaging men to fill the depleted complement, and the work went on some way, though in it was none of that spirit which had marked the activities of the Circle L men in the old days.
In fact, the atmosphere that surrounded the Circle L seemed to be filled with a strange depression.

There had come a cold grimness into Blackburn's face, a sullenness had appeared in the eyes of the three men who had survived the fight on the plains; they were moody, irritable, impatient.

One of them, a slender, lithe man named Sloan, voiced to Blackburn one day a prediction.
"Antrim's dead, all O.K.," he said.

"But Slade--who was always a damned sight worse than Antrim--is still a-kickin'.

An' Slade ain't the man to let things go halfway.