"She don't want to have her reputation dragged into it," sneered Moreton. "Well, before it's over she won't have no more reputation than a coyote! I'll make the thing so damned public that she'll think I've hired a brass band to blare it all over the country!" Lawler merely smiled. He might have further increased the sheriff's rage by showing him the signed confession in his pocket--the confession he had secured from Link and Givens--but he preferred to keep silent until he discovered why Della Wharton had brought the charge against him. There were two possible motives. One was that Della was still in the grip of the vindictiveness that had characterized her that last day in the cabin--and had charged him with murder merely to be revenged upon him; the other was that she had been influenced to the action by Gary Warden. He intended to keep silent until events explained the motive. And he smiled faintly at Moreton when the sheriff opened the jail doors for him--Moreton saying that he "hated like poison to do it." Two persons had watched Lawler and Moreton ride into town. Warden, standing in the darkened windows of the Wolf Saloon--deserted by its revelers shortly before--saw Moreton and Lawler dismount in front of the jail, which adjoined the sheriff's office. Warden watched until he saw the two men enter the building--until he saw Moreton come out alone and enter his office. Then Warden smiled and walked to the door of a room in the rear of the saloon, where Singleton and several other men were playing cards. He winked at Singleton, a signal correctly interpreted by the other, whose eyes quickened. And then Warden returned to the front window where, later, he was joined by Singleton; for a long time both of them watched the southern sky, into which had crept a dull red glow, faint, and far away. "Antrim didn't lose any time!" commented Warden, exultantly. "And Della can tell the truth to the sheriff whenever she gets ready!" The other watcher was Della Wharton. She had seen the sheriff leave town, to ride southward, and she had divined what his errand meant. And she had sat in a chair near a window for many hours, peering into the darkness for Moreton's return with his prisoner. And when she saw them coming she smiled as she had smiled when she had entered the room after taking leave of Warden. Della knew Warden better than Warden knew himself; and on the night when he had asked her to sign the statement charging Lawler with murder, she was convinced that Warden intended to use the statement. He had told her that he merely intended to hold it as a threat over Lawler's head, to dissuade him from succeeding politically; and she had permitted Warden to think that she believed him. And when, upon her arrival from the capital, he had told her that it was part of his strategy to secretly present the statement to the sheriff--and that she must appear personally before that official--she had consented, knowing that Warden was insincere.