How long she knelt at her father's side she did not know. It seemed only a second or two to her when she raised her head and looked around with dumb, agonized grief at the faces that seemed to fill the place. Then she heard Warden's voice; he spoke to the dark-faced man who had killed her father, and his voice was vibrant with a mocking, Satanic satisfaction. "You've wanted her, Slade--take her!" The dark-faced man grinned at her, bestially. She leaped to her feet at the expression of his eyes, and started to run toward the door. But terror shackled her feet; it seemed that some power was dragging at her, holding her back from the door. She had not taken more than half a dozen steps when Slade was upon her. His strength seemed to be prodigious, for despite her desperate resistance he lifted her from the floor, crushed her to him and started for the stairs. She screamed, begging the men in the room to help her. But through the haze she saw grinning faces turned to hers; heard loud laughter and coarse oaths. And then came oblivion. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE GOVERNOR'S GUNS From his desk in the big, quiet room in the capitol building Lawler could look out upon a wide sweep of orderly landscape. There were trees--now stripped of their foliage--in serried array around the spacious grounds that surrounded the building; bushes arranged in attractive clusters; a low stone fence with massive posts that rose in simple dignity above white cement walks that curved gracefully toward the streets. For nearly two months the huge building--representing the seat of government of a mighty state--had been Lawler's throne. And he had ruled with a democratic spirit and with a simple directness, that had indicated earnestness and strength. There had been a mass of detail which had required close attention; many conferences with the prominent men of his party--in which the prominent men had been made to understand that Lawler intended to be governor in fact as well as in name; and a gradual gathering up of all the loose ends of administration which had become badly tangled through the inefficiency of the former incumbent. And now the legislature was in session. Lawler had not been able to seize time to visit the Wolf River section. Work, work--and more work had confronted him from the moment he had taken the oath of office on the capitol steps until this minute, when he sat at his desk looking out of a window at the bleak, artificial landscape. There had been times when he had longed for a glance at the Wolf River section; and there had been many more times when he had sat where he was sitting now, thinking of Ruth Hamlin.