diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-8.txt | 12593 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 231139 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 421405 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-h/23242-h.htm | 18327 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-h/images/img-054.jpg | bin | 0 -> 43755 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-h/images/img-196.jpg | bin | 0 -> 47317 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-h/images/img-320.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45996 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242-h/images/img-front.jpg | bin | 0 -> 46172 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242.txt | 12593 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 23242.zip | bin | 0 -> 231134 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
13 files changed, 43529 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23242-8.txt b/23242-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..732b349 --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12593 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Laramie Holds the Range, by Frank H. +Spearman, Illustrated by James Reynolds + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Laramie Holds the Range + + +Author: Frank H. Spearman + + + +Release Date: October 29, 2007 [eBook #23242] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 23242-h.htm or 23242-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242/23242-h/23242-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242/23242-h.zip) + + + + + +LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE + +by + +FRANK H. SPEARMAN + +Illustrated by James Reynolds + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . +"You'll hear what I've got to say"] + + + +New York +Charles Scribner's Sons +1921 + +Copyright, 1921, by +Charles Scribner's Sons + +Published August, 1921 +Reprinted September, 1921 + +Copyright, 1921, by Frank H. Spearman + + + + +TO MY SON + +FRANK HAMILTON SPEARMAN, JR. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I SLEEPY CAT + II THE CRAZY WOMAN + III DOUBLEDAY'S + IV AT THE EATING HOUSE + V CROSS PURPOSES + VI WHICH WINS? + VII THE CLOSE OF THE DAY + VIII THE HOME OF LARAMIE + IX AT THE BAR + X LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE + XI A DUEL WITH KATE + XII THE BARBECUE + XIII AGAINST HIS RECORD + XIV LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS + XV THE RAID OF THE FALLING WALL + XVI THE GO-DEVIL + XVII VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK + XVIII HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE + XIX LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS + XX THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE + XXI THE HIDING PLACE + XXII STONE TRIES HIS HAND + XXIII KATE RIDES + XXIV NIGHT AND A HEADER + XXV A GUEST FOR AN HOUR + XXVI THE CRAZY WOMAN WINS + XXVII KATE DEFIES + XXVIII A DIFFICULT RESOLVE + XXIX HORSEHEAD PASS + XXX THE FUNERAL AND AFTER + XXXI AN ENCOUNTER + XXXII A MESSAGE FROM TENISON + XXXIII THE CANYON OF THE FALLING WALL + XXXIV KATE GETS A SHOCK + XXXV AT KITCHEN'S BARN + XXXVI MCALPIN AT BAY + XXXVII KATE BURNS THE STEAK + XXXVIII THE UNEXPECTED CALL + XXXIX BARB MAKES A SURPRISING ALLIANCE + XL BRADLEY RIDES HARD + XLI THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS + XLII WARNING + XLIII THE LAST CALL + XLIV TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . "You'll + hear what I've got to say" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country" + +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie + drooped over his pommel + +"No," said a man . . . as he pushed forward . . . "He's not + going to drink!" + + + + +LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE + + +CHAPTER I + +SLEEPY CAT + +All day the heavy train of sleepers had been climbing the long rise +from the river--a monotonous stretch of treeless, short-grass plains +reaching from the Missouri to the mountains. And now the train stopped +again, almost noiselessly. + +Kate, with the impatience of girlish spirits tried by a long and +tedious car journey, left her Pullman window and its continuous, +one-tone picture, and walking forward was glad to find the vestibule +open. The porter, meditating alone, stood below, at the car step, +looking ahead; Kate joined him. + +The stop had been made at a lonely tank, for water. No human +habitation was anywhere in sight. The sun had set. For miles in every +direction the seemingly level and open country spread around her. She +looked back to the darkening east that she was leaving behind. It +suggested nothing of interest beyond the vanishing perspective of a +long track tangent. Then to the north, whence blew a cool and gentle +wind, but the landscape offered nothing attractive to her eyes; its +receding horizon told no new story. Then she looked into the west. + +They had told her she should not see the Rockies until morning. But +the dying light in the west brought a moving surprise. In the dreamy +afterglow of the evening sky there rose, far beyond the dusky plain, +the faint but certain outline of distant mountain peaks. + +Bathed in a soft unearthly light, like the purple of another world; +touched here and there by a fairy gold; silent as dreams, majestic as +visions, overwhelming as reality itself, Kate gazed on them with +beating heart. + +Something clutched at her breath: "Are those the Rocky Mountains?" she +suddenly asked, appealing to the stolid porter. She told Belle long +afterward, she knew her voice must have quivered. + +"Ah'm sure, Ah c'dn't say, Miss. Ah s'pecs dey ah. Dis my first trip +out here." + +"So it is mine!" + +"Mah reg'lar run," continued the porter, insensible to the glories of +the distant sky, "is f'm Chicago to Council Bluffs." + +A flagman hurried past. Kate courageously pointed: "Are those the +Rocky Mountains, please?" He halted only to look at her in +astonishment. "Yes'm." But she was bound he should not escape: "How +far are they?" she shot after him. He looked back startled: "'Bout a +hundred miles," he snapped. Plainly there was no enthusiasm among the +train crew over mountains. + +When she was forced, reluctant, back into the sleeper, she announced +joyfully to her berth neighbors that the Rocky Mountains were in sight. +One regarded her stupidly, another coldly. Across the aisle the old +lady playing solitaire did not even look up. Kate subsided; but dull +apathy could not rob her of that first wonderful vision of the strange, +far-off region, perhaps to be her home. + +Next day, from the car window it was all mountains--at least, +everywhere on the horizon. But the train seemed to thread an +illimitable desert--a poor exchange for the boundless plains, Kate +thought. But she grew to love the very dust of the desert. + +The train was due at Sleepy Cat in the late afternoon. It met with +delays and night had fallen when Kate, after giving the porter too much +money, left her car, and suitcase in hand struggled, American fashion, +up the long, dark platform toward the dimly lighted station. Men and +women hastened here and there about her. The changing crews moved +briskly to and from the train. There was abundance of activity, but +none of it concerned Kate and her comfort. And there was no one, she +feared, to meet her. + +Reaching the station, she set down her suitcase without a tremor, and +though she had never been more alone, she never felt less lonely. The +eating-house gong beat violently for supper. A woman dragging a little +boy almost fell over Kate's suitcase but did not pause to receive or +tender apology. Men looking almost solemn under broad, +straight-brimmed hats moved in and out of the station, but none of +these saw Kate. Only one man striding past looked at her. He glared. +And as he had but one eye, Kate deemed him, from his expression, a +woman-hater. + +Then a fat man under an immense hat, and wearing a very large ring on +one hand, walked with a dapper step out of the telegraph office. He +did see Kate. He checked his pace, coughed slightly and changed his +course, as if to hold himself open to inquiry. Kate without hesitation +turned to him and explained she was for Doubleday's ranch. She asked +whether he knew the men from there and whether anyone was down. + +John Lefever, for it was he whom she addressed, knew the men but he had +seen no one; could he do anything? + +"I want very much to get out there tonight," said Kate. + +"Jingo," exclaimed Lefever, "not tonight!" + +"Tonight," returned Kate, looking out of dark eyes in pink and white +appeal, "if I can possibly make it." + +Lefever caught up her suitcase and set it down beside the waiting-room +door: "Stay right here a minute," he said. + +He walked toward the baggage-room and before he reached it, stopped a +second large, heavy man, Henry Sawdy. Him he held in confab; Sawdy +looking meantime quite unabashed toward the distant Kate. In the light +streaming from the station windows her slender and slightly shrinking +figure suggested young womanhood and her delicately fashioned features, +half-hidden under her hat, pleasingly confirmed his impression of it. +Kate, conscious of inspection, could only pretend not to see him. And +the sole impression she could snatch in the light and shadow of the +redoubtable Sawdy, was narrowed to a pair of sweeping mustaches and a +stern-looking hat. Lefever returned, his companion sauntering along +after. Kate explained that she had telegraphed. + +At that moment an odd-looking man, with a rapid, rolling, right and +left gait, ambled by and caught Kate's eye. Instead of the formidable +Stetson hat mostly in evidence, this man wore a baseball cap--of the +sort usually given away with popular brands of flour--its peak cocked +to its own apparent surprise over one ear. The man had sharp eyes and +a long nose for news and proved it by halting within earshot of the +conversation carried on between Kate and the two men. He looked so +queer, Kate wanted to laugh, but she was too far from home to dare. He +presently put his head conveniently in between Sawdy and Lefever and +offered some news of his own: "There's been a big electric storm in the +up country, Sawdy; the telephones are on the bum." + +"How's she going to get to Doubleday's tonight, McAlpin?" asked Sawdy +abruptly of the newcomer. McAlpin never, under any pressure, answered +a question directly. Hence everything had to be explained to him all +over again, he looking meantime more or less furtively at Kate. But he +found out, despite his seeming stupidity, a lot that it would have +taken the big men hours to learn. + +"If you don't want to take a rig and driver," announced McAlpin, after +all had been canvassed, "there's the stage for the fort; they had to +wait for the mail. Bill Bradley is on tonight. I'm thinkin' he'll set +y' over from the ford--it's only a matter o' two or three miles." + +"Are there any other passengers?" asked Kate doubtfully. + +"Belle Shockley for the Reservation," answered McAlpin, promptly, +"if--she ain't changed her mind, it bein' so late." + +Sawdy put a brusque end to this uncertainty: "She's down there at the +Mountain House waitin'--seen her myself not ten minutes ago." + +Scurrying away, McAlpin came back in a jiffy with the driver, Bradley. +Thin, bent and grizzled though he was, Kate thought she saw under the +broad but shabby hat and behind the curtain of scraggly beard and deep +wrinkles dependable eyes and felt reassured. + +"How far is it to the ranch?" she asked of the queer-looking Bradley. + +"Long ways, the way you go, ain't it, Bill?" McAlpin turned to the old +driver for confirmation. + +"'Bout fourteen mile," answered Bradley, "to the ford." + +"What time should I get there?" asked Kate again. + +Bradley stood pat. + +"What time'll she get there, Bill?" demanded Lefever. + +"Twelve o'clock," hazarded Bradley tersely. "Or," he added, "I'll stop +when I pass the ranch 'n' tell 'em to send a rig down in the mornin'." + +"That would take you out of your way," Kate objected. + +"Not a great ways." + +A man that would go to this trouble in the middle of the night for +someone he had never seen before, Kate deemed safe to trust. "No," she +said, "I'll go with you, if I may." + +The way in which she spoke, the sweetness and simplicity of her words, +moved Sawdy and Lefever, the first a widower and the second a bachelor, +and even stirred McAlpin, a married man. But they had no particular +effect on Bradley. The blandishments of young womanhood were past his +time of day. + +With Lefever carrying the suitcase and nearly everybody talking at +once, the party walked around to the rear door of the baggage-room. + +The stage had been backed up, a hostler in the driver's seat, and the +mail and express were being loaded. Sawdy volunteered to save time by +fetching Belle Shockley from the hotel, and while McAlpin and Lefever +inspected and discussed the horses--for the condition of which McAlpin, +as foreman of Kitchen's barn, was responsible--Kate stood, listener and +onlooker. Everything was new and interesting. Four horses champed +impatiently under the arc-light swinging in the street, and looked +quite fit. But the stage itself was a shock to her idea of a Western +stage. Instead of the old-fashioned swinging coach body, such as she +had wondered at in circus spectacles, she saw a very substantial, +shabby-looking democrat wagon with a top, and with side curtains. The +curtains were rolled up. But the oddest thing to Kate was that +wherever a particle could lodge, the whole stage was covered with a +ghostly, grayish-white dust. While the loading went on, Sawdy arrived +with the second passenger, Belle Shockley. She had, fortunately for +Kate's apprehensions, _not_ changed her mind. + +Belle herself was something of an added shock. She wore a long rubber +coat, in which the rubber was not in the least disguised. Her hair was +frizzed about her face, and a small, brimless hat perched high, almost +startled, on her head. She was tall and angular, her features were +large and her eyes questioning. Had she had Bradley's beard, she would +have passed with Kate for the stage driver. She was formidable, but +yet a woman; and she scrutinized the slender whip of a girl before her +with feminine suspicion. Nor did she give Kate a chance to break the +ice of acquaintance before starting. + +Under Lefever's chaperonage and with his gallant help, Kate took her +seat where directed, just behind the driver, and her new companion +presently got up beside her. + +The mail bags disposed of, Bradley climbed into place, gathered his +lines, the hostler let go the leads and the stage was off. The horses, +restive after their long wait, dashed down the main street of the town, +whirling Kate, all eyes and ears, past the glaring saloons and darkened +stores to the extreme west end of Sleepy Cat. There, striking +northward, the stage headed smartly for the divide. + +The night was clear, with the stars burning in the sky. From the rigid +silence of the driver and his two passengers, it might have been +thought that no one of them ever spoke. To Kate, who as an Eastern +girl had never, it might be said, breathed pure air, the clear, high +atmosphere of the mountain night was like sparkling wine. Her senses +tingled with the strange stimulant. + +To Belle, there was no novelty in any of this, and the strain of +silence was correspondingly greater. It was she who gave in first: + +"You from Medicine Bend?" she asked, as the four horses walked up a +long hill. + +"Pittsburgh," answered Kate. + +"Pittsburgh!" echoed Belle, startled. "Gee! some trip you've had." + +Belle, encouraged, then confessed that a cyclone had given her her own +first start West. She had been blown two blocks in one and had all of +her hair pulled out of her head. + +"They said I'd have no chance to get married without any hair," she +continued, "so I got a wig--never _could_ find my own hair--and come +West for a chance. And they're here; if you're looking for a husband +you've come to the right place." + +"I haven't the least idea of getting married," protested Kate. + +"They'll be after you," declared Belle sententiously. + +"Are you married?" ventured Kate. + +"Not yet. But they're coming. I'm in no hurry." + +She talked freely about her own affairs. She had worked for Doubleday, +for whose ranch Kate was bound. Doubleday had had a chain of eating +houses on the line, as Belle termed the transcontinental railroad. +They had all been taken over except the one where she worked--at Sleepy +Cat Junction--and this would be taken soon, Belle thought. + +"That's the trouble with Barb Doubleday," she went on. "He's got too +many irons in the fire--head over heels in debt. There's no money +now-a-days in cattle, anyway. What are you going up to Doubleday's +for?" + +"He's my father." + +"Your father? Well! I never open my mouth without I put my foot in +it, anyway." + +"I've never seen him," continued Kate. + +Belle was all interest. She confided to Kate that she was now on her +way, for a visit, to the Reservation where her cousin was teaching in +an Indian school, and divided her time for the next hour between +getting all she could of Kate's story and telling all of her own. + +On Kate's part there was no end of questions to ask, about country and +customs and people. When Belle could not answer, she appealed to +Bradley, who, if taciturn, was at least patient. Every time the +conversation lulled and Kate looked out into the night, it seemed as if +they were drawing closer and closer to the stars, the dark desert still +spreading in every direction and the black mountain ridges continually +receding. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CRAZY WOMAN + +They had traveled a long time it seemed to Kate, and having climbed all +the hills in the country, were going down a moderate grade with the +hind wheels sputtering unamiably at the brakes, when Belle broke a long +silence: "Where are we, Bill?" she demanded, familiarly. + +"The Crazy Woman," Bradley answered briefly. Kate did not understand, +but by this time she had learned in such circumstances to hold her +tongue. + +"He means the creek," explained Belle. "It's way down there ahead of +us." + +Strain her eyes as she would, Kate could see only the blackness of the +darkness ahead. + +"'N' b' jing!" muttered Bradley, as Kate peered into nothingness, +"she's whinin' t'night f'r fair." + +Again for an instant Kate did not comprehend. Then the leads were +swung sharply by Bradley to the left. The stage rounded what Kate +afterward frequently recognized as an overhanging shoulder of rock on +the road down to the creek, and a vague, dull roar swept up from below. + +Bradley halted the horses, climbed down, and taking the lantern went +forward on foot to investigate. + +"Must have been a cloudburst in the mountains," remarked Belle, +listening; and Kate was to learn that a cloudless sky gives no +assurance whatever for the passage of a mountain stream. + +The lantern disappeared, to come into sight again farther down the +trail, and while both women talked, the faint light swung at intervals +in and out of their vision as Bradley reconnoitered. Kate was a little +worried, but her companion sat quite unmoved, even when Bradley +returned and reported the creek "roarin'." + +"That bein' the case," he muttered, "I'm thinkin' the Double-draw +bridge has took up its timbers and walked likewise." + +The Double-draw bridge! How well Kate was to know that name; but that +night it seemed, like everything else, only very queer. + +"Bradley," protested Belle, now very much disturbed, "that can't be." + +"We'll see," retorted Bradley, gathering his reins and releasing his +brake as he spoke to the horses. "I don't guess myself there's much +left o' that bridge." Only the expletive he placed before the last +word revealed his own genuine annoyance and Kate prudently asked no +further questions. Some instinct convinced her she was already a +nuisance on the silent Bradley's hands. The ford--off the main +road--was where he had purposed setting Kate over, as he expressed it, +to the ranch. Double-draw bridge--on the road to the fort and +Reservation--was two miles above. + +The horses climbed the long hill again and started on the road for the +bridge. + +"If the Double-draw is out," sighed Belle resignedly, "I reckon we're +trapped." + +For the first time now they could hear the hoofs of the two teams +sinking into and pulling out of mud. It grew deeper as they descended +the long grade toward the bridge and clouds obscured the light of the +stars. + +With the horses stumbling on, the women watched for something to meet +either sight or hearing, but there was nothing until they again neared +the creek. Then the same vague roar rose on the night and as they +rimmed the bench above the creek a faint, ghastly light on the eastern +horizon betokened a rising moon. Down the trail they stopped in +darkness and Bradley again clambered down from his box with the lantern +to investigate. + +"'Z fur 'z I c'n see," he reported when he came back, "th' bridge is +all right, but mos'ly under water." + +"Can we get across?" Belle Shockley asked querulously. + +Bradley answered with hesitation: "Why--yes----" + +"Oh, good!" + +"And no." + +"What does that mean?" snapped Belle. + +"We can't get across tonight--we might in the mornin'." + +Kate kept silence, but Belle was persistent. "What are we going to +do?" she demanded; "go 'way back to Sleepy Cat?" + +"Not in a milyun years," returned Bradley, calmly. "We're goin' to +pull out t' one side 'n' camp right here till daylight. Ef I didn't +have you wimmen on my hands, I might take a chanst with the mail," he +went on, drawing his horses carefully around to where he meant to camp. +"Me and the horses could make it, even 'f we lost the wagon. But I +w'dn't like the job of huntin' for you folks in the Crazy Woman with a +lantern--not tonight. She's surely a-rip-roarin'. Well; t'hell with +her 'n' all creeks like her, say I," he wound up, chirruping kindly to +his uncomplaining beasts. + +"You don't like creeks," suggested Belle. + +"Dry creeks--yes. Wouldn't care if I never seen another wet creek from +now till kingdom come--Whoa, Nellie!" he called to the off lead mare +who was feeling the way for her companions back to a safe spot for a +halt. "This is good, right here." + +Belle showed her fellow-traveler how to lie down with some comfort on +the leather seat, and as they had one for each she gave Kate her +choice. Kate, to put Belle between her and any man in front, took the +back seat. The side curtains were let down and with a mail sack +supplied by Bradley for a pillow, Kate, drawing her big coat over her, +curled up for a rest. + +The excitement of the journey had worn away. The delay she was +disposed to accept philosophically. It took some time for Bradley to +unhitch and dispose of the horses to his satisfaction, and theirs, and +his mumblings and the sound of their moving about and champing their +bits fell a long time on Kate's drowsy ears. Belle went to sleep at +once, and though sleep was the last thing Kate expected to achieve, she +did fall asleep--with the Crazy Woman singing wildly in her ears. + +She had hardly lost herself, it seemed, when Bradley roused his +passengers. The storm waters were creeping up over the bench where +they had camped and with much impatient sputtering, Bradley hitched the +pole team to the stage and, in his pet, retreated into the hills for +assured safety. Even the noise of the flood failed to follow them +there and they disposed themselves once more to rest. + +How long she slept this time, Kate did not know, but she was awakened +by voices. + +The night had grown very cold and death itself could not have been more +silent. Yet at intervals Kate heard the low converse of two voices; +they were not far away and both were men's. + +A panic seized her. Her heart beat like the roll of a drum and then +nearly stopped. What might happen now? she asked herself. And what +could she fear but the worst? In the dead of night--marooned in a wild +country, with only a queer woman and two strange men. Could it be a +plot? she asked herself. In the fear that gripped her she could hardly +breathe, and to think was only to invite added agonies of apprehension. +She sat quickly up, breathing hurriedly now and her heart racing. Then +she heard the even breathing of her companion on the seat ahead. To +make sure it was she, Kate put her hand over and touched Belle's +shoulder. Reassured a little, but ready to push aside the curtain and +spring from the stage at the least alarm, Kate listened painfully; the +voices reached her ears again. + +One was Bradley's--of that she felt sure; the other, deeper, more full, +and with a curiously even carrying quality through the silent night, +she knew she had never heard before; but the darkness, the solitude, +the shock of strange surroundings, if nothing else, made it terrifying +to her. Kate had never been reckoned a timid girl, but she listened +dumb with fear. Bradley did most of the talking. He was recounting, +with occasional profanity, the mishaps of his trip, beginning with the +late train. + +"Any passengers?" Kate heard the stranger ask. + +"Two women--c'n y' beat it? One of 'em a girl for Doubleday's." + +"What can a girl be wanting at Doubleday's?" + +"D'no. Came off the train tonight." + +"The Double-draw is out." + +"Jing!" exclaimed Bradley, "it was there an hour ago." + +"The ford is your only chance to get her over." + +"Can I make it?" + +"You've got good horses; you ought to make it by daylight." + +"Hear they got a new foreman over at Doubleday's," Bradley said. + +There was no comment, unless the silence could be so construed. + +"Tom Stone," added Bradley, as if bound to finish. + +There was an instant and angry exclamation, none the less ferocious +because of the restrained feeling in its sudden utterance. + +"Doubleday sets a good deal by what Van Horn says; I reckon he put him +in there," suggested Bradley. + +There was a further silence. Then she heard the stranger dryly say: "I +expect so." It seemed as if behind everything he did say there was so +much left unsaid. + +"I never got rightly, Jim," Bradley went on, "how you 'n' Van Horn's +related." + +"I hope you never will," returned the man saluted as "Jim," in the same +low, cold tone. "We're not related. He was my partner--once." + +"Stone will change things at the ranch." + +"He can't hurt them much." + +"I guess they're full bad," said Bradley, and then, lowering his voice: +"The gal's asleep there in the stage. How'd the land contest they made +on y' at Medicine Bend come off?" + +"The cattlemen own that Land Office. I'll beat the bunch at +Washington." + +"Doubleday wanted me to go down to swear. I wouldn't do it--wasn't +even at the trial----" + +"No honest man was, from Doubleday's." + +"Was it Stone cut your wire, Jim?" + +"You know as much about it as I do." + +"Got it up again?" + +"All I could find." + +"Meaner 'n' hell over there, ain't they?" + +There was no comment. + +"How long you goin' to stand it, Jim?" persisted Bradley. And after +the odd pause, the slow answer: "Till I get tired." + +"That'll be about the time they rip it off again." + +"About that time, Bill." + +"Well," hazarded the old driver, meditatively, "the boys are waitin'. +They say you're slow to start anything, Jim; but they look f'r hell t' +pay when y' do." + +To the stranger--it seemed to Kate--words must be worth their weight in +gold, he parted with them so sparingly. + +"What's this talk 'bout Farrell Kennedy makin' a depity marshal, Jim?" + +"Mostly talk, Bill. Good night." + +"Farrel offered it to y', didn't he?"' + +"So Lefever says." + +"Where y' headin' f'r now?" persisted Bradley, as Kate heard the +shuffle of a horse's feet. + +"Home." + +"They ain't burned your shack?" Bradley asked with a half chuckle. + +Kate just heard the man's reply: "Not yet." + +The hoofbeats drew away. Kate cautiously pushed back her curtain. + +The late moon was shining in an old and ghostly light. Distant heights +rose like black walls against the sky. At intervals a peak broke +sharply above the battlements, or a rift in a closer sierra opened to +show the stars. + +Kate could hear but could not for some time see the galloping horseman. +Then of a sudden he reached the brow of a low hill and rode swiftly out +into the spectral light. There he halted. Horse and rider stood for a +moment silhouetted against the sky. The horse chafed at his bit. He +stretched his head restively into the north, his rider sitting +motionless, a somber flat hat crowning his spare figure. For barely a +moment the man sat thus immovable. Then he turned slightly in the +saddle and the horse struck off into the night. + +Drowsiness had deserted the tired girl that watched him. While her +companions slept she sat in the solitude waiting for day. Bradley, as +good as an alarm dock, was stirring with the first streak and feeding +his horses. He told his passengers that the bridges were all out and +he was going back to the ford. + +Belle, incredulous, when first told by Kate of a visitor in the night, +had no scruples in asking questions: + +"Who was here last night, Bill?" + +"Wha'd' y' mean?" he countered, gathering up his lines. + +"What man was it, you were talking to?" she demanded. + +"I guess if I was talkin' to any man," he grumbled, "I was talkin' in +my sleep. You must 'a' been 'a' dreamin'." + +"Oh, come now, 'fess up, Bill." Belle nodded toward Kate. "She was +awake." + +Bradley started the horses, shifted on the box and looked not too well +pleased: "I wasn't talkin' to nobody last night----" + +"Bill, what a whopper." + +"If you mean this mornin'----" he went on, doggedly. + +"Well--who was here?" + +"Jim Laramie." + +"Jim Laramie!" echoed Belle, catching her breath and poking Kate with +her elbow. "Wonder he didn't hold us up." + +Bradley scowled but said nothing. + +"Bradley doesn't like that," murmured Belle to Kate, as soon as the +creaking of the wheels gave her a chance to speak without his hearing. +"He's a friend of Jim's." + +"Where did he come from?" continued Belle, raising her voice toward +Bradley. + +Bradley took his time to answer: "Claimed he was goin' home," he said +laconically. + +"How could he get across the creek with the bridges out?" persisted +Belle. + +Bradley's eyes were on his horses. He was weary of question: "High +water wouldn't bother him much." + +"Well, I want to know! I should think it would bother anybody the way +it was sweeping down last night." + +"Hell!" ejaculated Bradley, parting with his manners and his patience +together: "Jim could swim the Crazy Woman with his horse's feet tied." + +"Who _is_ 'Jim'?" Kate demanded of her companion in an undertone. + +"Jim Laramie? He lives in the Falling Wall." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DOUBLEDAY'S + +When they got back to the ford it was daylight and the Crazy Woman was +hurrying on as peacefully as if a frown had never ruffled its repose. +Gnarled trees springing out of gashes along its tortuous channel +showed, in the debris lodged against their flood-bared roots and +mud-swept branches, the fury of the night, and the creek banks, scoured +by many floods, revealed new and savage gaps in the morning sun; but +Bradley made his crossing with the stage almost as uneventfully as if a +cloud-burst had never ruffled the mountains. + +Kate was eager to meet her father, eager to see what might be her new +home. The moment the horses got up out of the bottom, Bradley pointed +with his whip to the ranch-house. Kate saw ahead of her a long, +one-story log house crowning, with its group of out-buildings, a level +bench that stretched toward the foothills. The landscape was bare of +trees and, to Kate, brown and barren-looking, save for a patch of green +near the creek where an alfalfa field lay vividly pretty in the sun. +The ranch-house, built of substantial logs, was ample in its +proportions and not uninviting, even to her Eastern eyes. + +Bradley, with a flourish, swept past the stable, around the corral and +drew up before the door with a clatter. In front of the bunk-house on +the right, a cowboy rolling a cigarette, was watching the arrival, and +just as Bradley plumped Kate, on his arms, to the ground, her father, +Barb Doubleday himself, opened the ranch-house door. + +Kate had never seen her father. And until Bradley spoke, she had not +the slightest idea that this could be he. She saw only a rough-looking +man of great stature, slightly stooped, and with large features burnt +to a deep brown. + +"Hello, Barb," said Bradley, without much enthusiasm. + +His salutation met with as little: "What's up?" demanded Doubleday. +Kate noticed the huskiness in the strong, cold tone. + +"Brought y' a passenger." + +From the talk of the night she recognized her father's nickname. It +was a little shock to realize that this must, indeed, be he. And the +unmoved expression of his face as he surveyed her without a smite or +greeting, was not reassuring. + +But she hastened forward: "Father?" there was a note of girlish appeal +in her greeting: "I'm Kate--your daughter. You don't remember me, of +course," she added with an effort to extort a welcome. "You got my +letter, did you?" + +He looked at her uncertainly for a moment and nodded slowly. "Was it +all right," she asked, now almost panic-stricken, "to come to see you?" + +Confused or preoccupied, he stumbled out some words of welcome, spoke +to Belle on the stage, took the suitcase out of Bradley's hand and led +Kate into the house. In the large room that she entered stood a long +table and a big fireplace opened at the back. On the left, two +bedrooms opened off the big room, and on the right, the kitchen. + +The chill of the strange greeting embarrassed Kate the more because she +felt Belle could hardly fail to notice it, and her own resentment of it +did not easily wear off. But hoping for better things she freshened up +a little, in her father's bedroom, and by that time a man cook was +bringing breakfast into the big room, which served as living-room and +dining-room. Bradley, Belle, Kate and her father sat down--the men had +already breakfasted. + +Kate, her head in a whirl with novelty and excitement, was overcome +with interest in everything, but especially in her father. Sitting at +the head of the table--at one end of which fresh places had been +set--he maintained her first impression of his stature. His spreading +frame was covered with loose corduroy clothes--which could hardly be +said to fit--and his whole appearance conveyed the impression of +unusual physical strength. It had been said of Barb Doubleday, as a +railroad builder, that he could handle an iron rail alone. His +powerful jaw and large mouth--now fitted, or rather, supplied--with +artificial teeth of proportionate size--all supported Kate's awe of his +bigness. His long nose, once smashed in a railroad fight, was not +seriously scarred; and originally well-shaped, it was still the best +feature of a terrifically weather-beaten face that had evidently seen +milder days. The good looks were gone, but not the strength. His +mouth was almost shapeless but unmistakably hard, and his grayish-blue +eyes were cold--very cold; try as she would, Kate could discern little +love or sympathy in them. This was the man who almost twenty years +earlier had deserted her mother and wee Kate, the baby, and long +disappeared from Eastern view--until by accident the fact that he was +alive and in the far West had become known to his wife and daughter. +Kate thought she understood something of the tragedy in her mother's +life when the first sight of her father's eyes struck a chill into her +own heart. + +But he was her father--and her mother had tried, in spite of all, to +hide or condone his faults; and more than once before she died, had +made Kate promise to hunt him up and go to him. What the timid girl +dreaded most was finding another woman installed in his household--in +which case she meant to make her stay in the West very short. But +every hour lessened these fears and as he himself gradually thawed a +little, Kate took courage. + +The breakfast went fast. Platters were passed without ceremony or +delay. Her father and Bradley ate as Kate had never seen men eat; only +her amazement could keep pace with their quiet but unremitting efforts +to clean up everything in sight. There was little mastication but much +knife and fork work, with free libation of coffee; and Belle, Kate +noticed, while somewhat left behind by the men, paid strict attention +to the business in hand. + +Conversation naturally lagged; but what took place had its surprise for +Kate. Doubleday asked a few questions of Belle--everybody seemed to +know everybody else--and learning she was headed for the Reservation, +possibly to teach school, hired her on the spot away from the job, to +go back to his eating-house at Sleepy Cat Junction. No sooner was this +arranged, and Bradley told to take her luggage off the stage, than a +diversion occurred. + +A horseman dashed up outside and presently strode into the room. He +was tall and well put together; not quite as straight as an arrow, but +straight, and not ungraceful in his height. This was Harry Van Horn, a +neighboring cattleman, and he wore the ranchman's rig, including the +broad hat and the revolver slung at his hip. But everything about the +rig was fresh and natty, in the sunshine. He looked alert. His step +was clean and springy as he crossed the room, and his voice not +unpleasant as he briskly greeted Doubleday and looked keenly at his +guests--last and longest at Kate sitting at her father's right hand. + +Doubleday introduced him to his daughter. Van Horn nodded, without +much deference, to Belle and to Bradley, neither of whom responded more +warmly. He sat down near Kate and with a look of raillery scrutinized +the remnant of meat left on the general platter: "How is it, Barb?" he +asked. + +"What?" + +"The antelope." + +"All right, I guess." + +Van Horn with a laugh turned to Kate: "Excited over it, isn't he? I +got an antelope yesterday, so I sent half of it over to your father." +Then he lowered his voice in pretended disgust. "_He_ doesn't know +what he's eating--it might as well be salt pork. And you're a stranger +here? I never knew your father had a daughter. He's very +communicative. How do you like antelope?" + +Without paying attention to anyone else, he set out for a moment to +entertain Kate. When he talked his face lighted with energy. Every +expression of his brown eyes snapped with life, and his big Roman nose, +though not making for beauty, one soon got used to. + +Barb broke abruptly in on the conversation: "What did Stone find out?" +he asked. + +Van Horn answered a question of Kate's and turned then, and not until +then, to her father: "That's what I came over to tell you. Dutch Henry +and another fellow--described like Stormy Gorman--sold ten head of +steers to the railroad camp last week--that's where our cattle are +going right along now. And Abe Hawk," he exclaimed, pointing his +finger at Doubleday and poking it forward to emphasize each point, +"sold ten head of your long yearlings to a contracting outfit north of +the Falling Wall and never changed the brands!" + +Doubleday stared at the speaker. Van Horn, speaking to Kate, went +right on: "There's a bunch of rustlers over in the Falling Wall, +snitching steers on us right and left," he explained in a lower and +very deferential tone, but a warm one. + +While Van Horn talked and Doubleday muttered husky and bitter +questions, Bradley and Belle paid continuous attention to their coffee +and griddle cakes. + +Doubleday by this time had forgotten all about Kate. Completely +absorbed by the reports brought in he rose from the table and followed +Van Horn to the open door where Van Horn turned and paused as he kept +on talking so that with his eyes he could still take in Kate at the +table. The two men were now joined at the door by a third. This man +looked in to see who was at the table. Bradley glanced up at him only +long enough to recognize Tom Stone, the new foreman; no greeting +passed. Kate looked longer, though when she saw the eyes of the +new-comer were on her she gave her attention to Belle. + +Belle had told her that a woman at the ranch would be a great curiosity +and Kate every day resigned herself to inspection. When she got better +acquainted with the men, and while there were good and bad among them, +she liked them all, except Stone. His face did not seem kindly. At +times agreeable enough, he was only tolerable at best and when even +slightly in liquor he was irritable. His low forehead, over which he +plastered his hair, and his straight yellow eyebrows and hard blue eyes +were not confidence inspiring; even his big mustache was harsh and +lacked a generous curve--his normal outlook seemed one of reticence and +suspicion. Kate refused to like him; his smile was not good. + +On this morning he showed the signs of a hard journey. He had brought +the news from the Falling Wall and was just in after a troublesome +ride. Bradley and Belle left the table together and Kate followed to +the door. Bradley tried to edge past the three men without speaking, +but Stone not only stopped him with a cold grin but followed the driver +toward the stage: "Wouldn't that kill you"--Kate heard him say to +Bradley, and she saw his attempt at an ingratiating grin: "Abe Hawk +rustling?" + +Bradley gave him scant sympathy: "What did Doubleday discharge him +for?" he demanded. "What did the cattlemen blacklist him for? He's +the best foreman this ranch ever had--or ever will have," added +Bradley, summoning his scant courage to rub it in. "He fired him +because he took up a little piece of land agin the Falling Wall and got +together a few cows of his own. That's a crime, ain't it? Like ----. +These cattlemen will learn a thing or two when they get old." + +Stone flared back at him: "What are you over here eating their bacon +for?" + +"Not f'r any likin' I've got f'r 'em," retorted Bradley, "n'r f'r any +o' their pets." + +The old driver got away without a fight, but he had little to spare. +Van Horn rode off presently with Stone, and Doubleday returned to the +house, where Kate was sitting with Belle. He told Belle he would send +her over to the Junction in the afternoon, and after dinner told Kate +she had better go over and stay at the Junction with Belle till they +could get a room "fixed up" at the ranch. + +There were really no accommodations at the ranchhouse for Kate until +some could be prepared. A room had to be made ready and there was no +bed or furniture. And Belle told her that her father spent most of his +time at the Junction, anyway, where he had a cottage. She explained +about the railroad branching off the main line at the Junction. Her +father had built this to coal mines on the Falling Wall river. He was +supposed to own this branch line and the mines, but she hinted strongly +that his creditors had got everything there was of the railroad but the +rust, and would sometime get that. + +Kate wished her new acquaintance had been less candid. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AT THE EATING HOUSE + +Doubleday drove the two women down from the ranch. At the Junction +there were, besides the railroad eating house, a few houses and a few +stores, and almost as many saloons as at Sleepy Cat itself--the place +being, Belle said, a shipping point both for cattle and for miners. + +Kate was relieved to find her father's cottage, on a hill across the +railroad track, quite livable-looking. It was, like all the other +houses, one story and square, being divided into kitchen, dining-room +and two bedrooms. The interior, its shiny furniture covered with dust, +was dreary enough, but Kate knew she could make the place presentable, +and after the first few days in her new surroundings, began to recover +her high spirits. Her father had not yet said she was to stay; but she +thought he liked her--Belle told her as much--and she set about making +her woman's hand felt. Her father took his meals at the eating-house, +and the cottage had been indifferently cared for by old Henry, the +eating-house porter. Kate, as a housekeeper, was a marked improvement, +one that even so absorbed a man as her father could not but notice. + +She naturally spent much time at the eating-house herself, because +Belle, her sole acquaintance at the Junction, was there. + +"How you going to like it out here?" demanded Belle, scrutinizing Kate +critically, after she had known her a few months. + +"I love it," was the prompt answer. + +Belle seemed dismayed: "How about the alkali?" she asked, as if to +convict Kate of deceit. + +Kate only nodded: "It's all right." + +"And the sagebrush?" + +"I like it." + +"And the greasewood?" + +"Why not?" + +Belle had begun to like Kate's laugh: "Not going to get lonesome out in +this country?" Belle flung at her, as a gloomy clincher. + +"Lonesome!" At this idea Kate laughed outright. "Do I look it?" she +cried. + +"Guess you like to horseback pretty well," muttered Belle, casting +about for a solution of so surprising an attitude and unable to find +any other fault with her protégée. + +"I'd rather ride than eat," declared Kate, youthfully exuberant. + +"What about swimming?" inquired Belle, determined to fasten discontent +on her. + +"I hate swimming." + +"Well," grumbled her companion, defeated at every point, "Barb's got +plenty of horses." Kate did not like to hear her father called Barb, +but Belle would not call him anything else. + +Back of the cottage, Doubleday had a small barn, where Henry--an +ex-cowboy--looked after Doubleday's driving horses. And the very first +pledge from her father that she was to be tolerated in the strange +household she had invaded in this far-away country, came to Kate when +he sent down for her use two saddle ponies. The fleeting suspicion of +loneliness that she would not confess even to herself, all vanished +when the ponies came: She could then ride to and from the ranch. And +when Henry failed to appear, Kate took care of her pets herself. After +her father told her they were really hers, she would hardly let Henry +himself lay a hand on them. + +When the evenings grew tedious she would go down for supper with Belle +and sit with her in the small alcove off the office, where the two +could see and hear without being seen; and Belle's stories had no end. + +The only feature of her situation that would not improve was her +father's aloofness. He seemed to try at times to thaw out but he +persistently congealed again. One evening he got in late from the +ranch, cold and wet, complaining of rheumatism. The driver went on +with the team to Sleepy Cat and Doubleday told Kate he would stay all +night. She had a good fire in the grate and made her father a toddy. + +He sat with her before the fire late and talked for the first time +about his affairs, which seemed mostly money troubles. + +Next morning he could hardly get out of bed, but he was set on going to +the ranch and Kate helped him to dress and got him a good breakfast, +with a cup of strong coffee. He softened enough to let her go up to +the ranch with him. She had already coaxed from him the furniture for +the spare room so she might spend the night there occasionally. Van +Horn had promised to teach her sometime how to use a rifle and to take +her out after antelope and Kate was keen for going. The next day her +father brought her the rifle from Sleepy Cat. + +They drove out in the evening, but the minute they reached the +ranch-house, Kate perceived something was up. Van Horn greeted her +with a good deal of freedom, Kate thought--but apologized for hurrying +away after she had shown him her new rifle--with the hint that they had +bigger game in sight just then, and after a long talk with her father +and much preparation he and Stone rode off, two of the men from the +bunk-house with them. Her father plainly let Kate see that he himself +had no intention of entertaining her. He was outside most of the time +and Kelly, the cook, being the only man to talk to, Kate in +self-defense went to bed. + +During the night she was awakened by voices. Van Horn and Stone were +back and they were talking to her father in the living-room. Kate +thought at first some accident had happened. Van Horn, eager, pleased +and rapid in utterance, did much of the talking, Stone breaking in now +and again with a few words in harsh nasal tones--harsher tonight than +usual. Her father seemed only to ask a question once in a while. Kate +tried not to eavesdrop, but she could not occasionally help hearing +words about wire, which Van Horn was sure somebody would never find. +The men had apparently been somewhere and done something. The clink of +glasses indicated drinking, and there was much cursing of something or +somebody. Then the talk got loud and her father hushed it up and the +party went to bed. + +There seemed something furtive and secret about the incident that Kate +could not fathom. Why should honest men get together in the dead of +night to exult and curse and drink? She composed herself to sleep +again; these were simply things she did not understand. She thought +she did not want to understand them, but even after she got back to the +Junction she wondered why her father should be mixed up in them. + +Meantime she spent a week of delight at the ranch, mostly on horseback, +learning the Western horse and Western riding. + +After her outing, Doubleday took Kate down to the Junction. He went on +to Sleepy Cat, but that night he came back ill. In the morning he was +not able to get up. + +Kate telephoned, as he directed, to Sleepy Cat, for Doctor Carpy. + +The doctor, when he came, looked Kate over with interest. He was a +smooth-faced, powerfully-built man, rough-looking and rough in speech, +but he knew his business. It was an acute attack of rheumatism, he +said, and he told Kate to keep her father in bed and to keep him quiet +and nurse him. + +"He's so active," said Kate regretfully. "He seems to be on the go all +the time." + +"Damn him!" exclaimed Carpy with blunt emphasis. "He's nervous all the +time--that's what's the matter. He's got too many irons in the fire." + +Kate swallowed her astonishment at so extraordinary a medical outburst. +She reminded herself she was really out West. + +Belle, when Kate saw her the following morning at the eating-house, +said much the same thing and added in her coldly philosophic way, "I +reckon the banks have got him. And say, Kate, here's a telegram just +come for your father." + +Kate took the despatch up to the cottage. It was from Van Horn at +Medicine Bend, and it so upset her father that she was sorry she had +had to deliver it. After an interval, unpleasant both for the disabled +man and his nurse, Kate ventured to ask whether there was not something +she could do. There was not. Litigation against him, long dormant--he +explained between twinges--had been revived, papers issued and a United +States deputy marshal was on the way to serve him. "I thought," he +growled, "the thing was dead. But nothing against me ever dies. If +it'd gone past today it would 'a' been outlawed. You'll have to send +some telegrams for me." + +He gave her the substance of them and of a letter he wanted +written--all of which she carefully took down. Then putting on her +hat, she hastened to the eating-house to send the telegrams. + +It was well past noon. At the lunch-counter desk Kate copied the +messages on telegraph blanks, took them up to the operator and came +downstairs to write the letter for her father. + +While she was doing this, the two o'clock Medicine Bend train pulled +in. It was the big through train of the day, the train that Belle had +said must bring the dreaded summons server from Medicine Bend, if he +came that day at all. But Kate, absorbed in her letter writing, had +forgotten all about this unpleasantness when something--she was never +able to say just what--recalled her to herself. She became all at once +conscious that she was writing a letter, and at the same time conscious +that she was no longer alone in the little room. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CROSS PURPOSES + +The only thing Kate could have noticed was a slight darkening of the +room; something momentarily obscured the sunlight streaming through the +platform doorway; someone sauntered into the room itself, but Kate was +signing the letter and gave the entrance no thought. Still she could +not shake off the consciousness of somebody walking up close to the +desk where she stood and sitting down on one of the counter stools. +She refused to look up, even though she felt that eyes were on her. + +A natural impulse of defiance at the uninvited scrutiny possessed her. +And being resolved she would not admit she was conscious of it, she +turned from the desk and looking straight toward the glass door +connecting with the dining-room, and behind the end of the counter, she +walked briskly past the intruding presence. + +As she did so, Kate somehow felt with every step that she could not get +out of the room unchallenged. But even then she was riding to a rude +surprise for she had reached the door without incident when she heard +two words: "Slow, Kate." She had already laid her hand on the knob and +she turned it with indignation. The wretched door refused to open! It +was Belle's afternoon off and she had locked the door. + +Even then a collected girl would not have surrendered to the situation. +But Kate never could be collected at just the right time. She was +usually quite collected when it made no difference whether she was +collected or not. All she now did was to look blankly around. A man +sat at the counter, a man she had never seen before. He was +deliberately lifting a broad horseman's hat from a rather round, high +forehead and disclosing a head of inoffensive-looking sandy hair, very +much sun-and-wind bleached. His smooth face, his ears and neck and +open throat, were colored by a strictly uniform pigment--tinctured by +many mountain winds into a reddish brown and burnt by many mountain +suns into a seemingly immutable bronze. The face was long with an +ample nose, a peaceful-looking mouth and unruffled gray eyes. The man +was very like and yet unlike many of the mountain men she had seen. +She remembered afterward that this was her first impression: at that +moment she was not analyzing it: "Where are you going?" he asked, as +she stood looking at him. + +Her resentment at the rudeness rose. Could a prophetic spirit have +warned Kate that this was to be only the first of more than one serious +encounter with the eyes steadily regarding her, her astonishment and +indignation might have been restrained. As it was, forgetting her own +position and descending to Western brusqueness, she retorted icily: "I +can't see how that can possibly interest you." + +If she hoped that a frigid tone and utterance might abash her intruding +questioner, they failed. He spoke again with surprisingly even +impertinence--quite as if she were as friendly as he. "You're wrong," +he said. "I'm mightily interested. I want some coffee and you don't +act to me as if you meant to come back." + +It was undignified and improper for her to bandy words with a heckler, +but Kate had already breathed too much of the freedom of the mountains +to resist a second retort, and said, almost without thinking--and +certainly in a very positive manner: "I am not coming back." + +"Give me a cup of coffee before you go." + +"There is no service here this afternoon." + +"Beg your pardon. There will be one service here this afternoon. You +will serve me." His emphasis was slight, but unmistakable. She was so +fussed she turned to the door and grasped the knob the second time. +Her persecutor raised his left hand firmly. "You can't get out there," +he said. + +"Why can't I?" demanded Kate indignantly. + +"Because you can't open the door." She stood mute at his assurance. +"Come," he continued, "give me some coffee, like a good girl." + +What should she do? She did not speak the question, but weighed it +pretty rapidly in her mind. What manner of man had she to deal with? +If not actually threatening he was extremely domineering. While she +hesitated he regarded her calmly. + +But there was one way to do as he demanded and to punish him as well. +Of the two coffee urns kept filled in readiness for the rush in serving +a trainload of passengers, only one was now heated. Kate stepped to +the urns, murmuring as if to herself: "I know nothing about these." + +"I don't either," he said. From the nearer urn Kate drew a cup of +coffee; it was very cold--but she pushed it with a jug of cream and a +bowl of sugar, toward him. + +"A teaspoon, please?" Kate's excitement had already heightened her +color. She looked very much alive as she added, impatiently, a spoon +to the equipment--expecting then to be able to get out of the room. It +seemed as if this ought to big easy; it was not. Her tormentor +professed to have had no dinner and wanted a sandwich. The sandwiches +were rebelliously hunted up--a plateful was supplied. If he was +surprised at the prodigality he made no comment, but at intervals some +tantalizing word from him entangled her in another exchange; and at +each encounter of wits, just enough fear tempered her resentment to +make her irresolute. + +She was malicious enough to observe in silence the unobtrusive +pantomime by which the enemy tried to coax a semblance of warmth into +his cold coffee. He had begun by pouring cream into it, but the cream +refused to assimilate and only made the mixture look less inviting. + +"I'm glad I met you today," he said, while she was getting her breath. +"Looks lonesome around here. Not much doing at the mines, is there?" + +"Not a great deal," she answered coldly. + +"How about Barb Doubleday--is he up at the mines, or here?" + +He was indifferently lifting matches from the stand at his hand, +striking them and burning them patiently against the side of his cup of +coffee. Like a flash came to Kate with his question, the thought that +this disagreeable person must be the court officer. He looked up at +her now as if waiting for an answer: "Why do you ask?" she countered. + +"Mostly because I'd like to hear you say something." + +"Anything, I suppose," she suggested ironically. + +"That's not far from it," was the reply. "Also, I want to see Barb." + +"What about?" she asked, borrowing his own assurance. It was time, she +thought, for defensive strategy. + +"Just a little business matter." It was long, very long afterward that +Kate learned, and fully realized, the significance of the indifferently +spoken words; when she did, she wondered that a man's manner could so +completely mask all that lay behind them. + +"He isn't hiring any men," she ventured, adapting a set phrase she had +often heard Belle use. + +"And in spite of my looks," he returned, "I'm not hunting a job--for a +wonder." + +But now that Kate wanted to hear more he took his turn at reticence. +"Where are you from?" she asked as unconcernedly as she could. + +"Medicine Bend." + +"From the marshal's office?" It was foolish of her to ask. She fairly +blurted out the words. He looked at her for the first time keenly--and +just the change in his expression, undefinable but unmistakable, almost +frightened her to death. + +"I was in the marshal's office yesterday," he answered, picking up a +sandwich evasively. Kate was no longer doubtful. This was the man to +serve the dreaded, summons. An instant of panic seized her. +Fortunately her persecutor was regarding his stubborn coffee as he +stirred it. Her heart, which had stopped, started with a thump. Her +thoughts cleared. Instinct, self-preservation, asserted itself. She +thought hard and fast. The first step was to temporize. + +He looked up in time to see the blood sweeping back into her cheeks; +and almost spoiled the first really good breath she was drawing. In +his lean, bronzed hands he clasped his cup of coffee as if trying to +put a degree of heat into it: "What would be the extra charge for a +shot at that hot tank?" he asked, directing his glance first at the +other tank, then at Kate's burning face. + +With all his confidence, he must have been surprised at the revulsion +of manner that greeted him. Kate recovered her poise--her coldness +vanished, a smile broke through her reserve and her confused regret was +promptly expressed: "Did I give you coffee out of the cold tank? How +stupid!" + +"And never in my life," said her queer customer, as if continuing her +words, "did I do anything mean to you." + +"Oh, yes, you did," objected Kate, coupling nervous haste with the +declaration as she tried to take the cold cup from between his hands. +The ease with which she assumed the role of a lunch-counter waitress +astonished her. + +"What did I do?" he drawled, resisting her attempt to make amends. + +"You said I couldn't go out that door," she answered, refusing to be +denied the cup. + +"I was hoping if you stayed a few minutes, you wouldn't want to." A +moment earlier she would have been indignant. Now she reconciled +herself to necessity. She was, indeed, wildly hoping she might be able +to coax him not to serve any paper. And she had to repress an absurd +laugh at the thought as she set a fresh and steaming cup before him. + +While he made ready to drink it she leaned with assured indifference +against the buffet shelf behind her. She spread her left arm and hand +innocently along its edge as she had seen waitresses do--and with her +right hand, toyed with the loose collar of her crepe blouse--chatting +the while like a perfectly good waitress with her suspect. The funny +part seemed to her that he took it all with entire seriousness, hardly +laughing; only a suspicion of a smile, playing at times around his +eyes, relieved the somberness of his lean face. His parted lips showed +regular teeth when he spoke, and gave a not unpleasant expression to +his mouth. His eyes were as inoffensive as a mountain lake. + +But there remained something stubborn in his dry manner and at times +her heart misgave her as to the hope of dissuading him from his +purpose. Trying to form some idea of how to act, she studied him with +anxiety. All she could actually reach as a conclusion was that he +might be troublesome to dissuade. + +Yet with every moment she was the more determined to keep him from +carrying out his mission and the more resolved to make him pay for his +Western manners. All this was running through her head while the +coffee was being sipped. Unhappily, her father was where she could not +possibly reach him with a warning until Belle should reappear on the +scene. She tendered her now tractable guest a second cup of coffee. +It was accepted; he talked on, asking many questions, which were +answered more or less to his satisfaction. Not that his inquiries were +impertinent; they were chiefly silly, Kate thought. He seemed most +intent on establishing a friendly footing with a lunch-counter +attendant. + +When his third cup had been drunk and payment tendered for it, and for +five or six sandwiches, Kate decided her time to escape had arrived. +She refused to accept his money: "No," she persisted, "I will not take +a thing for your lunch. Positively not. Oh, you may leave your dollar +on the counter, if you like--it will never go into the register." + +"Why not?" + +"I've told you." + +"Say it again." + +"You were very patient over my blunder in giving you cold coffee." + +"To tell you the truth," he remarked with candor, "it didn't look to me +altogether like a blunder." + +"Oh, it was," she insisted shamelessly; but she did not feel at all +sure he believed her. "And I won't take your money. I want you--" her +eyes fell the least bit with her repentant words--"to have a better +impression of this counter than cold coffee would give you. We're +trying so hard to build up a business." + +"Golly!" observed her calm guest. "I thought a few minutes ago you +were trying to wreck one." + +"You Medicine Bend men always make fun of this valley," Kate complained. + +"I don't really belong in Medicine Bend," was his return. + +"Where do you belong?" + +"In the Falling Wall." + +"Oh! that awful place?" + +"Why knock the Falling Wall?" + +"I never heard any good of it. No matter anyway; you may put up your +money. And some time when I am up in your country," she added +jestingly, "you can give _me_ a cup of cold coffee." + +"We'll say nothing more about the coffee," he declared in blunt +fashion. "Just you come!" He yielded so honestly to deceit that Kate +was half ashamed at imposing on him. + +"Tell me," he went on, spinning his silver dollar in leisurely fashion +on the smooth counter, "how am I going to get up to the mines today +after I look around here for Barb--where can I get a horse?" + +Kate reflected a moment. "I can get you _some_ kind of a horse," she +said slowly. "But it would take you forever to get there on +horseback--the trail runs around by the river. The train will get you +there first. It goes up at four o'clock." + +She knew she said it all blandly, though conscious of her duplicity. +It was not exactly falsehood that she spoke--but it was meant to +mislead. The man was regarding her steadily with eyes that seemed to +Kate not in the least double-dealing. + +"What am I going to do till four o'clock?" he asked, making without +discussion her subtle suggestion his own. + +She lifted her eyebrows disclaimingly--even shrugged her shoulders: +"What are you going to do?" he persisted. She was ready. She looked +longingly out of the window. The sun blazed over the desert in a riot +of gold. + +"It's my day off," she observed, adding just a suspicion of discontent +and uncertainty to her words. She fingered her tie, too; then dropped +her eyes; and added, "I thought I might take a ride." + +He started: "Couldn't get two horses, could you?" + +"Two?" echoed Kate, looking surprised. + +He rose: "I'll turn up two if I have to steal 'em," he declared, +reaching for his hat. + +"That would be too much trouble for one little ride," Kate said +ironically. "I'll see what I can do, first. But," she added, basely, +"if you want to be sure of catching the train, I should advise you to +stay right here. It backs down and doesn't stay but a minute--just +long enough to hook on to the empties." + +Her warning had no effect. It was not meant to have any. She knew if +he got to the mines and learned that her father was at the Junction he +would return in no time to serve him. He was decently restrained now, +but he swallowed her bait, hook and all: "Where do you think you can +find horses?" he asked. + +"Where I work." + +"Where do you work?" + +"Sometimes here and sometimes up at Mr. Doubleday's cottage. The +barn-boy gets up a horse for me any time." + +He raised an unexpected difficulty: "I wouldn't feel just right, today, +riding a horse of Barb Doubleday's," he said doubtfully. + +The words only confirmed her suspicions. Her fears rose but her wits +did not desert her: "Ride mine," she suggested. "I've got my own +horse, of course." + +He drew a breath: "All I can say is, if you ever come over my way, I'll +show you as good a time as I know how to." + +She put up her hand: "Wait till you see how you like _my_ good time." + +He was quick to come back. "I'll agree right now to like anything you +offer--and I don't care a hang what it is, either." + +Looking straight at him she asked a question. Its emphasis lay in her +quiet tone: "Will you stand to that?" He looked at her until she felt +his eyes were going right through her: "I've got enemies," he said +slowly, and there was now more than a touch of hardness in his voice; +"most men have. But the worst of 'em never claimed my word isn't good." + +"Then," exclaimed Kate, hastening to escape the serious tone, "you tend +counter while I go and see about the horses." + +"No," he objected, "that's a man's job. You tell me where to go and +_I'll_ get the horses." + +Kate was most firm: "If you're going to ride with _me_," she said, "you +must do my way. Take a woman's job for a few minutes and see how you +like it." + +He regarded her with the simplicity of a child, but replied like a +case-hardened cowboy: "I don't like a woman's job, of course. But I'm +ready to do any blamed thing you say." + +"Do you suppose," Kate demanded with an air, "they would turn two +horses over to _you_ up at Doubleday's?" + +She had put her foot in it: "I tell you," he protested, "I don't want +to ride a horse of Doubleday's. I'm up here to talk to Barb Doubleday. +And nobody can say just how it's coming out. At the ranch they swore +he was at Sleepy Cat. I rode down there and they told me he was at the +Junction, so I took the train over here. Now you tell me he's at the +mines--that's where I'll say what I've got to say. But I don't want to +take any advantage. And I don't want to impose on his property rights +so much as a single hair. That's exactly what's between us." + +Kate, established in treacherous ambush, felt qualms at his stern, +clear code. + +She tried to shut him off, but he was wrought up: "Barb swore to me +once he had nothing to do with it," he persisted obstinately. "All I +can say is, if a man fools me once it's his fault; if he fools me +twice, it's mine." + +"What about a woman?" asked Kate, trying hard to say one thing and +think another. + +He opened his eyes: "I never thought much about that. A man can't +fight a woman," he returned reflectively. "And I've yet to see one I +could fool." + +"What should you do," she asked, turning her back while she +straightened her hat in the buffet mirror, "if you ever met one that +fooled you?" + +"No woman would ever take the trouble." + +She laughed a little: "You never can tell." + +"If a woman ever fooled me, she'd have to fool herself first--so she'd +be the loser." + +"What a philosopher!" + +"First and last, I've been called a good many names--some full +hard--but never a philosopher before." + +Kate started for the front door: "Hold on a minute," he objected, +"what's to do here while you're gone?" + +"Serve coffee and sandwiches if anybody comes in. This time of day +there's never anybody comes in." + +He turned on his stool: "How soon'll you be back?" + +"In a few minutes." + +"Get a good horse for yourself." + +Kate gave him a parting shot: "Of course you think I can't ride." + +It did not take her long to get up the hill. Breathless, she +encountered old Henry in the garden, asked him for the ponies and +almost ran into the house. Her father was asleep. There was no reason +to stir him up over a situation that she was resolved to handle and +felt she could handle. She got into her riding clothes in a trice, all +the time wondering whether she could hold her wild man in leash long +enough to defeat him. Had he been more like anybody she had ever met +and known, the problem would have been less confusing. But she +determined to shut her eyes and win the fight if she could, and to this +end draft every resource. So she thought, at least, as she caught up +her little revolver and, dropping it into the scabbard she had belted +about her waist, set forth. + +She rode back one of her own ponies and led the other. Her enemy had +good ears for when she was half way to the eating-house he walked out +on the platform and silently surveyed her approach. Kate watched him +narrowly and drew up before him to estimate the effect. She was +disappointed, she had to confess, at his cool indifference, for she +thought her riding rig unusually pretty. It had seemingly failed to +impress her queer Westerner. His eyes were all for the horses. "Clean +ponies," he observed, taking the bridle rein from her hand as he looked +the two over. + +"I forgot to ask what kind of a saddle you like," she observed +indifferently. He was scanning the horses and his eyes not being on +her she got her first real good look at her antagonist--whether he was +to be her victim she was in somewhat anxious doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHICH WINS? + +He was long of limb, rather loose-jointed; but not ungraceful, except as +his simple manner and unassuming rig--neither soiled nor fresh--made him +seem so; at all events what he might look like was apparently of slight +moment to him. He had a good walk--Kate noticed that when he crossed the +platform; not the choppy, high-heeled gait of a man that never does +anything but ride, but an easy step that matched the expressions of his +eyes. His quick movements seemed, as usual with bronzed Western men, +younger than his face; and his twenty-eight years would, as a first +impression, have passed for well above thirty, with Kate. She had +struggled too long with charcoal and lead pencils not to perceive that +his frame was clean and his shoulders good; and his head was well set on +them, if the man would carry it where it belonged. But he was plainly +not vain; and since we usually accept at sight whatever draft men and +women themselves draw on our impressions, Kate would have regarded him +ordinarily with no more than he demanded--indifference. + +"Any kind of saddle will do me," he answered in response to an inquiry; +and he repeated his compliment to the horses. He looked well at his own: +"This is a good pony." Kate assumed a little: "All our ponies are good." + +"I wish you'd show them to me sometime," was his unassuming request. The +remark should have been enough to warn Kate that her deception rested on +very thin ice; that it was more than probable he had already penetrated +much of it. But, a beginner in deception, she was intent only on her own +part and took his good-natured acquiescence at its face value. The +moment he saw her ponies he knew they were Doubleday's: yet he seemed +willing to forego his scruple rather than to lose the ride. + +Kate, too, was disposed to be amiable: "I will show them to you +sometime," she said promptly. + +But whenever she thawed for an instant she felt directly the necessity of +freezing up again. Her remarks were divided as evenly as a mountain +April day--one moment spring, the next winter. Happily for her purposes, +the day itself was spring. She had mounted her horse but as she spoke, +she slipped from her saddle, threw her lines and, walking hurriedly into +the dining room, returned with a handful of wrapped sandwiches. She +looked at him as she held the package out: "How can we carry them?" + +He disposed of the store in a capacious pocket and then hesitated: "I +wonder if you'd mind waiting five minutes while I go up to Doubleday's +house." + +"What for?" she asked, professing surprise. + +"To see what I can find out about where he is." + +"I've told you all you can find out by going to the house," she returned +deprecatingly. He looked at her as if undecided. "When you ask to go +riding with me and I get the horses--I come first, don't I?" she asked +cavalierly; and before he could help her she was back again in the saddle. + +He hesitated no longer: "You come first any time," he said, "and +anywhere," he added, swinging up on his own pony. + +She looked sidewise at him as they trotted up the street: "You don't mind +rather rough riding?" + +"Anything the ponies can stand," was all he said. + +Kate had given him her dun pony. Spirit-free all the time the trim beast +either through instinct knew his rider or meant to cast off care in a +long fling. He took the stage the moment his rider touched the saddle. +Kate rode Dick, her lighter but faster gray pony. He danced attendance +for a time, but the dun kept the spotlight and gave Kate a chance to +regard the man just from Medicine Bend critically. She had meant to put +him on exhibition--perhaps cherished a hope he might ride only +indifferently well--yet in a country where everybody rode, this was much +to hope for. At all events, the result, with an added surprise, was a +disappointment. + +If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if +there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in +the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before +Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his +careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted +riotously, the rider's head, rising like a monitor straight from his +slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces. + +"You take the trail," said Kate's guest tersely, as they swung out on the +desert. + +"No," she returned, "you." + +"We'll take it together," was his reply. + +But despite her disclaiming, Kate did the guiding and her object was to +get a good way from town. Her companion's frequently repeated effort was +to slow down for a talk; hers was to tantalize him by speeding away from +one. But she couldn't speed all of the time, and he eyed either her +riding, or her habit, pretty closely for a good while without comment. +Then a chance offered itself and he put a question: "Where did you learn +to ride?" + +"All mountain girls ride, don't they?" she suggested. + +"You're not a mountain girl." + +"It was a mountain girl that taught me to ride,--away back in the +Alleghanies--long before I ever saw this country." + +"Your mountain girl's pupils don't all ride like that, I'll gamble." + +"I wasn't very bright." Kate spurred ahead. The dun pony kept after her. + +"Compliments don't set very well on you, do they?" was the shot from her +left a moment later. + +She turned a full face on her companion: "I hate them," she declared with +energy. + +In luring this man away from his errand, she had yielded to a really wild +impulse and now the spirit of recklessness that ruled her mood seemed to +revenge itself by counseling added dangers. She invited riding-hazards, +that her victim disdained to comment on, until they must have appeared +silly to him. A long way from home they were crossing a high bench above +the Falling Wall river, a bench cut by frequent lateral washes--some wide +and all very deep. These breaks they jumped one after another without +taking serious trouble to head them, though Kate's companion, riding on +the river side, gave her every chance to do so. + +"I suppose," he suggested at length, "you're pushing into rough country +because you like it." + +She looked at him: "Yes," she said, icily, "I do like it. But," she +added, "if it's too rough for you, we'll go back." In that much of a +challenge she felt safe. + +"I'm riding with you," he returned, a little dryly. "I like anything you +like." + +And at this juncture Kate's luck deserted her; it always seemed to when +she most needed it. Ahead, there lay a stretch of smooth bench and she +took a run to cross it. But below a slight rise on the near side an ugly +break suddenly faced her. Decision was forced. Recklessness said: "Take +it." She spurred. The gray hesitated--almost as if to give his wanton +mistress a chance to reconsider; but he got the quirt for his pains. + +The wiry beast was almost on the brink--he had hardly a moment to coil, +but he shot across the gulf with a convulsive leap that carried his rider +over, with nothing--absolutely nothing--to spare. He made the farther +side with three feet--the left hind foot slumped on the edge of the bank +and down went the leg! + +Kate never forgot that moment. It was thirty feet, sheer, to the rocks +below. And it would have been poor Dick on top of his foolish mistress. +Kate really expected nothing better until with a terrific snort the pony +scrambled to safety. What a horse will do for thankless man! + +The frightened girl hardly dared look around even after she recovered her +breath--which she thought would never come back. On the sudden spurt, +her companion had been a little behind her. She presumed that the dun +with commendable sense had refused the jump for when she glanced half way +around--she was afraid her white face would betray her little panic--his +rider was galloping him back in an easy circle and heading him the second +time for the formidable break. This time, too, the rider was letting his +reluctant beast understand who was master; and with enough of authority +to force him and enough consideration to give him confidence, he jumped +him over the gap as Kate should have jumped Dick--with room and to spare. + +Her cheeks were burning again: "You did it much better," she said coolly, +as he joined her. "Dick is getting slow." + +"That wasn't Dick's fault," he remarked, for he appeared a trifle upset +himself by the misadventure. "It was yours," he added bluntly. + +Her only answer was to push ahead. She could at least keep the man +busy--though she felt somewhat diffident about offering him further +lessons in horsemanship. + +The trail led up a commanding ridge and her companion scanned the valley +lying to the north beyond. Through it they could trace a slender water +course. "This should be not far from Falling Wall Canyon," he suggested. +"And that creek must be a branch of the Sinking Water." + +"Oh, I've heard about that wonderful canyon," she exclaimed. "Tell me +about it." + +"It breaks through that near range," he said, pointing. "There are elk +in the park across the next divide. There isn't a great deal to tell +about the canyon--it's just there, that's about all." + +"How deep is it?" + +"Three to six hundred feet." + +"Straight up and down, they say." + +"As near as the Lord could make it." + +"Is there any way of getting to the bottom of it?" + +"The easiest way would be to jump from the rim." + +"Oh, could we see it?" + +"Not tonight unless you want to camp out; and we're not exactly fixed for +that. Up close to the old mine bridge there's a trail into the canyon. +It's pretty stiff. A sailor would warp his way down with a rope." + +The horses had halted by consent and their riders were contemplating the +mountains and valleys surrounding them. Her companion took advantage of +the pause to dismount and inspect the legs of the ponies--and while he +examined those of his own horse for politeness' sake--he looked more +closely at Dick's. + +"He must have got a wrench in that jump," confessed Kate, watching. "We +were riding pretty fast, weren't we?" + +"For that kind of country, yes. I thought for a while," added her +companion, in a dry way, "you must be showing me how to ride. Then I +figured out you must be showing me how _you_ could ride." + +Kate stared straight ahead: "How absurd!" she exclaimed with cold +contempt for his conclusions, yet feeble in her sarcasm against his +penetration. + +"All I want to say is," he continued, remounting, "that I see you can +ride. You don't have to cover much country to prove that. You ride like +a Western girl--and talk like an Eastern girl. Which are you?" + +She unfeelingly closed all inquiries: "Both," she answered indifferently. +"Let's head for the bottoms; about two miles from here there's a +spring--good water." + +He looked skeptical: "If you can show me good water near here, I'll be +learning something. I didn't know there was a water hole within ten +miles--but I don't know this lower country as well as my own." + +"What is your own?" + +He pointed to the Northeast to where a range of snow-capped peaks rose +above from the desert: "Those are the Lodge Pole mountains. That's where +the Falling Wall river begins--where you see that snow. It circles clear +around the range, crosses the Reservation to the West and opens South +into a high basin--that's my country--the Falling Wall. Then the river +cuts out of there through the canyon we're talking about and gets away to +the West again." Coming a step nearer to her he pointed again: "Now look +close to the left of that strip of timber. You can just see a break +above it--that's the high point of the canyon. A long time ago there was +a mining camp in those mountains--Horsehead--they started to build a +railroad up there--did a lot of grading and put in the abutments for a +bridge across the canyon. Before they got the road built the camp played +out; they never finished it. All that country below there is the Falling +Wall." + +"Are they all thieves and outlaws over there?" + +He started a little in spite of himself and took his time to reply: "It +must have been a thief or an outlaw that put that idea in your head," he +observed finally. + +"Oh, no, it was Tom Stone." + +His expression changed into contempt: "I didn't need but one guess." + +Kate asked him to explain, but he did not and she was not in a position +to object. She found the trail to the spring. Van Horn had taken her +there once. Dismounting at a little distance, the two made their way +down to it. "Score one for the rough rider," said her companion after he +had drunk. "And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country." + +[Illustration: "And I thought I knew every drop of water in this +country."] + +He produced the sandwiches and they sat down. Kate could judge the hour +of the day only from the sun and dared not mention "time." Her companion +asked as many questions as he could think of, and she managed her answers +with a minimum of information. And she asked herself one question that +did not occur to him: "Why was she not frightened to death?" It must +have been the duel she felt she was fighting with this man to keep him +away from her father that banished her fears. In the saddle, events +moved too rapidly to admit of extended misgivings, and she had purposely +assigned to him the slower horse. + +It was only when they were taking the almost enforced moment of rest +together at the water hole--which might as well have been a thousand +miles from help as ten--that little chills did run up and down her back. +As for her companion, it was useless to try to read him from his face or +manner; if she were playing one game, he might well be playing another as +far as anything she could gather from his features was concerned. But +she had to confess there was never a look in his eyes--when she did look +into them--that frightened her. + +And as she cautiously regarded him munching a sandwich and keeping his +own eyes rather away from than on her own, she asked herself whether she +had undertaken too much, and whether this sphinx-like face might hide +danger for her. She at least knew it was far from being possible to tell +by looking at the outside of a man's head what might be going on inside. +Only the plight of her father's affairs had seemed to justify her; even +this did not seem to now, but it was too late to wish herself out of it. +Besides--for most extraordinary notions will come into foolish girls' +minds--was she not in the company of a great Federal court; and shouldn't +she feel safe on that score? + +He certainly ate slowly. His appetite was astonishing. He invited Kate +more than once to continue eating with him, but her first hasty sandwich +and her latent uneasiness had more than satisfied her. + +"It must be very exciting, to be a deputy marshal," she remarked once, +when she could think of no other earthly thing to say, and was still +afraid they might get back in time for the train. + +"It must be sometimes." + +"How does it feel to be chasing men all the time?" + +"I've had more experience myself in getting chased." + +She attempted to laugh: "Do they ever chase deputy marshals?" + +He took up, gravely, the last sandwich: "I expect they do once in a +while." + +"You ought to know, I should think." + +He offered her the sandwich and on her refusal bit into it: "No," he +returned simply, "for I'm not a deputy marshal." + +Kate was stunned: "Why, you said you were! What do you mean?" she +demanded when she could speak. He ate so deliberately! She thought he +never would finish his mouthful and answer: "I mean--not regularly. Once +or twice I've been deputized to serve papers--when the job went begging. +Farrell Kennedy, the marshal at Medicine Bend, is a friend of +mine--that's the nearest I come to working for him." + +"But if you're not a deputy marshal, what are you?" demanded Kate, +uneasily. + +His face reflected the suspicion of a smile: "I guess the answer to that +would depend a good deal on who told the story." + +"I could hardly imagine anyone chasing you," she continued, not knowing +in her confusion what to say. + +"You ought to see me run sometime," he returned. + +"Oh, there's a prairie dog!" she exclaimed. She was looking to the +farther side of the water hole. "See? Over there by that bush! I +wonder if I could hit it?" She put her hand to her scabbard: "I've lost +my revolver!" She looked at him blankly. "Had it when you started, +didn't you?" inquired her companion, undisturbed. Her hand rested on the +empty scabbard in dismay: "I must have lost it on the way." + +He plunged his left hand into a capacious side pocket and drew out her +revolver. But instead of handing it to her he began to examine it as if +he might return it or might not. She was on pins in an instant. Now she +_was_ at his mercy. "Is that mine?" she asked, frightened. + +"It is." + +"Where did you get it?" she demanded. Was she to get it back? He made +no move to let her know; just fingered the toy curiously. "Where you +dropped it--before you made your leap for life." And looking up at her, +he added: "We ought to've eaten our sandwiches first and drank afterward." + +"I don't understand--what did I do?" Kate knew her voice quivered a bit +though she was bound she would not show fear. "And while we are +talking"--she pointed--"the prairie dog is gone." + +"He'll be back," predicted her companion with slow confidence. "The gun +bounced from your scabbard when you were running your horse along the +bench. So I picked it up for you." He presented it on the palm of his +hand. + +"How odd!" she exclaimed, trying to take it without appearing in a hurry. +"How stupid of me!" She knew her face, in spite of herself, flushed +under his gaze. + +"You were going a pretty good clip," he continued. + +"But a man would never do such a thing as to drop a revolver--you never +would." + +"It might be a whole lot worse for me to do it than it would for +you--though if I carried a nice little gun like that it maybe wouldn't +make so very much difference. There's your prairie dog again," he added, +looking across the hole. + +"Of course a man would have to make fun of a pistol like this," she +answered, the revolver lying in her hand. "Let me see yours." Thus far +she had seen no sign of any scabbard or holster. "And shoot that prairie +dog for me," she added. + +"Mine would be pretty heavy for a prairie dog. You try him." + +"Oh, my poor little pistol is in disgrace," she returned, putting it up. +"Sec what you can do." + +He slipped his left hand under the right lapel of his coat and drew from +a breast harness a Colt's revolver. Had she realized it was carried that +day in this very unobtrusive manner in anticipation of an unpleasant +interview with her father, Kate would have been speechless with fear. As +it was, no gun, though she had seen many since coming to the mountains, +ever looked so big or formidable. The setting of the scene and her +situation may have magnified its impressiveness. + +"Why smash the prairie dog?" he asked quietly. "Look at his whiskers--he +may be the father of a family." + +"You might miss him." + +"If I should it would be time for me to quit this country." + +"Shoot at something else." + +"Why shoot at all?" + +"I want to see you." + +"We might get a shot at something on the way home." + +"You're not obliging." She held out her hand for his revolver. "Let me +see." + +"It makes me feel kind of foolish," he said defensively, "kind of like an +old-fashioned cowboy, to be shooting right and left." On his right hand +he held the heavy gun toward Kate. + +"How do you get practise?" she asked. + +He lifted his eyebrows the least bit: "To tell the truth I haven't had +much lately." + +"How can you tell then whether you could hit anything if you did shoot at +it?" + +"That wouldn't be hard. If I didn't hit it, it would most likely hit me." + +"How could I practise to learn to shoot the way you do?" + +He looked at her inquiringly; "What do you know about the way I shoot?" + +"Nothing, of course. I mean the way that men who carry guns like this +shoot." + +He thought a moment. "Get down into a dark cellar with just one window. +Block out all the light from that window except one small circle. Shoot, +off-hand, till you can put five bullets through the circle without +mussing up the general surroundings." + +"That sounds like hard work." + +"It's certainly----" He just hesitated and then continued: "hard on the +ammunition." + +She found by this time she could tolerate the dry smile that lighted his +face now and again, and the drawl of words that went with the expression. +At times he seemed simple, yet there was shrewdness behind his humor. + +"I didn't see you stop back there on the bench to pick anything up," she +remarked abruptly, thinking of her own pistol again. + +"I circled back to get it." + +"Without dismounting?'" + +"You wouldn't hardly want to get off to pick up anything as light as +that." + +"I wish I'd seen you do it." + +"If you'd been looking I might've been trying to get hold of it yet." + +She examined the Colt's gun curiously. She asked him how to handle it. +He obligingly broke it, emptied the cylinders and explained how it was +fired. But she was not equal to handling the big thing, and told him so. + +"Though if I should want to kill you now it would be easy, wouldn't it?" +she reflected, after he had reloaded the gun and laid it in her hand, the +muzzle pointing toward himself and her finger resting on the trigger. + +"Not without cocking the gun." + +"No, but I mean suppose I really _should_ want to kill you----" + +"I'll show you." He cocked the revolver and placed it again in her hand +and it lay once more with her finger on the trigger. + +"Now," he explained, "I'm covered." + +"And to kill you all I have to do is to pull the trigger." + +"Pulling the trigger, the way things are now, would certainly be a big +start in that direction. But"--the dry suspicion of a laugh crossed his +eyes--"to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger doesn't always kill +him--not, anyways, in this country. If it did, the population would fall +off pretty strong in some of these northern counties. And you might be +surprised if I told you you couldn't pull the trigger right now, anyway." + +"How do you know that?" + +"Try it." + +"But I might kill you!" + +"That's the point." + +"Nevertheless," she persisted, "I could if I _wanted_ to." + +"No matter how you put it, it's all the same--you can't want to." + +"No, but suppose I were bound to keep you from doing something--like +serving papers, for instance." + +His legs were crossed under him and he was tossing bits of the gravel +under his hand: "You'd have a better show to do that if you went at it in +another way." + +"What way?" + +"Well--by asking me not to serve them, for instance." + +"Do you mean to say if I asked you not to serve papers you wouldn't do +it?" She eyed him with simulated indignation. + +He returned her gaze unafraid: "Try it," was his answer. + +She took a deep breath. Then she tossed her head: "I probably shouldn't +care enough about it for that. Why don't you carry two revolvers?" + +"Too much like baggage." + +"Wouldn't it be a lot safer?" + +He smiled: "If one gun refused to go off promptly, two wouldn't help a +lot." + +Her eyes and her thoughts returned to the gun in her hand. For a moment +she had forgotten it. Suppose her finger, while she was talking, had +mechanically closed on the trigger. She blanched. "Take it," she said, +holding the gun out in both hands and looking away. + +"Shall we let the dog go this time?" she heard him ask as he lowered the +hammer. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CLOSE OF THE DAY + +They rode straight home. On the way Dick went lame and both dismounted +to examine him. "This will make you miss your train," she suggested, +hypocritically. + +He had Dick's foot up. His comment on the remark was very like the +rest of his comments. "Not this," he said--and without looking up. + +"Do you mean to say you've missed it anyway?" asked Kate. + +"What does the sun say?" + +She bit her lip: "Too bad," she exclaimed, looking across the distance +that still lay between them and the Junction. + +"I don't see anything wrong with his foot," he announced, completing +his inspection. "I think he wrenched himself." + +He said no more till they started again. And then resumed in his odd +way just where they had left off talking: "I've been trying to figure +out why you wanted me to miss the train." She looked at him in +surprise. "I think you did want me to," he continued. "But I can't +figure out why." + +She protested, but not with too many words. She felt sure he was not +easily to be deceived. In any case, however, he was unflinchingly +amiable. + +After they got back to the Junction the totally unexpected happened. +They dismounted and she went into the lunch room. Her victim pursued +an examination of Dick's leg. An early supper was being served in the +dining-room to a freight train crew. Two of the Doubleday cowboys from +the ranch came into the lunch-room from the front door. Kate, at the +desk, was making ready to manage her own escape from the scene. The +smaller cowboy, walking in last, looked back curiously at her riding +companion as he stood with Dick's hoof on his knee. The man slouched +up to the counter: "Wouldn't that kill you?" muttered the smaller man +to his partner. + +"What do you mean?" demanded the other. + +The first speaker hitched his thumb guardedly over his shoulder: "Know +who that is out there?" + +"No, I don't--who is he?" + +Kate's ears were wide open: "None other," continued the man, pulling a +face, "than the well-known Jim Laramie himself." His partner checked +him and the two, talking in low tones, walked into the dining-room. + +Kate could not at first believe her ears; then she felt that the cowboy +must know what he was talking about. + +Worst of all, Laramie, at that moment--before she could think of +collecting herself--walked in through the open door. He came directly +to the counter. She hardly attempted to hide her consternation: "Are +you Jim Laramie?" she burst out in her excitement. + +It must have been the manner of her words rather than the words +themselves that startled him. For just an instant the curtain lifted; +a flash of anger shot from his eyes; it was drawn again at once: "Is my +reputation over here as bad as that?" he asked. + +Kate was dumb. Try as she would, she could not think of a thing to +say; the recollection of her reckless ride overwhelmed her. "What's +happened?" he continued with a little irritation. "If you weren't +afraid of me when you didn't know my name, why be afraid now?" + +She stammered something, some apology, which he received, she afterward +thought, coldly: "I'm running up to the house now to change," she went +on hurriedly, "but I must thank you for----" + +What on earth was she to thank him for? He helped her out: "Before you +go," he interrupted, sitting up on the counter stool nearest her and +looking at her without paying the slightest attention to her +meaningless words, "before you go, tell me your name." + +Oddly enough, by just speaking he restored order to her faculties. She +looked straight at him: "You guessed that this morning," she said +frankly. + +"Kate?" + +She nodded. + +"That's queer," he mused. "It must've been pure accident. I heard +that the man I came to round up today had a girl named Kate, so I +suppose that was the first name came into my head. Kate, what else?" + +"Suppose," she suggested gravely, "we keep the rest for the next time." + +"For our next ride?" + +She looked just away from his persistent eyes: "Perhaps." + +"Will your name," he went on, "surprise me as much as my name surprised +you?" + +"Who knows?" she retorted, and speaking she started for the front door. + +"Stop." He stepped in front of her just enough to bar her way. There +was a tinge of command in his voice and manner quite new. Halted, but +not pleased, she waited for him to go on: "You'll come back, won't you?" + +"I'll try to." + +"I want to listen," he added coolly, "to the worst story you ever heard +about Jim Laramie." + +"I don't pay much attention to cowboy stories." + +He certainly paid no attention to her words: "Will you come back?" he +persisted. + +"I will if I can," she said, confusedly. + +He was just enough in front of her to detain her: "Say you will." + +It was somewhat between command and entreaty. Old Henry at the side of +the platform was just mounting the dun horse. Kate was getting +panicky: "Very well," she answered, "I'll come back." + +The moment she got to the cottage she locked the front door and drew +all the shades. And every mouthful of the cold supper she ate with her +father lodged in her throat. To him she dared not say a word. Once in +the evening the door bell rang and some man asked for Barb Doubleday. +He made a few inquiries when Henry answered that Doubleday was not in +town, but he did not ask for Kate. She felt curious tremors, listening +to the low voice. But Laramie--for it was he--presently turned from +the door and she heard his footsteps crunching down the gravel path to +the street. + +In the morning Henry told her a man had lingered around the lunch room +until the lights were put out at ten o'clock. By that time he must +have known every pine knot in the varnished ceiling. When peaceably +put out of the room by the night man he had walked out on the platform +to the post where the horses had stood and looked long across the +tracks toward Doubleday's cottage on the hill. No lights were burning +in the cottage. He turned to walk toward it. But as he stepped into +the street the whistle of the eastbound Overland train sounded in the +hills to the west. Evidently this changed his mind, for he retraced +his steps and entered the waiting-room, walked to the ticket window and +bought a ticket for Sleepy Cat. He waited until the train pulled in +and loitered on the platform till it was ready to pull out, speaking to +no one. When the conductor finally gave the starting signal the man +looked for the last time around toward the lunch room door. Everything +was dark. + +He caught the hand rail of the last open sleeper and swung up on the +step. There he stood looking down the platform and across the street +while the train drew slowly out. Then turning to go into the car he +uttered only one word to himself--and that a mild one: "Gypped!" + +But, even then, had Kate heard it she would have been frightened. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOME OF LARAMIE + +Almost due north of Sleepy Cat the Lodge Pole Mountains, tumbling over +one another in an upheaval southward, are flung suddenly to the west +and spread in a declining ridge to the Superstition range. South of +the Lodge Poles the country is very rough, but at the point where the +range is so sharply deflected there spreads fanlike to the east an open +basin with good soil and water. It is known locally as the Falling +Wall country, and, as the names of the region indicate, it was once +famous as a hunting ground, and so, as a fighting ground, for the +powerful tribes of early days. And an ample Reservation in this +basin--ending just where the good lands begin--is the stamping ground +of the last of the mountain red men. + +But the struggle for possession of the Falling Wall country did not end +with the red men. White men, too, have coveted the lands of the +Falling Wall and fought for them. Among the blind the one-eyed are +kings, and the Falling Wall basin lies amid inhospitable deserts, +barren hills and landscapes slashed to rags and ribbons by mountain +storms--regions that have failed to tempt even a white man's cupidity. +The Indians fought for the basin with arrows, bullets, tomahawks and +scalping knives; the whites have fought chiefly in the land offices and +courts, but, exasperated by delays and inflamed by defeat, they have at +times boiled over and appealed to the rifle and the hip holster for +decrees to quiet title. + +It is for these reasons, and others, that the Falling Wall country has +borne a hard and somewhat sinister name, even in a region where men +have been habitually indifferent to restraint and tolerant of violent +appeals to frontier justice. In the very early days of the white man +the Indian clung to the Falling Wall country as his last stand; for the +bad lands along the canyon of the Falling Wall river made, as they yet +make, an almost impenetrable fastness for sally and retreat. + +But even before the Indians were driven into their barren cage to the +north, white adventurers had penetrated the basin and it became, with +the shifting of possession, a region for men of hard repute. Its +traditions have been bad and few in the Falling Wall country have felt +concern over the fact. + +Yet, from the earliest days, despite the many difficulties of living in +the widely known but not large park, a few hardy settlers managed from +the beginning, in secluded portions of the region, to keep their scalps +and their horses and to live through Indian days and outlaw +days--though not often in peace, and never in quiet. + +Among these early adventurers was one known as "Texas" Laramie, because +he had the extraordinary courage, or hardihood, to bring into the +Falling Wall the first cattle ever driven into the mountains from the +Panhandle. In a country where the sobriquet is usually the only name +by which it is courteous or safe to address a man, and where it is +invariably apt, few men are accorded two. But Laramie had also been +known as "Pump" Laramie because he brought into that country the first +Winchester rifle; and the instinctive significance the mind attaches to +the combination of cows and a repeating rifle was, in this instance, +justified--there was between the two a direct, even dynamic, +connection. Laramie thus figured prominently in the older Falling Wall +feuds. It would have been difficult for him to figure obscurely, and +do it more than once. + +Enemies said that he stole the bunch of cattle he first drove into the +Falling Wall. It was not true but it made a good story. And in any +event, Texas Laramie defended his steers vigorously against all men +advancing claim to them between darkness and daylight--as enterprising +neighbors not infrequently undertook to do. With the cattle, Laramie +had brought into the mountains a wife from Texas. She was a young +mother with a little boy, Jim; a good mother, never happy in the +country so far away from the Staked Plain--and not very long to live +there. But she lived long enough to send Jim year after year to the +Sisters' School on the Reservation. + +To obtain for a boy any sort of an education in a region so wild and so +inhospitable would have seemed impossible. Yet devoted +Sisters--refined and aristocratic American women--were already in this +mountain country devoting their lives to the Indian Missions. Under +such women little Jim learned his Catechism and his reading and from +them and their example a few of the amenities of life--so far removed +from him in every other direction. Under their care he grew up, after +he had lost his mother, among the Indian boys. With these he learned +to fish and hunt, to trap for pocket money, to use a bow and arrow and +a knife, to trail and stalk patiently, to lie uncomplainingly in cold +and wet, to ride without saddle or bridle or spur, to face a grizzly +without excitement, to use a rifle where the price of every cartridge +was reckoned and a poor aim sometimes cost life itself. + +And every summer at home his father added extension courses in the +saddle and bridle, spur, hackamore and lariat to his education. He +taught him to rope, throw and mark, to use a coffee pot and frying pan, +and at last on the great day--the Commencement day, so to say of the +boy's frontier education--he presented him with his degree--a Colt's +revolver and a box of cartridges--and died. As he lay on his deathbed, +Texas Laramie left a parting advice to his young son: "You've learned +to shoot, Jim--you don't shoot bad for a youngster. A man's got to +shoot. But the less shooting you do, after you've learned--without +you're forced to it, mind you--the more comfortable you'll feel when +you get where I am now. All I can say is: I never killed an honest man +that I knowed of. In fact," his breath came very slowly, "I never yet +seen an honest man in the Falling Wall to kill." + +And Jim began life with the ranch, youth, a little bunch of cattle, no +money and much health in the Falling Wall. His first year alone he +never forgot, for in the spring he drove all his steers--not a great +many--into the new railroad town, south--Sleepy Cat--and sold them for +more money than he had ever seen at one time in his life. He wandered +from the bank into Harry Tenison's gambling rooms--Harry having sold +out his livery stable to Joe Kitchen shortly before that--just to look +on for a little while before starting home. When Laramie did start +home, Tenison had all his steer money and Laramie owed the sober-faced +gambler, besides, one hundred dollars. Laramie then went to work on +the range for twenty-five dollars a month. He worked four months, and +it was hard work, took his pay check in and handed it to Tenison. That +was strangely enough the beginning of a friendship that was never +broken. Tenison tried to give the check back to Laramie. He could +not. But Laramie never again tried to clean out the bank at Tenison's. + +The Laramie cabin on Turkey Creek--the son built afterward on the same +spot--stood on a slight conical rise some distance back from the little +stream that watered the ranch. From his windows Jim Laramie could look +on gently falling ground in all directions. Toward the creek lay an +alfalfa field which, with a crude irrigating ditch and water from the +creek, he had brought to a prosperous stand. Below the alfalfa stood +the barn and the corral. + + +The day after Kate Doubleday's adventure with him at the Junction, +Laramie was riding up the creek to his cabin when a man standing at the +corral gate hailed him. It wag Ben Simeral. Ben, old and ragged, met +every man with a smile--a bearded, seamed and shabby smile, but an +honest smile. Ben was a derelict of the range, a stray whose appeal +could be only to patient men. Whenever he wandered into the Falling +Wall country, where he had a claim, he made Laramie's cabin a sort of +headquarters and spent weeks at a time there, looking after the stock +in return for what John Lefever termed the "court'sies" of the ranch. + +Laramie, greeting Ben, made casual inquiry about the stock. Ben looked +at him as if expectant; but Ben was not aggressive for news or anything +else. He grinned as he looked Laramie over: "Well, you're back again, +Jim." + +Laramie responded in kindly fashion: "Anybody been here?" + +"Nary critter," declared the custodian, "'cept Abe Hawk--he came over +to borry your Marlin rifle." + +"What did he want with that?" + +"Said he was going up into the mountains but he's comin' over again +before he starts. I knowed he helped you track them wire scouts over +to Barb's. The blame critters tore off all the wire t'other side the +creek, too. Get any track of 'em?" he asked, sympathetically alive to +what had been most on Laramie's mind when he had started from home. + +Laramie barely hesitated but he looked squarely at Ben and answered in +even tones: "No track, Ben." + +Ben looked at him, still smiling with a kindly hope: + +"Hear from the contest on the creek quarter?" + +"They told me at Medicine Bend it had gone against me." + +"Psho! Never! You've got another 'go' to Washington, hain't y'?" + +Laramie nodded and got down from his horse. Ben, removing the saddle, +asked more questions--none of them important--and after putting up the +horse the two men started for the house. Its rude walls were well laid +up in good logs on which rested a timbered roof, shingled. + +A living-room with a fireplace roughly fashioned in stone made up the +larger interior of the cabin. To the right of the fireplace a kitchen +opened off the living-room and adjoining this, to the right as one +entered the front door, was a bedroom. To the left stood a small +table, on which were scattered a few old books, a metal lamp and +well-thumbed copies of old magazines. Beside the table stood a heavy +oak Morris chair of the kind sold by mail-order houses. Two other +chairs, heavily built in oak, were disposed about the room, and on the +left of the entrance--there was but one door--stood a cot bed. On the +floor between the door and the fireplace lay a huge silver tip +bearskin, the head set up by an Indian taxidermist. It was some time +afterward when Kate saw the cabin, but she remembered, even after it +lay in ruins, just how the interior had looked. + +The four walls were really more furnished than the rest of the room. +To the right and left of the fireplace hung twin bighorn heads, and elk +and stag antlers on the other walls supplied racks for an ample variety +of rifles, polished by familiar use and kept, through love of trusty +friends, in good order. Trophies of the hunt, disposed sometimes in +effective and sometimes in mere man fashion, flanked the racks and +showed the tastes of the owner of the isolated habitation; for few +trails led within miles of Laramie's ranch on the Turkey. + +"Breakfast?" Simeral looked at his companion, who stood vacantly +musing at the door of the kitchen. + +"Coffee," answered Laramie, taking off his jacket, laying his Colt's on +the table and slipping off his breast harness. + +"I got no bread," announced Ben, to forestall objection. "Flour's low +'n' I didn't bake." + +"Crackers will do." + +"Ain't no crackers, neither," returned Ben, raising his voice and his +smile in self-defense. + +"Give me coffee and bacon," suggested Laramie, impatiently. + +"'N' I'll fry some potatoes," muttered Ben, shuffling with a show of +speed into the kitchen, and calling inquiries back in his unsteady +voice to the living-room, patiently digging at Laramie for scraps of +news from Sleepy Cat, volunteering, in return, scraps from the range +and ranch. Laramie sat down in the nearest chair, tilted it slightly +back, and resting one arm on the table gazed into the empty fireplace. +He appeared as if much preoccupied--nor would, nor could, he talk of +what was in his mind, nor think of anything else. + +Some minutes later he began in the same absent-minded manner on a huge +plateful of bacon, with a pot of coffee in keeping, and was eating in +silence when the stillness of the sunshine was broken by the sound of a +horse's hoofs. Laramie looked out and saw, through the open door, a +horseman riding in leisurely fashion up from the creek. + +The man was tall. He swung lightly out of his saddle near the door, +and as he walked into the house it could be seen that he was +proportioned in his frame to his height; strength and agility revealed +themselves in every move. A rifle slung in a scabbard hung beside the +shoulder of the horse, and the man's rig proclaimed the cowboy, though +aside from a broad-brimmed Stetson hat his garb was simplicity itself. + +It was the way in which he carried his height and shoulders that +arrested attention, nor was his face one easily to be forgotten. He +wore a jet-black beard that grew close and dropped compactly down. It +was neither bushy nor scraggly and with his black brows it made a +striking setting for strong and rather deep-set eyes which if not +actually black were certainly very dark. His smile revealed white, +regular teeth under his dark mustache, and his olive complexion, though +tanned, seemed different from those of men that rode the range with +him--perhaps it was owing to the glossy, black beard. + +Abe Hawk was evidently at home in Laramie's cabin. He stepped through +the door and pushing his hat back on his forehead took a chair and sat +down. The two men, masters of taciturnity, looked at each other while +this was taking place, and as Hawk seated himself Laramie called for a +cup and pushed the coffee pot toward his visitor. Paying no attention +to the unspoken invitation, Hawk's features assumed the quizzical lines +they sometimes wore when he relaxed and poked questions at his friend. + +"Well," he demanded, banteringly, "where's Jimmie been?" + +"Medicine, Sleepy Cat--pretty near everywhere." + +"I hear you got a job." + +"I was offered one." + +"Deputy marshal, eh?" + +"Farrell Kennedy got me down to Medicine Bend to talk it over." + +"What's the matter, couldn't you hold it?" + +"I didn't want it." + +"You're out of practise on this law-and-order stuff--you've lived up +here too long among thieves, Jim. Find out who tore down your wire?" + +Laramie replied in even tones but his voice was hard: "I trailed them +across the Crazy Woman. It was somebody from Doubleday's ranch." + +"They had a story at Stormy Gorman's you'd gone over there to blow +Barb's head off." + +"Barb wasn't home." + +Hawk was conscious of the evasion. "Was Stormy's talk true?" he +demanded curtly. + +"I expected to ask Barb whether he wanted to put my wire back. I was +going to give him a chance." + +"It wouldn't be hard to guess how that would come out. Where was he?" +asked Hawk, with evident disappointment. + +"They said he was in Sleepy Cat. I rode in and missed him there. He'd +gone to the mines. I took the train up to the Junction, There I +accidentally got switched off my job and came home." + +"How'd you get switched off?" asked Hawk, resenting the outcome. + +Laramie's manner showed he disliked being bored into. He leaned +forward with a touch of asperity and looked, straight at his visitor: +"By not 'tending strictly to my own business, Abe." + +Hawk knew from the expression of Laramie's eyes he must drop the +subject, and though he lost none of his bantering manner, he desisted: +"They didn't have a warrant for me down at the marshal's office, did +they?" + +"They were short of blanks," retorted Laramie coolly. + +"How you fixed for flour?" + +"Plenty of it." Laramie spoke loudly for fear Simeral might protest. +Then he called promptly to the kitchen: "Ben, get up some flour for +Abe." + +Ben quavered a protest. + +"Get it up now before you forget it," insisted Laramie. + +"Is Tom Stone still foreman over at Doubleday's?" + +"I guess he is," returned Laramie. + +"What does Doubleday aim to do with Stone?" asked Hawk, cynically, +"steal his own cattle from himself?" + +"A cattleman nowadays might as well steal his own cattle as to wait for +somebody else to steal 'em." Laramie spoke with some annoyance. +"There's going to be trouble for these Falling Wall rustlers." + +"Meaning me?" asked Hawk, contemptuously. + +"I never mean you without saying you, Abe--you ought to know that by +this time. But this running off steers is getting too raw. From the +undertalk in Sleepy Cat there's going to be something done." + +"Who by?" + +"By the cattlemen." + +"I thought," Hawk spoke again contemptuously, "you meant by the +sheriff." + +"But I didn't," said Laramie. "I meant by the bunch at the range. And +when they start they'll stir things up over this way." + +Hawk hazarded a guess on another subject: "It looks like Van +Horn--putting in Stone over at Doubleday's." + +"It is Van Horn." + +Hawk looked in silence out of the open door at the distant snow-capped +mountains. "Why don't you kill him, Jim?" he asked after a moment, +possibly in earnest, possibly in jest, for his iron tone sometimes +meant everything, sometimes nothing. + +Laramie, at all events, took the words lightly. He answered Hawk's +question with another. But his retort and manner were as easy as +Hawk's question and expression were hard. "Why don't you?" + +The bearded man across the table did not hesitate nor did he cast about +for words. On the contrary, he replied with embarrassing promptness: +"I will, sometime." + +"A man that didn't know you, Abe, might think you meant it," commented +Laramie, filling his coffee cup. + +Hawk's white teeth showed just for the instant that he smiled; then he +talked of other things. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AT THE BAR + +The arrival of a baby at the home of Harry Tenison in Sleepy Cat had an +immediate effect on Kate Doubleday's fortune in the mountains--and, +indeed, on the fortunes of a number of other people in Sleepy Cat--wholly +out of proportion to its importance as a family event. It was not, it is +true, for the Tenisons a mere family event. Married fifteen years, they +had been without children until the advent of this baby. And the birth +of a boy to Harry Tenison excited not alone the parents, but the town, +the railroad division and the hundred miles of range and desert, north +and south, tributary to the town. + +For a number of years Tenison had run his place in Sleepy Cat undisturbed +by the swiftly changing fortunes of frontiersmen and railroad men. +Tragedies, in their sudden sweep across the horizon of his activities, +the poised gambler and hotel man had met unmoved. Men went to the +heights of mining or range affluence and to the depths of crude passion, +inevitable despair and tragic death, with Harry Tenison coldly unruffled. +He was a man in so far detached from his surroundings, yet with his +finger on the pulse of happenings in his unstable world. But the birth +of one baby--and that a small one--upset him completely and very +unexpectedly shocked others of his motley circle of acquaintance. + +The complications followed on the announcement--on a Monday when the baby +was three days old and the mother and boy were reported by the nurse to +be coming along like kittens--that the following Saturday would be "open +day" at the Mountain House--Tenison's new and almost palatial hotel; with +the proprietor standing host for the town and the countryside. + +Before the week was out this word had swept through the mountains, from +the stretches of the Thief River on the South to the recesses of the +Lodge Poles on the North. It was the one topic of interest for the week +on the range. Few were the remote corners where the news did not +penetrate and the unfortunates who missed the celebration long did +penance in listening to long-winded accounts of Sleepy Cat's memorable +day. + +It dawned in a splendor of blue sky and golden sun, with the mountain +reaches, snow-swept and still, brought incredibly near and clear through +the sparkling air of the high plateau. The Sleepy Cat band were +Tenison's very first guests for breakfast. + +"'N' you want to eat hearty, boys," declared Ben Simeral, who had reached +town the night before in order that no round crossing the Tenison bar +should escape him: "Harry expec's you to blow like hell all day." + +Few men are more conscientious in the discharge of duty than the members +of a small-town brass band. The Sleepy Cat musicians held back only +until the arrival of the early local freight, Second Seventy-Seven, for +their bass horn player, the fireman. When the train pulled up toward the +station on a yard track, the band members in uniform on the platform +awaited their melodic back-stop, and the fireman, in greeting, pulled the +whistle cord for a blast. The switch engine promptly responded and one +whistle after another joined in until every engine in the yard was +blowing as Ben had declared Tenison expected the band itself to blow. + +In this wholly impromptu and happy way the day was opened. The band, +laboriously trained for years by the local jeweler--said to be able to +blow a candle through an inch board with his South Bend B flat +cornet--now formed in marching order, the grimed fireman gamely in place +even after a night run, with his silver contrabass. At an energetic +signal from their leader they struck up a march and started down street +with the offering as a pledge of what they might be expected to do. They +were not called on, however, to do all, for at noon the Bear Dance Band +arrived from the West and an hour later came the crack thirty-two-piece +military band from Medicine Bend, carrying more gold on their lacings and +their horns than the local musicians carried in the savings bank. + +By the time the noon whistle blew at the roundhouse every trail and road +into Sleepy Cat showed dust--some of them an abundance. The hotel was +naturally the center of attraction, and Main Street looked like a +Frontier Day crowd. The Reservation, too, sent a delegation for the +occasion and mingling in the jostling but good-natured crowd were chiefs, +bucks and squaws, who, in a riot of war bonnets, porcupine waistcoats, +gay trappings and formal blankets, lent yellows and reds and blues to the +scene. All entrances to the Mountain House were decorated and a stream +of visitors poured in and out, with congratulations for Tenison, who +received them at the bar in the big billiard hall opening on Main Street. + +By evening the hall presented an extraordinary scene. Every element that +went to make up the shifting life of the frontier could be picked from +the crowd that filled the room. Most numerous and most aggressive in the +spectacle, cattlemen and range riders in broad hats, leathern jackets and +mottled waistcoats, booted and spurred and rolling in their choppy steps +on pointed heels, moved everywhere--to and from the bar, around the pool +tables and up and down the broad flight of stairs leading to the second +floor gambling rooms. At the upper end of the long bar there was less +crowding than nearer the street door and at this upper end three men, +somewhat apart from others, while nominally drinking, stood in confab. +First among them, Harry Van Horn was noticeable. His strong face, with +its hunting nose, reflected his active mind, and as he spoke or listened +to one or the other of his companions--standing between them--his lively +eyes flashed in the overhead light. On his left stood Tom Stone, foreman +of the Doubleday ranch. His head, carried habitually forward, gave him +the appearance of always looking out from under his eyebrows; and the +natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never +lighted by more than a strained smile--a smile that suggested a grin, +that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his +cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk of human +kindness. + +On Van Horn's left stood an older man of massive features, the owner of +the largest ranch in the north country, Barb Doubleday. + +Miners from Thief River, with frank, fearless faces, broad-throated, +belted and shifted, and with brawny arms for pick and sledge and +doublejack, moved to and from the bar like desert travelers breathing in +an oasis. Men from the short spillway valleys of the Superstition +Range--the coyotes and wolves of the Spanish Sinks--were easily to be +identified by their shifty eyes and loud laughter and handy six-shooters. +Moving in a little group rather apart from these than mingling with them, +talking and drinking more among themselves, were men from the Falling +Wall--men professedly "ranching" on the upper waters of the Horse, the +Turkey and Crazy Woman creeks, tributaries of the Falling Wall river--in +point of fact, rustlers between whom and the big cattlemen of the range +there always existed a deadly enmity and at times open warfare. + +At two card tables placed together in the upper inner corner of the room +sat a little party of these Falling Wall men smoking and drinking in +leisurely, or, more correctly, in preliminary fashion, for the evening +was still young; and inspecting the moving crowd at the bar. At the head +of the table sat the ex-cowboy and ex-pugilist, Stormy German, his face +usually, and now, reddened with liquor--square-shouldered, square-faced +and squat; a man harsh-voiced and terse, of iron endurance and with the +stubbornness of a mule; next him sat Yankee Robinson, thin-faced and +wearing a weatherbeaten yellow beard. And Dutch Henry was there--bony, +nervous, eager-eyed, with broken English stories of drought and hardship +on the upper Turkey. These three men--brains and resource of several +less able but not less unscrupulous companions who preyed on the cattle +range north of Sleepy Cat--led the talk and were the most carefully +listened to by the men that surrounded them. + +It was later that two men entered the room from the hotel office +together. The contained, defiant walk of the slightly heavier and taller +of the two was characteristic, and without the black beard, deep eyes and +the pallor of his face, would almost have identified him as Abe Hawk; +while in the emotionless, sandy features of his companion and in his more +frank, careless make-up, the widely known ranchman of the Falling Wall, +Jim Laramie, was easily recognized. + +Hawk, separating from his companion, walked to the right. German hailed +him and Hawk paused before the table at which the former prize fighter +sat with his friends. Each of these in turn had something effusive to +say to Hawk. Hawk listened to everything without a change of +countenance--neither smile nor word moved him in the competition to +arouse his interest. When all had had their fling of invitation and +comment he refused an oft-repeated invitation to sit down: "I might +injure your reputations," he said grimly, and moved unconcernedly on. + +Van Horn's eyes had not missed the inconspicuous entrance of the two +Falling Wall men: "There's the man himself, right now," he exclaimed, +looking toward Laramie. + +"No better time to talk to him, either, than right now," added Barb +Doubleday hoarsely. "Take him back into the office, Harry. When you're +through come up to the room." + +Van Horn, leaving the bar, intercepted Laramie. Doubleday and Stone, +pretending not to observe, saw Van Horn, on the plea of important talk, +succeed, after some demur, in inducing Laramie to return with him to the +hotel office. Once there and in a quiet corner with two chairs, Van Horn +lost no time in opening his subject: "You know as well as I do, Jim, what +shape things are in on the North range. It can't go on. Everybody is +losing cattle right and left to these rustlers. They've been running +Doubleday's steers right down to the railroad camp on the Spider +Water--we traced the brands on 'em. You know as well as I do who took +'em." + +Laramie listened perfunctorily, his eyes moving part of the time over the +room. "Speak for yourself. Harry," he intervened at this juncture. "I +know exactly nothing about who took anybody's steers, nor that any were +taken." + +Van Horn uttered a quick exclamation: "Well, you sure heard about it!" + +"In this country a man can hear anything," observed Laramie, not greatly +moved. "I've heard there isn't a crooked cattleman north of Sleepy Cat." + +Van Horn stared. + +"Go on," continued Laramie, looking at the passers-by, "I'm listening." + +"Doubleday has sold the eating house and disposed of his property at the +Junction----" + +"You mean his creditors took it, don't you?" + +"Put it any way you like. He's going in for more cattle and we're going +to put this range on the map. But--we've got to clean out this Falling +Wall bunch first. The big men can't stand it any longer and won't stand +it." + +"What then?" + +"I want you to get in right, on the move, with us, Jim--this is your +chance. You're in a tough neighborhood over there. Now I know you're +not a rustler." + +"No, you don't." + +"Yes, I do," averred Van Horn. "But everybody doesn't know you as well +as I do. And your name suffers because you don't get along with the +cattlemen--Doubleday, Pettigrew and the rest." + +"What then?" + +"What then?" echoed Van Horn, feeling the up-hill pull. "Why, line up +with us against these rustlers. We're going to have a big get-together +barbecue this summer and when it's pulled we want you there. You'll have +a friend in every man on the range--however some of 'em feel now. They +know the stuff you're made of, Jim; they know if you put your hand to +your gun with them, you'll stay; and if you do it, they know it's good-by +to the rustlers." + +Closely as Van Horn, while speaking, watched the effect of his words, it +was impossible to gather from Laramie's face the slightest clue as to the +impression they were making. Laramie sat quite relaxed, his back to the +corner, his legs crossed, listening. He looked straight ahead without so +much as blinking. Van Horn, nervous and impatient, scrutinized him: +"That's my hand, Jim," he said flatly. "What have you got?" + +Laramie paused. After a moment he turned his eyes on his questioner: "No +hand. This is not my game." + +"Make it your game and your game in this country is made. Doubleday and +Dan Pettigrew want you. They're the men that run this country--what do +you say?" + +"The men that run this country can't run me." + +Van Horn, in spite of his assurance, felt the blow. But he put on a +front. "What makes you talk that way?" he flared. + +"This is the same bunch," continued Laramie evenly, "that sent two +different men to get me two years ago--and when I defended myself--had me +indicted. That indictment is still hanging for all I know. This is the +bunch that owns the district court." + +Van Horn made a violent gesture. "What's the use raking up old sores? +That's past and gone. That indictment's been quashed long ago." + +"This is the bunch," and Laramie spoke even more deliberately; he looked +directly, almost disconcertingly at Van Horn himself, "that sent the men +to rip off my wire just a while ago. I tracked 'em to Doubleday's and if +I'd found Doubleday or you or Stone there that day--if I'd got my eyes on +Barb Doubleday that day--you'd 've turned the men that pulled that wire +over to me or I'd known the reason why. + +"Now these same critters and you have the gall to talk to me about +joining hands. Hell, I'd quicker join hands with a bunch of +rattlesnakes. When that crowd want me let them come and get me. I'm not +chiding. They talk about cattle thieves! Why, your outfit would steal +the spurs off a rustler's heels. And when men like Hawk and Yankee +Robinson and German set up a little ranch with a few head of cows for +themselves your bunch blacklists them, refuses 'em work anywhere on the +range. Where did Dutch Henry learn to steal? Working for Barb +Doubleday; he branded mavericks for him, played dummy for his land +entries, swore to false affidavits for him. Now when he turns around and +steals the steers he stole for Barb, Barb has the nerve to ask me to +round him up at my proper risk and run him out of the country!" + +Van Horn rose: "That's the answer, is it?" + +Laramie sat still. He looked dead ahead: "What did it sound like?" he +asked, as Van Horn stood looking at him. + +"Just the same, Jim," muttered Van Horn, "the rustlers have got to go." + +Laramie looked across the office: "That all may be," he observed, rising. +And he repeated as Van Horn started away: "That all may be. And the men +that ripped off my wire have got to put it back. Tell 'em I said so." + +Van Horn whirled in a flash of anger: "You talk as if you think I'd +ripped it off myself." + +"I do think so." + +For one instant the two men, confronting, eyed each other, Van Horn's +face aflame. Both carried Colt's revolvers in hip holsters; Van Horn's +gun slung at his right hip, Laramie's slung at his left. Both were known +capable of extremes. Then the critical moment passed. Van Horn broke +into a laugh; without a yellow drop in his veins, as far as personal +courage went, he had thought twice before attempting to draw where no man +had yet drawn successfully. He put out his hand in frank fashion: "Jim, +you wrong yourself as much as me when you talk that way." + +He made his peace as well as it could be made in words. But when his +protestations were ended Laramie only said: "That all may be, Harry. But +whoever pulled my wire--and left it in the creek--will put it back--if +it's ten years from now." + +The two men, Van Horn still talking, made their way back to the billiard +hall--Laramie refusing to drink, and halting for brief greetings when +assailed by acquaintances. After they parted, Van Horn, as soon as he +could escape notice, passed again through the door leading to the hotel +office. He walked up the main stairway to the second floor, thence to +the third floor and following a corridor stopped in front of the last +room, slipped a pass key into the lock and, opening the door, entered and +closed it behind him. + +Two men sat in the room, Doubleday and Stone. Stone was just out of the +barber's chair, his hair parted and faultlessly plastered on both sides +across his forehead, and his face shaven and powdered. His forehead +drawn in horizontal wrinkles rather than vertical ones, looked lower and +flatter because of them. To add to the truculence of his natural +expression, he was now somewhat under the influence of liquor and looked +perplexed. + +Van Horn did not wait to be questioned; he walked directly to the table +between the two men and took a cigar from the open box: "Can't do a thing +with that fellow," he reported brusquely. + +Doubleday, by means of questions, got the story of the fruitless +interview. Stone listened. The slow movement of his eyes showed an +effort but none of the story escaped him. + +Van Horn, answering with some impatience, had lighted one cigar, and +bunching half a dozen more in his hand stowed them in an upper waistcoat +pocket. Doubleday, between heavy jaws and large teeth, shifted slowly or +chewed savagely at a half-burned cigar and bored into Van Horn. Van Horn +was in no mood for speculative comment: "You might as well talk to a +wildcat," he said. "Pulling that wire has left him sore all over." + +Doubleday looked at Stone vindictively: "That was your scheme." + +"No more than it was Van Horn's," retorted Stone. + +"What's the use squabbling over that now?" demanded Van Horn impatiently. +"I'm done, Barb. You've got to go ahead without him." + +Doubleday chewed his cigar in silence. Van Horn, restless and +humiliated, spoke angrily and thought fast. From time to time he looked +quickly at Stone--the foreman was in condition to do anything. + +"Look here, Tom," exclaimed Van Horn in low tones, "suppose you go +downstairs and give him a talk yourself. What do you say, Barb?" He +shot the words at Doubleday like bullets. Doubleday understood and his +teeth clicked sharply. He said nothing---only stared at the foreman with +his stony gray eyes. Stone drew his revolver from his hip and, breaking +the gun, slipped out the cartridges and slipped the five mechanically +back into place. + +Laramie in the meantime had joined a group of men at the upper end of the +bar in the billiard hall--McAlpin, Joe Kitchen's barn boss; Henry Sawdy, +the big sporty stock buyer of the town, and the profane but always +dependable druggist and railroad surgeon, Doctor Carpy. With one of +these, Sawdy, Harry Tenison from behind the bar was talking. He +interrupted himself to hold his hand over toward Laramie: "Been looking +for you, scout," he said, in balanced tones. "Been looking for you," he +repeated, releasing Laramie's hand and holding up his own. "If you'd +failed me today, Jim----" + +"I wouldn't fail you, Harry." + +"It's well you didn't--champagne, Luke," he added, calling to a +solemn-faced bartender who wore a forehead shade. + +"No champagne for me, Harry," protested Laramie. + +"What are you going to have?" asked the mild-voiced bartender, +perfunctorily. + +Laramie tilted his hat brim: "Why," he answered, after everybody had +contributed advice, "if I've got to take something on this little boy, a +little whisky, I suppose, Luke." + +"No poison served here tonight, Jim," growled Sawdy, throwing his +bloodshot eyes on Laramie. + +"I don't want any, anyway, Henry," was the unmoved retort. + +Luke, wrapping the cork of the champagne bottle under his long fingers, +hesitated. Tenison, looking with his heavily-lidded eyes, did not waver: +"You'll drink what I tell you tonight," he maintained coldly. "Open it, +Luke." + +Laramie stood sidewise while talking, one foot on the rail, his elbow +resting on the bar, and with his head turned he was looking back at +Tenison, who stood directly opposite him behind the bar. Laramie +submitted to the dictation without further protest: "A man will try +anything once," was his only comment. + +As he uttered the words he felt a point pressed tightly against his right +side and what was of greater import, heard the familiar click of a gun +hammer. + +It was too late to look around; too late to make the slightest move. All +that Laramie could get out of the situation, without moving, he read, +motionless, in Tenison's eyes, for Tenison was now looking straight at +the assailant and with a frozen expression that told Laramie of his +peril. The next instant Laramie heard rough words: + +"Turn around here, Jim." + +They told him all he needed to know, for in them he recognized the voice. +In the instant between hearing the words and obeying, a singular change +took place in the Falling Wall ranchman's eyes. Looking over at Tenison +his eyes had been keen and clear. Slowly and with a faint smile he +turned his head. When his eyes met those of Tom Stone, who confronted +him pressing the muzzle of a cocked Colt's forty-five gun against his +stomach, they were soft and glazed. Laramie had changed in an instant +from a man that had not tasted liquor to a man half tipsy. + +It was a feint, but a feint made with an accurate understanding of a +dangerous enemy. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE + +There was not a chance of escape. Laramie's left arm was resting on +the bar. Under the overhang, Stone, as he faced Laramie, now pressed +the gun with his right arm, into Laramie's stomach. For Laramie to +attempt to knock it away with his own right hand would be to take an +almost certainly fatal chance; while for any friend of his to touch +Stone or shoot him would mean certain death to Laramie. Feeling that +he had his enemy dead to rights, Stone baited him: + +"Laramie," he began, fixing his eyes on those of his victim, "there's +some men's lived in this country too long." + +The words carried the irritable nasal tone familiar to Stone's +acquaintances. Laramie's eyes merely brightened a little with the +effort to reply: "Tom," he declared, with just enough of hesitation to +play the game, "that's the first thing my wife said yes'day morning." + +Stone stared: "When," he demanded, "did you get married?" + +"Put up your gun. I'll tell you about it." + +Stone only grinned: "I can hear pretty well, right now." + +"If you want to see her picture, Tom, uncock your gun." + +"Not a little bit. I've got you right." + +Laramie smiled: "Sure, Tom, but there's plenty of time; put down the +hammer." Stone, without moving his gun, did silently lower the hammer. +Laramie counted one. Then he began to describe his trick bride. Stone +cut him off. He cocked his gun again: "Show me her picture," he +snarled. + +Tenison took the instant to lean impressively across the bar. He +pointed a long finger at Stone: "Tom," he said, with measured emphasis, +"no man can pull a gun here tonight and get away with it. That'll be +enough." + +Stone scowled: "Harry, this scout is through; nobody wants him any +longer in this country," he said. + +"Take your quarrel somewhere else tonight--this is my celebration--do +you get me, Tom?" + +Under the implied threat of the determined gambler the hammer of +Stone's gun came down: "I c'n get along with any man that'll do what's +right," asserted Stone, trying to keep his head clear. "Laramie won't." + +"Why, Tom!" expostulated Laramie, reproachfully. + +The revolver clicked; the hammer was up again. + +"Y' won't do what's right, will y', Laramie?" demanded Stone thickly. + +There were probably fifty men in the room. As if by instinct each of +them already knew on what a slender thread one man's life hung. Hawk, +the quickest and surest of Laramie's friends, stood ten paces away, up +the bar, but the silence was such that he could hear every deliberate +word. Glasses, half-emptied, had been set noiselessly down, +discussions had ceased, every eye was centered on two men and every ear +strained. A few spectators tiptoed out into the office. Others that +tried to pass through the swinging front-door screen into the street +found a crowd already peering intently in through the open baize. + +"Tom," resumed Laramie, in measured seriousness, "it's not you 'n' me +can't get on--it's men here has made trouble 'tween you and me, Tom. +You 'n' me rode this range when we didn't have but one blanket atween +us--didn't we, Tom?" he demanded in loud tones. + +Stone, in drunken irresolution, uncocked his gun but held it steady. +"That's all right, Laramie," he growled. + +"Did we quarrel then?" demanded Laramie, boisterously. "I'm asking +you, Tom, did you 'n' me quarrel then?" + +"When a man can't turn in with Harry Van Horn an' Barb Doubleday," +grumbled Stone, "it's time for him to quit this country." His revolver +clicked again; the hammer went up. + +Laramie regarded him with sobering amazement: "Who told you I wouldn't +turn in with Barb Doubleday?" he exclaimed loudly. "Who told you that?" + +"Harry Van Horn told me." + +Tenison tried to interpose. "You shut up, Tenison," was the answering +growl from Stone. But Tenison stuck to it till the hammer came down. +It was only for a moment--the next instant a score of breathless men +heard the click of the gun as it was cocked again. + +"Why," demanded Laramie, more cool-headed than his friends, drawn-faced +and tense about him, cooler far than his maudlin words implied, and +still fighting for a forlorn chance, "why didn't Harry Van Horn tell me +to turn in with a friend--why didn't he tell me to turn in with you, +Tom Stone--with a man I rode and bunked with? Why did they make you +their scapegoat, Tom? You've got me all right; I know that. But what +about you? You can't get ten feet. Abe Hawk's right back of you, +waitin' for you now. They'd dump us into the same hole, Tom. You +don't want to go into the same hole with me, do you? Let's talk it +over." + +The rambling plea sounded so reasonable it won a brief reprieve from +Stone. + +"Don't uncock your gun till I'm through, Tom," urged Laramie. "I don't +want to take any advantage at all of an old pardner. Keep it cocked +but listen. + +"I don't want to talk with Van Horn," Laramie went on, "not even with +Barb Doubleday, fine a man as he might be--I ain't 'a' sayin', Tom. +But I don't want to talk to him. I want to talk to you. Just you and +me, Tom--talkin' it over together. Don't be goat for nobody, Tom. +What?" + +The drunken foreman's brow contracted in irresolute perplexity: "What +do you say?" urged Laramie. Vacillating, Stone let down the hammer to +talk it over. It went up again almost instantly. There may in that +last brief instant have flashed across his muddled consciousness a +realization of his fatal mistake; perhaps he saw in the wicked flash of +Laramie's glazed eyes a warning of blunder. + +Knowing that mountain men carry only five cartridges in their +revolvers, leaving the hammer for safety on an empty chamber, Laramie +had parleyed with Stone only long enough to suit his own purpose. His +right arm shot out at Stone's jaw. As his fist reached it, the gun +against his stomach snapped viciously. But the hammer, already raised +six times, came down on the sixth and empty chamber. It was the chance +Laramie had played for. Stone sank like an ox. As he went down his +head struck the foot-rail. He lay stunned. + +Men drew long breaths. McAlpin, stooping in a flash, wrenched Stone's +revolver from his hand and with a grin, laid it on the bar. Laramie, +watching Stone coldly, did not move. His left foot still rested on the +rail, his left arm on the bar. But without taking his eyes off the +prostrate man he in some way saw the white-faced bartender peering over +in amazement at the fallen foreman: + +"It seems to take you a good while, Luke," protested Laramie, mildly, +"to open that bottle." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A DUEL WITH KATE + +When the eating-house at the Junction was closed, Harry Tenison sent +for Belle and offered her the position of housekeeper at the Mountain +House. This Belle declined. She had long had in her head the idea of +taking a place and serving meals on her own hook, as she expressed it. +Her instinct for independence, always strong, had not only prevented +her getting married but made her restive under orders. She was +stubborn--her enemies called her abusive names and her best friends +admitted that she was sometimes difficult. At Sleepy Cat she took a +cottage in lower Main Street. She had some furniture, and having a +little money saved and a little borrowed from McAlpin, Belle bought a +few new pieces, including a folding bed secured at a bargain, and +opened her doors for business. And whatever her faults of temperament, +Belle could cook. + +Kitchen's barn was headquarters for the small ranchers from the north +and for the Falling Wall men, and McAlpin soon had a trade seeking +Belle's place. The cottage itself faced the side street, but a little +shop annex opened on Main. In this and in the cottage dining-room +Belle served her meals. Very soon, however, she made trouble for +McAlpin. It developed that she would not serve anybody she did not +like and as her fancy was capricious she gave most of McAlpin's +following the cold shoulder. He spent much time in the beginning, +hot-footing it, as Belle termed it, between the barn and the cottage +trying to straighten things out. In the end he gave over and told +Belle she could starve if she wanted to. Whereupon she said tartly +that she did want to; and McAlpin snatching off his baseball cap, as he +did when greatly moved, and twirling it in his hand asked for his +money--which he failed to get. + +Yet one man among the hardy friends of the barn boss did find favor at +the cottage and he the last whom McAlpin would have picked for a likely +favorite. This was Jim Laramie. Laramie soon became a regular +customer of Belle's and his friends naturally followed him. + +The closing out of her father's interests at the Junction was without +regret for Kate, since it sent her up to where she wanted to be--at the +ranch. For some time after establishing herself there she rarely came +into Sleepy Cat. Then as the novelty wore off and small wants made +themselves felt, she rode oftener to town--mail and shopping and +marketing soon established for her a regular round and when she did +ride to Sleepy Cat she nearly always saw Belle; sometimes she lunched +with her. Belle was a stickler in her home for neatness, even though +the cyclone might have been supposed to harden her to dust. + +More than this, Belle knew what was going on--she had the news. +Little, in the daily round of the town and its wide territory, got by +the modest scrim curtains of Belle's place; she became Kate's reporter. +Men would say this was the principal attraction for Kate, and that the +cooking came second--not so. The real reason Belle got the gossip of +the country was because her customers were men. Kate was probably the +only woman, certainly almost the only one, among her patrons. Belle +explained this by saying that none of the rest of the ranchwomen would +spend their money for lunch. The truth really was that Belle did not +like women, anyway--Kate she tolerated because she did like her. + +It was the day after Tenison's big celebration that Kate rode into town +for the mail, and after some shopping walked down to Belle's for lunch. +Belle was at the butcher shop across the street, telephoning. She came +in after a moment. + +"It seems to me you spend a good deal of time with that butcher," said +Kate, significantly. + +"Oh, no, he's got a club foot. Has Harry Van Horn been shining up to +you?" + +Kate was taken aback, but she had been to blame for giving Belle an +opening and could only enter a confused denial. + +"The first serious symptom," said Belle, garrulously, "will be, he'll +have a headache; he'll ask for cold cloths on his forehead. When that +works pretty well he'll tell you your hair is like his sister's and +some evening he'll ask you to take it down. He asked me one night to +take mine down. I handed him my wig. Say! he was the most surprised +man in Sleepy Cat. I've been trying for an hour to get that rascally +milkman on the telephone--there's not a drop of cream in the house. +Well, how are you? Was Tom Stone home when you left?" + +One question followed another. Kate had not only not seen the ranch +foreman--she had not heard of the excitement of the night before. From +Belle she got the details of Stone's attempt to kill Laramie. The +story lost nothing in Belle's hands. She had heard all versions and +was pretty good at story telling herself. + +"After McAlpin picked up Stone's gun Laramie told him to turn it over +to Luke; and he told Luke not to give it back to Stone till this +morning--I guess they hid Stone last night." She wound up with an +abusive fling at Doubleday's foreman. "What do you keep such a beastly +critter around for?" she asked, looking at Kate hard for an answer. + +Humiliated at the recital, Kate thought it time to say something +herself: "Why do you ask me a question like that?"' + +Belle arched her eyebrows belligerently. "Why shouldn't I?" she +demanded. And bridling with further criticism of Stone and by +implication of those that employed him, she let fly again. + +Kate tried to ignore her outburst: "You know perfectly well," she said +firmly, "I have nothing to say about the ranch or how it is run, or who +runs it. And I don't care to listen to any comments on that subject." + +"If you don't like my comments you needn't come here to listen to +them," retorted Belle, flaming. + +The two were standing at the cook stove. + +"While I am here," returned Kate with tart dignity, "please don't abuse +me." + +"I say what I please to anybody if it's right," exclaimed Belle rudely. + +"You'll be ashamed of yourself when you cool off," Kate returned, +pointing to the broiler: "You don't expect me to eat all that meat, do +you?" + +Belle answered with an offended dignity of her own: "I expect Jim +Laramie to eat the biggest part of it. And there he comes now!" + +The front door opened, in fact, while she was speaking; Kate stood with +her back to it and though by turning she could have peeped through the +curtained archway, she would not have looked for a million dollars. If +Belle wanted her revenge she had it at that moment. Kate could not +sink through the floor to escape, but how she wanted to! She did step +quickly aside hoping she had not been seen, and retired to the farthest +corner of the kitchen. Belle's mouth, before the stove, set grimly and +with her left hand she gave her wig the vicious punch she used when +wrought up. Kate motioned to her frantically. Belle regarded her +coldly but did come closer and Kate caught at her sleeve: "For heaven's +sake," she begged in a whisper, "don't let him know I'm here." + +Kate eyed her anxiously. Belle's face was hard, and quick, firm steps +were coming from the front door. + +"Hello, Belle!" was the greeting. Had they been Kate's death message +the words could not have frightened her more. She knew, too well, the +voice. + +"You didn't get my message," were the next words flung through the +archway. + +"I got it," answered Belle, going forward and providentially stopping +Laramie before he reached the curtains. + +"Sit down right there," she added, pointing to a table at the rear of +the lunch room. "I hurried all I could but that rascally milkman +hasn't been here yet and there's no cream for your coffee. Your +dinner's most ready though." + +She started back to the kitchen. + +"Not enough for two, is there?" asked Laramie. + +"Who's coming?" demanded Belle, stopping in her tracks. + +"Belle, you're suspicious as a cattleman. Nobody's coming, but I'm +hungry." + +While he continued his banter she served him and attempted to serve +Kate behind the curtains. By persistent, almost despairing pantomime, +Kate dissuaded her from this. But at that moment the front door opened +again, a brisk greeting was called out and a heavy tread crossed the +uneven floor of the outer room. + +"John Lefever!" Laramie got up to welcome the big deputy marshal. +"Just in time. Take off your manners and sit down." + +A bubbling laugh greeted the sally: "Jim, I just can't do it." + +"Oh, yes, you'll eat with me. Where you from?" + +"Bear Dance; and Medicine Bend on the next train. Heard you were in +town and dropped off for just one hour. Say, this is more like life's +fitful fever to set eyes on you. Heard you were threatened last night +with appendicitis. How about it?" and John bubbled over again. In the +next breath he greeted Belle as gaily. Laramie asked for another plate +and Lefever promptly resumed: "You look kind of down in the mouth, Jim. +What's the matter with you?" + +"Nothing's the matter with me." + +Lefever shrugged his shoulders: "You're a kind of low-spirited Indian, +anyway. What you doing up in the Falling Wall?" + +"Nothing." + +"Always nothing," repeated Lefever. + +"Better come up," suggested Laramie. "What are you doing?" + +Lefever's eyes expanded with cheer, but his voice choked with emotion: +"Doing? Rusting!" + +"That doesn't sound much like 'life's fitful fever.'" + +John glared at his companion: "Life's fitful _fever_! Why, this is +only a passing flash! How about it when you can't raise even a normal +temperature? Fever? I haven't felt so much as a gentle perspiration +for months! The rust is eating into my finger tips," he declared with +violence. "I'm a fat man. A fat man must have action,"--his voice +fell--"else he gets fatter. I've got to do something. Once or twice +I've come pretty near having to go to work." + +Laramie's expression may have been skeptical; at all events John +pointed a corroborating finger at him: "You don't believe it! Just the +same," he added, moodily, "it's straight." + +"What's de Spain doing, John?" + +The tone of the answer bordered on the morose: "Running a nursery at +Medicine Bend." + +"Trees?" + +"Trees!" John snortingly invoked the hottest place he could think of. +"Trees? Babies! Jim," he exclaimed, "I'm no family man--are you?" + +"You like Medicine Bend, don't you?" + +"Too many people there." John settled gloomily back. Then with +wide-open eyes he started suddenly forward: "Give me a gun, Jim," he +said wildly, "a gun and a horse." + +"And a north wind!" exclaimed Laramie. + +"And a high country," cried Lefever with flashing eyes, "a country +where you can't see a damned thing in any direction for a hundred and +fifty miles!" + +Though talking vigorously he was eating, without protest from Laramie, +everything in sight. Kate could not help listening; Lefever's high +spirits were contagious. + +"Jim," came next between mouthfuls. "What was that story about you +being up at the Junction the day I wanted you to serve those papers on +old Barb Doubleday?" + +"I went up there that day because I had business of a different kind +with Barb." + +"About the wire ripping, yes. But I heard you got sewed up by a skirt +and didn't talk wire to Barb at all." + +"No more of that, John." + +"What was there to it?" + +"I guess there was." + +"A ride or something--what?" + +"Something, John." + +"Thunder! It must have been the ride. I had a deputy marshalship all +lined up for you if that hadn't happened. And believe me, boy, a +deputy marshalship isn't lying around loose every day!" + +Kate listened keenly for Laramie's comment: + +"The ride was worth the price, John," was all he said. + +"Some skirt, eh?" + +Laramie squirmed and with an expletive protested: + +"Hang it, John----" + +"No matter, no matter. I'll get it all from Belle some day. And after +you get through with your wire thieves we'll tell the story of your +brief romance----" + +"Over my grave." + +"Right, Jim--over your grave." + +"John," Laramie ran on, "do you remember that song Tommie Meggeson used +to sing on the round-up--a pretty little thing. It had one good line +in it: 'Death comes but once, and then, sometimes--too late.'" + +Belle appeared with a vegetable: "It won't keep you waiting an awful +while if things go on the way they're going now," she put in grimly. + +"That was a good song," mused Laramie, "a good old song." But he heard +a slight sound in the kitchen and his eyes were turned toward the +archway. + +"Just the same that song won't keep you from getting killed," persisted +Belle. + +"Even that would beat appendicitis clean to death, Belle," maintained +Laramie, still listening. + +"You've got lots of time," he added, as Lefever looked at his watch. + +"I haven't," exclaimed his companion. "I've got to send a message. +Come over to the train." + +"I've got to write a couple of letters." + +"Come over to the station and write your letters." + +Laramie shook his head: "I couldn't even get to the station by one +o'clock. Every man in Main Street wants to talk about Tom Stone. +You'd think I had a million friends among the cattlemen this morning." + +"I heard old Barb Doubleday is grinning like a hangman today." + +"If Belle's got some ink I'll write my letters right here." + +Kate's spirits, which had risen at the hope of being so luckily rid of +one who might prove troublesome, fell at his refusal to leave. John +urged, but Laramie only asked Belle again for the ink. Lefever tried +to coax Belle to go to the train with him. Belle would do almost any +fool thing--as John bluntly averred--but this time she must have had +pity on Kate and would not leave her unprotected. Lefever went his +way. From a shelf near where Kate, with clasped hands, sat in silence +Belle took paper and ink in to Laramie and began to clear the table. + +At this unlucky moment the front door was opened swiftly and a boy from +the butcher shop stuck his head inside. + +"Miss Shockley," he called, "the milkman is on the 'phone now, if you +want him." Closing the door he ran back across the street. With a +sense of her wrongs keen upon her, Belle, forgetting her charge in the +kitchen, hurried after him. + +Even then, Kate hoped that by keeping deathly still she might escape an +unpleasant meeting. She never breathed more carefully in her life, yet +she was doomed. She heard Laramie's chair pushed back and heard his +footsteps. She could not be sure which way he was walking, but she +thought only of flight. As stealthily and rapidly as possible, she +started for the back door. Without looking around she felt as if he +had come to the archway and was looking at her. With courage and +resolve, she grasped the knob to open the door. It was locked. She +fumbled with the key. Behind her, silence. She locked and unlocked +the door more than once, and with a fast-dying hope, for the wretched +door would _not_ open. Flushed with annoyance, she turned around only +to see Laramie standing precisely where she had imagined him. + +They faced each other. Kate could not have found a word to say had her +life depended on it. Laramie held in his left hand an ink bottle, in +his right a pen. He, too, seemed surprised but he recovered himself: +"You are certainly unlucky with doors," he said. "If you'll tell me +where Belle keeps her ink, I'll tell you how to open that," he added +calmly. + +Kate stiffened and shrugged her shoulders the least bit: "I haven't any +idea where Belle keeps the ink," she replied, clearing her throat of +its huskiness. + +He pointed to beyond where she stood: "I think the ink supply is on +that shelf; she gave me an empty bottle. Should you mind handing me +one with ink in it?" + +Kate turned to the shelf: "There seem to be two kinds here," she said +as coldly as possible. + +"Any bottle with a hole in the top will do," he suggested. "This one," +he held the bottle up in his hand and looked at it, "seems to have a +hole top and bottom. Give me the blue ink, will you?" + +"I am sure I don't know which is which. Perhaps you had better help +yourself," Kate said icily. + +"Thank you. But I'll show you how to open the door first." + +"Don't trouble yourself." + +"No trouble at all." He walked to the door, explaining as he took hold +of the knob: "The door wasn't locked, but the catch held the latch. I +could tell that from the way you handled it. You locked it, +yourself----" + +Kate could not hide her resentment: "It wouldn't open when I first took +hold of it," she declared hastily. "I tried it before I touched the +key." + +"That's what I'm explaining. When you did take hold of the key you +locked the door with the dead bolt and then you couldn't open it; so +you unlocked it and tried it again. After that you worked so fast I +lost track." He pointed to the back of the rim lock: "The catch was +on." And pushing down the catch, he turned the knob and opened the +door. + +Kate was thoroughly incensed: "You are doubtless better acquainted here +than I am." + +"To tell the truth, I have to be acquainted with rooms I go into. If +_I_ ever tried to get through a door and failed, it might not be +pleasant for me. And there's a board fence, six feet high, all around +this yard, so unless you're a good climber you couldn't have got out +anyway." + +Kate felt she looked very silly, standing staring at him, and perhaps +looking frightened--as she really was---for he went on as if he were +explaining to a child: "I'm not permitted to tell you, but I'm going +to----" + +"Don't bother, please----" + +"Yes, I'd rather: There is a way to get out without climbing the fence; +a loose board I'll show you sometime--but you must handle yourself fast +to make your get-away." + +"I never expect," she said contemptuously, "to have to make a get-away." + +"Then I was wrong," he returned frankly, "for I kind of thought you +were trying to make one a minute ago." + +His composure irritated Kate: "You are very much mistaken," she +declared with spirit in her words, for she saw--indeed knew--how +persistent he was. "I was only trying to leave for home quietly and +quickly." + +His eyes were a study in silent laughter: "That's all I've ever claimed +to be doing, any time in my life." + +"But I can just as well leave by the front door--which, perhaps," +retorted Kate, "you haven't always been able to do." + +"Before you go"--he was standing directly in the archway, so she had to +listen--"tell me about things at the Junction; I hear the lunch room +was closed up a while ago." + +"It was. But"--Kate thought the time for explanation had come--"I was +not working at the eating-house when you came in there. I am Kate +Doubleday and I wanted to save my father that day and I'm not a bit +sorry for it." + +"I suppose, then, I ought to speak out, too. I was sure you were Kate +Doubleday soon after I got into the lunch-room that day and I'm not a +bit sorry for it. And I knew pretty soon you were trying to save your +father. And I helped you." + +"Oh--" Kate suppressed an incredulous exclamation. + +"Believe it or not as you like, I helped you. And I'm not a bit sorry +for it. Though he is no friend of mine, you have been, from that day +on; and if you ever give me a chance I'll prove it. The worst thing +you did was to go back on your word----" + +"My word was not freely given," Kate was speaking furiously. + +"It shouldn't have been given at all, then. But it's all right. Will +you be friends with me?" + +"No man that speaks of my father as you spoke of him a moment ago can +be my friend." + +"It was Lefever spoke of your father. I couldn't shut him off. Of +course he didn't know you were here. I did know after I'd been here +awhile. I heard you whisper. That's why I asked for the ink--I had no +letters to write. There's a lot of hard feeling in this country right +now. Every man in it has his friends and enemies. You mustn't take it +seriously when you hear hard words--I don't; and I hear plenty. Hadn't +you and I better be friends to begin with, anyway?" + +"No," she exclaimed angrily. "Please let me pass." + +He stepped promptly aside: "I never dreamed of doing anything less." + +Kate started rapidly for the front door. Whom should she run into just +as she opened it but Belle coming back from her wretched telephoning +and with a bottle of cream! Kate inwardly blamed her for all her +trouble, and she was on edge, besides: "Where you going?" demanded +Belle. + +"Home," answered Kate, shortly. + +"Home? You haven't had your lunch." + +"I don't want any." + +Belle caught Kate's arm: "Now you just hold on. What's the matter? Is +it Laramie?" Belle must have read her face for she answered nothing, +only tried to get away. "But, child!" she exclaimed. "Where's your +coat--wait till I bring it--and your gloves!" Kate paused at the door. +In a minute Belle came running back: "He's gone, absolutely. There +isn't a soul anywhere about. Now you shan't go till you take a cup of +coffee. Here's the cream--he left it at the wrong door, the stupid!" + +Kate could not get away. And Belle had told the truth: Laramie was +gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BARBECUE + +Whatever the shortcomings of the American frontier code there never was +a time in its history when a man could violate the principles of fair +play and keep public opinion on his side. In this instance, Stone's +conduct reacted unfavorably on the cattlemen. The townspeople that +made money out of the trade of the big ranches always stood up for the +cattlemen, but they were put most unpleasantly on the defensive by the +incident. Even had Stone's attempt on Laramie's life succeeded it +would have been easier, for the partisans, to handle than the failure +it proved. As a _fait accompli_ it would have been regretted, but +forgotten; as a failure it settled nothing. + +Among the few townspeople that sturdily retained independence of +opinion on all matters, none stood higher than the surgeon, Doctor +Carpy. And encountering Doubleday in the street shortly after the +Stone incident, he took it on himself to talk to him. + +The doctor had his office at his home, but back of the prescription +case in his little drug store--no bigger than a minute--he had a small +room for emergency consultations. To this he invited Doubleday, and, +having ushered him in, seated him and closed the door, Carpy sat down: +"There's few men, Barb, in this country," the doctor began, "that dare +talk to you the way you ought to be talked to; of them few, I'm +probably the only one that would take the trouble. Your enemies won't +talk and everybody friendly with you is afraid of you. You've got so +much property and stuff here they're plumb afraid of you. I'm a poor +man, Barb--don't never expect to be anything else, and I don't give a +hang for anybody," averred the erratic surgeon, "and nobody gives a +hang for me." + +Doubleday, chewing the stub of a cigar, eyed his medical adviser with +an unsympathetic stare, but this in no way disturbed the self-appointed +critic. "For a long time now, Barb," he continued, "you've been in the +nastiest kind of a fight on Jim Laramie. You've tried to run him off +the range and you tried to beat him out of his land and you've tried to +break him. He's got the best land in the Falling Wall and he's in your +way. One time his wire is all pulled off his fence. Another time your +foreman pokes a gun into his stomach." + +Doubleday flared up: "Am I the only man that Laramie's got differences +with? When his fence is tore down, am I to blame? Am I to blame for +every drink Tom Stone takes? What are you talking about?" demanded +Doubleday with violence. + +The doctor could not have been calmer had he been reaching at the +critical moment of an operation for Doubleday's appendix. "Be patient +a minute; be ca'm, Barb; I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I don't +know who cut his wire. I don't know who done it and I won't undertake +to say, but what I do say to you, Barb, and I say it hard, you're +making a big mistake on this man, and if you don't slow up it'll cost +you your life yet." + +Doubleday was grimly silent. "I've known Jim Laramie," Carpy went on, +"since he was a boy. He's stubborn as a broncho if you try to ride +him. He's the easiest man in the world to get along with if you make a +friend of him. No matter what's said of Jim Laramie there ain't a +crooked hair in his head; but he's no angel and when his patience +quits--look out. What I'm going to tell you now, Barb, is on the +square. It can't go no further. I tell you because you ought to know. +A while back, just after this wire pulling, Jim Laramie walked into +this room, shut the door and locked it and sat down right where you're +sittin' now. He told me the wire story; he told me he was through. +He'd tracked the men to your ranch and was going to square accounts +with you and Stone and Van Horn. He was on his way to the Junction and +he told me he might not come back and wanted to tell me how to dispose +of his property. He was after you and he meant, before he fell down, +to get some or all of you. He asked me where you were, because he +heard I knew. I did know but I didn't tell him. I lied, Barb. I told +him the mines, but I knew you were at the Junction. He started for the +mines. What happened to turn him off your trail I never yet learned. +I never asked. + +"Now you saw, or you heard anyway, what happened when Stone tried to +kill him the other night. That man never can get Laramie. And don't +depend on Stone and Van Horn to play you fair, for if they had to save +their hides, Barb, they'd sell you. My advice is this: Put back +Laramie's wire. Let the cattlemen, you and Pettigrew to lead 'em, do +it to clear their own names. Say you know nothing about it, but it was +a dirty trick, and tell this town that cattlemen fight but they fight +fair. It'll do more to set you right and to set everything else right +on the range than anything else you could possibly do. And don't make +a mistake. Laramie'll follow that wire pulling for years but what +he'll get the man that did it. I know him. He's got a memory like an +Indian." + +Like all well-meaning and candid friends, the doctor found himself at +once in for a deal of angry abuse, but, as he explained, he had taken +so much abuse from patients at various periods of his career--and abuse +fully justified--that nothing Barb could add, deserved or undeserved, +to the volume would move him: "As our old governor back in Wisconsin +said, Barb, 'I seen my duty and I done it,'" was the doctor's only +retort to Doubleday's wrath. "Now if you're in a hurry, Barb, don't +let me keep you, not a minute. I had my say and if there's anything +pressing you down street go to it." + +But angry as Doubleday appeared, Carpy had given him something to think +about. Consultations were held--by precisely whom, no one could say, +but in them there was dissension. Van Horn vehemently opposed any +further overtures to Laramie and he was vastly put out at being +overruled. While the discussions were going on, he talked in a veiled +but emphatic way to Kate about the queer way her father was acting. +Van Horn would shake his head with violent emphasis at the way things +were going. But when Kate poured oil on the waters of his discontent, +Van Horn was always responsive and stayed to supper or for the evening, +if he were asked--and Kate was alone. On the gentler side, however, he +could make no headway. When he tried headaches for sympathy, Kate was +stony hearted. When he asked her one day at the spring to take down +her hair, she told him she wore a wig. He looked at her amazed. + +And in spite of his objections to placating Laramie a decision very +unpalatable to him was reached. Pettigrew, as spokesman, approached +Laramie and insisted, in order to allay bad feeling, on replacing the +barb wire. When Laramie declared the wire must be put back by the men +that had cut it, there was naturally an _impasse_, but Tenison and +Carpy aided jointly by the representations of Lefever and Sawdy, +induced Laramie to forego his punitive attitude and accept the amende +as offered. This, as the doctor had predicted, put a pleasanter face +on the tangled affairs of the range. And to strike while their iron +was hot, and to keep it hot, the cattlemen announced a big Fourth of +July celebration, at which old scores should be forgotten and friends +and enemies meet in good-fellowship. The place for it, after much +talk, was fixed at Doubleday's ranch. The saloon-keepers of Sleepy +Cat, except Tenison, fought this, but they lost out. + +Since her own home was to be the scene of the celebration, Kate took a +particular interest in the undertaking. She made herself, in a way, +hostess and her father gave her free rein. The eager crowd that +responded to the public invitation found awaiting them, as they +picturesquely rode in twos and threes and groups up the creek to the +ranch house, all the "fixin's" for a rousing celebration. Men came for +as much as fifty miles and some of them by trails and over passes Kate +had never even heard of. There were cattlemen, cowboys, sheepmen, +little ranchers--all the conflicting elements of the country, besides a +crowd from Sleepy Cat with the band, and all the town loafers that +could possibly secure conveyance. + +There was for these latter worthies the attraction of a free feed--for +they knew the prodigality of cattlemen; but there was also the +underlying hope that where so discordant elements were assembled a +fight _might_ occur; and nobody wanted to miss a fight. The principals +necessary for a serious affair were present. The fact that all were +armed was not significant, merely prudent. Men careless on this point +were no longer attending celebrations of any sort around Sleepy Cat. + +From the Falling Wall came the rustlers, every one of them except +Doubleday's old foreman, Abe Hawk, who scorned all pretense of +compromise. He advised Laramie not to go near the celebration. When +Laramie intimated he might go, Abe was greatly incensed. A master of +bitter sarcasm, he trained his batteries on his sandy-haired friend and +these failing he warned him he would be in serious danger. He +intimated that the scheme was to get the rustlers all together and +finish them in a bunch. In which event, one as hated as Laramie could +hardly hope to escape unmolested. But Laramie persisted in his resolve +to go, and he went. + +Doctor Carpy made it a point to go. He was usually needed +professionally at Fourth of July celebrations. But on this occasion he +was, in matter of fact, a sort of sponsor for the whole affair and he +brought Sawdy, Lefever and Tenison along. The four drove out in the +smartest wagon and behind the best team in the Kitchen barn, Kitchen +with them and McAlpin driving. + +By noon the big end of the crowd had arrived. The barbecue tables were +set out under the trees along the creek. The roasting itself was in +the skilled hand of John Frying Pan and before one o'clock he was ready +to serve. + +Doubleday had told Kate, when arranging for the tables, that his +particular friends would sit at his table, and she was on her way down +to the creek to ask him how many there would be in the party when whom +should she find him talking with, of all men, but Laramie, who had just +ridden over from the Falling Wall. + +Before Kate could retreat, her father had seen her. He called her +over. To her astonishment he insisted on introducing her to his +friend, Jim Laramie, of whom he was making as much as it was possible +to make of a wholly undemonstrative man. + +The band not far away was playing full tilt. Kate wished they could +have made even more noise to hide her confusion, but there was nothing +except to face the situation, much as it surprised her. Laramie, +fortunately, seemed indisposed to say anything. He spent most of his +time listening. Kate, being far from animated, her father was left to +do the honors. And on such rare occasions as Barb was communicative, +he was quite capable of good-fellowship. + +Laramie, however, seemingly under some restraint, soon made excuses and +left to join the crowd. + +Some of the little ranchmen had brought their wives along. A few of +these women had their babies with them, and Kate returned to the house, +where she made the mothers comfortable. There, her father afterwards +ran across her. He stopped as he came up: "You remember that man I +introduced you to--Laramie?" + +"Very well," assented Kate, wondering. + +"Treat him well at dinner." + +"But I'm going to eat here at the house." + +He shook his head: "You eat at the creek at my table." + +She had no choice but to obey. When she returned to the pits the +stones had been removed and John Frying Pan, with a pair of Sleepy Cat +ice tongs, was lifting out the first big chunks of roasted meat. The +crowd, being called, ran for the creek whooping and yelling, and while +Kate watched John and his helpers dish up the meat, the guests--nearly +all men--seated themselves pell mell at the long benches. It was a +noisy assemblage, overflowing with good-nature, and when Kate, very +trim in corduroy, appeared again at the tables the demonstrative ones +rose and led in a burst of cheers. Kate enjoyed it but when they began +calling for a speech, she ran to join her father. She found him and +old man Pettigrew at the table, Laramie calmly seated with them and the +fourth place waiting for her. + +Van Horn, as host to other cattlemen and guests, presided at the next +table. Unluckily, where he sat, he could see Laramie opposite Kate. +But if he was discomfited, the group at the next table below, where +Doctor Carpy presided, flanked by Lefever, Sawdy, Kitchen and McAlpin, +was correspondingly elated at the spectacle of the Falling Wall and the +Crazy Woman sitting in harmony. + +Despite the unpleasant stories Kate had heard about him she found +nothing to complain of in Laramie's manners. But he was, she told +herself, on his good behavior, and under the circumstances would +naturally try to appear at his best. Little as she relished her +assignment of making things pleasant for him, the friendly spirit of +the occasion to some extent infected her, and soon she found it not +difficult to help along with small talk and make the queer combination +at the table go. + +There was really no great need for her to work hard in this way--both +her father and Pettigrew were very lively. Laramie seemed a bit dazed +at being set up with such honors in the house of his enemies. But +though he did not volunteer much, when Kate said anything that afforded +a chance for comment, he improved it. + +The talk went a good deal to cattle, and range matters, but Pettigrew, +a crafty fellow, told good stories about men that everybody in and out +of Sleepy Cat knew, and appealed frequently to Laramie for confirmation +or a laugh. Some of the laughs he got were a little dry but they were +not ill-natured, and Kate enjoyed the rough humor. The two cattlemen +finished their dinner, and without ceremony got up to see how the crowd +was being served, leaving Kate with Laramie. "How do you like old +Pettigrew?" was the first thing Laramie asked as the bearded cattleman +moved away with her father. + +"The only thing I don't like about him," answered Kate candidly, "is +his eyes." + +She was looking at Laramie as she spoke. + +"You're a good observer," he said. + +"How so?" + +"A man's eyes are all there is to him. You don't mind if I smoke?" + +"Not a bit." + +He drew a sack of tobacco from a breast pocket. + +"Not going to run away, are you?" He was fishing for cigarette paper +when he asked. He spoke as if he had no special interest in the +matter, yet the question startled her. Kate had not made a move to go, +but she _was_ thinking, when the question came, of how she might manage +to escape. She flushed a little at being anticipated in her +intention--just enough perhaps to let him see he had caught her, not to +say irritated her. As luck would have it, Van Horn, who had risen, +sauntered towards them. Kate was glad just then to see him: "I hope +you got enough to eat," she said as he approached. + +He seemed stiff--Kate did not realize what he was put out about. He +made some answer and turned to Laramie. She felt at once the friction +between the two men, not from anything she had reason to suspect or +know--for she knew then nothing whatever of their personal relations. +Nor was it from anything said; for an instant neither man spoke. +Instinct must have made her conscious for as soon as Van Horn looked at +Laramie she felt the tension: "Well, Jim, where'd you blow from?" +demanded Van Horn after a pause. + +Laramie was making ready to smoke. He was in no haste to answer, nor +did he look at Van Horn, but continued, cowboy fashion, rolling his +cigarette in the finger-tips of one hand, his other hand resting on his +hip: "I didn't blow," he retorted. + +"How'd you get here?" asked Van Horn. + +"I was invited." + +Van Horn laughed significantly. While Kate would rather have been out +of it, she thought it proper, since she was in it, to say something +herself: "I didn't suppose anybody needed a special invitation for a +Fourth of July celebration," she interposed. "The town has been +covered for two weeks with bills inviting everybody." + +Van Horn laughed again. "It wasn't you invited him, eh?" he demanded +of Kate. The thing was said so unpleasantly she would have retorted on +impulse, but Laramie took any possible words out of her mouth. + +"Why don't you ask me who invited me? Barb Doubleday invited me. +That's enough, isn't it? And Pettigrew invited me. And," he added, +completing his cigarette in leisurely fashion, "while that wouldn't be +any particular inducement--you invited me." + +Van Horn stared: "How do you make that out?" he asked quickly. + +"You asked me to take in this barbecue when you tried to get me to line +up with you at the Mountain House." + +Van Horn took alarm: "That was put up to you in confidence," he said +angrily. + +"So was the barbecue," responded Laramie. "I wouldn't take in the +first proposition, so I'm enjoying the second." He turned from Van +Horn, and, ignoring him, spoke to Kate: "You remember you said you were +going to show me your ponies." + +It was Kate's turn to stare: "You must be mistaken." + +He did not press the subject: "Perhaps you've forgotten," was all he +said. + +"When or where did I ever say that?" Kate asked, resenting the +intimation. + +He looked down, then looking up his eyes rested on Kate's. He was not +disturbed: "Is that a challenge?" he asked. + +"If you wish to make it one," she returned coolly. + +"The 'where' was one day at Sleepy Cat Junction, the 'when' was the day +we rode up the Falling Wall river." + +"Oh," she exclaimed, collecting herself, "I had forgotten." + +"Do you remember now?" he asked; and she thought there was resentment +in the question. "If you don't," he added, "we'll let it go." + +"Why, I suppose I must have said something like that. Anyway," she +added, "we'll go see them to make sure I've kept a promise. Come, Mr. +Van Horn," she suggested, turning sweetly to him, "don't you want to +see the ponies?" To include Van Horn, it was plain to be seen, would +spoil the trip for Laramie, but she cared little for that. "Wait just +a minute," she continued, "I must tell John Frying Pan before I go to +give the Indians something to eat." + +The feeling between the two men she left together flared up at once: +"Does this mean you're going to hitch up with the cattlemen, after +all?" demanded Van Horn. + +Laramie, who had lighted his cigarette, stood looking after Kate: "I +hitch up with nobody." + +"Then don't spend your time hanging around Kate Doubleday." + +"So that's where the shoe pinches?" Laramie threw away his cigarette +as he spoke. "I've taken a good deal from you, Van Horn." + +Van Horn egged him on unabashed: "You've got your nerve with you to +show up here at all." + +"A man needs his nerve, Van Horn, to do business with crooks like you." + +Doubleday, passing near the two men at that moment, heard the last +exchange. He called out in his heavy, raspy voice to Van Horn: "Look +here, Harry." Laramie walked away and Doubleday took Van Horn in hand: +"You messed up things once with Laramie, didn't you? And you didn't +get him, did you?" continued Doubleday, choking off Van Horn's words: +"Now we've got him here, let me run this thing." + +"I can tell you right now you won't line him up," blurted out Van Horn, +very angry. + +Doubleday had a way of raising his chin to override objection; and his +voice grew huskier with stubbornness: "Just let me run this thing, will +you?" + +"Do as you please," retorted Van Horn, but with a stiff expletive that +irritated Barb still further. Then swinging on his heel, Van Horn +marched off. Barb was so incensed he could only keep his raised finger +pointed after Van Horn; and as his eyes blazed he shouted through a +very fog of throat-scraping: "I will." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AGAINST HIS RECORD + +On the level stretch between the ranch-house and the creek the cowboys +staged, after dinner, a Frontier Day show and a Fourth of July +celebration combined. The fun began mildly with the three-legged races +and the business of the greased pig. From these diversions it +proceeded to foot races, in which Indians shone, and to keenly +contested pony races between cowboys, Reservation bucks and sports from +Sleepy Cat. Money was stacked with freedom and differences of opinion +were intensified by victory and defeat. + +While the spirit ran high, rodeo riding began with the master artists +of the range and the pink of American horsemanship in the saddle. In +each succeeding contest the Sleepy Cat visitors headed by Sawdy and +Lefever with big loose bunches of currency backed their favorites +freely, and men that counted nothing of caution in their make-up took +the other end of every exciting event. Flushed faces and loud voices +added to the rapidly shifting excitement as one event followed another, +and the betting fever keenly roused called, after every possible wager +had been laid, for fresh material to work on. + +It was at this juncture that the shooting matches began. In a line and +in a country in which many excelled in perhaps the most important +regard, rivalry ran high and critics were naturally fastidious. The +temptation to belittle even excellent work with rifle and revolver was, +in Sawdy and especially in Carpy, partly due to temperament. Both men +were bad gamesters because they bet on feeling rather than judgment. +They would back a man, or the horse of a man they liked, against a man +they did not like and sometimes thereby knew what it was to close the +day with empty pockets. + +On this Fourth of July at Doubleday's, both men, as well as Lefever, +had been hit by hard luck. Their free criticism of the horse-racing +and the shooting did not pass unresented and the fact that Tom Stone +and his following had most of the Sleepy Cat money while the sun was +still high did not tend to temper the acerbity of their remarks. + +Nothing that the crack shots of the range could do would satisfy either +Sawdy or Carpy. Van Horn, himself an expert with rifle and gun, was +master of these ceremonies and the belittling by the Sleepy Cat sports +of the best the cowboys could show, nettled him: "Before you knock this +any more," he said, "put up some better shooting." + +The taunt went far enough home to stir the fault-finders. Sawdy and +Carpy took grumpy counsel together. Presently they hunted up Laramie, +who in front of the ranch-house was talking horses with Kitchen and +Doubleday. They told him the situation and asked for help: "Come over +to the creek and show the bunch up, Jim," was Sawdy's appeal. + +The response was cold. Laramie refused to take any part in the +shooting. Sawdy could not move him. In revenge he borrowed what money +Laramie had--not much in all--and went back in bad humor. With the +peeve of defeated men, the Sleepy Cat sports called for more horse +racing to retrieve their fortunes--only to lose what money they had +left and suffer fresh jeering from Van Horn and his following. + +But abating in defeat and with empty pockets, nothing of their +confident swagger, Carpy and Sawdy reinforced this time by +Lefever--McAlpin trailing along as a mourner--headed again for the +ranch-house after Laramie. + +They found him on a bench where he could command the front door, +whittling and talking idly with Bill Bradley. Laramie was there intent +on waylaying Kate, within. His friends descended on him for the second +time in a body. They laid their discomfiture before him. They begged +him to pull them out of the hole. It was too much in the circumstances +to refuse men he counted on when he, himself, needed friends, but he +yielded with an ill grace: "What do you want me to do?" he demanded +finally. + +They told him. He would not stand up before a target, nor would he +shoot in competition with anybody else. + +"I've only got a few cartridges, anyway," he objected. "Suppose when +they're shot away these fellows get a fight going on me?" + +It was argued that there were enough gunmen in the Sleepy Cat crowd for +defensive purposes and that there was no end of available ammunition. +A way was found to meet Laramie's objection on every point and it only +remained to hatch up a scheme for lightening the cattlemen's pockets. + +With Carpy, Lefever and Sawdy, Laramie sat down apart. An exchange of +views took place. Sawdy had in mind something he had once seen Laramie +achieve and on this--and the possibility of its success--the talk +centered. The feat, it was conceded, would be a stiff one. It was put +up to Laramie; he consented, after some wrangling and with misgivings, +to try to save the day for his misguided Sleepy Cat friends. The +moment consent was assured, his backers hurried away in a body--McAlpin +as crier, Lefever and Sawdy to raise money, and Carpy to bully Van Horn +and Stone and their following. + +The news that Laramie would shoot caused a stir. Not everyone present +had seen him shoot. His reputed mastery of rifle and gun was often in +question; and no more grueling test before friends and enemies could +ever be given than what he was to attempt now. + +Not everyone got clearly as the talk went on just what the trial was to +be. Sawdy having reinforced his resources, announced the event as +Laramie against his record--to tie or to beat. + +Laramie, himself, unmindful of the controversy, held to the bench. He +was still sitting, head down, and still whittling, when Bradley came to +say the crowd was waiting. He asked Bradley to bring up his horse. + +Kate coming out of the house drew his attention. He threw away the +stick in his hand and rose. + +"I hear you are going to shoot," she said. + +"Can't get out of it very well, I guess." + +"You wouldn't shoot, the time I asked you to." + +"I didn't actually refuse, did I?" + +"Pretty near it." + +"It's a harder case today. Your men have got all the money. My +friends are broke. And they've asked me to help them out somehow. +That's the only reason. If you really want to see me shoot, all you've +got to do is to tell me the next time you see me." + +"Oh, I'm going to see you shoot now." She looked at the gun holster +slung at his left hip. "I hear you are left-handed." + +"They've got work enough lined up today for two hands." + +Bradley returned with the horse and climbed awkwardly down from the +saddle. Laramie tried the cinches and turned to Kate. + +"Are you all ready?" she asked. + +"Just about." + +"You try the cinches; I should think you'd want to try your gun." + +"I tried that this morning before I left home. All I've got to do +before I begin is to slip an extra cartridge into the cylinder." + +Leading his pony, Laramie, clinging to the talk as long as he could, +walked with Kate toward the creek. Leaving her on a slight rise, where +he told her he thought she could see, he got into the saddle and rode +down to where the crowd had assembled. + +On a stretch of the trail extending along the creek, John Frying Pan, +under the direction of Sawdy and Van Horn, was placing at intervals of +from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards a series of targets. These +were ordinary potatoes, left over from the barbecue, but selected with +great care as to size and shape by the man whose money was up--Sawdy; +Frying Pan's work was to impale them on low-growing scrub along the +trail to serve as targets. Against these targets--six in +number--Laramie was to undertake to ride and to split five out of the +six as he galloped past them with six and no more bullets. The +potatoes were up when Laramie joined Sawdy, and Lefever with leather +lungs announced the terms of the test. Accompanied by Sawdy, Van Horn +and Frying Pan, Laramie rode slowly down the course--a quarter of a +mile long--examining the roadway and the targets. Here and there a +loose stone was removed from the trail; one potato was moved from a dip +in the course to a safer point; one was raised and one placed more +clearly in sight. + +Having ridden to the end, Laramie expressed himself as satisfied with +the conditions. Alone, he went back over the course and starting down +the creek made a trial heat at full speed past the targets. One of +these at his request was shifted again. While he watched this change, +Sawdy and Lefever, surrounded by their followers, were crowding him as +race touts crowd a favorite jockey with final words of admonition and +advice. When the one target was satisfactorily adjusted, Laramie +breaking away from everybody returned alone to the starting point. +Dismounting, and taking his time to everything, he again tested his +cinches, drew his gun from its holster and breaking it slipped a sixth +cartridge into the cylinder. Dropping the gun back into place, he +pulled his hat a little lower, glanced down the course and up toward +the little hill on which he had parted from Kate. She was standing +where he left her but Van Horn had ridden up and, joining Kate, was +talking to her. While she listened to him she watched the preparations +below. + +Laramie spoke to his pony, patted him on the neck and mounted. +Wheeling, he swung out into a wide circle across the level bench and +with gradually increasing speed into a measured gallop. Molded into +one flesh with his mount, Laramie, impassive in the saddle as a statue, +watched and nursed to his liking the pony's gait. When the rhythm +suited, he urged the horse to a longer stride and circling back into +the course, drew his gun, held it high in the air and, swinging it +slowly as if like a lariat, bore down at full speed on the first target. + +Markers for both sides in the betting stood to watch each potato. No +signal would mean the potato had been missed; for each hit, a hat was +to be thrown into the air. In a complete silence among the spectators +every eye was fixed on Laramie. Those close at hand saw him, with his +left arm still high in the air, sway slightly backward and slowly +forward, while with the circling gun poised at arm's length he shrank +closer and lower into the saddle. When he neared the first target, +throwing his left arm toward it like a bolt, he fired, sped on and was +again swinging his gun. He had hardly covered six more paces before a +hat was tossed into the air behind him. + +A yell went up from his friends. Horsemen wheeled into the course +behind the flying marksman. With five potatoes still to negotiate they +were afraid to cheer. But as one hat after another along the shooting +line--the second, the third and the fourth--were tossed up from the +target behind the speeding horseman, the Sleepy Cat men bellowed with +joyful confidence. The fifth target was of unusual distance--a hundred +and fifty yards--from the fourth. Leaving the fourth, Laramie's horse +broke and the onlookers saw that his rider was in trouble. He kept the +swing of his gun without breaking the rhythm, but his efforts were in +his bridle arm to steady his horse. + +The hopes of his backers fell as they saw how stubborn the pony had +become. The hundred and fifty yards were barely enough to bring him +under control. Laramie still circling his raised gun did bring him +under. But he was already nearing the fifth target. And to the horror +of his friends passed it without attempting to fire. + +Of the two chances left him to tie--which meant to win--he had passed +up one; the sixth and last meant life or death to the shaken hopes of +his backers. + +They saw him settled once more into the long, even stride he needed for +the shot and their breaths hung on each flying leap that brought the +rider nearer his last chance. The sixth target was separated by barely +fifty yards from the fifth. Laramie had covered half the distance when +he completely reversed his form. He stretched gradually up in the +saddle and riding close in on the target itself, rose to his full +height in the stirrups and smashed his fifth shot almost straight down +on it; the potato split into a dozen fragments. Bill Bradley at the +sixth was watching for Sawdy; his hat sailed twenty feet in the air. +The yelling crowd rode Laramie down as he galloped in a long circle +back, his lines swung on his forearm, while he slipped four fresh +cartridges into the warm cylinder of his revolver. + +He dismounted to ease his cinches. "I guess I over-did it," he +explained to the friends that crowded closest. "I got the cinches a +little tight. The pony didn't like it. I couldn't get the gait in +time for the Number Five. But I knew I could make Number Six." + +Remounting, he made his way through the crowd back over the course. +Kate was still on the hill. "You won, didn't you?" she cried as he +rode toward her. + +"If I hadn't, I guess I'd have had to head straight across the creek +for home. Could you see?" + +"I watched you the whole way. What a long arm you have." + +"While these tin horns are counting their money, would you like to show +me the ponies?" + +"You have a long memory, too." + +"I was brought up a good deal with Indians. Shall I hunt up Van Horn +to go with us?" + +She darted a quick glance at him: "Why, yes, surely," she retorted, "if +you want him." + +Laramie was tearing out a cigarette paper: "I could look at them +without him," he returned calmly. + +"I don't see him, anyway," murmured Kate, professing to sweep the +crowded course with her eyes. + +"Don't look too hard," cautioned Laramie. + +"I suppose we might save time," she suggested, ignoring his last +remark, "by going without him." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS + +Those closest to headquarters sometimes know least of what is going on. +That the big celebration at the ranch could have been anything more or +less than what it professed to be, did not occur to Kate; nor could +anyone actually say that it was more or less. Hawk could +contemptuously refuse its overtures; Laramie could for reasons of his +own accept them; the Falling Wall rustlers were out for a good time or +they would not have been rustling and they would celebrate any time at +anybody's expense--except their own; Carpy could believe it was to +usher in a better feeling--everyone to his taste. + +But the suspicious, because they did not quite understand such a move, +harbored their suspicions, and among the doubting was Belle +Shockley--shrewd and very much alive to the drift of things since her +struggle with a cyclone. Had Belle, instead of Kate, been out at the +ranch, things now coming along that Kate failed to see, would have told +volumes to her. + +But Kate did not feel at liberty to make of Belle a confidant in +everything--certainly not in what happened at home; so she neither said +anything to Belle nor asked of her any explanation of things that she +herself did not understand--such as guarded and more frequent +consultations between her father and Van Horn, Pettigrew and Stone; and +such as men riding up with a clatter to the ranch-house at night and +calling Doubleday out and calling for Van Horn who often now spent the +night at the ranch and left before daybreak. + +Some of this, Kate saw. She could see how absent-minded her father +was. He grew so taciturn she hardly knew him but the reason for it was +beyond her. More than she saw, she picked up from Bradley, working +then at the ranch. Bradley had taken a liking to Kate and often +reminded her of the night he brought her into the Falling Wall country. + +Whenever she was in Sleepy Cat, Belle was inquisitive. She always +wanted to know what Van Horn was doing, what her father was doing, and +then fell back on vaguely general questions about ranches and the range +and rustlers. More than once she spoke of strangers in town, Texas +men--cowboys and gunmen she called them--who bothered her for meals, +and whom she scornfully sent packing. + +And Henry Sawdy, too, one of her frequent visitors, was trying to court +her, she complained; all this made her suspicious. Of whom? Of what? +Kate asked. Belle could not tell exactly of whom, of what--she was +just suspicious: "Why should that big fat man come courting me?" she +demanded one day when Kate had come in for lunch. + +"You don't think it possible he likes you?" suggested Kate, barely +glancing Belle's way, and taking care to make her tone very skeptical. +Belle only snorted contemptuously and turned to her cooking; but as she +did so, she gave her wig a punch. + +By the merest chance, John Lefever came in a few minutes later. Belle +and Kate were at the table. John asked for something to eat. When +Belle wanted to be rid of him he refused "no" for an answer: + +"You wouldn't send me away without a cup of coffee, would you? No +potatoes? Well, I never eat potatoes"--John coughed. "They are +fattening." Then he looked up cheerfully as if a new idea had struck +him: "What's the matter with a little soft-boiled ice cream?" + +The upshot was that he had to be asked to share the lunch which he did +with relish, paying his way with his usual foolery. When the plates +were emptied and John had officiously asked leave to light a cigarette, +he glanced toward the folding bed and asked Belle to play something. + +"That's no piano," exclaimed Belle, with contempt. "That's a bed." + +John seemed undisturbed: "Curious," he mused, "we used to have an +upright piano at home with that same kind of wood, same pattern +exactly; you could have that bed made over into a piano, Belle. +Straighten out the springs and you wouldn't have to buy hardly any wire +at all." + +Belle stared at him: "Where would I sleep if I did?" she demanded. + +John threw back his head, blew a delicate puff of smoke toward the +ceiling and looked across at his unsympathetic hostess. Then he +brought his fist down on the table; "Marry me, Belle, and sleep in a +regular bed! What?" + +Belle was justly indignant. Kate's laughing made her more indignant. +For John had fairly bubbled his proposal through a laugh of his own. + +"I used to sleep in a box like that myself," he went on. "But the year +it was so dry the grasshoppers got into it." John coughed again +unobtrusively. "I raffled that bed off," he continued, low and +reminiscently. "A conductor won it. But it didn't fool him. He knew +the bed as well as I did; he'd slept in it. So I bought it in again, +cheap, and traded it to an old Indian buck--a one-eyed man--for a pony. +Many a time I've laughed, thinking of that bed up on the Reservation. +Those bucks, you know, are desperate gamblers. I understand they've +been playing hearts with that blamed bed ever since and putting it on +the high man." + +At this, John laughed harder than ever, Belle sputtering as she watched +him. + +Then he turned his amiable face on Kate: "How are you all at the home?" + +"Very well." + +"What's the news up your way?" + +"Not a thing since the Fourth of July." + +"Father pretty well?" + +"Quite." + +"When did you see him last?" + +It was an odd question: "Last night--why?" asked Kate in turn. + +"He didn't come in town with you today?" countered John. + +"He rarely does," said Kate. + +John nodded soothing assent to her explanation: "How's Van Horn?" he +asked casually. "And Stone?" he added, with undiminished interest. +"All well," was his echo to her perfunctory answers. "Say, Belle, was +Jim Laramie in town yesterday?" + +Belle shook her head. "How about the day before?" he asked. Again she +said, "no"; and went on with an impatient comment of her own: "You're +always asking questions. What for? That's what I want to know." + +John laid his cigarette on the rim of his plate and appealed to Kate: +"Did you ever in your life see a more unreasonable woman than Belle? +How am I to find things out without asking questions of my friends? +And among them I number you both," he added. + +Leaning forward, he spoke on: "Now I'll tell you why I asked those +harmless little questions--for I wouldn't ask either of you any other +kind. This news will get to each of you, about evening. By morning it +will be all over Sleepy Cat and by tomorrow noon across the Spanish +Sinks. This morning, early, Van Horn, Tom Stone, Pettigrew with +Bradley, and a bunch of Texas men and cowboys rode over into the +Falling Wall country and there's been hell to pay there every minute +since daylight--that's the word I got about half an hour ago, by +telephone, from a little ranch away up on the head-waters of the Crazy +Woman." + +He drew his handkerchief and wiped his brow. "The only man up +there--Belle knows that--that I'm any ways interested in, is Jim +Laramie. According to what I can hear, Jim is home. That's worrying +me just a little. + +"What will Jim do? That's what I'm thinking of. How will he stack up +if that bunch goes to his ranch on the Turkey? He hates 'em like +poison. They've gone up there, you understand," he added, speaking to +Kate, as if some further explanation were due a comparative stranger, +"to clean out the rustlers. You can imagine it'll be done--or at least +attempted--without much talk. There won't be very much talk. I've +known for some little time what's been going forward. They tried to +get Jim to join them; offered him about anything he wanted; offered to +see that the contests on his preemption and homestead be withdrawn; +offered him quite a bunch of cattle, I heard; and some money." + +Belle's face, her staring eyes and strained expression as she listened, +showed how well she knew what the news meant. "What answer did Jim +give?" she asked anxiously. + +"From what I can pick up," declared John, dropping calmly into the +inelegant expression, "he told 'em to go to hell. + +"That's what I'm worrying about now. Not about their going, but about +what Jim will do. What do you think, Belle?" + +Belle shook her head; she offered no comment. + +"And," John added, looking at Kate, "that was hatched mostly, right at +your place. And they rode away from there about two o'clock this +morning. That's why I was pumping you a little, till I see you didn't +know a thing about it." + +Why Kate had not asked before, she could not tell; but the possibility +never crossed her mind--until Lefever told her of their starting from +the ranch that morning--that her father might have gone. She +recollected now she had not seen him, as she usually saw him, the first +thing when she came from her room. Her heart leaped into her throat: +"Was my father with them?" she asked. + +She must have shown her excitement and fear in her manner, as well as +in her words, for Lefever looked at her considerately: "According to my +reports," he answered carefully, "your father was with them." + +"Godfrey!" muttered Belle. Kate could say nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE RAID OF THE FALLING WALL + +Against the alert, the effective blow is a sudden blow. Secrecy, and a +surprise, were the only hope of success in what the cattlemen were now +attempting in the Falling Wall. Of the men on whom they could count to +organize and carry through such a raid, they had just one capable of +energizing every detail--Harry Van Horn. Laramie, the man Doubleday +and Pettigrew would have chosen, they had failed to enlist, and what +was more serious--though this, perhaps, Doubleday did not realize--they +had likewise failed to rid themselves of; Tom Stone had bungled. + +But Doubleday in especial was not a man to lose time over a failure. +He knew that Van Horn had "go" enough in him to clean out a whole +county if he were given the men and backing, and that he stood high in +the councils of the range. When Van Horn spoke, men listened. His eye +flashed with his words and his long, straight hair shook defiance at +opposition. He swore with a staccato that really meant things and cut +like a knife. When once started, mercy was not in him. + +In the Falling Wall park there lived a mere handful of men, and these +widely scattered; but Van Horn was the last man to underestimate the +handful he was after. He knew them every one, and knew that no better +men ever rode the range than Stormy Gorman, Dutch Henry, Yankee +Robinson and Abe Hawk, and their associates--if, indeed, for a man that +never mixed with other men, Hawk could be said to have associates. + +But the four named were the men to whom the lesser rustlers of the park +looked; the men whose exploits they imitated, and these were the men on +whose heads a price had, in effect, been set. + +Van Horn assembled his men, earlier than Lefever had been informed. An +old trail from Doubleday's ranch to the Falling Wall crosses the road +to the Fort some distance north of Sleepy Cat. The party from the +ranch--Tom Stone with some of the most reckless cowboys and +Doubleday--waited there for the Texans whom Van Horn was bringing from +Pettigrew's. Both parties were at the rendezvous that night by twelve +o'clock, and within thirty minutes were headed north by way of the +Crazy Woman for Falling Wall park. + +The night for the raid had been chosen. The sky was overcast, and when +the party left the crossing between twelve and one o'clock their exact +destination was still a secret to the greater number. Small ranchers +along the creek might have wakened at the smart clatter of so many +horses, but men to and from the Fort traveled late at times and made +even more noise. This night there were riders abroad; but there was no +singing. + +Dawn was whitening the eastern sky when the raiding party halted near a +clump of trees on the south fork of the Turkey. The valley into which +they had ridden during the night was very broken, but offered good +grazing. Along the tortuous water course, Stormy Gorman, the old +prize-fighter, and Dutch Henry, the ex-soldier, had preempted two of +the very few pieces of land that did not stand directly on edge and +built for themselves cabins. Gorman's cabin lay a mile above the fork +where the raiders had halted; Henry's lay a few miles farther up the +creek. + +During the long night ride it had been decided to strike at Gorman's +ranch first; thence to follow the creek trail up to Dutch Henry's, +despatch him in turn, to cross rapidly a narrow rough divide beyond +which they could reach Hawk's cabin on the east fork of the Turkey and +thence sweep into the northwest to clean out the smaller fry--the +"chicken feed" rustlers--as Van Horn called them. But toward morning, +following much ill-natured dispute between Stone and Van Horn, the +tactics were changed. It was decided to go after Dutch Henry first--as +the more alert and slippery of the two--and as quietly as possible the +silent invaders rode slowly along the creek past Gorman's place up to +Henry's. + +Day was breaking as the riders, dismounting and leaving their horses on +the creek bottom, crept noiselessly, under Stone's guidance, up a wash +to the bench on which Henry's cabin stood. Hiding just below a shallow +bank at the head of a draw, they lay awaiting developments. Where +Stone had posted them they commanded the cabin perfectly. He had lived +part of one year with Henry when they two preyed jointly on the range +and he knew the ground well. + +They had hardly disposed of themselves in this manner and were +beginning, in the gray dusk, to distinguish objects with some +certainty, when the door of the distant cabin opened and a mongrel +collie bounded out followed by a man who left the door ajar. The man, +carrying a water pail, set it down, yawned, stretched himself and +tucked his shirt slowly inside his trousers. Wild with joy the dog +danced, leaped and barked about his master--only to be rewarded by a +kick that sent him yelping to a little distance, where turning, +crouching with extended paws, whining and frantically wagging his tail, +the poor beast tried to beg forgiveness for its half-starved happiness. +The man, giving this demonstration no heed, picked up the pail and +started for the creek. + +His path took him in a direction roughly parallel to the line along +which his hidden enemy lay. + +"Don't fire at that man," exclaimed Van Horn to his companions under +cover of the draw. "That's not Dutch Henry," he whispered the next +moment. "Don't fire. I'll take care of him." + +The rustler, quite unconscious of his deadly danger, tramped unevenly +on. His dog, no longer repulsed, dashed joyously back and forth, +scenting the trails of the night and barking wildly at his master by +turns. The man was walking hardly three hundred yards from where +Stone, rifle in hand, lay, and had reached the footpath leading from +the bench to the creek bottom when Stone, half rising, covered him +slowly with point-blank sights. In the path ahead, the dog had struck +a fresh gopher hole and, still yelping, was pawing madly into it, when +a rifle cracked. The man with the pail, swung violently half around by +the shock of a spreading bullet, jerked convulsively and the pail flew +clattering from his hand. He struggled an instant to keep his footing, +then collapsing, fell prone across the path and lay quite still. + +Stone, followed by a man nearest him, scrambling down the draw, hurried +along the creek bottom, and ran up to reach the path where the murdered +man lay. The dog, barking and dashing wildly around his prostrate +master, spied the foreman and sprang furiously down the trail at him. +Stone, rifle in one hand and revolver in the other, was ready, and, +firing from the hip, broke the collie's back. With a howl the stricken +brute turned, and, dragging his helpless hindquarters along the ground +with incredible swiftness, pawed himself back to the dying man's head +and yelping, licked frantically at the hand of his master. Coming up +into plain sight, Stone got a good look at the man he had killed: +"Stormy Gorman!" he exclaimed, with an oath of surprise. "Who'd 'a' +thought," he continued, "that big bum would be up at Dutch Henry's this +morning!" + +The old prize-fighter was struggling in his last round. His +heavy-lidded eyes, swollen with drink and sleep, were closed, and from +his mouth, as his head hung to one side, a dark stream ran to a little +pool in the dust. Only a stertorous breathing reflected his effort to +live and even this was fast failing. Van Horn hurried up the path from +the bottom, whither he had followed Stone; anger was all over his face: +"Kill that damned dog," he exclaimed, out of breath, to those about +him. Two of the three men drew revolvers and shot the collie through +the head. + +"Damnation!" cried Van Horn in a fury. "Stop your shooting. Couldn't +you knock him in the head? Do you want to start up the whole country?" +he demanded, as he saw the man who lay at his feet and had taken the +brief count for eternity was Gorman. He turned on Stone with rage in +his eyes and his voice: "Now," he cried, punctuating his abuse with the +fiercest gestures, "you've done it, haven't you!" Anger almost choked +him. "You've got Gorman with a brass band and left Dutch Henry in the +cabin waiting for us, haven't you? Why," he roared, "didn't you obey +orders, let this tank get down to the bottom and knock him on the head +into the creek?" A violent recrimination between Stone and Van Horn +followed. But the milk was spilt as well as the blood of the stubborn +rustler, and there was nothing for it but new dispositions. + +Gorman's presence indicated that Henry was at home. If he were at +home, he was, no doubt, within the cabin; but just how, after Stone's +blunder, to get at him, was a vexing question. + +Van Horn started down the foot trail back to the bottom and around to +the first hiding place. Lingering with a companion to look at Gorman +in his blood, Stone turned for approval: "See where I hit him?" he +grinned. "Poor light, too." + +A brief council was held in the draw. Watched for more than an hour, +not the slightest sign of life about the lonely cabin could be +detected. Various expedients, none of them very novel, were tried to +draw Henry's fire should he be within. But these were of no avail. A +dozen theories were advanced as to where Henry might or might not be. +To every appearance there was not, so far as the enemy could judge, a +living man within miles of the spot. The older heads, Pettigrew, +Doubleday, Van Horn, even Stone, talked less than the others; but they +were by no means convinced that the house was empty. + +One of the least patient of the cowboys at length deliberately exposed +himself to fire from the sphinx-like cabin. He stood up and walked up +and down the edge of the draw. Nothing happened. Emboldened, he +started out into the open and toward the cabin. No shot greeted him. +A companion, jumping up, hurried after him; a third, a Texas boy, +sprang up to join them. For those watching from hiding it was a +ticklish moment. Toward the draw there was a considerable growth of +mountain blue-stem, none of it very high and gradually shortening +nearer the house. The three men were hastening through the grass, +separated by intervals of perhaps fifty feet. The foremost got within +a hundred yards of the cabin door, which still stood open as Gorman had +left it, before Van Horn's fear of an ambush vanished. He himself, not +to be too far behind his followers, then rose to join the procession +through the blue stem and the crack of a rifle was heard. Van Horn, +with a shout of warning, dropped unhurt into the draw. But the last +man of the three in the field stumbled as if struck by an ax. Of the +two men ahead of him, the hindermost dropped into the grass and crawled +snakelike back; the man in front dropped his rifle and started at top +speed for safety; from the edge of the draw his companions sent a +fusillade of rifle fire at the cabin. + +Apparently the diversion had no effect on the marksman within. He +fired again; this time at the Texan crawling in the blue stem, and the +half-hidden man, almost lifted from the ground by the blow of the +bullet, dropped limp. Meantime the first cowboy in his dash for safety +was making a record still unequaled in mountain story. He jumped like +a broncho and zig-zagged like a darting bird, but faster than either. +The efforts of his companions to divert attention from him were +constant. Some of them poured bullets at the cabin. Others jumped to +their feet, and, yelling, sprang from point to point to expose +themselves momentarily and draw the fire of the enemy. This was of no +avail. The hidden rifle with deliberate instancy cracked once more. +The fleeing cowboy, slammed as if by a club, dashed on, but his right +arm hung limp. No snipe ever made half the race for life that he put +up in those fleeting seconds; and by his agility he earned then and +there the nickname of the bird itself, for before the deadly sights +could cover his flight again he threw himself into a slight depression +that effectually hid him from the range of the enemy. + +A swarm of hornets, roused, could not have been more furious than the +company under the lee of the draw. Shooting, shouting, cursing deep +and loud, they made continual effort to keep the deadly fire off their +fallen companions. They saw the half-open door of the cabin swing now +slowly shut and they riddled it with bullets. They splintered the logs +about it and, scattering in as wide an arc as they dare, continued to +pour a fire into the silent cabin. At intervals they paused to wait +for a return. There was no return. All ruses they had ever heard of +they tried over again to draw a fire and exhaust the besieged man's +ammunition. Nothing moved the lone enemy--if he were, indeed, alone. +The day wore into afternoon. By shouting, the assailants learned that +two of their three hapless companions lying in the blue stem were still +alive--the Snipe very much alive, as his stentorian answers indicated. +He called vigorously for water but got none. His refuge was too +exposed. + +How to get rid of Dutch Henry taxed the wits of the invaders. The +whole morning and the early afternoon went to pot-luck firing from the +trench along the draw, but although it was often asserted that Henry +must long since be dead--having returned none of the shooting that was +meant to call his fire--no one manifested the curiosity necessary to +prove the assertion by closing in on the cabin. Stone was still +sulking over Van Horn's sharp talk of the morning when Van Horn came +over to where the foreman had posted himself to cover the cabin door: +"We've got to get that guy before dark, Tom, or he'll slip us." + +"All right," replied Stone, "get him." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE GO-DEVIL + +"I want a wagon," scowled Van Horn. "There's one down at Gorman's +place he won't need any more. There's some baled hay down there, too. +Take the men you need, load what hay you can find on the wagon and +hustle it up here." + +Too stubborn to ask questions, and only starting after many hard +words--with which all the ground of the morning quarrel and much more +was traversed--Stone took two men and started reluctantly for Gorman's. +He spent a long time on his job, but came back as directed with the +wagon loaded with hay. + +The wagon was not much to view. It looked like the wagon of a man that +spent more time in Sleepy Cat saloons than on his ranch. A rack, +equally old and dilapidated, had been set on the running gear. The +paint had long since blown off the wheels, and one of these, a front +wheel, had lost a tire on the rough trip up the creek. But the felloes +hung to the spokes and the spokes to the hub. + +Van Horn inspected the outfit grimly. With half a dozen men he set +quickly to work and under his resourceful ingenuity the wagon and hay +were speedily turned into what would now-a-days be termed a tank. Only +lack of hay kept him from making a mobile fortress of it. By means of +wire he slung along the sides what baled hay he could spare, and with +much effort to avoid exposure the armored wagon was dragged over the +roughest kind of ground, to the north and west of the cabin. From this +direction the ground, fairly smooth, sloped from a ridge fringed by +jutting patches of rock, directly toward the cabin itself and eager +hands made the final preparations to smoke Henry out. With the load of +hay set ablaze and the wagon run down against the cabin the defender +was bound to be driven from cover or burnt. + +When the bustling, contradicting and confusion finally subsided, the +wagon was stealthily pushed over the ridge, the hay fired and the +blazing outfit, christened a go-devil, was started with a shout down +the slope. + +If there existed in the minds of those that talked least a lingering +suspicion that Dutch Henry was still alive it was soon strongly +justified. Before the wagon had rolled twenty feet the challenge of a +rifle-shot from the cabin answered the attack. Everybody dodged quick, +but no one was hit and a yell of derision rose from behind the rocks. +With ropes, borrowed from the men that carried them, and knotted +together, the wagon was kept under partial control and the line, as +paid out, served in some measure to guide it. On it went accompanied +with shouts and yells. From the threatened cabin came no answering +defiance. Henry's case looked bad as the wagon rolled down on him, but +his rifle fire, though seemingly wasted, answered unflinchingly. + +Stone danced with joy: "He'll be running the gauntlet next clip. He's +not hitting anybody. He must be shooting," yelled the excited foreman, +"at the blamed wagon." + +A steady fire, undismayed, did continue to come from the cabin. Van +Horn, who had run to the extreme right of the new sector, and was +keeping a close watch on the go-devil, was the first to perceive +trouble. "Hell's delight, boys," he cried, taken aback, "he's shooting +up the wheels." + +The words flew around behind the rocks. The rifle fire was explained. +Every eye was turned to the danger point, the wheel without the tire +which, as the wagon wobbled, was unluckily exposed to the cabin fire. +It could easily be seen where the deliberate marksman was getting in +his work. He had knocked one felloe off the rim and was hitting at the +spokes. It began to look like a race between the burning wagon and +Henry at bay. The hay was a mound of flame and sparks and smoke shot +high into the air. A hundred feet more would lodge the fire trap +against the rear wall of the cabin. But under the steady pounding of a +rifle that seemed never to miss its mark the injured wheel showed fast +increasing signs of distress. A second felloe was tracking uncertainly. + +As a diversion, Van Horn, active, energetic and covering every part of +his little line at once, ordered an incessant fire centered on the +threatened cabin. Nothing seemed to check the regular report of the +hidden high-powered rifle and the bullets that were splintering the old +oak spokes. When the roaring wagon struck a loose stone or rough spot +in its trackless path it wobbled and hesitated. Yet, jerked, steadied, +halted and started by means of the long cable, it rolled to within +twenty yards of its mark. There it pitched a bit, recovered and for +another ten yards sailed down a smooth piece of ground. The cowboys +were yelling their loudest when a lucky shot from the cabin knocked off +a second felloe. A second and third shot smashed rapidly through the +spokes of the staggering wheel. A threatening boulder lying to the +right of the wagon's course could not be avoided. The men on the line +jerked and swore. It was useless. One side of the wheel collapsed, +the front axle swung around and the blazing wagon straddled the +troublesome boulder like a stranded ship. The men guiding heaved to on +the line--it parted; the cabin stood safe. + +At once, the rifle fire from the cabin ceased. No taunt, no threat +could draw another shot from the silence. Chagrined, eyes flashing, +silent in his defeat, Van Horn, contemplating the last of the burning +wagon and watching the cabin as a dog, baffled, watches a cat on a +fence, was let alone even by the most reckless of his companions; for +the failure no one tried to bait him. Nor were he and Doubleday ready +to quit. They got ready a circle of fires to block any attempt made to +escape the beleaguered place after dark. This proved a difficult +undertaking, both because fuel was scarce and because the dead line, +drawn by the rifle fire of the wary defender, extended a long way in +every direction around his log refuge. + +The night, however, was fairly clear and a pretty good moon was due by +ten o'clock. The fires were lighted, not without some sharp objection +from the cabin, the moment darkness fell. The difficulty then was to +keep them replenished and maintain an adequate guard. Dark spots and +shadows fell within and across the circle around the cabin. Van Horn +ordered a rifle fire directed into these places; it was placed so +persistently that when the moon rose, the besiegers felt pretty +confident Henry had not escaped. And just before its light had +penetrated the narrow valley, the invaders had a cheering surprise when +the wounded man, nicknamed "The Snipe," crawled from his hollow between +the lines back to his comrades and told them in immoderate terms what +he thought of them for leaving him wounded and thirsty under the enemy +fire. Volunteers, inspired by his abuse, crawled out to the second man +that had fallen in the morning and by really heroic effort got him back +into the draw; badly hit, he was given long-needed attention. The +first man, shot through the head, the rescuers reported dead. + +When midnight came, the men had been fed and the watch well maintained. +A steer, interned earlier, had been cut up for the men's supper and Van +Horn and Doubleday were seated together before the camp fire near the +creek eating some of the reserve chunks of meat when a hurried alarm +called them up the draw--the cabin was on fire. + +Nothing could have happened to take the besiegers more by surprise. +There was hasty questioning but no explanation. Of all the +possibilities of the night none could have been so unexpected. But +whatever the cause, and theories were broached fast, the cabin was +ablaze. Smoke could be seen pouring through the chinks in the roof and +little tongues of flame darted out at the rear under the eaves. Though +there was not a breath of air stirring, the roof within fifteen minutes +was in flames and the cowboys, confident of victory, set up, Indian +fashion, their death chant for Dutch Henry. + +The old shack made a good fire. The roof collapsed and with the +incantations of the cowboys, the stout walls, worm-eaten and +bullet-splintered, falling gradually, blazed on. + +"The jig's up here, boys," announced Van Horn, as the fire burned down. +"The two biggest thieves on the range are accounted for. It's a good +job. If I guess right you'll find the Dutchman in the fire. Yankee +Robinson's next. He won't put up much of a fight, but the hardest man +to get is still ahead of us. This was a boy's job beside rounding up +Abe Hawk. He'll never be taken alive, because he knows what's comin' +to him. + +"There's not a minute to lose now. Stone and I will take two of your +men, Barb, and round up Yankee Robinson. From there we'll ride over to +Abe's place on the Turkey. About our only chance is to catch him +before he's up. If he's got wind of this, we'll have a hell of a chase +to get him. Feed the horses, the rest of you eat, and we're off! You +can follow us with Pettigrew and the bunch, Doubleday, just as soon as +you look the cabin over after daylight." Within half an hour Van Horn +and Stone and the two men crossed the creek, rode into the hills and +disappeared into the night. + +Setting a watch, Doubleday and his men curled up on the ground. When +earliest dawn streaked the sky the logs were still smoking, and the +cowboys, rifles in hand, walked down to where the cabin had stood. + +Everything within the walls had been consumed. Long after daylight, +with some of the men asleep, and others waiting for the fire to cool, +one of Doubleday's cowboys, poking about the sill log of the rear wall +with a stick, gave a shout. What had been taken for a half-burned log +was the charred body of a man. The invaders gathered and the body was +presently declared by those who knew him well to be that of Dutch +Henry. There was nothing more to detain the men that were waiting. +The cowboy worst wounded had started with a companion for home. The +Snipe insisted on going on with Doubleday. + +The horses had been left in good grass a little way down the creek. +When they were disturbed it was found that one was missing. A hurried +search failed to recover the horse. + +While trackers were at work, the Snipe, always alert, found a clue that +upset all calculations. It was a small dark red spot soaked into the +dust of the creek trail. It was very small, such as might have been +made by a single drop of blood; but one such sign was enough to put on +inquiry a man versed like the Snipe in mountain craft. Keeping his +discovery to himself, he tracked back and forth from his single spot, +almost invisible in the dust, until he found a second similar spot. +This he marked, and dodging and circling, like a hound on a scent, the +Snipe ran his trail from his first tiny spot to the trees near the +creek where the horses had been left. Doubling, he patiently tracked +the telltale spots up the path that led to the cabin. Then he called +to Barb. + +Doubleday, much out of temper, was in the saddle waiting to get +started. He bawled at the Snipe, and not amiably. + +"Keep cool," was the answer; "I'm 'a' comin'. But look here before you +start; there was two men in that cabin, Barb." + +"What are you givin' us?" blurted out a cowboy. Doubleday stared +ferociously. "There was two of 'em, boys," persisted the Snipe. + +"You must 'a' seen double when you was runnin'," was the skeptical +suggestion of another man. But Doubleday listened. + +The Snipe took him from the cabin down to the creek. Then back to the +cabin. There he showed him where someone had dug what might have been +a hole under the sill log, near the door. + +A horse was certainly missing. Then, shells from two different rifles +were picked out of the ashes. One size had been fired from a +Winchester rifle; the others, much more numerous, belonged to a Marlin. + +"Who was it, Barney?" asked Doubleday, breathing heavily. He was so +wrought up and so hoarse he could hardly frame the words. But he was +already convinced. + +The Snipe shook his head. "There's two or three fellows up here shoots +a Marlin rifle. If I got one guess on this man that's made his +get-away, Barb, I'd say----" The Snipe poked further into the ashes. + +"Well, say!" thundered Doubleday. + +"I'd say it was Abe Hawk." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK + +A bomb exploding in the smoking remnants could hardly have caused more +consternation among the man hunters than the Snipe's naming of Abe +Hawk. But however Doubleday's jaw set at the unwelcome surprise he was +not the one to swerve in the face of any personal danger, and those +with him were not men to bolt whatever adventure they embarked in. +However, it was remarked by the Snipe that those least acquainted with +Abe were least disturbed by the news of his almost certain presence in +the cabin the day and night before and his escape after the fight. + +Common prudence made it necessary to cross the small divide with care +and to get word of the unpleasant discovery as soon as possible to Van +Horn in order that he and his companions might not be picked off by the +wounded man from ambush. The Snipe was assigned to Hawk's trail and +two men were sent to the wings to scout for him among the rocks. +Bradley rode to warn Van Horn; but the old man did not sweat his horse +in the effort. + +The trackers soon made it plain to those behind that the escaping man +had ridden a pretty straight course himself, and had picked his way in +the night like one thoroughly at home in the hills of the Turkey. And +though losing the trail at times, the Snipe had no serious trouble in +picking it again from the grass or the rocks. + +The country lying north of the forks of the Turkey is rougher than to +the south and pretty well covered with pine. On the Northern slope, +Hawk's trail led down a long and winding break mile after mile and in +the end pointed straight for his shack on the creek. + +Moving as nearly as possible in the order in which they had started, +the party emerged from the hills half a mile from the creek, and not +much farther from Hawk's, when they encountered Bradley and Van Horn +with one of his men. Doubleday hoarsely asked for the news. + +Van Horn rode up close before he answered, and, though his tone was +confident, his manner showed his annoyance at the way things had +turned: "Robinson's shack was empty," he said. "Whether he got wind of +yesterday I don't know; anyway, he's skipped--there's nothing left on +his place." + +"What's there to this talk of Barney's about Abe Hawk?" demanded +Doubleday. + +"From what Bradley says, it looks as if he might be right," said Van +Horn. "The horse Hawk took is eating grass in front of his cabin; we +saw him when we got here and waited for Hawk to show himself." + +"He didn't do it," interrupted Doubleday huskily and baring his teeth +as he spoke. + +"Stone's watching the place." + +"Is Abe there?" demanded Doubleday. + +"You tell," responded Van Horn. "He may or may not be. That horse may +be a stall. We've got to close in somehow on the shack and find out." + +A cowboy clattered up from the creek and pulled his horse to its +haunches between Doubleday and Van Horn: "He's just closed the door," +declared the cowboy. "The door was open when we got here--wasn't it, +Harry?" He pointed his finger at Van Horn in his excited appeal. + +Van Horn scowled and waved his head from side to side in irritation: +"The door was open, yes; the door is shut, yes." Then he swore at the +alarmist: "You blamed monkey," he pointed to the cottonwood. "Don't +you see how the wind is blowing? That door has been swinging half an +hour. The shack is empty." + +But nobody could be found with confidence enough in Van Horn's belief +to close in and demonstrate its truth. After a litany of hard words in +which everybody took more or less part, Van Horn declared he would +demonstrate. Whatever his faults, he was dead game, a formidable +antagonist in an encounter. He was risking his life on his belief that +either Hawk was disabled, or the cabin was empty. Stripping himself to +shirt and trousers, turning his effects over to a cowboy, bare-headed +and with only a six-shooter in hand, he shook out his long, brown hair, +hooked up his belt and started to crawl up a little wash breaking into +the creek not far from the cabin. + +There was no point from which he could be seen and his companions, +secreted where they could watch, bent their eyes along the course of +the wash up which their hidden leader was making his way. + +Fortunately for the slippery undertaking, Van Horn, by a little digging +as he made his way carefully ahead, was able to crawl to within fifty +feet of the door without exposing himself to fire. Reaching the +nearest spot he could attain with safety, he called in stentorian tones +to the cabin: + +"You're surrounded, Abe. You can't get away. If you want to +surrender, I'll guarantee your life. Come out unarmed and I'll meet +you unarmed. If not, it's what Gorman and Dutch Henry got, for you, +Abe." + +The cabin gave no answer back. But Van Horn would not be baffled. +Knowing it would be suicide to venture closer he patiently sought his +answer on the ground he now began to cover on his way back to the +creek. And on the ground he found it. + +"He's slipped us," Van Horn called out when Doubleday arrived, "but +I've got his trail." + +"Two hundred and fifty dollars to the man that gets him!" shouted +Doubleday, huskily. Some of the boys gave a whoop and began to look +around, but they did not scatter much. + +Van Horn, losing no time, led Doubleday part way up the break along +which he had crawled. Telltale traces of blood at irregular intervals, +sometimes imprinted as if by a hand on the flat face of rock that +bedded the wash; sometimes smeared on a starving bunch of grass, where +it clung desperately to a crevice in the scant soil--all so slight and +so well concealed that only the mere chance of Van Horn's crawling up +the very break chosen by Hawk for his escape to the creek had revealed +it to his pursuers. The tracker took the slender trail, followed the +wounded rustler to the creek bottom and thence down the creek to its +junction with the North Fork. There they lost the trail in a pool of +water, nor could they pick it up again. + +A mile below the fork of the Turkey stood Jim Laramie's cabin. The +raiders had already entered on his land; his cattle and some of his +horses were, in fact, grazing in and about the creek fork. The +following of Hawk's trail had been a nerve-racking job. Hawk, his +enemies knew, might be waiting at any turn in it and that meant, in all +probability, death for someone. In consequence, the pioneering fell +chiefly on Van Horn; even Stone showed little stomach for the job. But +the trail was completely lost. + +"There's a bunch of horses grazing at the fork," reported Van Horn, as +Doubleday reached the front, "Laramie's, I guess--anyway, the trail's +gone." + +A council was held. Doubleday, long-headed and crafty, listened to all +that was said. Van Horn finally asked for his opinion. + +"I don't know no more than the rest of you; but a blind man can figure +a few things out. He's hit, ain't he?" Barb put the question as one +not to be gainsaid and found none to say him nay. "He's looking for +help, that's more'n likely, ain't it? He's a mile from Jim Laramie's +cabin, not more; he's three miles from anybody else's--what?" he +exclaimed, as Bill Bradley interrupted to suggest that it was less than +two miles over to Ben Simeral's. "All right," shouted Barb, "Hawk's +here, ain't he? He's close to Laramie. Laramie's his friend. Where +would he go--what?" + +Chopping his ideas out as with an ax, Doubleday showed his companions +what they should have thought of without being told. "The thing to +do," he added, "is to go down to Laramie's cabin and see what we can +see--and find out what we can find out." + +It was precisely what Bradley had feared would happen, but there was no +escape from Doubleday's logic and no help for what others as well as +Bradley feared might follow. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE + +On the morning the raiders entered the Falling Wall, Laramie had +started with Henry Sawdy for the Reservation to appraise some allotted +Indian lands. Laramie rode home that night; Sawdy, promising to stop +at the ranch on his way down in the morning, stayed overnight at the +Fort with Colonel Pearson. Laramie got home late. He was asleep next +morning when a door was pushed open and a man walked unceremoniously in +on him. To what instinct some mountain men owe their composure when +disturbed in their sleep by a friend, as contrasted with the instant +defense they offer in like circumstances to an enemy, it would be +difficult to say--certainly there is a difference. + +Laramie half opened his eyes to realize that Abe Hawk had come into his +room and seated himself on the one chair. The sleepy man was not +inclined to wake up. "You're early, Abe," was his only greeting. Hawk +made no answer. + +After a further effort the drowsy man roused himself to the attention +that seemed demanded in the case: "Going somewhere?" he mumbled +perfunctorily. + +"Yes." Hawk's hard tone might have surprised his host for a moment; +but if it did, drowsiness overpowered his senses once more and it was +some time before he realized that his visitor was sitting silent at his +side and that he himself ought to say something. In protest he shifted +his comfortable position in bed: "Get your breakfast ready, Abe," he +suggested, hospitably, but with his heavy eyes closed. + +"I've had breakfast." + +"Where you bound for today?" + +"On a long trip." + +"Which way?" + +"Home." + +"What do you mean, 'home'?" + +"I mean hell, Larrie--the home long waiting for me." + +Laramie's eyes batted slowly. Not a half a dozen times in all their +long acquaintance had Hawk shortened Laramie's name in speaking to him; +and then only when he spoke as he rarely did from a depth always hidden +from the men among whom his wasted life had been spent. Roused by +something in the utterance of his guest, Laramie looked up. + +If the sight was a shock, the mountain man gave no outward sign of it. +The lower right side of Hawk's face had been torn away as if by some +explosion, and blood, darkened by clay and rude styptics, clotted the +long beard that naturally fell in a glossy black. His disordered +garments, blood-smeared and hanging loose--his coat sleeve and his +shirt torn from his forearm for bandages, his soft hat jammed low over +his eyes--for an instant, Laramie hardly recognized him. But the cold +black eyes that looked out of the wreck of a man before him pierced so +clearly the long shadows of the early light that Laramie had no choice +but to realize it was Hawk and even the shock only served to restrain +and steady him. He showed but little of his amazement when he sat up +and spoke quietly: "What's up, Abe?" + +"Night before last I was playing cards with Gorman over at Henry's. +After daylight Gorman went out for a bucket of water. We heard a rifle +crack. I looked out the window. Stormy was tumbling. + +"You know the draw that runs down past his corral? Barb Doubleday, +Pettigrew, Van Horn, Stone and a bunch of cowboys and Texas men lay in +that draw. It was hell to pay from daylight till dark. The Dutchman +got laid out cold right at the start. They tried to rush me. I +stopped three of 'em and dug myself in. We went at it hammer and +tongs. In the afternoon they put a hole through my whiskers. After +awhile they clipped my shoulder. Then I got a bullet through my arm." +He held up his left forearm swathed in a mass of soiled and +blood-soaked bandages. And he told of Van Horn's go-devil. + +"The raid's on," muttered Laramie. + +"Soon as it was dark, I began to dig under the sill," Hawk went on. +"They began lighting fires. I knew they couldn't keep those going a +great while. About ten o'clock I crawled out under the front sill and +got to the creek; I never was so gone for water in my life. I set a +candle so it would fire the shack when it burned down and sneaked a +horse from their bunch and got over to my place." He looked at his +arm. "I tried to keep things bound up. Maybe I left a little red +behind me. If I did, they'll be after me." + +His story haltingly told; his utterance through his torn cheek thick +and painful but savagely uncompromising; carrying a physical burden of +wounds that would have overwhelmed a lesser man but with a deadly hate +showing in his manner, Hawk, from sheer weakness, paused: "I went to my +cabin to look for more cartridges," he added slowly, "and not a one was +there left on the place." He hesitated again. "I didn't want to come +here----" + +Laramie sprang to his feet: "Where the hell else would you go?" + +Hawk heard unmoved the rough assurance; perhaps his eyes flashed, for +Laramie's voice rang strong and true. He already had his hand on +Hawk's chair: "Come over here to the light," he said, "till we get some +of this dirt off you. You need a bath, Abe. For a clean man you look +like----" + +Hawk put up his right hand: "I'll do for all the job that's left ahead +of me." + +"What job's left ahead of you?" + +"You've got a rifle like mine, Jim; the Marlin you don't use." + +"Well?" + +"I come to see if you'd lend it to me again." + +"Why not?" + +"Got any shells for it?" snapped Hawk. + +"I guess so." + +"I left the horse at the cabin to stand 'em off awhile. They'll lose a +little time there. They'll come down the creek--can't come any other +way. I'm going to wait for 'em in the timber." + +"What for?" + +"I'll finish with Doubleday and Van Horn, anyhow. Maybe I can with +Stone." + +"And they'll finish with you." + +"After I get them three the rest are welcome to what's left of me. +I've got to be moving." + +"Hold on a minute, Abe." Laramie sat down on the side of his cot, his +knees spread apart, his elbows resting on them, and his hands clasped +as he leaned forward, head down, to think. + +"Them fellows are riding every minute," Hawk reminded him grimly. + +"Let's talk this thing over," persisted Laramie. + +"I'll pay you for your rifle right now," mumbled Hawk, feeling with his +right hand in his trousers pocket for some gold pieces. + +"Don't talk monkey stuff, Abe." + +"Then don't make a monkey out of _me_," snapped Hawk. "Give me your +rifle and let me go!" + +"After we've talked it over." + +Hawk pulled himself up out of the chair. "You blamed fool," he said +brokenly. "Don't you know that bunch will track me to your door and +smash us with lead or burn us up in this shack if they get here first? +Give me the rifle," he thundered, "or I'll go into the timber with this +six-shooter. What do you mean? Are you going to turn yellow on me +because I'm a thief?" + +Laramie moved neither hand nor foot: "You're an older man than I am, +Abe," he replied, without even looking up. "I can take words from you, +I'd hate to take from anybody else--you know that; and you know why. +You won't talk; all right. Now I'll tell you where you get off; you're +not going down to the timber--not a blamed step," he added +deliberately. "Finger your six-shooter as much as you like." Laramie +waved his hand with his words. "Use it on me if you like. But, by +----, Abe----" As his voice changed, he jumped to his feet, adding +like lightning, "you're not going to use it on yourself!" + +He sprang for Hawk, reaching with his left hand for the gun. In +tigerish ferocity the two men came together. Sleepy Cat worthies had +sometimes speculated on what might happen if the two men most known and +most feared in the Falling Wall country, Hawk and Laramie, should ever +quarrel. They met now; but in a quarrel the wildest gossip had not +fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes +staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the +middle of the cooped-up room--Hawk striving to free and kill himself; +Laramie determined to wrest the gun from his grasp. + +It was an unequal contest. Weakened by loss of blood, Hawk was not +long a match for the only man on the range who under other conditions +could have stood up before him. Gradually, with the gun in his right +hand, Hawk was bent backward, with Laramie's left hand slipping along +the barrel closer and closer to the grip. Prolonged by the fear of +further injuring the wounded man, the tempestuous effort for mastery +ended when Hawk was forced to the bed and Laramie's iron fingers, +closing on the gun, wrenched it from him. + +Hawk was done out and Laramie without more resistance straightened him +out on the bed. + +"You're worse hit than you think," panted the conqueror. "I've got a +scheme better than yours, if there's time to put it through. Wait till +I get a couple of horses." + +The clatter of a horse outside cut into his last words. Laramie +instantly slipped Hawk's revolver back into his hand, picked up his own +gun and holster, strapping it to his waist as he ran, crossed the room, +tore up a board in the floor, snatched a pair of rifles from their +cache and hastening back to Hawk, his eyes glued all the while to the +door, pushed one rifle into Hawk's hand and swung the other to his hip. + +Not a word had been spoken. But preparations for a reception had been +made complete and eventualities thoroughly considered. Heavy footfalls +outside announced the approach of a man. The next moment the door was +flung open and the intruder heard Laramie's voice in savage emphasis: + +"Pitch up!" + +The intruder did not, however, pitch up. It was John Lefever. He +stood amazed. "For the love of God," he exclaimed, "what's broke +loose?" + +"Come in, John," cried Laramie, seizing his arm. "I want your horse a +minute. Stay here till I get back--come, Abe, lively!" + +"Where you going?" demanded Lefever, staring as he tried to collect his +wits. + +Laramie hurried Hawk past him: "That'll depend on the shooting, John," +was all Laramie hastily said. "Doubleday and Van Horn have got a bunch +of Texas men raiding the Falling Wall." + +Lefever, gazing stunned at Hawk, talked as if he saw nothing. "I know +all about that," he cried. "Man alive, that's what I'm here for. Hold +on, can't you?" + +"Not now. Stick around till I get back." + +Lefever caught his breath in time to fire one more question: + +"What about Abe?" + +"He's not coming back. Scout around down along the creek, John, so you +can see those fellows when they ride in. Hold 'em as long as you can +and for God's sake keep 'em out of this cabin--there's blood on +everything." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS + +Laramie knew Lefever to be quite equal to the highly particular job he +had assigned to him and that John would give his best to it. Hardly +thirty minutes later, the raiders rode out of the timber along the +creek. Van Horn stopped his pack for a word of warning: + +"Look to your guns," he said harshly. "You can guess most o' you what +you'll be up against, if there's trouble at this joint." Leaving the +creek, the party rode out on a rarely used trail that, Stone told them, +led to Laramie's cabin. They followed this for some distance, keeping +two men ahead as they had done in the early morning. These two men, +reaching the bench, which at that point had been cut sharply away by a +flood, halted. The main party riding up the hill debouched on level +ground at the crest and joined their scouts. Half a mile to their +right stood Laramie's cabin. The bench land lying in front of it was +as smooth as a table and covered with mountain blue stem. Out of the +level ground, a hundred yards from the edge of the bench where +Doubleday's party had halted, rose a huge and solitary fragment of rock. + +Beside this rock stood a large man facing the intruders; slung over his +left forearm he carried a rifle and his right hand he held well out +toward them with its open palm raised in the air. The raiders +understood the signal; it warned them to advance no farther. + +"What's that fat buck doing up in this country?" asked Van Horn, +angrily. + +"Who is it?" demanded Doubleday. + +"John Lefever," returned Van Horn, greatly nettled. "What are you +doing here?" he bellowed at the unwelcome sentinel. + +John pointed a stubby forefinger at Van Horn and returned a perfectly +intelligible retort: "That's not the first question, Harry; that's the +second question," he yelled. "What are you doing here?" + +This was not in all respects a question easy to answer. But Van Horn +was resourceful: "We're on our way down the creek, John. Rode up from +the bottom to see Jim Laramie a minute." + +"Just a friendly call," assented John. "Well, how about sidearms," he +shouted, "and how many of you are there?" + +Van Horn looked around him: "Why, maybe a dozen, I reckon, John. You +know most everybody here." + +"How many of you are there want to see Jim a minute, Harry?" asked +Lefever, calm but conveniently close to the rock and quite conscious of +the delicacy of his position should shooting begin. + +There was some exchange of talk before the question was answered: "Look +here, Lefever," roared Doubleday huskily; "what the hell's all this +fuss about?" + +"Why, it's like this, Barb," returned Lefever, nothing abashed. "When +I seen you crossing down there at the forks I thought maybe you'd lost +your Bibles in the creek. That's the way you acted. But when I seen +you and Harry Van Horn and Tom Stone loading your rifles in the timber, +I reckoned you must be comin' up to ask Jim to run for sheriff on the +cattle ticket." + +Sarcasm could hardly convey more defiance and contempt. The riders +realized they had been watched and that deception was useless; Van Horn +was furiously angry. "Look here, Lefever," he called out, short and +sharp. + +"I'm looking right there, Harry," yelled Lefever irreverently. "With a +bunch of mugs like that on the horizon I sure wouldn't dare look +anywhere else!" + +"These boys won't stand any more fooling," roared Doubleday. + +"I wouldn't either, Barb, if you'd got me into this scrape as deep as +you've got them," was the retort. + +Nothing less than violent outbursts of profanity served now. And these +proceeding to a climax of strength and rapidity, gradually subsided as +such outbursts do and the two sides started to argue all over again. + +After much parley and protestations of peaceful intent, provided they +were treated fair, Doubleday and Van Horn were allowed to ride up to +the rock, but not to dismount. "Now," suggested Lefever to the two, +"talk just plain business." + +"Right you have it, John," returned Van Horn briskly. "The rustlers +have got to go. We're looking for Abe Hawk. Gorman and Dutch Henry +are lifting cattle now in the Happy Hunting Grounds. We're going to +clean out the rest of 'em. We've tracked Abe here. Without any hard +words, we want him." + +"Then, boys, you want to ride right on; keep on riding, for he's not +here. I don't know anything, but that much I do know," asserted the +big fellow positively. + +"How do you know?" demanded Doubleday grimly. + +"I just walked down here from the cabin; there's no one there. I rode +in here this morning from the Reservation, Barb. A buck looking for +horses over on the North Fork yesterday saw the fight at +Gorman's--everybody knows about it." + +Van Horn showed his teeth: "You're a pretty good artist, John, with +your buck looking for horses." + +Lefever deprecated the compliment: "You must remember, Harry, I worked +seven year for you. Seven year--and then didn't get all was coming to +me." + +"If you had," returned Van Horn candidly, "your headstone would be +covered with moss by this time, John. Where's Laramie?" + +Lefever stood with his left hand eagerly extended and appeared as if +sensitive at Van Horn's incredulity: + +"All the same, Harry," he exclaimed, "I can take you to that buck +inside two hours' ride and get his story. I've got five twenty-dollar +gold pieces in my pocket that says so. I'll put 'em up in Barb +Doubleday's hands right now against your five." + +"A man couldn't pry you loose from five twenty-dollar gold pieces if +you had five thousand in your pocket, John. What are you stalling +around for?" demanded Van Horn suspiciously. "Where's Laramie?" + +Lefever was frankness itself; almost over-frank in his genuine +simplicity. Had it not been for his big, blunt eyes and round, smooth +face he might have been suspected of duplicity--but not by the two men +now talking to him; they knew beyond a doubt that John was "stringing" +them. Unfortunately they could not prevent it. He answered Van Horn's +sharp question as innocently as a child. + +"That's more than I can say this minute, Harry, where Jim Laramie is; +but he's not far, I can tell you that, for the coffee pot was on the +stove when I got to the shack a while ago." + +"Then what are you holding us up here for?" barked Doubleday with rough +words. + +"I'm a peace officer, Barb, a deputy marshal." The bursting expression +of disgust on his questioners' faces did not ruffle John's candor. "I +know what you fellows are up to. I won't have any bloodshed here this +morning--that's flat. Laramie gets hot sometimes and this is one of +the times for folks to go slow. If you want to talk to Laramie come +along up to the shack. But send them longhorns over there down to the +creek," he added, as an afterthought and in the bluntly candid tone of +appeal that distinguished his persuasiveness. + +"Long hell!" spluttered Doubleday. + +"Longhorns," persisted Lefever. + +Barb growled at the proposal to send the boys down to the creek, and +Van Horn objected, but there was no escape from Lefever's stubbornness, +except a fight and this was not wanted. Lefever passed his word that +Hawk was not in the cabin, but he was adamant on sending the men to the +bottoms and his demand was grudgingly acceded to. In point of fact, +John reckoned himself on foot with a rifle equal to two men on +horseback, even if Van Horn were one. But not being able to take care +of a dozen horsemen he was resolved to have no volleying applause from +other guns, if the unexpected should happen on the open bench land. + +After Doubleday and Van Horn's following had at length filed down to +the creek bottom, Lefever walked beside the two horsemen toward the +cabin, and, since he would not walk fast and the two refused to ride +ahead of him, the pace was deliberate all the way. Nor could Lefever +be persuaded even to walk between the two horsemen; he kept them both +religiously on his left, his rifle lying carelessly across his forearm +as he entertained them with a moderately timed and unfailing flow of +Reservation small talk. + +But he could not control Van Horn's quick, flashing eyes, and these +were busy every moment and every foot of the way with reconnaissance +and inference. It did not escape either him or Doubleday that a bunch +of horses had been but lately driven over the ground they were +crossing, and every trail leading to and from the cabin obliterated; +this, however, only assured both that their man was close at hand and +strengthened their determination to get him in their own way when they +were ready. So intent were they on reading the ground as well as on +keeping a sharp eye on the cabin itself, that they had almost reached +it before Van Horn, halting, fixed his eyes on the hills to the +left--that is, down the creek--and exclaimed sharply: "Who's that?" + +Riding in a leisurely fashion down and out of the rough country to the +South, a mile away, a man emerging from a rift between two hills could +be seen following one of the cattle trails toward the creek. + +Lefever, after a minute's study, answered the question blandly: "I'm +thinkin' that's Jim Laramie, right now." + +He waved his hat at the distant horseman, who, also rode with a rifle +slung across his pommel and carried his lines high in his right hand. +The horseman continued for some moments toward the creek, then looking, +seemingly by accident, toward the house he saw the signaling, stopped +his pony, paused, and reigning him around, headed at an easy pace for +the group before the cabin. It was, as Lefever had said, Laramie. + +A few minutes later he trotted his horse across the field and slowed +him up in front of Van Horn and Doubleday. His greeting to his +visitors was dry; their own was somewhat strained, but Lefever at once +took the initiative: "Jim," he said, identifying himself in his bluntly +honest way with the interests of the raiders, "we're looking for Abe +Hawk." + +Laramie's response was merely to the point: "He's not here." + +"Has he been here?" demanded Van Horn. + +"Yes," answered Laramie. Lefever at intervals looked virtuously from +questioner to questioned. + +"How long ago, Jim?" continued Van Horn. + +Laramie regarded him steadily: "Several times in the last few weeks." + +"Was he here yesterday?" asked Van Horn suddenly. + +"I was on the Reservation yesterday." + +"Has he been here this morning?" + +"Yes." + +If Lefever jumped inwardly at this most unexpected admission he +suppressed all outward sign of surprise; his wide open eyes did not +blink and his close-cut mustache preserved its honesty undefiled. But +he wondered what might be coming. + +"How long ago?" continued Van Horn. + +"Early. What's all this questioning about?" Laramie demanded in turn, +looking from Van Horn to Doubleday and to Lefever. "Who wants Hawk?" + +"Jim, we're cleaning up the rustlers," said Van Horn. "Things have got +so bad it had to be done. We want Hawk. We've got Gorman and Henry. +Now, if it's a fair question, is Abe here?" + +"He's not." + +"Not in your shack?" + +"No." + +"Are you willing we should search it?" + +"Search hell! What do you mean?" asked Laramie curtly. "Isn't my word +good as to who's in my shack?" + +"Jim!" Lefever held up a peacemaker's hand. "We thought maybe he +might have come in since you rode away." + +"Well----" Laramie cooled somewhat, "if it'll do you any good, I'll +look inside and see." + +Van Horn sarcastically demurred: "Don't take the trouble, don't take +the trouble, Jim." + +"Still he might be there," urged Lefever, "in the way I say--he +might've walked in since you went into the hills--what? No objection +to my looking in there, is there, Jim?" + +"No man can search my cabin," snapped Laramie. "Have you got a warrant +for Abe Hawk?" He threw the question sharply at Lefever. + +With Lefever's disclaimer, Doubleday interposed a savage rejoinder: "A +rope'll fit Abe's neck better than a warrant." + +Laramie eyed the old cattleman unmoved: "And you're here to get me to +help you slip the noose, are you?" + +"We're here to clean out these cattle thieves," stormed Doubleday. + +"There are no cattle thieves here," retorted Laramie undisturbed. +"You're wasting the time you'll need on your job. Move on!" + +Even Van Horn was taken aback by the rude command; he pulled his horse +around: "Look here, Jim; let me talk to you a minute alone." + +Laramie, guiding his horse with his heels, followed Van Horn twenty +feet away and listened: "Jim, I'm leading this bunch, and whatever +troubles you've had with Barb and his friends, now's the time to fix +'em up. They'll give you the best of it. If you've got any line on +where Hawk is, say so and it puts you with us; say nothing, and you're +against us." + +Laramie eyed him without a quiver: "I'm against you, Harry." + +Van Horn did not give up. He talked again, and talked hard. It was +useless. Doubleday rode over to where Van Horn held Laramie in deadly +earnest conference. Van Horn, ready to quit, gladly let the older man +take over the case. But Doubleday made no better success. Laramie +could not be moved. If coaxed, he was obstinate; if threatened, +impatient--contemptuous. Doubleday, when Laramie coldly refused even +to answer his questions concerning Hawk, boiled over. + +He moved his horse a step and opened his vials of wrath: "Laramie, +you've turned down the last chance decent folks on the range'll ever +try to hand you--the last chance you'll ever see to pull away from +these Falling Wall thieves. Now," he exclaimed, raising his right hand +and arm with a bitter imprecation, "we'll show you who's going to run +the Sleepy Cat range. I'll drive you out of this country if it takes +every cowboy I can hire and every dollar I've got. This country won't +hold you and me after today. D'ye hear?" he shouted, almost bending +with his huge frame over Laramie and beside himself with rage. Then +spurring his horse, he wheeled it around to rejoin Van Horn. + +Even then Laramie was too quick for him. Almost in the very instant, +he jumped his own pony after the angry man and gaining the head of +Doubleday's horse, caught the bridle and jerked the beast almost to its +haunches. + +It was a ticklish instant. Van Horn, with his hand on his revolver, +attempted to spur to Doubleday's assistance. Lefever interposed with a +sharp move that put him plumply in front of Van Horn: "Not till them +two are through, Harry. We stay right here till them two's done." + +The very impudence of Laramie's move had taken Doubleday by surprise +and Laramie was hurling angry words at him before Lefever had +intervened: "Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, "you can't put +your abuse all over me first and then run away with it. You'll hear +what I've got to say. I rode this range before you ever saw it; I'll +ride this range when you're gone. I was born here, Doubleday; my +father lived here before me. The air I breathe, this sky over my head, +this ground under my feet, are mine, and I stick here in spite of you +and your cattle crooks. If men run off your cattle it's your sheriff's +business--you own him. And it's your business to run 'em down--not +mine. You come here without a warrant, without a definite complaint, +and ask me to turn an old man over to a bunch of lynchers! Not on your +life. Not today or any other day." + +Doubleday interrupted, but he was forced to listen: "You talk about +thieves," Laramie spoke fast and remorselessly, "and you belong to the +bunch that's tried to steal every foot of land I own in the Falling +Wall. After you and your lawyers and land office tools have stolen +thousands of acres from the government, you talk as if you were an +angel out of heaven about the men that brand your mavericks. Hell!" +The scorn of the expletive drew from the very depths of furious +contempt. "I'd rather stand by a thief that calls himself a thief, +than a thief that steals under a lawyer. Send your hired men after me; +give 'em plenty of ammunition. They'll find me right here, Barb--right +here where I live." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE + +When Sawdy rode into Sleepy Cat next morning it was known that he had +come from the Reservation and he was besieged for news from the Falling +Wall. At Kitchen's, where he put up his horse; on his way up street to +his room over McAlpin's pool hall, he was assailed with questions. +Pretty accurate reports of the two exciting days in the North country +had already trickled into Sleepy Cat. To these, Sawdy listened with +stolid attention but he managed to add to them very little. He +possessed to a degree the faculty of talking freely, sententiously +even, without contributing anything strictly pertinent to a subject. +What he conveyed, when he meant to withhold information, was really no +more than an air of reserve in which wisdom seemed discreetly +restrained. On this present occasion he realized it would be known +that he had encountered the raiders the day before at Laramie's--but +while admitting this profusely, he minimized all else. + +Not until he had bathed, slept, shaved and set himself down near +nightfall at Belle Shockley's did he tell any considerable part of his +story. But all that prudence would permit he told, or rather, Belle +demanded and received at his hands. Where the heart is involved the +strongest men are helpless. + +"I ran into the bunch on my way down, right at Laramie's cabin," Sawdy +said to Belle. "Laramie and Doubleday were having the hottest kind of +a row when I rode up. I made sure we'd be shooting in the next couple +of minutes. But John Lefever was watching pretty close and holding Van +Horn. Barb cooled down when he saw three of us on deck. I told him on +the side, the Governor had telephoned Pearson and the Colonel was going +to send cavalry down after them and they'd better scatter. It was a +bluff, but for a few minutes I had him and Van Horn guessing. They +said they'd go home when they got Hawk. Lefever is staying up there +for a day or two." + +"What did they do after that?" demanded Belle, referring to the men +whose names were on everybody's tongues. + +"Beat the bushes from Laramie's to the Reservation," answered Sawdy. +"Didn't leave a square yard of country unturned from the Falling Wall +to the Crazy Woman." + +"Will they ever find Hawk?" + +"Did you ever find a needle in a haystack?" + +"I never looked for one." + +"Them fellows are looking for the stack. They can't locate the hay. +Slip me that Worcestershire sauce, Belle. Yours truly. No more +potatoes. This is a good piece of ham, Belle. I wish to God you'd +serve a glass of beer with a man's supper." + +"You can get all the supper and all the beer you want at the hotel," +flared Belle. "This is no blind pig----" + +"It's the only place in Main Street, then, that ain't." + +"And it never will be," averred Belle, indignantly. + +"Come up to the hotel with me right now," returned Sawdy coldly, "and +I'll buy you a bottle of beer. Bet you ten dollars you da'ssent do +it--who the devil--" Sawdy almost choked as the two heard a knock at +the door--"who the devil is that?" he repeated. The door opened and +Jim Laramie walked in. + +He sent his hat sailing toward a side table, stepped forward and, +catching at a chair on the way, greeted Belle and her guest and sat +down before a plate cover opposite Sawdy. He pointed to what remained +of Sawdy's supper and, with knife and fork, started in: "There's enough +for me right here, Belle," he said. + +Sawdy raised his chin: "Not this time, Jim. Not on your life. That's +the way you always eat my supper." + +"You eat too much, Henry--it will kill you some time," observed +Laramie, losing no time in his initiative. He ignored Sawdy's stare +and the big man, disgusted, sat dumb: "Don't surrender, Sawdy," +counseled Laramie. "Keep going, and excuse me if I seem to begin." + +Sawdy paused, his knife and fork firmly in hand, but pointing +helplessly into the air: "This is the first square meal I've had for +two days," he said, as one whose hopes have been dashed. + +"First I've had for ten days," returned Laramie. + +"What are they doing up there, Jim?" asked Sawdy peremptorily. + +"Killing their horses." + +"They won't find him," Sawdy predicted in words inaudible six feet away. + +"I hope not." + +"How's he holding out?" + +"Hard hit, Henry." + +"Will he make it?" + +"You can't kill a cat." + +"Well"--Sawdy resumed his supper, "it's your game, Jim, not mine; but +I'd think twice before I'd get that range bunch after me on any man's +account." + +Laramie's eyes flashed, but he spoke quietly: "I couldn't see Abe +killed like a rattlesnake." + +"What are you down for?" + +"I've got to have a couple of needles, a little catgut and some gauze." + +"Where are you going to get them?" + +"Going to steal them over at Doc. Carpy's." + +"Nervy." + +"You can do it for me, Henry." + +"Me?" + +"I'll give you the key to his cabinet." + +"Where'd you get that?" + +"Met him on my way in. He was going up to Pettigrew's to look after +the wounded. The window in the end of the wing opens into the +operating room, where the supplies are." + +"I'd look fine climbing into a window at two hundred and twenty pounds." + +"It's on the ground floor," returned Laramie, unmoved. + +"What will the family be doing while I'm burgling?" + +"Mrs. Carpy and the girls are in Medicine Bend. The house is empty. +When you're through, leave the key in the skull of the skeleton behind +the door." + +Sawdy stared without much enthusiasm at the little key that Laramie +passed to him; then he slipped it without comment into his pocket. The +talk went on in low, leisurely tones until the second portion of ham +had been served, when both resumed their supper as if nothing had been +eaten or said. Afterward, Laramie spent an hour getting together some +things he needed at home. He met Sawdy later at Kitchen's barn. +Sawdy, with abundance of grumbling at his assignment, had the gauze and +the catgut, but he had brought the key back. He could not find the +surgeon's needles. There seemed nothing for it but for Laramie to go +to the office and make the search himself. He thought of Belle; she +would do it for him, he knew, but he felt it would not be right to mix +her up in what might prove a still more tragic affair. After brief +reflection he started for Carpy's himself. + +The doctor's house stood back of Main Street, a block and a half from +the barn. Laramie walked half a mile to reach it, choosing unlighted +ways for the trip. The night was dark and by crossing a vacant lot he +reached the rear of the house unobserved. The office, divided into a +consulting room and an operating room, consisted of a one-story wing +connecting with the residence--the consulting room adjoining the +residence, the operating room occupying the end of the wing. This +latter was the room Laramie sought. The window that Sawdy had already +burglariously entered, opened easily, and Laramie, standing alone in +the dark room, felt in his pocket for a match. + +He had been in the office more than once before and knew about where +the cabinet containing the surgical instruments stood. A connecting +door led from the room he had entered to the office proper. He tried +this. It was unlocked and he left it closed. The curtains of the +windows were drawn and he took a match from his pocket, lighted it and +looked around. The first thing he saw was the articulated skeleton +suspended near the door from the ceiling. It would have been a shock +had he not seen it before and been familiar with the label fastened to +the breastbone reciting that this had once been Flat Nose George, an +early day desperado of the high country. + +Turning from this relic, Laramie set about his work, disdaining to +inspect various gruesome specimens in alcohol ranged along a shelf. +Aided by an occasional match which he lighted and shielded in his left +hand, he found the cabinet and with his key opened the door. The flame +of his match too carefully guarded, flickered in his fingers, failed +and went out. He thrust it hastily into one pocket, drew a fresh match +from another and was about to scratch it across his leather wristlet +when he heard a door open. The next moment he saw, under the door +leading from his room to the consulting room, a flash of light. + +Awkward as it was to be interrupted, he faced the surprise with such +composure as he could muster. Who could it be? he asked himself. The +family was accounted for, the house locked. He scratched the match +again. As it flared up he looked into the cabinet, found the packet of +needles, tore a card of them in two, slipped one piece into a waistcoat +pocket and closed the cabinet door. He turned to listen to the office +intruder. Laramie hoped that nothing would bring the unwelcome visitor +into the operating room, but as he stood awaiting developments the +unlocked door was pushed open and a tiny flashlight was thrown into the +room in which he stood. + +Fortunately Laramie outside the circle of light was left in the dark. +The intruder was a woman. He shrank back and she luckily turned her +light from him but only to encounter, as she stepped forward, Flat Nose +George, no less forbidding now than he had been in life. The woman +with the light started back in horror and a sharp little exclamation +betrayed her identity; Laramie was at once aware that he was facing +Kate Doubleday. + +Nothing could have pleased him less. In so small a room it was +impossible to escape detection. He could almost hear her breathe and +would have reveled in her presence so close, but that the apprehension +of frightening her weighed on him like a mountain. Hardly daring to +breathe himself he cursed the erratic doctor's skeleton pet--hung, of +all places, where every little while he was cutting people open. + +The skeleton had already set the girl's nerves on edge. What would +happen if she discovered a live man as well as the ghastly remains of a +dead one--not to mention alcoholic clippings from other subnormal +notables of the mountains? With the flashlight she was evidently +searching for something and Laramie surmised it must be the electric +light switch: "I think," he suggested in as steady a tone as possible, +"you'll find the light button to the right of the door behind you." + +He was prepared for a scream or a swoon. Instead, the flashlight was +turned directly on him: "Who are you?" came sharply and quickly from +behind it. + +"I might ask the same question. You can see I'm Jim Laramie. I can +guess you're Kate Doubleday." + +"I am, and I've come here for dressings for wounded men at Pettigrew's. +What are you doing here?" she demanded, peremptorily. + +His lips were sealed for more reasons than one. Least of all would it +do for him to expose Doctor Carpy's friendliness and embroil him in a +feud which Laramie knew he ought to face alone. + +Kate held the light excitedly on him. It was an instant before he had +his answer in hand: "I've lied to a good many people at different times +about different things," he said deliberately. "I've still got my +first lie to tell to you, Kate. And I certainly won't tell it tonight. +Don't ask me what I'm doing here. Turn on the light by the door, or +let me do it, so I can see you. You here alone?" + +"No, there are plenty of men outside with me," she exclaimed abruptly. + +"I shouldn't have asked that question," he continued in the same tone. +"I know you're alone. You say 'men' because you're afraid of me----" + +"I'm not the least afraid of you. And don't deceive yourself. There +are men here." + +"But they are mostly in bottles, Kate--and in pieces. Live men don't +ride up to a place like this without making a noise. Flat Nose George +is the only man here besides me, outside the alcohol, and I can claim +him as well as you can." + +"I'm sure you would feel perfectly at home with Flat Nose George," she +retorted swiftly. + +If the words stung, Laramie kept his temper. "Probably there's a good +deal I deserve that you haven't heard about me," he said slowly. "But +from the way you talk, you've heard a few things maybe I don't deserve. +Nobody's got any right to class me with Flat Nose George or anybody +else in Carpy's museum." + +"You've classed yourself with him," she exclaimed vehemently. +"Defending cattle thieves and harboring them! Everyone knows that!" + +"I did talk rough to your father this morning. I was pretty angry. +Just the same, don't believe everything you hear about me. At present, +it's just us two. What do you want to do, surrender to me?" + +"No!" she snapped the word out furiously. "I won't, not if you kill +me." + +"Suppose I surrender to you? What do you want me to do--stick up my +hands? So far, they haven't been up--if I remember right. But I +expect I'll have to learn sometime how to surrender." + +"I want no surrender, no parley with you. The doctor told me his house +was empty and directed me here for the dressings. When I come, I find +you. I'll get away at once. Before I go----" + +"No, I'll go. But let me turn on the light." He stepped to the door +and pressed the button. "I wanted," he continued, as a light flooded +the queer room, "to have just one look at you before I go." She stood +before him quite unafraid. Her eyes flashed as if she were actually +mistress of the situation instead of really helpless in the presence of +her father's most resourceful enemy. + +Laramie half-smiled at her serenity: "Why don't you go?" she exclaimed. + +Still regarding her, he shifted his position a little and replied with +entire good-nature: "I only live along, from one sight to another of +you. I'm just filling up, like a man at a spring. You don't object to +my only looking at you for a minute?" + +"I object to being delayed and annoyed," she declared in a blaze. +"I've come here for dressings needed for wounded men----" + +"Well, so have I, if you must have it." + +"I was sent here by Doctor Carpy for things he wants tonight; you have +no more right here helping yourself to his property than you have +taking other people's." + +"Don't say I take other people's property!" Laramie spoke fiercely. +"Don't call me a thief." His words burned with anger. "My hands may +not be as white as yours--they're just as clean!" + +Stunned as she might well have been at the outburst, Kate stood her +ground: "Did Doctor Carpy give you permission to come here tonight?" +She shot the words at Laramie without giving him time to breathe. + +Laramie checked the flood of anger he had loosed: "I don't need +permission from Doctor Carpy to come here night or day. Ask him if you +want to," he said with scornful disgust. He sank down on the chair at +his side in complete resentment of the whole situation and, leaning +forward with a hand spread over one knee and one fist clenched on the +other, he stared not at Kate's eyes, but at the floor, with only her +trim boots in his field of vision. "What's the use?" he exclaimed, +drawing the words up seemingly all the way from his own disorderly and +alkali-stained foot coverings. "What's the use?" he repeated, in +stronger and more savage tones. "I've treated her from the first +instant I saw her, and every instant since, as I thought a woman ought +to be treated--would like to be treated. Now I get my reward. She +calls me a thief--and, my God! I take it. I don't ride out and kill +her father who taught her to do it, quick as I can reach him; I just +take it!" he exclaimed. + +He hesitated a moment. Then he flung a question at her like a +thunderbolt: "What do you want here?" + +She was frightened. His rage was plain enough; who could tell the +lengths to which it might carry him? + +She kept her dignity but she answered and without quibbling: "I want +some gauze and some cotton and some medicines." + +He strode to the cabinet and, concealing the movement as he unlocked it +with Carpy's key, he threw open the glass door: "You'd be all night +finding the stuff," he said curtly, taking the supplies from various +cluttered piles on different shelves. "You say he wants this tonight," +he added, when her packet was complete: "How are you going to get it to +him?" + +"Carry it to him." + +"At Pettigrew's? What do you mean? It would take an experienced +horseman all night to ride around by Black Creek." + +"I'm going over the pass." + +He could not conceal his anger: "Does your father know that?" + +"He said I might try it." + +Laramie flamed again: "A fine father to send a tenderfoot girl on a +night ride into a country like that!" + +She was defiant: "I can ride anywhere a man can." + +"Let me tell you," he faced her and his eyes flashed, "if you try +riding 'anywhere' too often, some night your father's daughter will +fail to get home!" + +Ignoring the door, he stepped to the open window by which he had +entered and, springing through it, was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE HIDING PLACE + +Disdaining any further attempt at concealment, Laramie rode angrily +over to Kitchen's barn; anyone that wanted a dispute with him just then +could have it, and promptly. Kitchen got up his horse and, cutting +short the liveryman's attempt to talk, Laramie headed for home. + +The sky was studded with a glory of stars. He rode fast, his fever of +anger acting as a spur to his anxiety, which was to get back to dress +Hawk's wounds. + +His thoughts raced with the hoofs of his horse. Nothing could have +galled and humiliated him more than to realize how Kate Doubleday +regarded him. Plainly she looked on him as no better than one of the +ordinary rustlers of the Falling Wall country. This was distressingly +clear; yet he knew in his own heart that hers was the only opinion +among her people that he cared anything about. Furious waves of +resentment alternated with the realization that such an issue was +inevitable--how could it be otherwise? She had heard the loose talk of +men about her--Stone, alone, to reckon no other, could be depended on +to lie freely about him. Van Horn, he was as sure, would not scruple +to blacken an enemy; and added to Laramie's discomfiture was the +reflection that this man whose attentions to Kate he most dreaded, held +her ear against him and could, if need be, poison the wells. + +To these could be added, as his implacable enemy, her own father. This +last affair had cut off every hope of getting on with the men for whom +he had no respect and who for one reason or another hated him as +heartily as he hated them. + +Under such a load of entanglement lay the thought of Kate. What utter +foolishness even to think of her as he let himself think and hope! +Clattering along, he told himself nothing could ever come of it but +bitterness; and he cast the thought and hope of knowing her better and +better until he could make her his own, completely out of his heart. + +The only trouble was that neither she, nor the bitterness would stay +out. As often as he put them out they came in again. The first few +miles of his road were the same that she would soon be riding after +him. Again and again he felt anger at the idea of her riding the worst +of the Falling Wall trail at night to Pettigrew's. More than once he +felt the impulse to wait for her, and even slackened his pace. + +But when he did so, there arose before him her picture as she flung the +hateful words at him; they came back as keenly as if he heard them +again and he could feel his cheeks burning in the cold night air. +Self-respect, if nothing else, would prevent his even speaking another +word to her that night. His hatred of her father swelled in the +thought that he should let her attempt such a ride. + +For several miles beyond where he knew Kate must turn for the pass, +Laramie rode on toward home; then watching his landmarks carefully he +reined his horse directly to the left and headed for the broken country +lying between the Turkey and the mountains. At some little distance +from the trail, he stopped and sitting immovable in his saddle, +listened to ascertain whether he was followed. For almost thirty +minutes--and that is a long time--he waited, buried in the silence of +the night and without the slightest impatience. He heard in the +distance the coyotes and the owls but no horseman passed nor did the +sound of hoofs come within hearing. Then reining his pony's head again +toward the black heights of the Lodge Pole range he continued his +journey. + +Soon all semblance of any trail was left behind and he rode of +necessity more slowly. More than once he halted, seemingly to reassure +himself as to his bearings for he was pushing his way where few men +would care to ride even in daylight. He was feeling across precipitous +gashes and along treacherous ledges esteemed by Bighorn but feared by +horse and man; and among huge masses of rocky fragments that had +crashed from dizzy heights above before finding a resting place. And +even then they had been heaved and tumbled about by the fury of +mountain storms. + +Laramie was, in fact, nearing the place--by the least passable of all +approaches--where he had hidden Hawk. Yet he did not hesitate either +to stop or to listen or to double on his trail more than once. +Maneuvering in this manner for a long time he emerged on a small +opening, turned almost squarely about and rode half a mile. +Dismounting at this point and lifting his rifle from its scabbard he +slung his bag over his shoulder and walked rapidly forward. + +The hiding place had been well chosen. On a high plateau of the +Falling Wall country, so broken as to forbid all chance travel and to +be secure from accidental intrusion--a breeding place for grizzlies and +mountain lions--there had once been opened a considerable silver mining +camp. Substantial sums had been spent in development and from an old +Turkey Creek trail a road had been blasted and dug across the open +country divided by the canyon of the Falling Wall river. In its escape +from the mountains the river at this point cuts a deep gash through a +rock barrier and from this striking formation, known as the canyon of +the Falling Wall, the river takes its name. + +Where the old mine road crosses the plateau an ambitious bridge, as +Laramie once told Kate, had been projected across the river. It was +designed to replace a ferry at the bottom of the canyon but with the +ruinous decline in the value of silver the mines had been abandoned; a +weather-beaten abutment at the top of the south canyon wall alone +remained to recall the story. The earth and rock fill behind this +abutment had been washed out by storms leaving the framing timbers +above it intact, and below these there remained a cave-like space which +the slowly decaying supports served to roof. + +Laramie on a hunting trip had once discovered this retreat and had at +times used it as a shelter when caught over night in its vicinity. +During subsequent visits he found an overhang in the rock behind the +original fill that made a second smaller chamber and in this he had as +a boy cached his mink and rat traps and the discard of his hunting +equipment. + +To the later people coming into the Falling Wall country with cattle +the existence of all this was practically unknown. Nothing visible +betrayed the retreat and to men who rarely left the saddle and had +little occasion to cross the bad lands, there was slight chance to +stumble on it. It was here, a few miles west of his own home, that +Laramie had carried Hawk. + +Making his way in the darkness toward the dugout, Laramie whistled low +and clearly, and planting his feet with care on a foothold of old +masonry swung down to where a fissure opening in the rock afforded +entrance into the irregular room. + +A single word came in a low tone from the darkness: "Jim?" + +Laramie, answering, struck a match and, after a little groping, lighted +a candle and set it in a niche near where Hawk lay. The rustler was +stretched on a rude bunk. The furnishings of the cave-like refuge were +the scantiest. Between uprights supporting the old roof, a plank +against the wall served as a narrow table; the bunk had been built into +the opposite wall out of planking left by the bridge carpenters. For +the rest there was little more in the place than the few belongings of +a hunter's lodge long deserted. A quilt served for mattress and +bedding for Hawk and his sunken eyes above his black beard showed how +sorely he needed surgical care. To this, Laramie lost no time in +getting. He provided more lights, opened his kit of dressings and with +a pail of water went to work. + +What would have seemed impossible to a surgeon, Laramie with two hours' +crude work accomplished on Hawk's wounds. But in a country where the +air is so pure that major operations may be performed in ordinary +cabins, cleanliness and care, even though rude, count for more than +they possibly could elsewhere. The most difficult part of the task +that night lay in getting water up the almost sheer canyon wall from +the river three hundred feet below. It would have been a man's job in +daylight; add to this black night and the care necessary to leave no +traces of getting down and climbing up. + +Leaving Hawk when the night was nearly spent, Laramie returned to his +horse, retraced his blind way through the bad lands and got to the road +some miles above where he had left it. He started for home but left +the road below his place and picking a trail through the hills came out +half a mile northwest of his cabin. Here he cached his saddle and +bridle, turned loose his horse and going forward with the stealth of an +Indian he got close enough to his cabin to satisfy himself, after +painstaking observation, that his cabin was neither in the hands of the +enemy, nor under close-range surveillance. When he reached the house +he disposed of his rifle, slipped inside and struck a light. On the +stove he found his frying pan face downward and the coffee pot near it +with the lid raised. From this he knew that Simeral in his absence had +cared for his stock; and being relieved in his mind on this score he +laid his revolver at hand and threw himself on the bed to sleep. Day +was just breaking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +STONE TRIES HIS HAND + +In getting home safely, Laramie had not flattered himself that he was +not actually under what in mountain phrase is termed the death watch. +In matter of fact, Van Horn and Doubleday had gone home to stay until +the excitement should blow over. But they had left Stone and two men +charged with intercepting Laramie on his return. The investing lines +had not, however, been skilfully drawn and Laramie had slipped through. + +He slept undisturbed until the sun was an hour high. Then peering +through a corner of the blanket that hung before the window he saw +Stone and two companions half a mile from the house, riding slowly as +if looking for a trail; particularly, as he readily surmised, for his +own trail. As to his horse betraying him, Laramie had no fear, knowing +the beast would make straight for the blue stem north of the hills. It +was no part of Laramie's plan of defense to begin fighting or to force +any situation that favored him--as he believed the present one to do. + +Few men that knew his enemies would have agreed with him in this view; +they would, indeed, have thought it extremely precarious for Laramie to +be caught in any place he could not escape from unseen. But Laramie +was temperamentally a gambler with fortune and he put aside the worries +that occasionally weighed on his friends. Standing at his one small +window--though this was by no means the only peephole in the cabin +walls--he watched without undue concern the scouting of the trio, who +beyond doubt had been hired to kill him and were only waiting their +chance. + +After a long inspection of the ground--much of it out of sight of the +cabin--broken by frequent colloquies, the three rode from the creek +bottom out on the upper field and, halting, surveyed the distant cabin +with seeming doubt and suspicion. Two of them reined their horses +toward the creek. The third man spurred up the long slope straight for +the house. + +This put a different aspect on things. Laramie tightened a little as +he watched the oncoming rider. If it should prove to be Stone--he +hesitated at the thought, deciding on nothing until sure who the man +might be. But watching the approach of the unwelcome visitor coldly, +Laramie put out his hand for his rifle. He thought of firing a warning +shot; but to this he was much averse since it would mean a fight and a +siege--neither of which he sought. As the man drew closer it was +apparent that it was not Stone and Laramie decided that milder measures +might answer. He held his rifle across his arm and waited. But the +man, as if conscious of the peril to which he was so coolly exposing +himself, galloped rapidly away, rejoined his companions and the trio +disappeared. + +Laramie at the window watched the departing horsemen. It appeared, +from what he had seen, as if the watch had really been set on him. He +got out his little bottle of oil and a rag and ramrod to clean his +rifle. He made the preparations and sat down to his task in a brown +study. + +The rifle had not been fired for some time, and it was a very long time +since it had been trained on a man. He took it apart slowly, thinking +less of what would next appear through the range of the sights than of +Kate, as she confronted him the night before in Carpy's office. He +realized with a sort of shame that he was trying to forgive her for +calling him a thief--which, in point of fact, he argued, she had not +actually done. And though she had certainly spoken careless-like, as +Bill Bradley might say, she had only credited the tales of his enemies +in her own household. + +Laramie poked and squinted as he pondered his difficulties. He had +refused to give up Hawk to be merely murdered; he could not do less and +respect himself. It had made her father more than ever his enemy; +still he wanted Kate. Stone would assassinate him at any time for a +hundred dollars; Van Horn, now that he was aware Laramie liked Kate, +would do it for nothing. Laramie, indeed, realized that if he stood in +Van Horn's way with a woman he would not figure any more in Harry's +calculations than a last year's birds' nest. And back of all loomed +rancorous Barb Doubleday. + +How, he asked himself, could a girl like Kate, pick such a bear for a +father? All of which troublesome thinking brought him no nearer a +solution of his difficulties. He had his life to look out for, Hawk to +take care of and a strong-willed girl to bring to his way of thinking. + +He reached, at last, the conclusion that the sooner he knew whether he +could leave his own place and ride to and from Sleepy Cat without being +"potted" from ambush, the sooner he would know what to do next. +Persuading himself that the watch would wait for him somewhere down the +road, Laramie, making coffee and cooking bacon, breakfasted, made his +final preparations for death by shaving himself with a venerable razor, +and rifle in hand, got down as directly and briskly as possible to the +corral. He got up a horse, rode back into the hills, and recovering +his saddle, started for Simeral's. Having spoken with Ben, Laramie +made a detour that brought him out on the creek a mile below his usual +trail. Thence he rode as contentedly as possible on his way. + +The country for a few miles ahead was adapted for ambuscades. The +valley was comparatively narrow and afforded more than one vantage +point for covering a traveler. It was wholly a matter, Laramie felt, +of bluffing it through. And beyond keeping a brisk pace with his +horse, he could do nothing to protect himself. "You're a fool for +luck, Jim," he remembered Hawk's saying once to him, "but you'll get it +sometime on your fool's luck, just the same." + +When old Blackbeard, as he sometimes called Hawk--though no one else +ventured to call him that--uttered the warning, it made no impression +on Laramie. Now it came back. Not unpleasantly, nor as a dread--only +he did recall at this time the words--which was more than he had ever +done before. And he reflected that it would be very awkward for Hawk, +if their common enemies should get his nurse at this particular time. + +While this was running through his mind, he was not sorry to notice +ahead of him the dust of the down stage. At that particular stretch of +the road it would be less nerve-wearing to ride beside it a way. He +overtook the wagon and to his surprise found McAlpin on the box. +McAlpin, overjoyed to see him, explained with a grin he was filling in +for a sick man. In reality, he had substituted for the northern trip +in the hope of seeing some fighting while out and the sight of Laramie +was the nearest he had got to it. Laramie, after a long talk, made an +appointment to meet him in town in the evening and as they reached the +foot of the hill where the road climbed to the Sleepy Cat divide, +Laramie feeling he had no further excuse for loitering, put spurs to +his horse and took a bridle trail, used as a cut-off, to get into safer +country. + +He rode this trail unmolested, crossed the divide and coming out of the +hills could see, to the south, Sleepy Cat lying below. He made up his +mind that his judgment was more nearly right than his apprehension, and +rode down the slopes of the Crazy Woman, over the Double-draw bridge +and up the south hill in good spirits. He had, in fact, got half-way +up the long grade when he heard a rifle shot. + +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie drooped over +his pommel. As his heels struck the horse's flanks, the beast sprang +ahead. The rebound jerked back the rider's head and shoulders. While +the horse dashed on, Laramie with as little fuss as possible pulled his +rifle from its scabbard, trying all the time to get his balance. A +careful observer could have noted that the rifle was drawn but held low +in the right hand as if the rider could not bring it up. Yet even a +close observer could hardly have detected in his convulsive swaying +that the wounded man was closely scanning the sides of the narrow road +along which his horse was now flying. At all events, he seemed with +failing strength to be losing his seat as he lost control of his horse, +and a hundred yards from where he had been struck he toppled helplessly +from the saddle into the roadway. The speed at which the horse was +going sent the fallen rider rolling along the grade, the sides of which +had been torn in spots by summer torrents. Near one of these holes, +Laramie had left the saddle, and into it he rolled headlong. + +[Illustration: Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie +drooped over his pommel] + +The hole, between four and five feet deep, looked like an irregular +well with an overhang on one side and to the bottom of this, Laramie, +covered with dust, tumbled. He righted himself and turning under the +overhang took breath, put down his rifle, whipped out his revolver, +looked toward the top of his well and listened. + +Not a sound broke the stillness of the sunny morning. With his right +hand, but holding his eyes and ears very much at attention, he drew a +handkerchief, wiped the dust from his eyes and face and twisted his +head around to investigate the stinging sensation high on his left +shoulder, almost at the neck. The rifle bullet had torn his coat +collar and shirt and creased the skin. He could feel no blood and soon +inventoried the shot as only close. But he was waiting for the man +that fired it to appear at the hole to investigate; and with at least +this one of his enemies he was in a mood to finish then and there. + +Taking off his coat, as his wits continued to work, he spread it over a +little hump in front of him so it would catch the eye for an instant +and with patient rage crouched back under the overhang. He so placed +himself that one could hardly see him without peering into the hole and +that might mean any one of several things for the man that ventured +it--much depended, in Laramie's mind, on whose face he should see above +the rim. + +An interminable time passed. The first sound he heard was that of +horses toiling up the long grade and the creaking of battered hubs; +this he reckoned must be McAlpin with the stage. Where his hat had +rolled to, when he tumbled out of the saddle to simulate death, he had +no idea. If it lay in the road he might expect a visit from McAlpin. +But without stopping, the stage rattled slowly up the grade. + +It seemed then as if the distant gunman, after waiting for the stage to +pass, would not fail to reconnoiter the hole. Yet he did so fail. The +high hours of midday passed with Laramie patiently resting his Colt's +up between his knees and studying the yellow rim of the hole and the +heavenly blue of the sky. His neck ached from the cramped position, +long held, in which he had placed himself; but he moved no more than if +he had been set in stone. Neither hunger, which was slight, nor +thirst, at times troublesome, disturbed his watch. But it was in vain. + +He sat like a spider in its web through the whole day without an +incident. A few horsemen passed, an occasional wagon rumbled up and +down the hill; but none of the travelers looked in on Laramie. Toward +dusk he heard a freighting outfit working laboriously up from the +creek. Resolving to give up his watch and go into town with this, he +felt his way cautiously out of his hiding place. Without really hoping +to recover it, he began to search for his hat and to his surprise found +it in another gully near where he had tumbled from his horse. The +driver of the freighting outfit wondered at seeing Laramie on foot. He +explained that he had been hunting and that his horse had taken a +short-cut home. + + +Stone's companions under instructions had left him and returned to +Doubleday's before the shot across the Crazy Woman. Stone himself got +back to Doubleday's ranch at about the time that Laramie started for +Sleepy Cat in the evening. But Barb Doubleday and Van Horn, he was +told, were in town. He followed them and discovered Van Horn in the +bar room at the hotel. + +"I hear you got him," muttered Van Horn, bending his keen eyes on Stone. + +"Who said so?" demanded Stone. + +"His horse came into Kitchen's barn this afternoon, all saddled. +McAlpin is telling he heard a rifle shot on the Crazy Woman. They're +wild down at the barn over it. Did you get him?" + +Stone paused over a glass of whisky; his face brightened: "I tumbled +him off his horse, if you call that getting him." + +Van Horn asked questions impatiently. Stone answered with the +indifference of the man that had turned a big trick. But Van Horn +insisted on knowing what had become of Laramie. + +"He tumbled into a hole," said Stone. "I didn't cross the creek to +look for him." + +"Why didn't you?" asked Van Horn nervously. + +Stone dallied with his glass: "I watched the hole all day. He didn't +come out. That was enough, wasn't it?" + +"No," snapped Van Horn. + +"Well, I'll tell you, Harry; next time you and the old man want a job +done, do it yourself. I never liked Laramie: I didn't care for getting +too close to the hole he tumbled into. After he was hit, he stuck to +his horse a little too long to suit me," said Stone shrewdly. + +Van Horn's retort was contemptuous and pointed. He laughed: "Afraid of +him, eh?" + +Stone regarded him malevolently: "Look here!" he exclaimed harshly, +"I'll make you a little proposition. When I get shaved we'll ride over +to the Crazy Woman and you c'n look in the hole for yourself." + +The uncertainty irritated Van Horn. When Stone, newly plastered, +emerged from the barber shop, Van Horn took him with his story to +Doubleday whom they found in his room, chewing the stub of a cold cigar +and looking over a stock journal. He did not appear amiable, nor did +his face change much as the news was cautiously conveyed to him. When +Van Horn announced he would ride out with Stone to examine the road +hole, Doubleday, whose expression had grown colder and colder, broke in: + +"Needn't waste any time on that," he said with a snap of his jaw. + +Stone snorted: "Maybe _you_ think he wasn't hit." + +"Hit!" exclaimed Barb. "Hit!" he repeated, raising a long forefinger +with deep-drawn disgust. "He's sittin' in that room across the hall +right now----" + +"What's he doin'?" + +"Playin' poker," muttered the old cattleman grimly, "with Doc. Carpy +and Harry Tenison." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +KATE RIDES + +In strict point of fact, Laramie had left the room across the hall and +at that particular moment was sitting down for a late supper at Belle +Shockley's whither Sawdy and Lefever had dragged him from the hotel. +Carpy had come with them. + +At the table--after Laramie had told part of his story--the talk, +genial to cheerfulness, was largely professional criticism of the shot +across the Crazy Woman. The technical disadvantages of shooting +uphill, the tendency to over-elevate for such shots, the difficulty of +catching the pace and speed of a horse, all supplied judicial +observations for Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie--so nearly the +victim--leaving the topic to these Sleepy Cat gun pundits, conferred +with Carpy about the care of gunshot wounds; and protested against Flat +Nose George and the Museum of Horrors in the Doctor's office. + +"But I want to tell you, boys," remarked the doctor, when the talk +turned on the discomfiture of the enemy group, "what Barb asked me +tonight--this is on the dead." The doctor looked around to include +Belle--who was standing with folded arms, her back against the +sideboard and listening to the conversation--in his injunction of +secrecy. "He came to me at the hotel. 'Doc,' says Barb, 'I want to +ask you a question. There's stories circulating around about Laramie's +getting shot this morning, on his way into town. Has Laramie been to +you to get fixed up, at all?' + +"'Well, Barb,' I says, 'that's not really a fair question for me to +answer--you know that. But since you spoke about it, Jim was in awhile +ago----' + +"'Was in, eh?' + +"'For a few minutes----' + +"'Hit?' + +"'That I couldn't say. What he asked for, Barb, was a bottle of Perry +Davis' painkiller--said the rheumatiz was getting him to beat the +band.'" + +Carpy paused: "'Rheumatiz!' says Barb. He didn't stop to swear--he +just bit his old cigar right square in two in the middle, dropped one +end on the floor and stamped on it." The Doctor leaned forward and +spoke to Laramie: "How's longhorn, Jim?" + +Laramie looked troubled: "If it wasn't for dragging you into it, I'd +ask you to go out and see him." + +"Jim, a doctor's place is where he's needed." + +"I left a twenty dollar gold piece in your medicine chest for the stuff +I took." + +"You go to hell!" The Doctor pulled a handful of money from his pocket +and threw a double eagle at Laramie. "There's your gold piece." + +"Belle, look at them fellows," exclaimed Sawdy moodily, "pockets +loaded. I never had more than twenty dollars at one time in my life. +My mother told me to take care of the pennies and the dollars would +take care of themselves. The blamed dollars wouldn't do it. I took +care of the pennies. I've got 'em yet--that's all I have got. Jim, +I'll match you for that gold piece." + +"Gamblers never have a cent," commented Belle darkly. + +"That gold piece," explained Laramie, "is not my money, Harry. It's +Carpy's money and he'll keep it if I have to make him swallow it." + +"That's not the question," declared Carpy. "Did you get what you +wanted?" Laramie told him he did. "And by the great Jehosaphat," +added the doctor, "you bumped into Kate Doubleday!" + +"What else did you expect?" retorted Laramie, not pleased at the +recollection. + +Carpy, throwing back his head, laughed well: "After Kate Doubleday told +me she was going for the dressings herself, I says to myself, 'There'll +be two people in my house tonight--a man and a woman--I hope to God +they don't meet.'" + +"Jim," intervened Belle, "you ought to get Abe Hawk to a hospital." + +"He's got to get him to one," affirmed Lefever. "I've seen that man," +he added emphatically, "I know." + +"How's he going to do it," inquired Carpy, "without starting the fight +all over again?" + +Lefever stuck to his ground: "Get him down to Sleepy Cat in the night," +he insisted. + +"Can he ride?" asked Sawdy. + +"He may have to have help," said Laramie. + +"There's a moon right now. They'd pick you off like rabbits," objected +Sawdy, "and they've got that whole trail patroled to the Crazy Woman. +They're watching this town like cats. You'll have to waste a lot of +ammunition to get Abe to a hospital." + +"From all I hear," observed Carpy, "if Abe gets any more lead in him +you won't need to take him to the hospital. He'll be ready to head +straight for the undertaker's." + +"We've got to wait either for a late moon or a rainy night; then we'll +get busy," suggested Lefever. + +"He might die while you're waiting," interposed Carpy. + +Lefever could not be subdued: "Not as quick as he'd die if Van Horn's +bunch caught sight of him on the road," he said sententiously. "We'll +get him down and he won't die, either." + +"Well, pay for your supper, boys, and let's get away," said Carpy. "I +want some sleep." + +But for Lefever and Sawdy there was little sleep that night. The +echoes of the "fatal" shot--almost fatal, as it proved, to the prestige +of the enemy--were being discussed pretty much everywhere in Sleepy Cat +and wherever men that night assembled in public places, Sawdy and +Lefever swaggered in and out at least once. The pair looked wise, +spoke obscurely, looked the crowd, large or small, over critically, +played an occasional restrained and brief finger-tattoo on the butts of +their bolstered guns and listened condescendingly to everyone that had +a theory to advance, a reminiscence to offer, or a propitiating drink +to suggest. + +Wherever they could induce him to go, they dragged Laramie--at once as +an exhibit and a defi; but Laramie objected to the thoroughness with +which his companions essayed to cover the territory, and unfeelingly +withdrew from the party to go to bed. Sawdy and Company, undismayed by +the defection, continued to haunt the high places until the last +sympathizer with Van Horn and Company had been challenged and bullied +or silenced. + +But the differing sympathies on the situation in Sleepy Cat were not to +be adjusted in a single night, either by force or persuasion. The +whole town took sides and the cattlemen found the most defenders. What +might be designated, but with modesty, as "big business" in Sleepy Cat +stood stubbornly, despite the violence of their methods, with Van Horn, +Doubleday and their friends; the interest of such business lay with the +men that bought the most supplies. The banks and the merchants were +thus pretty much aligned on one side. The surgeon of the town +professed neutrality--at least as regarded operations--for he was +needed to administer to both factions. Harry Tenison, as dealer of the +big game in town and owner of the big hotel, was of necessity neutral; +though men like himself and Carpy were rightly suspected of leaning +toward Laramie, if not even as far as toward Abe Hawk. The open +sympathizers of the Falling Wall men were among trainmen, liverymen, +the clerks, the barbers and bartenders, and those who could be usually +counted as "agin the government." + +Meantime, the element of mystery in the still unclosed tragedy of the +upper country concerned the disappearance of Hawk; and this naturally +centered about Laramie. None but he knew to a certainty the fate of +the redoubtable old cowboy, so long a range favorite. And whenever +Laramie appeared in town, speculation at once revived every feature of +the situation, and Kate Doubleday when she came to Sleepy Cat, whether +she would or not, could not escape the talk concerning the Falling Wall +feud. + +Loyalty to her own and the intense partizanship of her nature, combined +to urge her to sympathize with the fight of the range owners against +the Falling Wall men. But in this attitude, Belle Shockley was a trial +to Kate. Belle would not drag in the subject of the fight but she +never avoided it; and Kate, even against her inclination, seemed +impelled to speak of the subject with Belle. She instinctively felt +that Belle's sympathies were with the other side; and felt just as +strongly in her impulsiveness, that Belle should be set right about +rustlers and their friends--meaning always, by the latter, Jim Laramie. +Belle, stubborn but more contained, clung to her own views. Though she +rarely talked back, the attempt to assassinate Laramie had intensified +everyone's feelings, and for days only a spark on that subject was +needed to fire more than one Sleepy Cat powder magazine. One afternoon +rain caught Kate in at Belle's and kept her until almost dark from +starting for home, and one magazine did explode. + +The two women were sitting on the porch watching the shower. McAlpin +on his way uptown from the barn, had stopped at Belle's a moment for +shelter. + +"I'll tell you, Kate," said Belle, after listening as patiently as she +could to what Kate had to say about the Falling Wall fight and its +consequences, "I like you. I can't help liking you. But the only +reason you talk the way you do is because you haven't lived in this +country long. You don't know this country--you don't know the people." + +McAlpin nodded strongly: "That's so, that's true." + +"I, at least, know common honesty, I hope." + +"But you don't know anything at all of what you are talking about," +insisted Belle, "and if you think I'm ever going to agree with you that +it was right for Van Horn and your father and their friends to take a +bunch of Texas men up into the Falling Wall and shoot and burn men +because they're rustlers, you're very much mistaken. And I can tell +you the people of this country won't agree with you either, no matter +what some folks in this town may say to tickle your ears." + +"Do you mean to say you stand up for thieves, too?" asked Kate, hotly. + +McAlpin looked apprehensively out at the clouds. Belle twitched her +shoulders: "You needn't be so high and mighty about it," she retorted. +"No, I don't. And I don't stand up for burning men alive because they +brand mavericks. You talk very fierce--like everybody up your way. +But if Abe Hawk or Jim Laramie walked in here this minute, you wouldn't +agree to have them shot down. And don't you forget it, Jim Laramie +doesn't claim a hoof of anybody's cattle but his own." + +Kate would not back down: "Why do they call him king of the rustlers?" +she demanded. + +"King of the rustlers, nothing," echoed Belle in disgust. "That's +barroom talk. No decent man ever accused him of branding so much as a +horse hair that didn't belong to him." + +"And his reputation is, he's not very slow when it comes to shooting, +either," declared Kate. + +McAlpin thought it a time for oil on the waters! "You've got to make +allowances," he urged with dignity. "Ten years ago--less'n that, +even--they was all pretty quick on the trigger in this country. Jim +was a kid 'n' he had to travel with the bunch." + +"And he was quicker 'n any of them," interposed Belle, defiantly, +"wasn't he, Mac?" + +McAlpin was for moderation and better feeling: + +"Well," he admitted gravely, "full as quick, I guess." + +"It seems to me," observed Kate, still resentful, "as if men here are +pretty quick yet." + +"Oh, no," interposed McAlpin at once; "oh, no, not special now'days. +More talk'n there used to be--heap more." + +"Bring over my pony, Mr. McAlpin, will you?" asked Kate, very much +irritated. + +McAlpin looked surprised: "You wouldn't be ridin' home tonight?" + +"Yes," replied Kate, sharply, "I would." + +As McAlpin started on his way she turned on Belle: "And you mustn't +forget, Belle, that vigilantes, no matter whether they do make mistakes +or go too far, have built this country up and made it safe to live in." + +Belle's face took on a weariness: "Oh, no--not always safe to live +in--sometimes safe to make money in. There's nothing I'm so sick of +hearing as this vigilante stuff. The vigilante crowd are mostly big +thieves--the rustlers, little thieves--that's about all the difference +I can see." + +"Well, is there any difference between being a rustler, and protecting +and being the friend of one?" + +Belle's restraint broke: "You'd better set your own house in order +before you criticize me or Jim Laramie. He's never yet tried to +assassinate anybody." + +"Neither has my father, nor the men that raided the Falling Wall." + +"Don't you know," demanded Belle, indignantly, "that the men who raided +the Falling Wall are the men that tried to murder Laramie?" + +"I don't believe it," said Kate, flatly. "Father doesn't believe +_any_body tried to murder him." + +Belle's wrath bubbled over: "Your father's as deep in it as anybody." + +She could have bitten her tongue off the instant she uttered the angry +words. But they were out. + +Kate sprang to her feet. Even Belle, used to shocks and encounters, +was silenced by the look that met her. For a moment the angry girl did +not utter a word, but if her eyes were daggers, Belle would have been +transfixed. Kate's breast rose sharply and she spoke low and fast: +"How dare you accuse my father of such a thing?" + +Belle, though cowed, was defiant: "I dare say just what I believe to be +true." + +"What proof have you?" + +"I don't need proof for what everyone knows." + +"You say what is absolutely false." Kate's tranquil eyes were aflame; +she stood child, indeed, of her old father. Belle had more than once +doubted whether Kate _could_ be the daughter of such a man--she never +doubted it after that scene on the day of the rain. Barb himself would +have waited on his daughter's words. "You're glad to listen to the +stories of our enemies," she almost panted, "because they're your +friends; you're welcome to them. But my father's enemies are my +enemies and I know now where to place you." + +White with anger as she was herself, Belle, older and more controlled, +tried to allay the storm she had raised: "I didn't meant to hurt you, +Kate," she protested, "you drove me too far." + +"I'm glad I did," returned Kate, wickedly, as she stepped back into the +living-room, pinned on her hat and made ready as fast as possible to +go. "I know you in your true colors." + +"Well, whether I'm right or wrong, you'll find my colors don't fade and +don't change." + +A boy stood at the gate with Kate's pony. + +The two women were again on the porch. Belle looked at the sky. The +rain had abated but the mountains were black. "Now, Kate, what are you +going to do?" + +Kate had walked out and was indignantly throwing the lines over her +horse's neck. "I'm going home," she answered, as sharply as the words +could be spoken. + +Belle crossed the sidewalk to her side: "This is a poor time of day for +a long ride. We've quarreled, I know, but don't try a mountain trail a +night like this. The rain isn't over yet." + +"I'll be home before it starts again," returned Kate, springing into +the saddle. "I'm sick of this town and everybody in it." + +So saying, she struck her horse with the lines and headed for the +mountains. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +NIGHT AND A HEADER + +For John Lefever the rainy night promised to be a busy one; darkness +and the storm would, he felt, give Laramie a chance to get Hawk safely +into town; but to do this successfully would call for precaution. + +The rain had hardly begun to fall that afternoon--to the discomfiture +of Kate and her undoing with Belle--before Lefever began to cheer up in +speculating on what might be done. He found Laramie at the hotel and +set out to round up Sawdy. The rendezvous was set at Kitchen's barn +and half an hour later the three men were shut up in the old harness +room back of the office to talk the venture over. + +Laramie made no effort to discourage John concerning the project; it +had become a pet one with the big fellow; but he did not give the idea +strong endorsement. "You're too blamed pessimistic, Jim," growled +Lefever. + +"No, John," protested Laramie evenly, "I'm only trying to see things as +they stand. Don't figure we are going to pull this thing without +trouble. Harry Van Horn's got a good guess that Dave is pretty well +shot up; and that he's hiding out. He knows a man can't hide out +without friends." + +"I grant you that," interrupted John. "But if you can get him across +the Crazy Woman, Jim, it's a cinch to run him into town." + +"Don't figure that every mile of that road isn't watched, for it is. I +ride it oftener than you and I see plenty of sign. And Harry knows +what a rainy night means just as well as we do. He'll be on the job +with his men--that's all I'm saying. Now, go ahead. You want Abe +brought in--that's your business. I'm here to bring him in--that's my +business. Shoot." + +Laramie and Lefever arranged things. Number Seventy-eight, the through +fast freight, would be due to leave Sleepy Cat for Medicine Bend at +4:32 in the morning. The crew were friendly. Could Laramie make it +with Abe, starting by midnight? He could. It was impossible to meet +Laramie outside town because no one could tell which trail he might +have to choose to come in on. But Sawdy and Lefever could look for him +out on the plateau at the head of Fort Street. Henry Sawdy, his heavy +mustaches sweeping his thick lips, and his bloodshot eyes moving from +one to the other of the two faces before him only stared and listened. + +"Why don't you say something, Henry?" demanded Lefever, exasperated. + +Sawdy turned a reproachful look on his lively partner: "When you're +talking, John, there ain't no chance to say anything. When Jim's +talking, I don't want to say anything." + +Laramie ordered his horse, got into oilskins, and riding out the back +way of the stable started for the Falling Wall. The day was spent and +the rain had turned soft and misty. He rode fast and with a little +watchfulness, exercised before reaching the Crazy Woman, satisfied +himself that he had not been followed out of town. + +What had actually happened was that he rode north not long after Kate +herself started for home. But Laramie followed old trails out of +town--even at the price of rounding fences and at times dodging through +wire gates for short cuts. Night was upon him when he reached the +bluffs of the creek. Between showers the sky had lightened, but the +north was overcast, and Laramie knew what to look forward to. When he +had got up the long hill, and reached the northern bluffs, it was +raining steadily again, and night had spread over mountain and valley. + +Abating something of his usual precaution in riding to reach Hawk's +hiding place, Laramie went slowly into the bad lands by a route less +dangerous than that he usually followed. As the night deepened, the +wind rising brought a heavier rain. The trail became increasingly +difficult to follow; rough at best, it was now almost impassable. +Sheets of water trickled over stretches of rock causing the horse to +slip and flounder. In other places rivulets shooting out of crevices +cut the loose earth from under the horse's feet. Leg-tired, the horse +finally resented being headed into the driving rain and went forward +slipping, hesitating and groping like a man on hands and knees. + +When Laramie got him to the old bridge, the pony was all in. Laramie +found shelter for him under a ledge and rifle in hand clambered along +the side of the canyon toward the abutment. Close to the entrance he +set his rifle against the rock, listened carefully, as always, felt +down at his feet for the few chips of rock he had so placed that they +would be disturbed if trodden by an enemy, listened again carefully, +and with his revolver cocked in his right hand, and the muzzle lying +across his left forearm, Laramie slowly zigzagged his way to the +inside. Once there, he stood perfectly still in the darkness and +called a greeting to Hawk. He failed to receive the usual gruff +answer. This never before had happened, and without trying for a +light, Laramie moved slowly and with much caution over to the recess +within which Hawk lay. There he could hear the cowboy's labored, but +regular breathing as he slept. The storm, waking the water crevices of +the mountains into a noisy chorus, had lulled the hunted man into an +untroubled sleep. + +Laramie shook his oilskins in a heap on the floor, cautiously lighted a +candle and set it on the board that served as a table. In spite of his +slickers he was wet through. He hung his hat on the end of a broken +timber and laid his revolver beside the candle. Bethinking himself, +however, of his rifle, he picked up the six-shooter again, stepped +outside the entrance, brought in his rifle, wiped it, stood it in a +convenient corner and turned toward Hawk. + +The candle, burning at moments steadily and at moments flickering, +threw its uncertain rays into the recess where the wounded rustler lay. +They lighted the sallow pallor of the sleeping man's face, fell across +his sunken eyes and drew the black of his long beard out of the gloom +below it. Laramie seated himself on a projecting ledge and looked +thoughtfully at his charge. He was failing; of that there could be no +doubt. Steel-willed and hard-sinewed though he was, the wounds that +would long ago have put an ordinary man out of action, were undermining +his great vitality and Laramie, in a study, felt it. + +Yet such was the younger man's natural stubbornness that left to his +own devices he would have fought out the battle against death right +where the failing man lay; only the judgment of Lefever and Carpy +swayed him in the circumstances. + +Believing sleep was the best preparative for the ordeal of the ride to +town, Laramie hesitated about waking Hawk--yet the hours were precious, +for the trip would be long and slow. Fortunately he had not long to +wait before Hawk woke. + +Laramie was sitting a few feet away and silently looking at him when +Hawk opened his eyes. They wandered from one object to another in the +dim candle gloom, until they rested on Laramie's face; there they +stopped. + +Laramie's features relaxed into as near a smile as he permitted himself +on duty: "How you coming, Abe?" + +Hawk eyed him steadily: "What are you doing here tonight?" + +Laramie answered with a question: "How about trying the gauntlet?" + +"That what you want?" + +"It's what Lefever and Carpy want." + +"They running things?" + +"They think you'd get well full as quick at a hospital." + +"What do you think?" + +"I guess you would." + +"Tired taking care of me?" + +"Not yet, Abe." + +"Raining?" + +"Hell bent." + +"What's the other noise?" + +"Thunder; and the river's up." + +The roar of the waters was not new to the ears of the two men who +listened, however much it might have disturbed others unused to their +tearing fury. + +Hawk listened thoughtfully: "Why didn't you pick a wet night?" he asked. + +"We had to pick a dark one, Abe." + +"Where's the horses?" + +"Over at my place--what's that?" + +The last words broke from Laramie's lips like the crack of a pistol. +He sprang to his feet. Hawk's hand shot out for his gun. Only +practised ears could have detected under the steady downpour of rain, +the deep roar of the canyon and the reverberation of the thunder, the +hoof beats of a stumbling horse. The next instant, they heard the +horse directly over their heads. Laramie, whipping out his revolver, +looked up. As he did so, a deafening crash blotted out the roar of the +storm--the roof overhead gave way and amid an avalanche of rock and +timbers, a horse plunged headlong into the refuge. + +In the narrow quarters so amazingly invaded, darkness added to an +instant of frantic confusion. Laramie was knocked flat. In the midst +of the fallen timbers, the horse, mad with terror, struggled to get to +his feet. A suppressed groan betrayed the rider under him. + +Laramie, where he lay, gun in hand, and Hawk, had but one thought: +their retreat had been discovered and attacked. It was no part of +their defense to reveal their presence by wild shooting. The enemy who +had plunged in on top of them was at their mercy, even though unseen. +He was caught under the horse, and to clap a revolver to his head and +blow the top off was simple; it could be done at any moment. Of much +greater import it was, carefully to await his companions when they rode +up, above, and pick them off as chance offered. Escape, if the raiding +party were properly organized, both men knew was for them +impossible--and they knew that Harry Van Horn organized well. The +alternative was to sell their lives as dearly as possible. + +This was by no means a terrifying conclusion to men inured to affray. +And for the moment, at feast, the situation was in their hands, not in +the enemies'. + +A deluge of wind and rain swept through the broken roof. Laramie, +stretching one arm through the debris, felt the shoulder of the rider, +flung in the violence of the fall close to him. + +The prostrate horse renewed his struggles to get to his feet. + +Laramie, exposed to the pouring rain, covered with mud, bruised by +broken rock still rolling down the open crater, and caught among rotten +timbers, struggled to right himself before his enemy should do so. He +raised himself by a violent effort to his elbow, freed his pistol arm +and reaching over, pushed his cocked revolver into the side of the +fallen horseman. + +A bolt of lightning shot across the crater, leaving behind it an inky +blackness of rain and wind. The sudden onslaught from overhead might +well have confused his senses; but he had seen the lightning sweep +across a white, drawn face turned toward the angry sky--and in the +flash he had caught the features of Kate Doubleday. + +Stunned though he was by the revelation, he knew his senses had not +tricked him. There was in his memory but one such riding cap as that +which shaded her closed eyes; for him, but one such coil of woman's +hair as that falling now in disarray on her neck. Completely unnerved, +he carefully drew away his revolver, averted the muzzle and spoke +angrily through the dark: "Who's here with you?" + +There was no answer. He asked the question sternly again, listening +keenly the while for sounds of other riders above. Had she discovered +the retreat and led to it his enemies? Could it be possible that even +they would allow her with them on such an errand and on such a night? + +He called her name. The roar of the canyon answered above the storm; +there was no sound else. Once more he stretched out his arm. His hand +rested on her breast and he was doubly sure his senses had not tricked +him. But she might be dying or dead. The fear struck home that she +was dead. Then her bosom rose in a hardly perceptible respiration. + +A storm of emotion swept Laramie. He squirmed under the debris that +pinned him and got nearer to her. He listened still for sounds of an +enemy, of those who must be with her--where could they be? The +delicate breathing under his heavy hand came more regularly. Then a +moan of pain checked and, again, released it. + +Feeling slowly in the stormy dark for obstructions that might have +caught her, Laramie freed one of her feet caught in the stirrup and by +pushing and lifting at the shoulder of the horse succeeded after much +exertion in freeing her other foot, caught under it. He felt his way +back to Kate's head and getting on his feet placed his hands under her +shoulders to draw her toward him. + +As he did so, a sharp question of fear and confusion was flung at him: +"Where am I? Who are you?" + +"Who are you?" echoed Laramie, pulling her away from the horse which +had begun to struggle again. "Who's here with you?" he demanded. +There was no answer. + +"Who's here with you?" he repeated sternly. "Tell me the truth." + +"I've lost my way. Where am I? Who are you?" + +The truth in her manner was plain. Incredible as it seemed that she +could have strayed so far, all apprehension of an attack vanished with +her questions. + +"You're a long way from home," he said, shortly. + +She made no reply. + +"Your horse took a header. You fainted. I suppose"--he hardly +hesitated in his words--"you know who is talking to you?" + +In her silence he heard his answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A GUEST FOR AN HOUR + +"Can you stand on your feet?" he asked. + +Supporting her as she made the trial he felt his way from where the +horse had plunged through to where he found a partial seat for her. +"Are you much hurt?" he asked again. + +She could not, if she would, have told in how many places she was +broken and bruised. All she was sharply conscious of was a pain in one +foot so intense as to deaden all other pain. It was the foot that had +been caught under the horse. "I think I'm all right," she murmured, in +a constrained tone and, in her manner, briefly. "How did you find me +here?" she asked, almost resentfully. "Where am I?" + +He knew from her words she had neither headed nor followed any +expedition against him but he did not answer her question: "I'll see +whether I can get the horse up." + +While he worked with the horse--and once during the long, hard effort +she heard between thunder claps a sharp expletive--Kate tried to +collect in some degree her scattered and reeling senses. What quieted +her most was that her long and fear-stricken groping for hours in the +storm and darkness seemed done now. Without realizing it she was +willingly turning her fears and troubles over to another--and to one +who, though she stubbornly refused to regard him as a friend, she well +knew was able to shoulder them. She heard the kicking and pawing of +the horse, then with new dismay, the low voices of two men; and next in +the terrifying darkness, more kicking, more suppressed expletives, more +heaving and pulling, and between lightning flashes, quieting words to +the horse. The two men had gotten the frightened beast to his feet. + +Laramie groped back to Kate. He had to touch her with his hand to be +sure he had found her: "I'm taking you at your word," he said, above +the confusion of the storm. + +"What do you mean?" + +"That you're alone and don't know where you are." + +"I am alone. I wish I might know where I am." + +Both spoke under constraint: "It's more important to know how to get +home," he replied, ignoring the request in her words. "Your horse is +here for the night--that's pretty certain," he declared, as a sheet of +rain swept over the crater. "I've got a horse near by and we'll start +for where we can get more horses." + +There was nothing Kate could say or do. She already had made up her +mind to submit in silence to what Laramie might suggest or impose. One +thing only she was resolved on; that whatever happened there should be +no appeal on her part. + +His first thought was to get her out of the pit by the way she had +plunged in. A moment's reflection convinced him that such a precaution +was unnecessary. When he asked her to follow him he held her wet +gloved hand in his hand. "Look out for your footing till we get to the +horse," was his warning. "The way we're going, we should never make +but one slip. Take your time," he added, as she stepped cautiously +after him out into the drive of wind and rain. "It's only about twenty +steps." + +In obeying orders she gave him nothing to complain of, but there was +little relaxing of the tension between the two. Every step she took on +her injured foot was torture, made keener by the uncertain footing. +More than once, even despite the dangers of her situation, she thought +she must cry out or faint in agony. The twenty steps along the steep +face of the canyon, pelted by rain, were like two hundred. Kate made +them without a whimper. Thence she followed him slowly between rocky +walls guarding the nearly level floor of the widening ledge, till they +reached the horse. She stumbled at times with pain; but if it were to +kill her she would not speak. + +Hawk had followed the two from the abutment. He joined them now. Kate +was only aware that a second man had come up and was moving silently +near them. Laramie spoke to him--she could not catch what he +said--then helped her into the saddle. "I'm going to the house again," +he said, "this man will stay with you. I'll be back in a moment." + +Little as she liked being left with another, she could not object. The +rocky wall saved her partly from the storm and as to the other man she +was only vaguely conscious at intervals of a shapeless form outlined +beside the horse. + +Laramie was gone more than a moment but under Kate's shelter nothing +happened. The horse, subdued by storm and weariness, stood like a +statue. Uneasy with pain, Kate was very nervous. New sounds were +borne on the wind from the darkness; then she heard Laramie's voice; +and then a rough question from another voice: "How the hell did you get +him out?" + +"Walked him out," was the response. Laramie had brought back her own +horse. "Get on him," added Laramie, speaking to the other man. "I'll +lead my horse--he's sure-footed for her. You know the way down." + +Kate made only one effort as the man she knew must be Laramie came to +the head of the horse she was on, patted his wet neck and took hold of +the bridle. She leaned forward in the saddle: "I'll try again to get +home if you'll help me get out of here." + +"I'm helping you get out," was the reply. "If you knew where you were, +you wouldn't talk yet about trying for home." He stepped closer to the +saddle, tested the cinches and spoke to Kate: "It's a hard ride. You +can make it by letting the horse strictly alone. I'll lead him but he +won't stand two bosses in this kind of a mess, over the only trail that +leads from here. How you ever got in, God only knows, and He won't +tell--leastways, not tonight. Sit tight. Don't get scared no matter +what happens. If the horse should break a leg all we can do is to +shoot him and you can try your own horse; but your horse is all in now." + +To ride at night a mile in the chilling blackness of a mountain storm +is to ride five. To face a buffeting wind and a sweep of heavy rain +mile after mile and keep a saddle while a horse pauses, halts, starts +and staggers, rights himself, gropes painfully for an uncertain +foothold among rocks where a bighorn must pick his way, is to test the +endurance even of a man. + +Laramie, moving unseen and almost unheard in the inky blackness, +piloted the nervous beast with an uncanny instinct, past the dangers on +every hand. He guided himself with his feet and by his hands, halting +on the edge of crevices and heading them with the horse at his +shoulder, feeling his way around slopes of fallen rock and clambering +across them when they could not be escaped, holding the lines at their +length ahead of the horse and speaking low and reassuringly to urge him +on: waiting sometimes for a considerable period for a flash of +lightning to give him his bearings anew. + +Kate could see in each of these blinding intervals his figure. Each +flash outlined it sharply on her retina--always the same--patient, +resourceful, silent and unwearied. The man who had been directed to +ride her own horse she never caught sight of. When they reached open +country and better going her guide did not break the silence. He spoke +only when at last he stopped the horse and stood in the darkness close +to her knee: + +"This brings us to the end of our trail--for awhile. We're in front of +my cabin. Of course, it's small. And I've been thinking what I ought +to say to you about things as you'll find them here. The man that rode +behind us and passed us on your horse is Abe Hawk. You know what they +call him over at your place; you know what they call me for taking his +part--you know what you called me." + +She repressed an exclamation. When she tried to speak, he spoke on, +ignoring her. "Never mind," he said, in the same low, even tone that +silenced her protest, "I'm not starting any argument but it's time for +plain speaking and I'm going to tell you just what has happened +tonight, so, for once, anyway, we'll understand each other--I'm going +to show my cards.", + +The chilling sheets of rain that swept their faces did not hasten his +utterance: "When you get home and tell your story, your men will know +it was Abe Hawk you ran into whether you knew it or not. They'll ask +you all about his hiding place and you'll tell them all you know--which +won't be much. I don't complain of all that--it's war; and part of the +game. All I'll ask you not to say is, that I brought Abe Hawk with you +to my cabin. Abe won't be here when they come--it isn't that. We can +take care of ourselves. I'm speaking only because I don't want my +place burned. It isn't much but I think a good deal of it. Burning it +won't help get rid of me. It will only make things in this country +worse than they are now--and they're bad enough. I wouldn't have +brought you here if there'd been any other place to take you. There +wasn't; and for awhile you'll have to make partners with the two men +your father and his friends are trying to get killed." + +She almost cried out a protest: "How can you say such a thing?" + +"Just the plain fact, that's all." + +"Is it fair because you are enemies to accuse my father in such a way?" + +"Have it as you want it but get my view of it with the one you get over +at your place. And if you'll climb down we'll go under cover." + +"Now may I say something?" + +"No more than fair you should." + +She spoke low but fast and distinctly; nor was there any note of fear +or apology in her words: "You must put a low estimate on a woman if you +would expect her to go home with tales from the camp of an enemy that +had put her again on her road. It may be that is the kind of woman you +know best----" + +Laramie tried to interrupt. + +"I've not done," she protested instantly. "You said I might say +something: It may be that is the kind of woman you understand best. +But I won't be classed with such--not even by you. If you've saved me +from great danger it doesn't give you the right to insult me by telling +me you expect me to be a tale-bearer. It isn't manly or fair to treat +me in that way." + +"You mustn't expect too much from a thief." + +"You shame yourself, not me, when you use a word I never in my life, +not even in anger, ever used of you." + +"You shame your friends when you call me or think of me as anything +else. I'm no match for you----" + +"I've not done----" + +"I'm no match for you, I know, in fine words--or in any other kind of a +game--don't think I don't know that; but by----" he checked himself +just in time, "thief or no thief, you've had a square deal from me +every turn of the road." + +Bitter with anger, he blurted out the words with vehemence. If he +looked for a quick retort, none came. Kate for an instant waited: +"Should you wish me," she asked, "to look for anything else at your +hands?" + +"Well, we're not holding up this rain any by talking," he returned +gruffly. "Get down and we'll get inside. You can stay here till +morning." + +"Oh, no!" + +"Why not?" + +"Just put me on the road for home and let me be going." + +"This is my cabin. I told you that." + +"I can't _stay_ here." + +"This is my cabin. I'm responsible for the safety of everyone that +steps under my roof." + +"I know, but I must go home. They have most likely been searching the +trails for me. Father would telephone"--she was desperate for +excuses--"to Belle and learn I'd started home--and the storm----" + +He did not hesitate to cut her off: "Afraid of me, eh?" + +The contempt and resentment in his words stirred her. Without +answering she sprang as well as she could in her wet habit from the +saddle and faced him, close enough almost to see into his eyes in the +darkness. From the fireplace inside a gleam of light, from the blaze +that Hawk had started, piercing the tiny window sash shot across her +face: "Does this look like it?" she demanded, her eyes seeking his. He +was stubborn. "Answer me!" she exclaimed in a tone of a dictator. + +"Then why don't you do what I ask you to do instead of giving me a +story about Barb Doubleday telephoning?" he demanded. She winced at +her mistake in urging an impossible thing. She felt when she made it, +Laramie would not credit so wild an assertion. Her father would not +take the trouble to telephone to save even a bunch of his steers from a +storm, much less his daughter. "But there may be others over there," +Laramie added grimly, "that would." + +The reference to the man he hated--Van Horn--was too plain to be passed +over. "Now," she returned, as if to close--and standing her ground as +she spoke, "have you said all the mean things you can think of?" + +He evaded her thrust. "The wires are down a night like this, anyway," +he objected. "If you'd be as honest with me as I am with you we'd get +along without saying mean things." + +"I am honest with you. Can't you see that a woman can't always be as +open in what she says as a man?" + +"What do I know about a woman?" + +"But since you make everything hard for me I shall be open with you." + +"Come inside then and say it." + +"I couldn't be any wetter than I am and if I've got to say this to one +man I won't say it to two: You ask me to stay all night in your cabin +as it I were a small boy--instead of what I am." + +"You could take all the shooting irons on the place into your own room +with you." + +"I shouldn't need to. But what would people say of me when they heard +of it? That I had stayed here all night! You know what they can do to +a woman's reputation in this country--you know how some evil tongues +talk about Belle. I would like to keep at least my reputation out of +this bitter war that is going on--can't you, won't you, understand?" + +He was silent a moment. "Come in to the fire, then," he said at +length, "and we'll see what we can do. You've been on the wrong road +all night. There's no need of any secrets now on anybody's part, I +guess. But I'd rather turn you over to ten thousand devils than to the +man you're going back to tonight." + +"Surely," she gasped, "you don't mean my own father?" + +"You know the man I mean," was all he answered. Then he threw open the +cabin door and stood waiting for her to pass within. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CRAZY WOMAN WINS + +It would have been idle for Laramie to deny to himself, as she stepped +without hesitation under his roof, that he loved her; or that he could +step in after her and close his door for her and for him--even for an +hour--against the storm and the world, without a thrill deeper than he +had ever felt. + +He leaned his rifle against the cabin wall; a blanket had been hung +completely over the window and he let down two heavy bars across the +door. Kate, in front of the fire, followed him with her eyes. "Don't +mind this," he said, noticing her look. "The place is watched a good +deal. I couldn't afford too much of a surprise any time." + +While he was searching for a lamp, her eyes ran quickly over the dark +interior, lighted fitfully as the driftwood, snapping on the stone +hearth, flared at times into a blaze. Kate herself, despite the doubts +and fears of her situation, was conscious of a strange feeling in being +under Laramie's roof--at one with him in so far as he could make her +feel so. Like a roll of fleeting film, strange pictures flashed across +her mind and she could not help thinking more and more about the man +and his stubborn isolation. + +He had taken off his coat and was trying to light the lamp. She looked +narrowly at the face illumined by the spluttering flare of the wick as +he stood over it, looking down and adjusting the flame; he seemed, she +was thinking--for her at least--so easy to get along with--for everyone +else, so hard. + +A pounding at the door gave her a start. Hawk was returning from the +barn where he had taken the horses. Laramie showed no surprise and +walked over to lift the double bar only after he had got the lamp to +burn to suit him. She felt startled again when Laramie in the simplest +way made the formidable outlaw, who now walked in, known to her. The +picture of him as he swung roughly inside from the wild night was +unforgettable. Erect and with his piercing eyes hollowed by illness, +his impassive features made slender by suffering and framed by the +striking beard, Hawk seemed to Kate to confirm in his appearance every +fantastic story she had ever heard of him. + +Not till after Laramie had urged him and Kate herself had joined in the +plea, would he come near her or near to the fire. + +"A wet night and a blind trail do pretty well at mixing things up," +observed Laramie. "However, we needn't make any further secrets. Abe, +here, has got it in his mind to head for a hospital tonight. You," he +looked at Kate, "are heading for home. I don't like either scheme very +much but I'm an innocent bystander. We'll ride three together till the +trails fork. Then," he spoke again to Kate, "we'll put you on a sure +trail for the ranch, and the two of us will head into town. It isn't +the way I planned, but it's one way out." + +"The sooner we get started the better," said Hawk, curtly. The two men +discussed for a moment the trip; then Laramie and Hawk left the house +for the barn and corral to get up horses. Before leaving, Laramie +showed Kate how to drop the bars and cautioned her not to neglect to +secure the door. "Some of this bunch Van Horn has got out wouldn't be +very agreeable company." + +"Surely they wouldn't harm me!" + +"It would mean a nasty fight for us when we bring up the horses." + +Kate secured the door. Wet and uncomfortable but undismayed by the +various turns of her predicament she sat down to study the fire. Her +eyes wandered through the gloom to the dark corners of the rough room +and over the crude furnishings. + +The long, slender snowshoes on the wall, the big beaded moccasins with +them, the coiled lariats hung on the pegs in company with old spurs; +the bunk in the corner strewn with Indian blankets from the far-off +Spanish country, and overflowing with the skin of a grizzly--all +brought to mind and reflected an active life. The firelight glinted +the bright, bluish barrels of the rifles on the rack, to Kate, almost +sinisterly, for some of them must suggest a side of Laramie's life she +disliked to dwell on--yet she allowed herself to wonder which rifle he +took when he armed not for elk or grizzlies but for men. And then at +the side of the fireplace she saw fastened on the rough wall a faded +card photograph of a young woman--almost a girl. It was simply +framed--Kate wondered whether it might be his mother. Over the crude +wooden frame was hung an old rosary, the crucifix depending from the +picture. The beads were black and worn by use as if they had slipped +many times through girlish fingers. + +She had a long time to let her thoughts run. The two men were not soon +back and she was beginning to wonder what might have happened, when, +standing at the door to listen, she heard noises outside and Laramie's +voice. She let him in at once. "You didn't have the door barred," he +said, suspiciously. + +"Oh, yes, but I heard you speak." + +He was alone. "We're ready," he said. "No dry clothes for you, but we +can't help it." + +She protested she did not mind the wet. Hawk in the saddle was waiting +with their horses. Rain was still falling and with the persistent +certainty of a mountain storm. Kate, mounting with Laramie's help, got +her lines into her hands. "It's pretty dark," he said, standing at her +stirrup. "We'll have to ride slow. I go first, Hawk next, then you; +if our horses can make the trail yours likely can. I don't think we'll +meet anybody, but if we do it's better to know now what to do. If you +hear any talk that sounds like trouble, push out of the line as quick +as you can and throw yourself flat on the ground. Stay there till you +don't hear any more shooting, but hang on to your lines so you don't +lose your horse. + +"The only other trouble might be your getting lost from us." He spoke +slowly as if thinking. "That must depend a good deal on you. Keep as +close as you can. Can you whistle?" Kate thought she could. "If you +can't make us hear," he continued, "shoot--have you got a pistol?" She +had none. He brought her a double action revolver from the cabin and +showed her how it worked. "Don't use it unless you have to. It might +be heard by more than us." + +Kate stuck the revolver under her wet belt. "Why couldn't I ride with +you?" she asked. + +"There's more danger riding ahead." + +"No more for me than for you." + +"I wouldn't say that. But if you want to try it, all right. Keep +close. Don't be afraid of bumping me--and Hawk can follow us." + +There was nothing in the night to encourage heading into it. That men +could find their way with every possibility of landmark and sight +blotted out and nothing of sound above the downpour except the +tumultuous roar of the Turkey which they were following, was to Kate a +mystery of mysteries. Even the lightning soon deserted them. Their +pace was halted by washouts, obstructed by debris in the trail. In +places, the creek running bank-full, backed up over their path. + +At times, Laramie halting his companions, rode slowly ahead, sounding +out the overflows and choosing the footing. Where streamlets poured +over rock outcroppings the horses slipped. Frequently to get his +bearings, Laramie felt his way forward by reaching for trees and +scraped his knees against them as he pushed his horse close. And in +spite of everything to confuse, intimidate and hold them back, they +slipped and floundered on their way, until quite suddenly a new roar +from out of the impenetrable dark struck their ears. + +Laramie halted their party, and the three in silence, listened. +"That," said Laramie, after a moment, to Hawk, "sounds like the Crazy +Woman." + +He went ahead to investigate. He was gone a long time, yet he groped +half a mile down the road and made his way back to his companions +without a signal. He was on foot. "We're all right," was the report +he brought, "it's a little dryer ahead. While I'm down," he said to +Kate, "I'll try your cinches. It's a mean night." + +"Did you ever see such a night?" she echoed, shuddering. + +"Plenty of 'em," returned Laramie. "Once we cross the creek the going +will be better." + +Of the going between them and the creek, Laramie prudently said +nothing. It was the worst of the journey. Two stretches were filled +with backwater. Across these they cautiously waded and swam the +horses. When they gained high ground adjoining the creek, Kate +breathed more freely. There was a halt for reconnaissance. For this, +Laramie and Hawk, after placing Kate where she would be safe whether +they should come back or not, went forward together. + +The splashing and floundering of their horses as the two left her side, +was gradually lost in the roar of the night and she was alone in the +darkness. They were gone a good while but Kate had enough of confused +and conflicting thought to occupy her reflections. After a long +interval the report of a Colt's struck her anxious ear. She swallowed +in sudden fear to listen more keenly. If there were a fight it would +be followed by another report and more. With her heart beating fast +she listened, but there was no successor to the single shot and, +calming somewhat, she speculated on just what it might mean. Again she +waited with such patience as she could until the measured splash of a +horse's feet nearing her through the shallow water announced someone's +approach. Laramie was back and alone. + +Almost anybody in the world would have been welcome at such a juncture. +He called and she answered quickly, but he brought unwelcome news--the +little bridge that spanned the creek at this point was out. + +"We can't get across, can we?" she exclaimed in disappointment. + +"We can swim the creek if you're game for it." + +"Could we possibly get across?" + +"If I didn't expect to get across I'd sure never try it. It'll be a +wet crossing." + +"I couldn't be wetter." + +"Hawk asked if you could swim." + +"I can't." + +"I told him I didn't suppose you could." + +"Are we all to go together?" + +"He's over now. He signaled a minute ago. I told him I'd get you +across if he'd get you out. It's close to daybreak. Better take off +your coat." + +While he strapped her coat to the saddle, she lightened and freed +herself as much as possible, disengaged, as he directed, her feet from +the stirrups, and they started for the creek. At the point he had +chosen for the plunge, he gave her a few admonitions, chiefly to the +effect of doing nothing except to cling to her seat in getting into the +flood and getting out. Just as her horse poised beside Laramie's a +wave of dread swept over her. It was very literally a plunge into the +dark. "Are you afraid?" he asked, divining her feeling. + +Pride dictated her answer: "No," she said stoutly. "Though, of +course," she added with an attempt at lightness, "I'd prefer to cross +on a bridge." + +"All in getting used to it, I suppose. I guess I've crossed here a +hundred times before there was any bridge. Don't get scared if your +head goes under water when your horse jumps in. The bank here is a +little high, but it's clean jumping. Say when you're ready." + +"I'm ready." + +"Go!" + +With his hand on her bridle, he spoke loudly and sharply, kicked her +horse with one foot and punched his own horse with the other at the +same time. The next instant, gripped by an overpowering fear, and +breathless, Kate felt herself jerked into the air, then she plunged +headlong forward and sank into the boiling flood. Down, down she went, +her ears swooning with water, mouth and eyes tight shut, and moving she +knew not where or how until her head rose out of the flood and a voice +yelled above the tumult: "You're all right! Horse's doing fine. Hang +on!" + +Then she was conscious of a hand clutching her upper arm, a hand so +strong her flesh winced within its grip. And she could feel the +powerful strokes of her horse as he panted and swam under her. + +Above the terrifying swirl of the waters, carrying in the hardly +distinguishable light of the breaking day, a mass of debris that swept +about the two riders, the only sound was the hard breathing of the +horses and a shout repeated by Laramie, until at last it was answered +by Hawk somewhere in the darkness ahead. + +Urging the horses to their task, Laramie guided them to where Kate +could make out portions of the creek bank. She could realize how fast +they were being carried down stream by the wild sweep of the current. +Trees flashed past her like phantoms, as if the bank were mad instead +of the creek. It seemed impossible she could ever make the bank, now +very near, and get up out of the water; only Laramie's hand locked firm +now in her horse's mane, his strong voice as he urged the horses or +called to Hawk, gave her the slightest hope of coming out alive. + +Laramie cried to her to duck as a cottonwood leaning over the water +almost tore her cap and hair from her head. The next instant the +cottonwood was gone and, looking ahead, she saw a horseman on a slope +in the bank, his own horse half submerged. They had reached one of +several old fords. Here the two men had purposed to get Kate ashore. +But she did not know that this was the last of the ford crossings for a +mile--the only shelving bank--nor why Laramie made such superhuman +efforts to head her horse toward Hawk, to get to where the horse could +ground his feet. Hawk, in an effort to catch Kate's bridle, spurred +down to them till his own horse was afloat. Kate's horse struggled +desperately, lost headway and was swept below the ford opening. The +two men with shouts, curses and entreaties, guiding their own horses, +urged the hapless beast to greater effort; it was evident he could not +reach the ford. + +"The roan can't make it," shouted Hawk. "Crowd him up to the ledge +where I can get hold of her." + +Hawk, reining his horse hastily about, got him back up the shelving +ford, spurred down the bank to where Kate, despite Laramie's efforts, +was being driven by the sweep of the water and sprang from his horse. +Where Kate's horse struggled at that moment the creek bank rose +vertically above the peak of the flood. Deep water gave the horse no +chance for a foothold and it swam helplessly. Hawk, running along the +ledge, awaited his chance. It came at a moment that Laramie succeeded +in crowding the roan to the bank. Hawk saw the opportunity and held +his hand out to Kate: + +"Reach up!" he shouted. + +"Give him both hands!" cried Laramie, punching and pushing her horse +against the bank. As Kate swept along, her hands upstretched, Hawk +caught her wrists and, bracing himself in the slipping earth, dragged +her up and out of the saddle. The roan, with Laramie's hand on his +bridle, swept on downstream. The clay bank, under the strain of the +double load, gave under Hawk's feet. But without releasing Kate's +hands he threw himself flat and, matching his dead weight against the +chance of being dragged in, caught her with one arm and flung the other +backward into the dark. A clump of willow shoots clutched in his +sinewy fingers gave him a stay and, putting forth all his strength, he +drew Kate slowly up. She scrambled across his prostrate body to safety. + +The force of the gnawing current had already undercut the soft clay. +The next instant the whole bank began to sink. Hawk shouted to Kate to +run. She saw him struggling in the crumbling earth. Crying out in her +excitement she stretched her hands toward him. He waved her back. As +he did so, a great section of the bank on which he was struggling +broke, and in the big, soft splash, Hawk went into the creek. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +KATE DEFIES + +The instant he saw Kate in Hawk's keeping, Laramie rode down with the +flood, looking sharply for a chance to get out the two horses; when +finally he did get them ashore he was spent. Leading Kate's horse, he +made his way up-creek through the willows to where she should be with +Hawk. + +Hawk's horse he found browsing in the heavy wet grass at the old ford. +Neither Kate nor Hawk were in sight. Laramie walked down to the +water's edge where Hawk had pulled her out. Familiar with the meander +of the bank below the ford, he saw what had happened. The bank, +under-cut, had been swallowed by the flood. Laramie ran down stream +and came suddenly on Kate standing alone on a rock jutting out above +the torrent. + +In the uncertain light of the gray morning he saw her anxious face. +She explained what had happened. Laramie showed no alarm. "I guess +Abe will handle himself," he said. + +"Can't we do anything to help him?" + +"I'll put you on your trail, then I'll ride down the creek and look for +him. He'll make it if his strength doesn't give out." + +Laramie took Kate up the creek and, riding through the hills, brought +her, unexpectedly, out on a trail within sight of her father's +ranch-house hardly three miles away. He pointed to a break heading +from the creek. "You can follow that draw almost to the house," he +explained. Then, reining about, he wheeled his horse to take the back +trail. "Are you going to run away without giving me a chance to thank +you?" she exclaimed, with a feminine touch of surprise. + +"There's a gate near the head of the draw where you can get through the +wire," he rejoined stubbornly. + +"I can't see how I can ever repay you for what you've done tonight," +she persisted. + +He was coldly uncompromising. "You needn't bother about any pay, if +that's what you call it." + +Skilfully she drew her horse a step closer to him. "What shall I call +it?" she asked innocently, "debt, obligation? I owe you a lot, ever so +much to me--my life." + +"I've done no more for you than I've done for less than a human being," +he returned impatiently. + +"I'm sure that's so. But human beings," she added, with a touch of +gentle good-nature, "are supposed to have more feeling than cows or +steers, you know." + +"I never had a cow or a steer call me names," he retorted rudely. + +"If you weren't a human being you wouldn't mind being called names; you +wouldn't be so angry with me, either." + +"I'm not angry," he said resentfully. His very helplessness in her +hands pricked her conscience at the moment that it restored her +supremacy. His strength might menace others--she at least had nothing +to fear from it. + +"Do you know," she exclaimed, shaking off for the moment all restraint, +"what I'd like to do?" + +He looked at her surprised. + +"I'd like to ride back this minute with you and help find Abe Hawk. I +know I mustn't," she went on as he listened. "But I'd like to," she +persisted hurriedly. And then, afraid of herself more than of him, she +repressed a quick "good-by" and, without giving him time to answer, +galloped away. + +She reached the ranch-house without further difficulty. No one was +stirring. She stopped at the corral and turned in her horse and, +walking awkwardly on her swollen ankle to the kitchen, built a fire, +warmed herself as best she could and went to her room. By the time her +father was stirring, Kate, under her coverlets, quite exhausted, was +fast asleep. + +It was broad day when she woke. Through an open window, she saw sullen +gray clouds still rolling down from the northwest, but between them the +sun shot out at ragged intervals--the storm had broken. Walking +gingerly from her room, on her lame foot, she found the house empty. +Her father, Kelly told her, had gone out early, and she sat down to a +late breakfast glad to be undisturbed in her thoughts. Her mind was +still in a confusion of opinions; some, long-cherished being crowded, +so to say, to the wall; others, more than once rejected, growing +bolder. It was in this mental condition that her seclusion was invaded +by Van Horn. + +He swept off his hat with a show of spirits. "Just heard you'd got +home." He sat down with her at the table. "Everybody thought you +stayed in town last night. Got lost, eh?" + +Kate raised her coffee cup non-committally. "For awhile," she murmured +between sips. + +"What time did you get here?" + +"I was so glad to get to bed I never looked at my watch." Again she +regarded him, quite innocently, over the rim of her cup. "Did anybody +lose any stock?" + +He did not abandon his inquisition willingly, but each time he asked a +question, Kate parried and asked one in turn. He gave up without +having gained any information she meant to withhold. + +It was not hard to keep him in good humor; indeed, it was rather too +easy. He pushed back his chair, crossed his legs, talked of a strong +cattle market for the fall and spoke of Hawk and the hunt he was +keeping up for him. "They had a story around--or some of the boys had +the idea--that his friends would pick a wet night like last night to +take him into town." + +"Is he still in the country?" + +"Sure he is. Say, Kate," he changed his attitude as lightly as he did +his subject--uncrossed his legs, squared himself in his chair and threw +his elbows on the table. + +She met the new disposition with a tone of prudent reserve: "What is +it?" + +"When are you going to do something for a lonesome old scout?" he asked +bluntly. + +With as little concern as possible, she put down her knife and fork, +and, with her hands seeking her napkin, looked at him. "What do you +mean?" she returned collectedly, "by 'doing something'?" + +"Marry me." + +"Never." + +The passage was disconcertingly quick. Van Horn, thrown quite aback, +remonstrated. His discomfiture was so undisguised that Kate was +embarrassed. The next moment he was very angry. "If that's the case," +he blurted out, "what's the use o' my sticking around here fighting +your battles?" + +"You're not fighting my battles." + +"Maybe you don't call 'em your father's, either," he exclaimed +scornfully. + +"They're your own battles," declared Kate. "You know that as well as I +do." + +"All the same, your father gets the benefit of them," he continued +hotly. + +"I wish to heaven he had kept out of them." + +Van Horn eyed her sharply. His face reflected his sarcasm. "Of +course, you needn't worry," he grinned, with implication. "They +wouldn't steal your horse even if you do always leave it in Kitchen's +barn; the Falling Wall bunch think too much of you for that." + +Surprised as she was at this outbreak, Kate kept her head. "There are +some of the rustlers I'd trust as far as I would some of the raiders," +she rejoined coolly. + +"Why don't you say Jim Laramie," he exclaimed harshly. + +"Jim Laramie," she returned defiantly, "is not the only one." + +"He'll be the 'only one' after our next clean-up in the Falling Wall. +And he won't be 'one' if he doesn't change his tune." + +Kate's eyes were snapping fire. "Take care that next time the Falling +Wall doesn't clean you up," she said bitingly. + +He snorted. "I mean it," she exclaimed. "Next time you'll need to +look out for yourself." + +He bolted from his chair. "That's the first time I ever heard anybody +on this ranch take sides with the men that's robbing it--or carry a +threat to this ranchhouse for rustlers." + +"Call it whatever you please, you won't change my opinion of you. But, +of course, I'm only a woman and don't know anything." + +"I'm thinking you know a whole lot more than you let on," he declared. + +"Anyway, I wish you'd leave this ranch out of the rest of it. If you +keep on 'cleaning up,' as you call it, you'll go farther and fare +worse." + +He brought down his fist. "Not until I've cleaned out two more pups, +anyway! Now, look here, Kate," he went on, "you may be fooling about +this marrying, but you can bet I'm not." + +"Well, you can bet _I'm_ not," she returned, echoing his pert slang +sharply. + +"Who's the man?" He flung the question at her point-blank. + +If she flushed the least bit it was with anger at his rudeness. "There +isn't any man, and there isn't going to be any--so please never talk +again about my marrying you or anybody else." + +She rose and left the table. He jumped to intercept her and tried to +catch her hands. She let him see she was not in the least afraid and +as he confronted her, she faced him without a tremor. "Let me pass!" +She fairly snapped out the words. + +Van Horn, without moving, broke into a boisterous laugh. Kelly walked +in just then from the kitchen and Van Horn, losing none of his +malevolence, did stand aside. + +"All right," he said, "--this time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A DIFFICULT RESOLVE + +For two days Kate burned in feverish reaction from her exposure, +wretched in mind and body. Her only effort in that time was to get +down to the corral and see that Bradley, acting as barn boy, should do +something for her cut and bruised pony. + +Her father was still in Medicine Bend, and Van Horn, much to her +relief, had disappeared. When she left her bed she spent the morning +trying to rehabilitate her riding suit. The task called for all her +ingenuity and she was still in the kitchen working on it late in the +afternoon when Bradley came in. + +He had no sooner sat down by the door to report to Kate at his ease, +than Kelly interrupted him with a call for wood. Even after he had +filled the box, Kelly warned him he would have to split more next +morning to get a supply ahead. + +"Easy, Kelly," remonstrated Bradley, in his deeply tremulous voice. +"Easy. I can't split no wood t'morrow mornin', not for nobody." + +"Why not?" + +"Got to go to town." + +"What for?" + +Bradley declined to answer, but Kelly, persistent, bored into his +evasiveness until Kate tired at the discussion: "Tell him what you're +going for and be done with it," she said tartly. The reaction of three +days had not left her own nerves unaffected; she admitted to herself +she was cross. + +Bradley, taken aback by this unexpected assault, still tried to +temporize. Kate refused to countenance it. When he saw he was in for +it, he appealed to her generosity: "It'd be most 's much 's my job's +worth if they knew here what I'm goin' to town tomorrow f'r." + +"If that's all," said Kate, to reassure the old man, "I'll stand +between you and losing your job." + +Bradley drew his stubby chin and shabby beard in and threw his voice +down into his throat: "D' y' mean that? Then don't say nothin', you +and Kelly. Least said, soonest mended. I'm goin' t' town t'morrow t' +see the biggest funeral ever pulled off in Sleepy Cat," he announced +with bleary dignity. + +"What do you mean--whose funeral?" demanded Kate, looking at him +suddenly. + +"Abe Hawk's. It's goin' t' be t'morrow er next day." + +If the old man had meant to stupefy his questioner, he could not better +have succeeded. Kate turned deathly white. She bent over the table +and busied herself with her ironing. Bradley, pleased with his +confidence safely made, talked on. He found a pride in talking to +Kate, with Kelly in and out of the room, and launched into unrestrained +eulogies of the famed rustler, always the friend of the poor man, once +king of the great north range itself. + +"It's a pity," murmured Kate, when she felt she must say something, +"that he ever went wrong." + +Bradley had a point to offer even on that. "It's a pity they ever +blacklisted him; that was Stone's get-up. And Stone, when I was +sheriff, was the biggest thief in the county an' the county was four +times as big then as it is now--that's 'tween you 'n' me." + +"Were you ever sheriff, Bill?" + +"You won't believe it, but it's so--dash me 'n' dash drunkards one and +all." + +"I hear, though," returned Kate, only because in her distress of mind +she could think of nothing else to say, "that Tom Stone has stopped +drinking." + +"That man," was Bradley's retort, and he kept his tremulous voice still +far down in his throat, "is mean enough to do any d--d thing." + +"You used to be sheriff?" + +"Yes. And when I was sheriff, Kate, I found out it was better to trust +an honest man turned thief than a thief turned honest man." + +Kate, listening to his halting maunderings, hardly heeded them. She +heard in her troubled ears the rush of mad waters; phantom voices +cracked again in pistoled oaths at the horses, the fear of sudden death +clutched at her heart, and in the dreadful dark a powerful arm caught +her again and drew her, helpless, out of an engulfing flood. + +She got out of doors. The sunshine, clear and calm, belied the +possibility of a night such as Bradley's words had summoned. "Dead," +she kept saying to herself. Laramie had been sure he would get out of +the creek. What could it mean? + +She went back to the kitchen where Bradley, eating supper, had switched +from his long-winded topic. Kate had to question him: "What was the +matter with Abe? When did he die?" she asked, as unconcernedly as she +could. + +There was little satisfaction in Bradley's slow, formal answer: "Some's +got it one way and some's got it another, Kate. I can't rightly say +what ailded him or when he died 'n' I guess nobody else can, f'r sure. +Some says he got shot; some says he was drownded 'a' las' Tuesday night +in the Crazy Woman; some says they's been a fight nobody's heard of +yit, 't' all. The only man that knows for sure--if he does know--is +the man that brought him into Sleepy Cat 'n' if he knows he won't +tell." He held out his big enameled cup. "Kelly, gi' me jus' a squirt +o' coffee, will y'?" + +Kate, on nettles, waited to hear who had brought Hawk in. Bradley +would not volunteer the name. Some deference was due him as the +purveyor of the big news, and he meant that anyone curious of detail +should do the asking. Kate, realizing this, framed with reluctance the +question he was waiting for: "Who brought Abe in?" + +Even so, she knew there would be but one answer. Bradley gulped +another mouthful of scalding coffee and set down his cup. "Jim +Laramie," he answered laconically. + +She said to herself that Hawk had never got out of the creek; that he +had drowned miserably in the flood. She tortured herself with +conjecture as to exactly what had happened. And night brought no +relief. Sleepless, she tossed, marveling at how close his death had +come home to her. Every scrap of the meager news added to what she +already knew--pointed to what she most feared. + +She lay propped up on her pillows and looked through the open window +out on the glittering stars. Strange constellations passed in +brilliant procession before her eyes. And while she lay thus +reflecting and revolving in her mind the loneliness and unhappiness of +her surroundings, a startling suggestion far removed from these doubts +offered itself to her mind. Repelled at first, it came back as if +demanding acceptance. And not until after she had promised herself she +would consider it, did her thoughts give her any peace. She fell into +an uneasy slumber and woke with day barely breaking; but without an +instant's delay she dressed and slipped from her room out to the barn. + +Forehanded as she had been in getting an early start, Bradley was +already stirring. Pail in hand, the old man, standing in front of the +feed bin, stared at Kate speechless as she walked in on him. + +"Who's sick?" he demanded after a moment. + +"Nobody, Bill. I'm going to town with you, that's all." + +"With _me_?" + +She half laughed at herself and at his surprise. "I mean, I'm for town +early. Get up a pony for me--Spider Legs will do." + +Born of long-forgotten experience in waiting for women, Bill Bradley, +as Kate walked away, put in a caveat: "I'm headin' out jus' soon's I +c'n get breakfast." + +"I, too, Bill. I'll be across the divide before you are." + +Curiosity would not down: "What y' goin' t' town f'r?" he called. + +Turning half around, Kate, with a little shrug, paused. She would not +be ungracious: "To pick up a few things," she answered unconcernedly. + +Bill, not satisfied, felt obliged to desist. "Startin' airly," was his +only grumble. Had he known what possibilities for that day had lodged +themselves in Kate's mind, he would not have been able to slip Spider +Legs' bridle over his ears. But his business being only to get up the +horse, he discharged it with shaky fidelity and for himself started +with high expectations for town. Had he been given to speculating on +the variableness of woman, he might have found a text in Spider Legs' +standing for hours after he was made ready. And in the end his +mistress unsaddled him and turned him back into the corral. + +The truth was, Kate had been seized with cruel fits of doubt and for a +long time could not decide whether she ought to go to town or not. But +as often as she gave up the idea of going, a heart-strong impulse +pleaded against her uneasy restraint. She felt she _must_ go. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +HORSEHEAD PASS + +Bradley had not been able to tell her just when the funeral was set +for. But it surged in Kate's heart that after what Abe Hawk had done +for her, to let the poor, bullet-torn, neglected body be put into the +ground without some effort to pay a tribute of gratitude to the man +that had once animated it, would be on her part fearfully cold. + +The difficulties of the situation were many. She feared the anger of +her father, and owed his feelings something as well. But every time +she decided she ought to stay at home, the pricking at her heart grew +keener. In the end, her feelings overrode her restraint. She resolved +at least to go to town. The funeral might have already taken place--it +would be a relief even to learn more about his death. + +Late in the afternoon, she got Spider Legs up again, saddled him and, +telling Kelly she might not be back that night, rode away. + +It was dark by the time she reached town and leaving her horse with +McAlpin she crossed the street from the barn and walked hurriedly +around the corner to Belle's. The front door stood open and the +red-shaded lamp burned low on the dining-room table. + +Tapping on the screen door, Kate, without waiting for Belle to answer, +opened it and went in. There was no light in the living-room and the +portières were drawn. She walked down the hall to the dining-room, +where she laid down her gloves and took off her coat and hat. +Smoothing her hair, she knocked on the door of Belle's room, but got no +answer. Conjecturing that she had gone out on an errand, Kate sat down +in a rocking chair and, taking a newspaper from the table, tried to +read. + +Her thoughts soon blurred the print. She read on only to think of what +had brought her so irresistibly to town and to wonder what she should +hear now that she had come. + +After some struggle to concentrate, she tossed the paper aside to ask +herself why Belle did not return, and, being tense, began without +realizing it, to rock softly. Her eyes naturally turned to the +familiar lamp. Its somber paper shade threw the light in a circle on +the table, leaving the room in the heavy shadows of its figured +pattern. Kate became all at once conscious of the utter silence, and +impatient for Belle's return, got up and walked through the dark hall +toward the front door. + +Passing the living-room portières, she pushed open the screen door and +stepped out on the porch. There she stood for a moment at the top of +the steps looking at the stars. Lights here and there burned in +neighboring cottage windows. No wind stirred. The street and the town +were as still as the night. After some minutes, Kate descended the +steps, opened the gate, leaving it to close with a click behind her, +and walked to the corner of Main Street. It looked dark. The stores +were closed. From the saloon windows spotty lights shot at intervals +across the upper street, but these only made the darkened store fronts +blacker and revealed the nakedness and desertion of the street itself. +Not a man, much less a woman, could she see anywhere moving. + +Either the silence, or the night, or her long wait changed her +impatience into a feeling of loneliness. She turned back toward the +cottage gate. She had not noticed before how very dark the side street +was. Reaching the gate she hesitated, pushed it open and then stopped, +conscious of a curious repugnance to entering the house. + +Her feeling refused to explain itself. Through the screen she could +see the lamp still burning on the dining-room table. Things appeared +just as she had left them, yet she did not want to go in. But, +dismissing the qualm, she walked up the steps, crossed the narrow +porch, opened the screen door and, stepping inside, closed it after her. + +This time that she passed the living-room she noticed the portières +were partly open. Both times she had passed before, she felt sure, +they had been closed. + +Kate sat down in the dining-room and looked suspiciously back at the +portières. She was already sorry she had come into the house, for the +silence and her aloneness added to the conviction fast stealing over +her that someone must be in the dark living-room. + +Once entertained, the suspicion became insupportable. Her ears were +pitched to a painful intensity of listening and her eyes were fastened +immovably on the motionless curtains. + +She carried a ranchwoman's revolver and, putting her hand on it, she +rose, stepped close to the door of Belle's room--into which she could +retreat--and, with one hand on the knob, called sharply toward the +living-room: "Who's there?" + +Not a sound answered her. + +"Who is in the living-room?" she demanded again. This time, after a +moment's delay, she heard something move in the darkness, then a man's +step and Laramie stood out between the portières. + +Except for a fatigued look as he rested one hand on the portière and +the other on his hip, he appeared quite as she had last seen him. "Are +you calling me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she responded tartly. "Why didn't you answer?" + +"I didn't know who you were speaking to at first. I've been here all +the evening. I didn't know you were in town till I saw your hat on the +table a few minutes ago." + +"Where is Belle?" asked Kate, still on edge. + +"She went over to Mrs. Kitchen's." + +"When will she be back?" + +He seemed to take no offense at her peremptory tone. "She said she +wouldn't be gone a great while. But," he added, with his customary +deliberation, "all the same, I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed over +pretty late--or even all night." + +This was not just what Kate wanted to hear. "Why didn't you say +something when I first came in?" she asked, her suspicion reflected in +her voice. + +He did not seem nonplused but he answered slowly: "I heard someone come +in. I didn't pay much attention, that's about the truth." + +"What are you doing in there in the dark?" + +He was provokingly deliberate in answering. "You probably haven't +heard about Abe Hawk?" + +Her manner changed instantly and her voice sank. "Is it true that he +is dead?" + +"Yes." + +"He didn't drown that morning, did he?" she asked eagerly anxious. +"You thought he could get out--what happened?" + +"He got out of the creek. But he strained his wounds--they opened. I +wasn't much of a surgeon. I got him to the hospital--he died there. I +had no place to take him then. I wouldn't leave him there alone. +Belle said I might bring him here. I'm spending my last night with +him." + +"You're not trying to spare me, are you?" she asked, unsteadily. "He +really did get out of the creek?" + +"He did get out." + +She spoke again brokenly: "He saved my life." + +"Well," remarked Laramie, meditating, "he wouldn't ask anything much +for that. Do you mind if I smoke?" + +"Not a bit." + +"I'm kind of nervous tonight," he confessed simply. Then he crossed +the room, rested his elbow on the mantelpiece and made ready a +cigarette. "I wonder," he said, "if I could ask you a question?" + +"What is it?" + +"You always act kind of queer with me. Why is it? You've never been +the way you were the first day we met. Haven't I always been square +with you?" + +She hesitated but she answered honestly: "You always have." + +"Then why are you so different?" + +"I've made that confession once. I was acting a part that day." + +"No, I can't figure it in that way. That day you were acting natural. +Why can't you be like that again." + +"But, Mr. Laramie----" + +"No--Jim." + +"But----" + +"Every time you call me Mr. Laramie I'm looking around for a gentleman. +Why can't you be the way you were the first time?" + +She realized his eyes were on her, demanding the truth--and his eyes +were uncomfortably steady as she had reason to know. "If I spoke I +should hurt your feelings," she urged, summoning all her courage. "You +know as well as I do that the first time I met you I didn't know who +you were." + +He did not seem much disconcerted, except that he tossed away the +unlighted cigarette. "You don't know now," was his only comment. + +"I can't help knowing what is said about you--you and your friends." + +He made an impatient gesture. "That gives you no clue to me." + +"What are people to believe when such stories are public property?" + +"Only what they know to be true." + +"How are they to find out what is true?" + +"By going straight to the person most concerned in the stories." + +"Would you honestly expect a young woman to go to work and investigate +all the charges against men she hears in Sleepy Cat?" + +"We are talking now about the charges against one man--against me. I +want to give you an instance: + +"I suppose there's been a good many hard words over your way about my +keeping Abe Hawk out of the hands of your people. Because I did +shelter him--you know how--they've blackened my name here at Sleepy Cat +and down at Medicine Bend. A man doesn't have to approve all another +man does, to befriend him when he's down and a bunch of men--not as +good as he--set out to finish him. I haven't got any apologies to make +to anybody for protecting Abe when he was wounded--and if he wasn't +wounded, no man would talk any kind of protection to him. But you've +been fed up with stories about it--I know that--so," he added grimly, +"I'm going to tell you one story more. + +"I grew up in this country when the mining fever was on--everybody +plumb crazy in the rush for the Horsehead Camp in the Falling Wall +country. One winter five hundred men in tents were hanging around +Sleepy Cat waiting for the first thaw, to get up to the camp. That's +when I got acquainted with Abe Hawk. Abe was carrying the mails to the +mines. He hadn't a red cent in the world. My father had just died; I +was a green kid with a pocketful of money. Abe didn't teach me any bad +habits--I didn't need any teacher. One night we were sitting next to +each other, with Harry Tenison dealing faro. + +"I heard Abe was going up over the pass to Horsehead with the Christmas +bag. The few miners that got in the fall before had hung up a fat +purse for their Christmas mail and Abe needed the money. He was the +only man with the crazy nerve to try such a thing. And there were +twenty men, with all kinds of money, crowding him to take them along: +to beat the bunch in might mean a million dollar strike to any +tenderfoot in Sleepy Cat. + +"Abe wouldn't hear a word of it, not from anybody--and he could talk +back awful rough. He was sure he could make the trip alone. He was +the strongest man in the mountains. I never saw the day I could handle +Abe Hawk. But the pass in December was not a job for any ordinary +mountain man--let alone a bunch of greenhorns. Just the same, I made +my play to go with him. He cursed me as hard as he did anybody and +turned me down. + +"One night, after that, I was at Tenison's again. I was losing money. +Hawk was near me. He saw it. I waited for him to come out. I knew +he'd be starting soon and I was desperate. I tackled him pretty +strong. He swore if I talked again about going with him he'd kill me. +Old Bill Bradley ran the livery. My horse was in the same barn with +Abe's and Bill promised to tip me off when Abe was ready to start. He +waited for a blizzard. When it passed he was ready. But I got ahead +of him, out of town, and trailed him--I knew how. Only it snowed +again, as if all hell was against me; I had to close up on Abe or lose +him, but he never saw me till we got so far I couldn't get back; though +he could have dropped me out of the saddle with a bullet, and had the +right to do it. + +"When I rode up he only looked at me. If I had been as small as I +felt, he'd never seen me. He ought to have abused me; but he didn't. +He ought to have shot me; but he didn't; or turned me back and that +would have been worse than shooting. But if he'd been my own father he +couldn't have acted different. He just told me to come along." + +Laramie paused. He was speaking under a strain: "I didn't understand +it then; but he knew it was too late to quarrel. He knew there was +about one chance in a hundred for him to get through; for me, there was +about one in a hundred thousand--in fact, he knew I _couldn't_ get +through, so he didn't abuse me. + +"You don't know what the winter snow on the pass is. When it got too +bad for us, he put his horse ahead to break the trail, but he let me +ride mine as far as I could--he knew what was coming. When my horse +quit, he told me to tramp along behind him. + +"I guess you know about how long a boy's wind would last ten thousand +feet up in the air. I wasn't used to it. I quit." + +Laramie drew from his pocket a handkerchief and knotted it nervously in +his fingers: "He told me to get up," he went on. "I did my level best +a way farther. It was no use. I quit again. He was easy with me. +But I couldn't get up and I told him to go on. + +"Abe wouldn't go. I couldn't walk another step in that wind and snow +to save my soul from perdition. I just couldn't. And when I tell you +next what I asked of him, then you'll understand how mean a common +tramp like me can be. But I've got past pretty much caring what you +think of me--only I want you to know what _I_ think, and thought, of +Abe Hawk. I did the meanest thing then I ever did in my life--I asked +him to let me ride his horse. It was useless. I offered him all the +money I had. He refused. He didn't just look at me and move on, the +way most men would to save their own skins and leave me to what I +deserved. He stopped and explained that if his horse gave out we were +done--we could never break a trail to the top without the horse. + +"It was blowing. He stripped his horse. The mail went into the snow. +I tried again to walk. I didn't get a hundred feet. When I fell down +that time he saw it was my finish. + +"He stood a minute in front of me, looking all around before he spoke. +His horse was breathing pretty heavy; the snow blowing pretty bad. +After a while he loosened the quirt from his saddle and looked at me: +'Damn you,' he said, 'you were bound to come. All hell couldn't keep +you back, could it? Now it's come in earnest for you. You're goin' +over the pass with me. Get up out of that snow.' + +"I could hear him, but I couldn't move hand or foot. And I never +dreamed what was going to happen till he laid the quirt across my face +like a knife. + +"All I ever hoped for was to get up so I could live long enough to kill +him. He gave me that quirt till I was insane with rage; long afterward +he told me my eyes turned green. I cursed him. He asked me whether +I'd get up. I knew, if I didn't, I'd have to take more. I dragged +myself out of the snow again and pitched and struggled after him--to +the top of the pass. + +"Then he put me on his pony--we got the wind worse up there. Abe had a +little shack a way down the pass, rigged up for storm trouble. But the +pony quit before we got to the shack, and when the pony fell down, my +hands and feet were no use. Abe carried and dragged and rolled me down +into the shack. I was asleep. There was always a fire left laid in +the stove. Abe had a hard time to light it. But he got it lighted and +when he fell down he laid both hands on the stove--so when they began +to burn it would wake him up; if the fire didn't burn he didn't want to +wake up. The marks of that fire are on his hands right in that room +there now, tonight. He saved my hands and feet. He stayed with me +while I was crazy and got me safe to Horsehead. + +"Do you suppose I could ever live long enough to turn that man, +wounded, over to an enemy? He didn't ask me for any shelter after Van +Horn's raid. All he ever asked me for was cartridges--and he got 'em. +He'd get anything I had, and all I had, as long as there was a breath +left in my body, and he asked within reason. And Abe Hawk wouldn't ask +anything more." + +Kate rose from her chair: "I've a great deal to learn about people and +things in this country," she said slowly. "Not all pleasant things," +she added. "I suppose some unpleasant things have to be. Anyway, I'll +ride home tonight better satisfied for coming in." + +"You going home?" he asked. + +She was moving toward the door: "I only hope," she exclaimed, "this +fighting is over." + +"That doesn't rest in my hands. It's no fun for me. You say you're +going to ride home?" + +"There's a moon. I shan't get lost again." + +He was loath to let her get away. At the door he asked if he couldn't +ride a way with her. "I'll get Lefever or Sawdy to stay here while I'm +gone," he urged. + +"No, no." + +"It isn't that they don't want to," he explained. "But the boys felt +kind of bad and went down to the Mountain House. Why not?" + +She regarded him gravely: "One reason is, I'd never get rid of you till +I got home." + +"I'll cross my heart." + +"We might meet somebody. I don't want any more explosions. Let's talk +about something else." + +He asked to go with her to the barn to get her horse. The simplicity +of his urging was hard to resist. "I must tell you something," she +said at last. "If you go with me to the barn we should be seen +together." + +"And you're ashamed of me?" + +"I said I must tell you something," she repeated with emphasis. "Will +you give me a chance?" + +"Go to it." + +She looked at him frankly: "I don't always have the easiest time in the +world at home. And there is always somebody around a big ranch to +bring stories to father about whom I'm seen with. Everybody in town +talks--except Belle. I must just do the best I can till things get +better." + +"Here's hoping that'll be soon." + +"Good-by!" + +"Safe journey." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE FUNERAL--AND AFTER + +The funeral had been set for the following afternoon, but preparations +were going forward all morning. In spite of the brief notice that had +got abroad of Hawk's death, men from many directions were riding into +town that morning to help bury him. A reaction of sentiment concerning +the Falling Wall raid was making itself felt; its brutal ferocity was +being more openly criticized and less covertly denounced. Hawk's +personal popularity had never suffered among the cowboys and the cowboy +following. He had been known far and wide for open-handed generosity +and blunt truthfulness--and these were traits to silence or to soften +reprobation of his fitful and reckless disregard for the property +rights of the big companies. He was a freebooter with most of the +virtues and vices of his kind. But the crowd that morning in Sleepy +Cat was assembling to pay tribute to the man--however far gone wrong. +His virtues they were, no doubt, willing to bury with him; the memory +of his vices would serve some of them when they might need a lawless +precedent. + +Up to the funeral hour the numerous bars of Sleepy Cat were points of +interest for the drinking men. In front of these, reminiscences of the +dead man held heated sway. Some stories pulled themselves together +through the stimulus of deep drinking, others gradually went to pieces +under its bewildering effects, but as long as a man could remember that +he was talking about Abe Hawk or the Falling Wall, his anecdotes were +tolerated. + +Nor were all the men that had come to town to say good-by to Abe, lined +up at the bars. Because Tenison had insisted that it should, Hawk's +body lay during the morning at the Mountain House in the first big +sample room opening off the hotel office. All that the red-faced +undertaker could do to make it presentable in its surroundings had been +done at Harry Tenison's charge. Laramie's protests were ignored: +"You're a poor man, Jim," declared Tenison, "and you can't pay any +bills now for Abe. He thought more of you than he did of any man in +the world. But most of his money he left here with me, upstairs and +down. Abe was stiff-necked as hell, whether it was cards or cattle, +you know that. And it's only some of his money--not mine--I'm turning +back to him. That Dutchman," he added, referring with a contemptuous +oath to the unpopular undertaker of Sleepy Cat, "is a robber, anyhow. +The only way I'll ever get even with him is that he'll drink most of it +up again. I played pinochle with that bar-sinister chap," continued +Tenison, referring to the enemy by the short and ugly word, "all one +night, and couldn't get ten cents out of him--and he half-drunk at +that. What do you know about that? + +"Jim," Tenison changed his tone and his rambling talk suddenly ceased, +"you've not told me rightly yet about Abe." + +Laramie looked up: "Why, Harry," he said quietly, "I told you where I +found him that night--he got out of the creek at Pride's Crossing." + +Tenison shook his head: "But what I want to know is what went on before +he got to Pride's Crossing." + +"Well, I started with him that night for town." + +"That's what you said before," objected Tenison with an impatient +gesture. "What you didn't say is what I want to hear." + +"Harry, I won't try to give you a long line of talk. I can't tell it +all--and I don't want to try to fool you. There's another name in the +story that I don't feel I've got a right to bring in--that's all. Some +day you'll hear it." + +Neither Lefever nor Sawdy could get any more out of Laramie. He showed +the strain of sleeplessness and anxiety. Sawdy kept the crowd away by +answering all questions himself--mostly with an air of reserve, backed +by intimations calculated to lead a man to believe he was really +hearing something, and counter-questions skilfully dropped into the +gravity of the occasion. Those who could not be put off by Sawdy were +turned over to Lefever, who could hypnotize a man by asking questions, +and send him away satisfied, but vacantly speculative as to whether he +was crazy or Lefever was. + +To Lefever also were referred the men arranging the details of the +funeral. Not till two o'clock was the word given for the procession to +move from the Mountain House, but for two hours before that, +horsemen--peers of any in the world--dashed up and down Main Street +before keen-eyed spectators, on business if possible, but always on +display. + +Stage drivers and barnmen from Calabasas and Thief River mingled with +cowboys from the Deep Creek country--for Hawk himself had, years +before, driven on the Spanish Sinks line. From the barn at Sleepy Cat +these men brought out and drafted the old Wells-Fargo stage coach that +Abe had driven on the first trip to the Thief River mines. Six of the +best horses in the barn were to pull it in the procession. These +horses were driven by the oldest man in service on the Calabasas run, +mounted on the near wheel horse with the driver's seat on the box empty +and covered with wreaths of flowers. Old-time Indians from the +Reservation who had known Hawk when he first went into the Falling Wall +country, were down to see him buried; they rode behind the cowboys. + +At two o'clock the roundhouse whistle blew a long blast. It was taken +up by the engines in the yard and those of an overland train pulling +out; and the procession, long and picturesque, moved from the hotel. +Laramie, Tenison, Lefever and Sawdy rode abreast, behind the hearse, +and as the procession moved down Main Street, the cowboys chanted the +songs of the bunkhouse and the campfire, the range and the round-up. + +"My God!" exclaimed Carpy when it was all over, "if Sleepy Cat could do +that much for a thief, what would it do for an honest man?" With Sawdy +and Lefever, the doctor sat at a table in the billiard room of the +Mountain House. Tenison and Laramie sat near them. + +"Not what they did for Abe," averred John Lefever promptly, "and don't +you forget it. But I don't call Abe Hawk a thief--never. Abe was a +freebooter born out of time and place. He called himself a thief--he +wasn't one. He hadn't the first instincts of one--no secrecy, no dark +night stuff, no lying. He never denied a raid if he made one. And +never did worse when the big cattlemen protested, than to tell them to +go to hell. He had a bunch of old Barb's calves branded along with his +own one year: 'Well, you're the coolest rustler in the Falling Wall,' I +says to him. 'They're my share of Barb's spring drop,' was all he +said. You know he lent Barb all his savings one year--that was when he +used to save money, before his wife died. He never got a red cent of +it back, never even asked for it. But when he wanted money he'd drive +off some of Barb's steers. Yes, Abe stole cattle, I admit; yet I don't +call him a thief--not today, anyway," said John, raising his glass. +"Why, if Abe Hawk owed a man a hundred dollars he'd pay him if he had +to steal every cow in the Falling Wall to do it. But take a hoof from +a poor man!" he went on, freshened, "The poor men all used to run to +Abe when Dutch Henry or Stormy Gorman branded their calves. They'd +yell fire and murder. And Abe would make the blamed thieves drive +their calves back! You know that, Jim." Lefever between breaths threw +the appeal for confirmation across at Laramie who sat moodily listening +and trying without success to interest himself in a drink that stood +untouched before him. + +Laramie made no response. "Have it your own way, John," nodded Carpy +tolerantly, "have it your own way. But whatever they say against old +Barb, the man ain't livin' that can say a word against his girl--not +while I'm in hearing. And I'll tell you, you could have knocked me +over with a feather when I seen her this afternoon and she bound to +ride in that procession behind Abe Hawk." + +"What do you mean?" asked Lefever. + +"I mean riding to the graveyard," insisted Carpy. + +"What are you talking about?" demanded Lefever, to bring out the story. +"You never saw it." + +"I'll tell you what I saw." Only those who knew Laramie well could +have told how keenly he was listening. "I drove down Hill Street," +said the doctor, "just after the funeral started, and sat there, quiet, +to one side, waiting for it to pass; a doctor's got no business around +funerals. Right then, Kate Doubleday pulled up close to me on +horseback. She was just from the trail, that was sure; her horse +showed the pace and the girl was excited--I seen that when she spoke to +me. 'Doctor'--then she hesitated. 'Is that Abe Hawk's funeral?' 'It +is,' I says. She looked at it and kept looking at it. The tail-end of +the procession was passing Hill Street. I noticed the girl bite her +lip; she was as restless as her horse. 'Doctor,' she says, hesitating +just the same way the second time, 'do you think people would think it +awfully strange if I--rode to the cemetery with them?' + +"I never was more dashed in my life. 'Well,' I says, 'I expect they +would, Kate.' 'I feel as if I ought to do it,' she says. 'Don't do it +for the fun of the thing, Kate. The boys wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,' +she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for +doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't +think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she +says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,' +says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never +went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? I +can't ride alone; all the rest are men.' 'Dog gone it! Come over to +the barn,' says I, 'till I get a horse.' + +"That's the way it happened. + +"When we got to the graveyard we kept back to one side. All the same, +she saw the whole thing. But just the minute the boys turned from the +grave, away we went down the hill lickety-cut. We took the back +streets till we struck the divide road, and she turned for home. When +we stopped there, she says: 'Doctor, tell me the truth: Did Abe Hawk +drown?' 'No,' I says, 'he didn't drown. I reckon he strained himself. +Anyway, one of his wounds opened up. The old man bled to death." + + +Laramie felt no inclination that night to go home. In his depression, +he could think only of Kate Doubleday and reflect that the years were +passing while he faced the future without an aim, and life without an +outlook. + +It was not the first time this conviction had forced itself on him. +And it was getting harder and harder, he realized, to shake it off. +But tonight, talk served in some degree as an anodyne, and he sat with +the idlers late. The one bit of news that did stir him in his torpor +was that Kate Doubleday had had at least the feeling to appear at the +funeral of the man who, though rightly regarded as her father's enemy, +had, Laramie knew, let go his own life, without a thought, to save hers. + +This was the last reflection on his mind before he went to sleep that +night. It was the first when he woke. Late in the morning he was +sitting in Belle Shockley's at breakfast when McAlpin walked in. + +"Jim," exclaimed the excitable barn boss, "I got a word this morning +from the Falling Wall." + +Laramie regarded him evenly, but did not speak till McAlpin looked +inquiringly toward Belle: "No secrets here, Mac," he said briefly. + +"Probably couldn't keep 'em from a woman if you tried," returned +McAlpin, grinning. He pointed calmly toward the kitchen: "If we're all +alone here----" + +"Go ahead," intervened Belle impatiently, "we are." + +"Punk Budd brought the stage from the Reservation this morning. Coming +down the Turkey he met Van Horn. They had a bunch of Barb's boys with +them driving in some cattle." + +"Whose cattle?" + +"Punk says when he run into 'em they was roundin' up yours." + +"Was Punk sober?" asked Laramie. + +"He sure was," replied McAlpin. + +Belle, with folded arms, stood in the archway immovable as a statue; +McAlpin sat in silence; Laramie, continuing his breakfast, looked only +at his plate. The silence grew heavy, but two of the three had no +reason to break it and the third did not choose to. + +Laramie, at length, took up his coffee, and, drinking slowly, finished +the cup. Setting this down, he wiped his lips and looked at McAlpin. + +"Much obliged, Mac," he said, laying down his napkin. + +McAlpin regarded him inquiringly: "What you going to do about it, Jim?" +he demanded, when he saw Laramie would say no word. + +Laramie pushed back his chair: "What would you do?" + +McAlpin spoke seriously: "I'm askin' you." + +"I can tell better after I know more about it, Mac." + +The barn boss evidently thought Laramie was taking the news too +quietly. He was for violent measures but Laramie calmed him. "If +they've got any of my cattle, they won't run away," said he, "and they +won't blow up. They'll keep, and I'll get them back--every hoof. I'm +riding home this morning, anyway, so I'll be over after my horse in a +minute." + +McAlpin went away somewhat disappointed. Laramie only laughed when he +talked it over with Belle: "So long as they don't burn my place, I can +stand it," he said, philosophically. + +Nevertheless, he felt disturbed at McAlpin's news--not for its +substance so much as for what it might note in renewed warfare. +Getting his horse, he followed the railroad right of way out of town +and struck out upon open country toward the north. He had no intention +of taking the direct road home; that had long become dangerous, and he +rode along abandoned cattle trails. At times he struck, swiftly and +straight, across open country, at times disappeared completely in +favoring canyons, and emerging again, headed winding draws up to the +divide--any ground that carried him in his general direction was good +ground. + +He tried always to be thinking just what the other fellow must be +thinking as to favorable points to pick a man off--the fellow patiently +waiting with a rifle day after day in ambush for him. And not having +gone home of late twice by the same route, he meant to keep the other +fellow continually guessing. Today, he was somewhat handicapped, in +that he was riding in broad daylight instead of in the dawn or in the +twilight when the uncertain light made it more difficult with the fine +sights of a Winchester or Savage to cover a distant man. + +This hazard, however, called only for a little more precaution, which +Laramie did not begrudge to the pride of disappointing an enemy. At +points in his route where the main road could not well be avoided, he +rode faster and with quickened circumspection. The Double-draw bridge +he could not avoid without a long and difficult detour. Moreover, +there, or beyond, he might expect to intercept the raiding party, and +this was his business. + +He did, however, approach the Double-draw bridge with an uncertainty +and a caution not reflected in the pace which he rode toward it; but +his horse was under close control and his rifle carefully in hand. + +Despite his misgivings, no enemy was sighted. Only a flight of bank +swallows, disturbed by the footfalls of his horse, darted noisily from +their nests under the south bridge abutment and scattered twenty ways +in the sunshine. Spurring freely, as they flew away, Laramie galloped +briskly across the bottoms and up the hill. Skirting the long trail +toward home, he rode on without meeting a living soul or hearing the +unwelcome singing of a bullet. + +In fact, things were too quiet; the silence and the absence of any sort +of life as he approached his ranch were a surprise. The few head of +cattle and horses he usually met, when riding home along the creek, +were nowhere to be seen. Evidently the raid had been made. To survey +the whole scene without exposing himself, Laramie rode out of the +tangle along the creek bottom and took the first draw that would bring +him out among the southern hills. As he emerged from the narrow gorge, +his eyes turned in the direction of the house. But where the house +should be he saw above the green field, only a black spot with little +patches of white smoke drifting lazily up from it into the still +sunshine. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +AN ENCOUNTER + +Kate awoke the morning after Hawk's funeral with a confused sense of +having consorted with her father's enemies; and of trying to justify +herself for having done what she had felt compelled to do to answer her +sense of self-respect. + +And all this before anyone had accused her. But being extremely +dubious as to how her father would take her conduct, she was not only +ill at ease until she should meet him, but glad he had been away. And +it was something of a shock to her that morning to find his bedroom +door closed; it meant that during the night he had unexpectedly come +home. + +After her breakfast she walked down to the corral to talk to Bradley +about the saddle horses. Not that she had anything to suggest, but +because she was nervous. Laramie was intruding more and more into her +mind; every time she banished him he returned, frequently bringing +someone else with him. Between the perplexities and the men that beset +her, Kate was not happy. And when, after a ramble along the creek, she +returned to the house, she was not surprised to find that her father, +coming from the breakfast table, hardly responded to her greeting. He +was much engrossed in cutting off the end of a cigar as he passed her +and in walking to the fireplace to find a match. + +But the matches were not on the mantelpiece, where they belonged, and +this annoyed him. If he said nothing, it did not deceive Kate as to +his feelings. She hastened to hand him the matchbox from the table. +He took it without saying a word, but he slammed it back to its +accustomed place with a silent and ominous emphasis. + +She knew it was coming. What surprised her was that she felt no +further inclination to shrink from the moment of reckoning she dreaded. +Doubleday, his cigar lighted, seated himself in his heavy chair beside +the fireplace. + +"What kind of a trip had you, father?" Kate, as she asked, made a +pretense of arranging the papers and magazines on the table. + +There was little promise of amiability in her father's answer; "What +d'y' mean," he asked. + +"Did you get your notes extended?" + +"Yes." His heavy jaw and teeth, after the word, snapped like a steel +trap. "Did you go to Abe Hawk's funeral?" He flung the question at +her like a hammer. + +"Were you told I did?" Kate asked. + +"Rode to the graveyard with him, didn't you?" + +Kate saw there was no use softening her words: "Father," she said +instantly and firmly, "the night I came out from town in the storm I +got lost. I got on the wrong side of the creek. My horse gave out; I +was dead with the cold." + +Her father flung his cigar into the fire: "What's that got to do with +it?" he broke in harshly. + +"Just wait a moment." + +"I don't want any long-winded story." + +"I won't tell any." + +"I won't listen to you," he shouted. "Answer my question." + +Her eyes kindled: "You may call it whatever you like, but you will +listen to my answer in the way I make it. When I'd given up hope of +saving my life, and my horse was drifting, he fell into a dugout. And +in the dugout were two men--Abe Hawk and Jim Laramie. They thought +there was a party of men with me. They seized me. They got ready to +fight. I was at their mercy." + +"What dugout?" demanded Doubleday. His husky tone seemed to indicate +he was cooling a little; the question took her off her guard. + +"At the old mine bridge." + +A flash of cunning lighted her father's eyes. The curtain fell +instantly, but not before Kate had seen. "When they questioned me," +she hurried on, "I told them what had happened. They believed me. +They rode with me back to the creek. We swam our horses across. Mine +couldn't make the bank. Abe Hawk pulled me out and Laramie saved my +horse. But the bank caved in with Hawk when he pulled me out of the +creek and the next thing I heard, he was dead. I didn't go to his +funeral except to ride to the cemetery in the procession. Father, +could I do any less?" she demanded, wrought up. + +Barb's harsh, red features never looked less uncompromising: "D' you +expect me to believe that stuff?" he asked, regarding her coldly. She +only eyed him as he eyed her: "D' you expect anybody to believe it?" he +continued, to drive in his contempt. + +Kate turned white. When she spoke, her words were measured: "Oh, no," +she said quietly. "I don't expect you any more to believe anything I +say. Those other men would believe me when they had me at their +mercy--when they might have choked or shot me or thrown me into the +Falling Wall canyon--they only believed me. But my own father--he +couldn't believe me----" + +Neither appeal nor reproach moved her father; his mind was fixed. Van +Horn had been sarcastic over Kate's escapade; Barb's own men were +laughing at him. He interrupted Kate: "Pack up your things," he said +ruthlessly. + +She faced her father without flinching: "What do you mean?" she asked. + +He tossed his head with as little concern as if he were discharging a +cowboy: "Don't want you around here any longer," he snapped. "Pack up. +Get out." + +She looked at him in silence. Perhaps, as she turned defiantly away +and walked to her room, she thought of the man that had deserted her +mother when she herself was a baby in her mother's arms. At any rate, +anger fortified her against the shock. Her preparations were soon +made. A trunk held all she wished to take. She asked Bradley to get +up her pony. Bradley was hitched up for a trip to Sleepy Cat and, +putting her trunk in the wagon, was on the road ahead of Kate. She +spent a little time in straightening up her room and shortly afterwards +rode down the trail for town. + +Absorbed in thoughts tinged with bitterness and anger, she rode toward +the creek as if casting things up again and again in her mind, but +reaching no conclusion. When her horse struck the Sleepy Cat road he +turned into it because he was used to doing so, not because she guided +him. In this haphazard way she was jogging on, her eyes fixed on +nothing more encouraging than the storm-worn ruts along her way when a +shout startled her. Looking up, she saw she was nearing the lower gate +of the alfalfa patch and across the road a party of horsemen had +stopped Bradley with the wagon. She recognized Harry Van Horn--his +smart hat, erect figure and scarlet neckcloth would have identified him +before she could distinguish his features; and he always rode the best +horse. Stone and three of the Texas men were with him. With the +exception of Van Horn, they had dismounted, and with their drooping +horses close at hand were stacking their rifles against the gate and +yelling at Bradley. + +Swinging his hat, Van Horn dashed toward Kate just as she looked up +and, whipping out his revolver, pulled his horse to its haunches +directly in front of her: "You're held up!" he cried. + +The shock on her reverie was sudden and Kate was too confused and +frightened to speak. + +"You can't get by without giving up your tobacco, girlie," Van Horn ran +on in sing-song raillery. "Shell out!" He held out his left hand for +the spoil and poised his gun high--a picture of life and dash. "You +see what's happening to Bradley." The cowboys, in great feather, were +dragging the old man with mock violence from the wagon. + +Kate recovered her breath: "What's it all about?" she asked. + +Van Horn put away his gun. He was in very good humor as he glanced +over at the boys crowding around Bradley: "They want tobacco," he +laughed. + +"Oh." + +"You know what I want." + +Kate regarded his expectancy unmoved: "How should I know?" she asked, +chilling her question with indifference. + +"Because," he exclaimed, sweeping back with a flourish the brim of his +hat, "I want you." + +She eyed him without a tremor and responded without hesitation: "Well, +I can say you will never get me if that's all you want." + +He laughed again: "Talk it over with me, Kate; talk it over." + +His eyes, always bright and liquid, were a little inflamed. Still +laughing, he glanced toward the wagon. The boys were boisterous. Kate +could hear Bradley's voice in shrill protest: "What'd I be goin' to +town f'r, if I had a bottle?" he was demanding angrily. But, while she +looked and listened, Van Horn slipped quickly from his saddle and +caught her bridle rein: "Come on," he said, at her horse's head, "let's +walk down to the creek, girlie, and talk it all over." + +Kate was indignant: "I won't walk anywhere----" + +"I'll carry you." + +She suppressed an angry word: "I'm on my way to town," she exclaimed. +"Let go my bridle!" She struck her horse. The beast jumped ahead. +Van Horn, laughing, held on. But the shock jerked him almost from his +feet. As he staggered forward, clinging to the rearing animal, the +half-muffled report of a revolver was heard. Almost like a +thunderbolt, it changed the situation. One of the Texas men had fired +in the air, but no one had seen him fire and the other Texans jumped +like longhorns. Stone, clapping his hand to his holster, whirled from +the wagon wheel. Kate, frightened more than ever, struck her horse +again; the bridle was jerked from Van Horn's hand and he turned +sharply. Quickest to grasp what he saw as his eye swept the road, he +yelled: "Look out, boys! There's Laramie!" + +The words were not out of his mouth when Kate caught sight of a man +down the road leaping from a horse. As the rider touched the ground he +slapped his pony's shoulder and the beast dropped flat. The man, rifle +in hand, threw himself behind the prostrate animal and Kate heard his +brusque yell to Van Horn and the Texans: "Pitch up!" + +It would have been hard to say who was most astonished. Laramie +evidently was not expecting an encounter. To dash on horseback into +any five men on foot, of the enemy's camp, was the last thing he would +be likely to attempt. If he did attempt it, he would never choose Van +Horn or Stone to be of the party. The ground about the scene was flat, +or only slightly rolling, with the branch road and its old ruts running +across it. Caught squarely in the open and without a sagebrush for +cover, he had been forced to drop behind his horse for shelter. Lying +flat and covering Van Horn and the men with his rifle, he awaited the +unpleasant odds against him. + +The situation of the five men in front was even worse. Their rifles +were stacked against the gate hardly a dozen feet away. But to run a +gauntlet of a dozen feet against Laramie's rifle fire was a feat none +had stomach for, nor were they ready at a hundred yards to pit +revolvers against it. One of them might get him but they knew it would +be after some of the others had practically ceased to be interested in +the result. + +The minds of the Texas men were perfectly clear; their hands shot up +like rockets. Stone had taken one big step toward the gate post--he +changed his mind, halted and his hands went up at the very instant +Laramie changed _his_ mind, and did not press the trigger against the +burly outline darkening the field of his sights. Van Horn, caught, +stood helpless and enraged--humiliated in circumstances he least +relished for humiliation. Everybody's hands were up. His one chance, +Van Horn realized, was to use his Colt's against the Winchester behind +the prostrate horse--it was not a living chance and no one knew it +better than he; his hands moved grudgingly up to his shoulders and he +sang out savagely: "What the blazes do you want?" + +There was no answer from Laramie. To add to a difficult situation, +Kate's horse, nervous from the shouting and catching its mistress's own +fright, jumped and bucked till she was halfway down the road toward +Laramie before she could check him. To add to her confusion, words +came from ahead just loud enough for her to hear: "Pull the blamed +brute to one side, will you?" It was Laramie speaking, she knew. "If +he gets between me and that bunch," she heard him say, "I'm a goner." +She jerked her horse violently out of the road; Laramie had raised his +voice and kept right on talking: "Turn your back, Van Horn--you, too, +Stone. Shoot up your hands, you Texas--higher!" he called to one of +the Texans. And with the words not out of his mouth, he leaped as if +on springs to his feet. It seemed as if his rifle covered his enemies +all the time, even while he was doing it. + +With his head forward, his elbows high and the Winchester laid against +his cheek; stepping like a cat, and swiftly and with his eyes fixed on +the men ahead, Laramie walked toward the wagon. In doing so he +approached Kate, whose horse had subsided. Laramie took no note of +her. She only heard his words as he passed: "You'd better get out of +this." Approaching his prisoners in such a way they could not reach +either the gate or the wagon without crossing his fire, Laramie +compelled Bradley, really nothing loath, to disarm the three cowboys in +turn and drop their guns into the wagonbox. Stone, sullen, was +gingerly approached by Bradley, under strict orders to keep out of +reach of his arms. But the old man knew all the tricks of the play +being staged, even though he was not able to turn them. And when +Stone, cursing, was ordered to lower his right arm and hand his +revolver to Bradley at arm's length, the old man's feet were planted at +least six feet from the foreman for a jump-away in case Stone tried to +clinch him and shoot at Laramie from behind Bradley's cover. + +But after he was disarmed, Laramie was not through with Stone. Sullen +and obdurate, he was ordered to face away, while Bradley from behind +searched his pockets. And the crown of his abasement was reached when +Bradley drew from a hip pocket a full flask of whisky. The material +advantage of the find was not great, but the tactical advantage was +enormous. Behind Stone, Bradley silently but jeeringly held it up as +an exhibit for the thirsty Texas men; and to show it was full, uncorked +and with gusto sampled it. Stone was ordered back to his horse. + +"How long is this joke, Laramie?" sang out Van Horn, his humor oozing. +"Can't you frisk a few cowboys in less than all day?" + +"When I frisk a pair of cut-throats with them, it's different." + +"Well, don't waste your valuable time on me. This is your +innings--I'll wait for mine." + +"Drop your gun to the ground," returned Laramie. "Pick that up, Bill," +he added to Bradley as Van Horn threw his revolver contemptuously from +its holster. He was searched with the same scrupulous care by old +Bradley, his morale greatly strengthened by Stone's flask: "I don't +give a d--n whether you get me or not," he retorted at Van Horn, in +answer to a low threat from his victim. + +Laramie having told Van Horn to mount, turned to the Texas men: "Which +one of you boys wants to carry the rifles over to that big cottonwood +for me?" he asked, pointing toward the creek. + +"I do," responded the nearest man, promptly. + +"Don't you do it, Tex," called out Stone. + +The Texan eyed his foreman: "Why not?" he demanded. "Ain't I been +ridin' this country all day with a man squealin' for a drink as loud as +I was, an' had his pocket full of it all the time? I'm through with my +job." + +Laramie broke in without losing the precious moment: "Who set my house +on fire, Tex?" he demanded. + +The Texan nodded in Stone's direction: "Ask him." + +"He'd lie, Tex; I'm askin' you." + +The rawboned horseman hesitated: "I'll talk that over with you when I'm +rested," he drawled. + +"Go get your Colt's out of the wagon, Tex." Laramie pointed the way. +"Pick out the guns of the other two boys and tote them over to that +tree with you. The boys'll ride over there after you. Tell Barb I'll +give him twenty-four hours to get every hoof, round or split, that +belongs to me back to the Falling Wall--failing which I'll be over to +talk to him privately. Will you do that, Tex?" + +"I sure will." + +"These rustlers here," he looked toward Stone and Van Horn, "won't be +able to carry messages for awhile. They're ridin' to town with me. +Bill," he added, turning to Bradley, "dump their rifles into the wagon +and follow on along." + +"What's this?" snapped Van Horn with an oath. "Going to town with you! +Not on your life." + +"You're headed for jail tonight, Harry; that's all. You boys," he +spoke to the Texans and gave no heed to the oaths and abuse from Van +Horn, "ride down to the cottonwood and get your guns from Tex. There's +two good trails from here to town and plenty of room on both. Today +I'm riding the Double-draw bridge. If any of you are going to town, +take the other trail. Lead off now, you two." + +He spoke to Van Horn and Stone, both mounted, and with the two headed +for town, and the Texans started up the road, Laramie climbed into his +own saddle. Not until then did he look around for Kate. She had +disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +A MESSAGE FROM TENISON + +Speeding in a panic from what she feared might happen behind her at any +moment; soon out of sight of the scene, but with ears pitched for the +sound of a shot, and a volley of shots; her head swimming with +excitement and her heart beating a roll in her breast, Kate urged her +horse down the road. + +And Belle's silence, her enigmatic face as she listened later to the +story only convinced Kate that her own apprehensions of trouble were +well founded. "It's coming," was all she could get Belle to mutter, as +Belle hobbled on a lame foot at meal time between the table and the +stove, "but nobody can say when or where." Both the women could tell +even earlier than this, from McAlpin's intimations, from watching +groups of men in the street and from the way in which those who could +have no direct interest in the affairs of the Falling Wall country were +hurrying to and fro, that Laramie had reached town with his prisoners +and was busy getting them jailed. + +Kate, stunned by her father's utter coldness in casting her out, did +not want to talk about it. She had left home resolved to tell Belle +everything, despite the humiliating shame of the recital. But the +excitement of the ride and the stir in the town were excuses enough to +put off explaining. It was possible that her father might become as +ashamed of himself as she was of him--in which event, nothing said +would be best. + +But when Bradley stopped the ranch wagon before Belle's cottage door +with Kate's suitcase and trunk, something was needed to satisfy Belle. +Kate's intimation that she should spend a few days in town, and might +be called East was somewhat disjointed, but at the moment, enough. +Bradley, however, after unloading the trunk and while Belle stood +wondering, reappeared at the door with two rifles. + +"Lord A'mighty, man!" cried Belle, already stirred, "what're you doing +with them rifles?" + +Bradley tried to placate his nervous questioner: "I'm just leavin' 'em +here, Belle, while I go down 'n' get a load o' feed," he explained with +dignity. + +"Don't you believe you're leavin' any rifles here, Bill Bradley. This +is nobody's arsenal, I want you to know." + +"Why, Belle, they belong t' the ranch," remonstrated Bradley. + +"What's that got to do with it?" she exclaimed, turning from the door +and shutting it vigorously in Bradley's face as he stood discomfited. +"I wonder if everybody's going crazy in this country." + +On this point Kate entertained convictions that she did not express. +She was only glad that Belle's curiosity, usually robust enough +concerning ranch happenings, was now under more engrossing pressure. + +Concerning what was setting the town ablaze that day, only confused +echoes reached the secluded women; and chiefly through the butcher, +between whom and Belle a tacit armistice was soon in effect. Chops +were slashed ruthlessly as he revealed details of what was going on, +and the patent block shook under the savage blows of the cleaver while +the butcher hinted at things more momentous to come. From him, Belle +learned that Van Horn and Stone had been held somewhere up at Tenison's +incommunicado, by Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie, opposed by the +cattlemen's lawyer, was demanding from Justice Druel warrants for his +prisoners; and that after they had reluctantly been issued, Sheriff +Druel had pigeon-holed them until Tenison, backing Laramie, had told +Druel after a big row, he would run him out of town if he didn't take +his prisoners to jail. + +It was five o'clock when the butcher, instead of sending over the boy, +brought the meat for supper himself: "They're locked up," he said in a +terse undertone, as he handed his package to Belle. "There was a big +bunch up there when they was put in. Some of 'em talked pretty loud +about a jail delivery. Laramie stood right there to see they went into +their cells and they went." + +"Were you there?" demanded Belle. + +"I was." + +"What did Laramie say?" + +"All he said to Druel was: 'If you don't keep 'em locked up, Druel, I +take no responsibility for what happens.' I come all the way from the +jail with Laramie myself," recited the butcher; "walked right alongside +him and Harry Tenison down t' the hotel." + +"Well, if you walked so far with him, is he coming here for supper?" + +The butcher was taken aback: "How in thunder should I know?" he blurted +out. + +"There you go, slamming away with your blasphemy again. Couldn't you +ask him?" + +"Why, yes, Belle, I reckon I could. Maybe I can. Say!" he returned +after starting down the steps, to point to the package in her hand, +"there's a mess o' sweetbreads in there for you." + +"Shucks! I can't use sweetbreads tonight, Heinie." + +"Throw 'em away then. A present, ain't they? Nobody in town eats 'em +but you." + +Kate unfortunately suggested braizing the sweetbreads for Sawdy and +Lefever. + +"What?" exclaimed Belle. "Men don't eat sweetbreads, don't you know +that? You've got to give 'em steak--round steak and the tougher the +better--tough as cowhide and fried to tears. They'd be insulted. +Lefever and Sawdy won't be here tonight, anyway. They're in Medicine +Bend on an Indian case. All I'm wondering is, whether Jim's coming." + +But Laramie did not come--greatly to Kate's relief. He spent the night +at the hotel and left town early. Next morning when Belle heard the +news of the street she was thankful he had gone, for it was said that +Van Horn and Stone were out of jail. Barb had been summoned in the +night by the lawyers, and next day the prisoners were out on bail. + +Laramie had made no secret of his riding north, except that, in the +circumstances, he preferred to ride the night trail rather than the day +trail. He wanted to look up his cattle and see Simeral and he thought +he knew Barb well enough to be sure the stock would be sent back very +promptly in as bad condition as possible. + +He got to his ranch in good time. There were no signs of life +anywhere. Riding about noon over to Simeral's he found his shack +empty. But he hunted up food and cooked himself a breakfast. + +While he was eating peacefully at Simeral's, Van Horn was with Stone +and Doubleday, the three breakfasting in the back room of a Main Street +saloon. Just what took place at that breakfast was not figured out for +a long time afterward, if it really ever was. But the street heard +that Van Horn and Doubleday had had a quarrel at breakfast and that +Doubleday in a rage had turned the prisoners over to the sheriff and +asked to be released from his bail bond. + +No news more exciting could have reached Belle Shockley. She heard the +story up street and ran halfway home to tell Kate, who remained in +seclusion. Kate herself was not less excited; the news meant so much +if it were true, and the butcher confirmed it beyond a doubt. By +nightfall everybody knew that Van Horn and Stone were locked up again. + +One man in town was not altogether at ease over the day's developments. +Tenison spent much time that afternoon in the hotel billiard room, it +being the best clearing house for the street gossip. + +He tried more than once during the afternoon to get hold of Kitchen or +Carpy--neither was in town--and with the day drawing to a close, +Tenison's restlessness increased. He was standing late in the evening +near a favorite corner at the upper end of the bar and above the +billiard tables, when among the crowd drifting in and out of the room +he caught sight of Ben Simeral. Tenison lost no time. Without moving, +he asked the nearest bartender to take a message to the old rancher. +And when Simeral passed through the door leading into the hotel, +Tenison was behind him. He followed Simeral into the office and back +past the wash room, through the hallway leading to the sample rooms. +Opening the door of the first of these, Tenison pressed a light button, +and motioning Simeral to enter, followed him into the room, closed the +door, locked it, and sat down facing the rancher: "I want to get a +message to Jim Laramie, Ben," he began at once. "You know what's been +going on here today?" + +The old rancher nodded silently. + +"Can you ride to the Falling Wall for me right away with a word for +Laramie?" + +Simeral said nothing, but his heavy eyes closed as he nodded again. + +"Laramie's gone home. He thinks Van Horn is in jail. The story is," +continued Tenison, "that Van Horn and old Barb quarreled, that they +came to blows and that Barb turned Stone and him over to Druel again to +lock up." Tenison spoke slowly and impressively: "Tell Laramie," he +said, "I copper all that stuff--every bit of it. Tell him to look out. +I don't know what them fellows have got in their heads; but it's +something. Van Horn won't be in jail long." + +"He's out again now." + +Tenison eyed his messenger steadily: "What do you mean?" + +"I just come from Hinchcliffe's saloon. They've been out an hour." + +Hard as the blow struck home, Tenison did not bat a lash: "We may be +too late," he said. "It's worth trying. Warn Jim if you can." + +"I can." + +"There'll be a good horse for you at Kitchen's. Ask McAlpin for it. +Tell him I couldn't get hold of a man any quicker. Will Jim sleep at +your place tonight?" + +Simeral shook his head: "No tellin'." + +Tenison rose. Drawing from a trousers pocket a roll of bills, he +slipped off several and passed them to Simeral. + +"What's this f'r?" asked Simeral, looking at the money as it lay across +his hand and then at Tenison. + +The gambler regarded him evenly: "You're getting old, Ben." + +"Not when it comes to doin' a turn f'r Jim." + +Tenison literally swore the money on him. "Ride hard," he said. "An +hour may make the difference." + +Simeral listened to the injunction but he was putting the money away as +slowly and carefully as if he never expected to see money again. This +done, he hitched his trousers, shifted his quid, pushed his hat and +followed Tenison across the room. He was so slow that Tenison was +forced inwardly to smile at his own exasperation: "Never get nervous, +do you, Ben?" he asked imperturbably. + +"Nervous?" + +Tenison, unlocking the street door of the long room, only stood by with +his hand outstretched to speed his laggard messenger. The old man +stepped out into the night. Tenison, looking after him, shook his head +doubtfully. But he was doing what he could and he knew that though the +old fellow walked slow, once in a saddle, he could ride fast; and that +for Laramie, he would do it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE CANYON OF THE FALLING WALL + +Laramie, after disposing of his prisoners, had ridden north with less +of a hunted feeling experienced every time he mentally inventoried the +rocks commanding the trail, the boulders looming ahead of him, and the +cottonwoods through which he wound his way along the creek bottoms. +And when at length he looked across Turkey creek, he was not surprised +to see his cows straying down the hills toward their own range. + +Even the bitter sight of the ruins of his cabin bore upon him less now +that he had put Van Horn actually in jail for the trick. "You can't +keep him there long," Tenison had cynically warned him. + +"I've put the mark on him, if he's only there overnight," had been +Laramie's reply. "He'll be a long time explaining. And I want you to +notice, Harry, with all the fighting they've put me to, they've never +got me locked up yet--not for a second. I guess for that," he added, +reflecting, "I ought to thank my friends." + +Never so much as that day had he realized how every aspect of his +situation, as he viewed it, was colored by the thought of Kate +Doubleday. If he were determined that despite any intrigue worked +against him, he would never be locked up alive on a trumped-up charge, +it was chiefly because of the disgrace of such a thing in her eyes. If +he avoided opportunities now of finishing with Van Horn, he knew it was +chiefly because of her. She would probably never see that finish, but +she would hear the story of it from his enemies. Laramie was not at +any time thinking merely of being justified in the last resort, nor of +the justification of his friends, which would in any case be his. But +what would Kate think? + +Yet he knew what was ahead of him; he knew what lay at the end of the +trail he and Van Horn were traveling. Lawing, as Sleepy Cat +contemptuously termed it, was the least of it all and the most +futile--yet in thinking of the other, her judgment was what he dreaded. +This bore on him and perplexed him. It had, more than all else, put +two little vertical furrows between his eyebrows; they were there often +of late. Suppression of the feeling that had always and irresistibly +drawn him toward her, had only intensified this worry. His pride had +suffered at her hands; yet he made excuses for her--he had no high +opinion of himself, of his general reputation--and had built dreams on +the fanciful imagining that she should, despite everything, some day +like him. He wearied his brain in recalling a chance expression of her +eyes that could not have been unfriendly; an inflection of her voice +that might have carried a hope, if only their paths had been less +crossed: and his pride, despite rebuffs, sought her as a moth seeks a +flame. It drew him to her and kept him from her, for he lacked for the +first time in his life the boldness to stake everything on the turn of +a card, and ask Kate to marry him. + +Simeral had told him that John Frying Pan saw the cabin burning, and +Laramie rode up to his place on the Reservation to talk with him. +Failing to find him at home, Laramie left word with his wife and turned +south. It was then late. The trail had taken him high up in the +mountains and he made up his mind to ride over to the old bridge, stay +for the night, pick up the few things he had left there and take them +over to Simeral's in the morning. + +Night had fallen when riding in easy fashion he reached the rim of the +canyon and made his way from foothold to foothold until he came to an +open ledge with grass and water for his horse, near the abutment. +Leaving him in this spot, Laramie, carrying his rifle, climbed by a +zig-zag footpath up a hundred feet to the shelter and rolled himself in +a blanket for the night. + +He woke at what he believed to be near midnight. The night was cold +and he began to think about something to eat. With the aid of a candle +he found bacon cached under a crevice in a baking-powder can near his +bunk, and found some splinters of wood. These he laid for an early +breakfast fire and wrapped himself again in his blanket. He had closed +his eyes for another nap when a sound arrested his attention; it was +the rumbling of a small piece of rock tumbling into the canyon. + +Nothing was more common than for fragments, great and small, of the +splintered canyon walls to loosen and start in the silence of the +night. As mountain trees withstand the winter winds only to fall in +summer calms, so it seemed as if the masses of rock that hung poised on +the canyon rim through countless storms, chose the stillest hour of the +stillest night to ride like avalanches the headlong slopes, plunge over +dizzy cliffs and crash and sprawl in dying thunders from ledge to ledge +into the river below. All these noises, big and little, were familiar +to Laramie's ears. He could hear them in his sleep without losing the +thread of a dream; but the echo of a single footstep would bring him up +sitting. + +The sound that now caught his attention had a still different effect. +Listening, he lay motionless in his blanket with every faculty keyed; +had a man at that moment stood before him reading his death warrant, he +could not have been more awake. The noise was slight; only a small +fragment of rock had fallen and the echoes of its journey were lost +almost at once; it was the beginning of the sound that he was thinking +of--the noise had not started right. He thought of the four-footed +prowlers of the night and as a cause eliminated them one after another. +He thought of his horse below--it was not where such a sound could +start. But always slow to imagine a mystery when a reason could be +assigned, Laramie, lying prone, was brought back every time to his +first instinctive inference. Numberless times when tramping the canyon +walls, his foot slipping before he recovered his balance had dislodged +a bit of loose rock. He knew that sound too well and it was such a +sound he had just heard. Behind the sound he suspected there was a man. + +He tried long to reason himself out of the conviction. For an hour he +lay perfectly still, waiting for some further alarm. There was none +and the night was never stiller. Nor was there any haste, even if it +should prove the worst, about meeting the situation. He was caught not +like a rat in a trap but like a man in a blind canyon, with ample means +of defense and none of escape except through a gauntlet. No enemy +could molest him where he lay, but he could not lie there indefinitely. +And with little ammunition and scarcely any food or water, he had no +mind to stand a siege. + +If his enemies had actually discovered his retreat and put a watch on +him, he must in any event wait for the first peep of daylight. The one +chance of escape lay down and not up, and the descent of the canyon was +not to be made in complete darkness. A moon would have been a godsend. +It would have made things easy, if such a word could be used of the +situation; but there was no moon. Acting on his premonition as if it +had been an assurance, Laramie, at the end of a long and silent vigil, +rolled out of his blanket to save his life if he could. He lighted his +breakfast fire and fried his bacon unconcernedly. He could neither be +rushed nor potted and if there was a touch of insolent bravado in his +seeming carelessness he was well aware that while the appetizing odors +of a good breakfast would not tantalize an enemy believing himself +master of the situation, it would make him believe he had taken the +quarry unawares. + +Below, he felt that all was safe--no one without passing him could +possibly reach his horse. + +By the time the eastern sky warned him of the coming dawn he had +crawled to the edge of the abutment to look down and estimate his +chances for dropping to the narrow ledge on which it stood footed. +Then he crawled noiselessly toward the overhead break through which +Kate had plunged. The sky was alive with stars. Worming himself close +to the opening, he lay for a time patiently scrutinizing the rocks +commanding the abutment from above. One of these long vigils +disclosed, he fancied, against the sky the outline of a man's hat. + +To satisfy himself if it were one, Laramie picked up a chip of rock and +flung it down the canyon wall. The suspicious object moved. Laramie +slowly took up his rifle and leaning forward raised it to his shoulder. +Against the eastern sky the man's head made a perfect target. It was +close range. Laramie covered the hat low. The bullet should penetrate +the brim just where it covered the forehead. His finger moved to press +the trigger before he thought further. Then he hesitated. + +It seemed on reflection like murder, nothing less. He did not know the +man, though he was no doubt an enemy who had come either to kill him or +to help kill him. And to his natural repugnance to blowing off the top +of an unknown man's head even in constructive self-defense, there was +the thought of another's view of it. This might, after all, be merely +a Texan acting as a lookout. It was even possible, though improbable, +that it might be Barb himself. And if the man were not alone less +would be gained by killing him. + +The rifle came down from Laramie's shoulder as slowly as it had gone +up. He made immediate disposition for his escape. Retreating +noiselessly from the opening, he found his blanket, cut from it four +strips, knotted these into a rope and creeping to the face of the +abutment, lowered his rifle, ammunition belt and revolver down to the +footing some twenty feet below, where they hung in darkness. For +himself there was nothing but to drop after his accoutrements. At one +point the horizontal footing ledge below jutted out in a blunt tongue +something like six feet; this tongue was where he must land; elsewhere +the ledge narrowed to only a foothold for a sober man already on it. + +Laramie found an old mackinaw of Hawk's, put it on over his coat, and +padding his back under it with the pieces into which he tore a quilt, +strapped the mackinaw tight and returned to look over the ledge. He +thought he knew precisely where the tongue lay, but wanted a little +daylight to dispel any misgiving about letting go at a point where he +might drop two hundred feet instead of twenty. + +From the abutment the depths of the canyon looked in the half light +pretty black, but its recesses hid no terrors of sentiment for Laramie. +Fairly serene and stuffed in his baggy mackinaw, he lay for a few +minutes flat on his stomach peering over the edge. Far below he could +hear the rush of the river. Day was racing toward the mountain tops +and diffusing its reflected light into their recesses. The rock tongue +below outlined itself faintly in an almost impenetrable gloom. Waiting +no longer, Laramie, with a careful hand-hold, let himself down over the +face of the abutment and hung for an instant suspended. Loosing one +hand he swung sidewise and threw back his head. The fingers of the +other hand, straightened by his weight, let go. + +Falling like a plummet, one of his heels smashed into the rocky gravel +and he struck the ledge on his back. With such instinct as the swift +drop left him he threw himself toward the canyon wall when he landed +and, shocked though he was, tried to rise. + +He could not get a breath, much less move. His mind remained perfectly +clear, but the fall left him momentarily paralyzed. His efforts to +regain his breath, to make himself breathe, were astonishingly futile, +and he lay annoyed at his helplessness. It seemed as if minute after +minute passed. Listening, he heard sounds above. Daylight was coming +fast and every ray of it meant a slenderer chance of escape. + +To his relief, his lungs filled a little. Soon they were doing more. +He found he could move. He turned to his side, and, beginning life +over again, crawled on hands and knees to where his belt, revolver and +rifle hung suspended. He stood up, got out of the mackinaw, adjusted +his belt and revolver, and with his rifle resting across his forearm +looked around. He was battered and had a stinging ankle, but stood +with legs and arms at least usable. Listening, he tiptoed as fast as +he could to the narrow footpath leading into the canyon, and turning a +corner of the rock wall hastened down to where he had picketed his +horse. This trail was not exposed from above. But when he reached his +horse and got stiffly into the saddle his problem was less simple. + +To get out of the tremendous fissure in which he was trapped from +above, Laramie had one trail to follow. This led for a hundred feet in +an extremely sharp descent across the face of a nearly vertical canyon +wall that flanked the recess where the horse had been left. This first +hundred feet of his way down to the river, so steep that it was known +as the Ladder, was all that caused Laramie any uneasiness; it was +commanded every foot of the way from the abutment above. + +Making all possible haste, Laramie headed his horse stealthily for the +Ladder. He knew he had lost the most precious juncture of the dawn in +lying paralyzed for some unexpected moments after his drop. It was a +chance of war and he made no complaint. Indeed, as he reached the +beginning of his trail and peered downward he realized that he needed +daylight for the perilous ride. To take it slowly would be child's +play for him but would leave him an easy target from above. To ride it +fast was to invite a header for his horse and himself; one misstep +would send the horse and rider bolting into space. How far it was to +the river through this space Laramie felt little curiosity in figuring; +but it could hardly have been less than two hundred and fifty feet. + +There was no time for much thinking; the trail must be ridden and the +sooner and faster the better. He struck his horse lightly. The horse +jumped, but not very far ahead. Again Laramie used his heels and again +the frightened beast sprung as little as he could ahead. A stinging +lash was the only reward for his caution. If horses think, Laramie's +horse must have imagined himself backed by a madman, and under the +goading of his rider, the beast, quivering with fear, peered at the +broken rocks below and sprang down among them. Concealment was no +longer possible. + +Like a man heading into a hailstorm, Laramie crouched to the horse, +dropped the reins low on the beast's neck, and, clinging close, made +himself as nearly as he could a part of the animal itself. The trail +was five to six feet wide, but the descent was almost headlong, and +down it the horse, urged by his rider, sprang in dizzy leaps; where the +footing was worst Laramie tried to ease his frantic plunges. Stricken +with terror, the beast caught his breath in convulsive starts and +breathed in grunting snorts. Halting and bucking in jerky recoveries; +leaping from foothold to foothold as if every jump were his last, and +taking on a momentum far beyond his own or his rider's control, the +frightened pony dashed recklessly ahead. It was as if a great weight, +bounding on living springs, were heading to bolt at length against the +sheer rock wall across the canyon. + +Half the distance of the mad flight, and the worst half, was covered +when a rifle cracked from the top of the abutment. Laramie felt a +violent blow on his shoulder. There was no possible answer; there +could be no more speed--no possible defense; the race lay between the +rifle sights covering him and the four slender hoofs of the horse under +him. Ten yards more were covered and a second rifle shot cracked +crisply down the canyon walls. Laramie thought it from a second rifle; +the bullet spat the wall above his head into splinters. They were +shooting high, he told himself, and only hoped they might keep trying +to pick him off the horse and let the horse's legs alone. None knew +better than he exactly what was taking place above; the quick alarm, +the fast-moving target in the gloomy canyon; the haste to get the feet +set, the rifle to the shoulder, the sights lined, the moving target +followed, the trigger pressed. + +It was a madman's flight. As one or other of the rifles cracked at +him, Laramie threw himself back in the saddle. With his hat in his +hand, his arm shot straight up, and pointing toward the abutment he +yelled a defiant laugh at his enemies. In an instant the hat was +knocked from his fingers by a bullet; but the springing legs under him +were left untouched. The trick for the rider now was, even should he +escape the bullets, to check the flight of the horse before both shot +over the foot of the Ladder into the depths. Laramie threw his weight +low on the horse's side next the canyon wall and spoke soothingly into +his ear as his arms circled the heaving neck. + +And on the rim of the precipice, high above, two active men, bending +every nerve and muscle to their effort, stood with repeating rifles +laid against their cheeks, pumping and firing at the figure plunging +into the depths below. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +KATE GETS A SHOCK + +Late that afternoon a stable boy from Kitchen's barn appeared at +Belle's, making inquiries for Doctor Carpy. Kate heard Belle at the +door answering and asking questions, but the messenger was not able to +answer any questions; his business was to ask only. When Kitchen +himself came over a little later there was more talk at the door, this +time in low tones that left Kate in ignorance of its purport. But the +moment Kitchen went away, Belle, never equal to hiding an emotion, +passed with compressed lips and set face through the room in which Kate +sat sewing. Kate looked up as Belle walked toward the kitchen and +noticed the tense expression--fortunately she asked no questions. +After some vigorous moments in the kitchen, evidenced by the sound of a +creaking bread-board, sharp blows at the stove lids and an unabashed +slamming of the stewpans, Belle passed again through the room carrying +a plate covered with a napkin, and evidently going somewhere. + +Kate felt compelled to take notice: "Where you bound for, Belle?" she +asked. + +"Not far. But if I don't get back, don't wait supper," was the only +answer. The manner rather than the matter of it puzzled Kate as she +bent over her work. But the next moment she was alone and thinking +about her own troubles. + +Half an hour passed rapidly on her sewing--for Kate's fingers were +quick--and Belle returned more perturbed than when she left. She gave +Kate hardly a chance to question her. + +"Why didn't you eat your supper?" she demanded. + +Kate answered unconcernedly: "I wasn't hungry--it isn't late, is it?" + +Without answering the question Belle asked another. "Kate," she said, +unpinning her hat as she spoke, "how long you going to stay here?" + +A less sensitive person than Kate could hardly have mistaken the import +of the question. She flushed as she looked up. "Why, surely no longer +than you want me, Belle," she answered, as evenly as she could; but her +voice showed her surprise. Belle stood before her, a statue of +implacability and Kate, in growing astonishment, rose to her feet: +"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, then as her wits worked +fast: "Doesn't my father wish you to keep me?" + +"I'm not thinking about what your father wants. Things are getting too +thick here for me." Kate made no effort to interrupt. "I don't say I +don't like you, Kate--I've always treated you right, or tried to," +continued Belle, laboring under evident excitement. "But it's no use +shutting our eyes any longer to facts. You're Barb Doubleday's +daughter and Barb Doubleday is making war all the time on my friends +and hiring men to assassinate them, and it doesn't seem right to me and +it won't to other people, me sheltering Barb Doubleday's daughter with +such things going on----" + +"But, Belle----" + +Belle raised her voice one key higher: "You needn't tell me, I know. +Now they're trying to murder Jim Laramie and they've close to done it, +this day----" + +Belle had received and accepted strict injunctions of secrecy on the +next point she disclosed, but her feelings were not to be denied. And +she was not prepared for the question that Kate, stung by the +accusation, flung at her: "What do you mean?" + +"I mean he's lying near here bleeding to death this minute and Doctor +Carpy in Medicine Bend." + +In tones broken with anger and excitement, Belle told the disconnected +story as it had come to her in jerks and nods and oaths from McAlpin at +the barn, and in the little she had pulled out of Laramie himself when +she took food to him. Then came in terribly heated words the brunt of +her anger at Kate. "You knew," she said, pointing her finger at Kate, +standing stupefied. "You knew where Jim Laramie hid Hawk. Nobody else +did know--not even Lefever or Sawdy knew--I didn't know till you told +me. Now, after they've burned his cabin, they set a death watch there +at the bridge on Laramie. How did they know there was such a place if +you didn't tell 'em?" + +Stunned by the fire of Belle's wrath, Kate, breathless, tried to +collect her senses. It was only her anger at the final implication +that cleared them. But even as her words of indignant denial reached +her lips, her utterance was paralyzed by the recollection that +unwittingly she had told her father of the night she was thrown into +Laramie's retreat. Yet even this did not check her resentment. + +"Who accuses me of telling them?" she demanded. "Who says I conspired +to murder anyone--did Mr. Laramie say so?" + +She shot the question at Belle in a furious tone. Her eyes flashed in +a way that confounded her accuser. + +"I'm asking you how they found out," retorted Belle, but in spite of +herself on the defensive. + +Kate's face was set and her eyes were on fire. All the anger that a +woman could feel centered in her words and manner. "Answer my question +before you say another word." She confronted Belle without yielding. +"Did Jim Laramie accuse me in any way of anything?" + +"Oh, you needn't be so high and mighty," flustered Belle. "I'll answer +your question; no. Now you answer mine, will you?" + +"How can _I_ answer how they found out? I will not say another word +until I see Mr. Laramie--where is he?" + +"You can't see him--nobody knows he is here--he won't talk to you." + +Kate paid no attention to her words: "He'll have to tell me that +himself," she returned. "If he is near here--he must be at Kitchen's." + +Belle could say nothing to check or swerve her. Taking up her hat and +ignoring all warnings, Kate walked straight over to the barn. She +found McAlpin at the stable door: "I want you to take a message for me +to Mr. Laramie," she said, speaking low and collectedly. "Ask him if +he will see Kate Doubleday for just two minutes." + +McAlpin, in all his devious career, had never passed through more or +quicker stages of astonishment, confusion, poise and evasion than he +did in listening to those words. But at pulling his wits together, +McAlpin was a wonder. By the time Kate had finished, his innocent +question was ready: "Where is he?" + +"He is here. I must see him at once." + +"But I ain't seen him myself for a week. He's not here. Who told you +he's here?" + +"Belle," persisted Kate calmly, "told me he _is_ here. I must see him. +Don't deceive me, McAlpin--do just as I ask you, no more, no less." + +"No more, no less, sure," grumbled the Scotchman. "You gives me one +kind of orders--the boss gives me another kind. I can't do no more, I +can't do no less. I can't do nothin'--I've got a family to support and +all this damned rowing going on, a man's job is no safer nowadays in +this country than his head!" + +But words were not to save him. Kate persisted. She would not be put +off. McAlpin, swearing and protesting, could in the end only offer to +go see whether he could by any chance find Laramie. After a long trip +through the winding alleys of the big barn--for Kate watched the +baseball cap and crazy vizor as long as she could follow it--then +complete disappearance for a time, McAlpin came back to Kate, immovable +at the office door, his face wreathed with a surprised smile. + +He spoke, but his eyes were opened wide and his words were delivered in +a whisper; mystery hung upon his manner: "Come along," he nodded, +indicating the interior. "Only say nothing to nobody. He's +hit--there's all there is to it. Here's all I know, but I don't know +all: About three hours ago Ben Simeral was riding up the Crazy Woman +when he seen a man half dropping off his horse, hat gone, riding head +down, slow, with his rifle slung on his arm. Simmie seen who it +was--Jim Laramie. He looked at horse 'n' man 'n' says: 'Where the hell +you bin?' 'Where the hell 'a' you been,' Laramie says, pretty short. +'Ridin' all over this'--excuse my rough language, Kate--'blamed +country, lookin' f'r to tell you Van Horn and Stone's out o' jail!' + +"Laramie seen then from the ol' man's horse how he'd been ridin' 'n' +softened down a bit. 'So I heard, Simmie,' he says. 'Who'd you hear +it from?' says Simmie. 'Direct, Simmie,' he says. 'Did they pot y', +Jim?' 'Nicked my shoulder, I guess.' 'Where you goin'?' 'To town.' +'Man,' says Simmie, 'you've lost a lot o' blood.' 'Got a little left, +Simmie.' + +"Then John Fryin' Pan c'm along. Simmie tried to ride to town with +Laramie--f'r fear he'd fall off his horse. Laramie wouldn't let +neither of 'em do a thing. 'This is my fight,' he says. But Simmie +and John Fryin' Pan scouted along behind and Simmie rode in ahead near +town to tell me Laramie was comin'. God! He was a sight when he rode +into this barn. He tumbled off his horse right there"--McAlpin pointed +to a spot where fresh straw had been sprinkled--"just like a dead man. +I helped carry him upstairs," he whispered. "I'll take y' to him. But +y' bet your life"--the grizzled old man stopped and turned sharply on +his companion--"y' bet your life some o' them niggers bit the dust +some'eres this morning. This way." + +Kate, pacing McAlpin's rapid step breathlessly, hung on his +half-muttered words: "He's bleedin' to death," continued McAlpin; +"that's the short of it, and that blamed doctor down at Medicine Bend. +I don't think much o' that man. Can't none of us stop it. Where's +this goin' to end?" + +He led her by roundabout passages, up one alley and down another, and +at last opened the door of an old harness room, waited for Kate to +follow him inside and, closing the door behind her, spoke: "I didn't +want you to have to climb a barn ladder," he said, explaining. +"There's the stairs." He pointed in the semi-darkness and led her +toward the flight along the opposite wall. At the top of this flight +light fell from a square opening in the hay-mow. + +"Walk up them stairs--I lifted the trap-door f'r ye. He's right up +there at the head of the steps. When y' come down, open _this_ door at +the foot, here. It's a blind door; don't show on the other side. See, +it's bolted. It takes you right into the office. We keep it bolted +from the inside, so no trouble can't come, see?" He unbolted and +opened the door a crack to show her, closed and rebolted it. Then +starting her up the stairs, McAlpin jerked the crazy vizor on his +forehead into a fashion once more simulating child-like frankness and +disappeared by the way he had come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +AT KITCHEN'S BARN + +To be so summarily left alone and in such a place was disconcerting. +Kate, in the semi-darkness and silence, put her foot on the first tread +of the steps and, placing her hand against the wall, looked upward. +Not a sound; above her a partial light through a trap-door and a +wounded man. She stood completely unnerved. The thought of Laramie +wounded, perhaps dying, the man that had rescued her, protected her, in +truth saved her life on that fearful night--this man, now lying above +her stricken, perhaps murdered, by her own father's friends! How could +she face him? Only the thought that he should not lie wounded unto +death without knowing at least that she was not ungrateful, that she +had not wittingly betrayed him, gave her strength to start up the +narrow steps. + +When her head rose above the trap opening the light in the large loft +seemed less than it had promised from below. There were no windows, +but through a gable door, partly ajar, shot a narrow slit of daylight +from the afterglow of the sunset. Kate caught glimpses of a maze of +rafters, struts and beams and under them huge piles of loose hay. +Reaching the top step she paused, trying to look about in the dim +light, when Laramie, close at hand, startled her: "McAlpin told me you +wanted to see me," he said. She could distinguish nothing for a +moment. But the low words reassured her. + +"I'm lying on the hay," he continued, in the same tone. "If you'll +open the door a little more you can see better." + +Picking her way carefully over to it, Kate pushed the door open +somewhat wider and turned toward Laramie. + +He lay not far from the stairs. The yellow light of the evening glow +falling on his face reflected a greenish pallor. Kate caught her +breath, for it seemed as if she were looking into the face of death +until she perceived, as he turned his head, the unusual brightness of +his eyes. + +In her confusion what she had meant to say fled: + +"Are you very much hurt?" she faltered. + +"Far from it." He spoke slowly. If it cost him an effort none was +discernible. "Coming into the barn tonight," he went on, very +haltingly, "I had a kind of dizzy spell." He paused again. "I've been +eating too much meat lately, anyway. They say--I fell off my horse; +leastways I bumped my head. I'll be all right tomorrow." + +"Belle told me there had been a fight up at the canyon bridge," Kate +stammered, already at a loss to begin. + +A sickly yellow smile pointed the silence. "I wouldn't call it exactly +a fight," he said, dwelling somewhat on the last word. "Far from it," +he repeated, with a touch of grimness. "There was some shooting. And +some running." She could see how he paused between sentences. "But if +the other fellows ran it must have been after me. I didn't pay much +attention to who was behind. I had to make a tolerable steep grade +down the Falling Wall Ladder to the river. I was on horseback and +didn't have much leisure to pick my trail." + +"And they shooting at you from the rim!" + +"Well, they must have been shooting at something in my general +direction. I guess they hit me once. I didn't mind getting hit +myself, but I didn't want them to hit my horse. I was heading for the +bottom as fast as the law would allow. If they'd hit the horse, I +wouldn't have had much more than one jump from the rim to the river. +Can't ask you to sit down," he added, "unless you'll sit here on the +hay." + +Without the least hesitation Kate placed herself beside him. Without +giving her a chance to speak and in the same monotone, he added: "Who +told you I was a gambler?" + +Less than so blunt and unexpected a question would have sufficed to +take her aback. And she was conscious in the fading light of his +strangely bright eyes fixed steadily on her. "I don't remember anybody +ever did. I----" + +"Somebody did. You told Belle once." + +"It must have been long ago----" + +"Is that the reason you never acted natural with me?" + +She flushed with impatience. But if she tried to get away he brought +her back to the subject. Cornered, she grew resentful: "I can't tell +who told me," she pleaded, after ineffectual sparring. "I've +forgotten. Are you a gambler?" she demanded, turning inquisitor +herself. + +He did not move and it was an instant before he replied: "What do you +mean," he asked, "by gambler?" + +Kate's tone was hard: "Just what anybody means." + +"If you mean a man that makes his living by gambling--or hangs around a +gambling house all the time, or plays regularly--then I couldn't fairly +and squarely be called a gambler. If you mean a man that plays cards +_sometimes_, or _has_ once in a while bet on a game in a gambling +house, then, I suppose"--he was so evidently squirming that Kate meanly +enjoyed his discomfort--"you might call me that. It would all depend +on whether the one telling it liked me or didn't like me. I haven't +been in Tenison's rooms for months, nor played but one game of poker." + +"I despise gambling." + +"Why didn't you tell me?" + +"Why should I?" + +"In one sense everybody's a gambler. Everybody I know of is playing +for something. Take your father and me: He's playing for my life; I'm +playing for you. He's playing for a small stake; I'm playing for a big +one." + +She could not protest quick enough: "You talk wildly." + +"No," he persisted evenly, "I only look at it just as it is." + +"Don't ask me to believe all the cruel things said of my father any +more than you want me to believe the things said of you. I am terribly +sorry to see you wounded. And now"--her words caught in her +throat--"Belle blames me even for that." + +"How on earth does she blame you for that?" + +Despite her efforts to control herself, Kate, as she approached the +unpleasant subject, began to tremble inwardly with the fear that it +must after all be as Belle had rudely asserted--that her father was +behind these efforts against Laramie's life. For nothing had shaken +her tottering faith in her father more than the blunt words Laramie +himself had just now indifferently spoken. + +"If I am in any way to blame, it is innocently," she hurried on. "I +will tell you everything; you shall judge. My father was bitterly +angry when he learned I had been seen at Abe Hawk's funeral. I told +him about my getting lost, about falling into the place at the +bridge--how you did everything you could and how Abe Hawk had done all +he could. He was so angry he would listen to nothing----" she stopped, +collected herself, tried to go on, could not. + +"Oh, I hate this country!" she exclaimed. "I hate the people and +everything in it! And I'm going away from it--as far as I can get. +But I wouldn't go," she said determinedly, "without seeing you and +telling you this much." + +Laramie spoke quietly but with confidence: "You are not going away from +this country." + +Kate had picked up a stem of hay and looking down at it was breaking it +nervously between her fingers. "You will have to hurry up and get well +if I stay," she said abruptly. "I'm beginning to think you are the +only friend I have here. And," she added, so quickly as to cut off any +words from him, "I've told you everything. I only hope my speaking +about the hiding place at the bridge when father was angry with me--and +only to defend myself--was not the cause of _this_." + +She was close beside him. "Can it be," she asked, "that this was how +it happened?" He heard her voice break with the question. + +"No," he blurted out instantly. + +"Oh," she cried, "I'm so thankful!" + +Listening to her effort to speak the words, he was not sorry for what +he had said. "If you're going to lie," Hawk had once said to him, +cynically, "don't stumble, don't beat about the bush--do a job!" The +moment Kate told her story, Laramie knew exactly how he had been +trapped. But why blame her? "It's the first time I ever lied to her," +he thought ruefully to himself. "It's the first time she ever believed +me!" + +"Does Belle know you quarreled with your father?" he asked, to get away +from the subject. + +"No," she answered, steadying herself. + +"She said you'd been acting sort of queer." + +"I can't tell people my troubles." + +"Why did you tell me?" + +"You might die and blame me." + +"Who says I'm going to die?" + +"They were afraid you might." + +"Well, I don't like to disappoint anybody, but dying is a thing a man +is entitled to take his time about." + +"Can't I do something till the doctor comes?" + +He turned very slowly on his side. Kate made an attempt to examine his +shoulder. She was not used to the sight of blood. The clotted and +matted clothing awed and sickened her. Even the hay was blood-soaked, +but she stuck to her efforts. Supplementing the rude efforts of +McAlpin and Kitchen to give him first aid, she cut away, with Laramie's +knife, the bullet-torn coat and shirt and tried to get the wound ready +for cleansing. "I'm so afraid of doing the wrong thing," she murmured, +fearfully. + +"I don't care what you do--do something," he said. "Your hands feel +awful good." + +"I've nothing here to work with." + +"All right, we'll go to the drug store and get something." After +stubborn efforts he got on his feet and insisted on going down the +stairs. Nothing that Kate could say would dissuade him. "I've been +here long enough, anyway," was his decision. "I'm feeling better every +minute; only awfully thirsty." + +Kate steadied him down the dark stairs, fearful he might fall over her +as she went ahead. Secrecy of movement seemed to have no significance +for him. If his friends were disturbed, Laramie was not. He evidently +knew the harness room, for he opened the blind door with hardly any +hesitation and stepped into the office. The office was empty but the +street door of the stable was open. McAlpin stood in the gang-way +talking to some man who evidently caught a glimpse of Laramie, for he +said rudely and loud enough for Kate to hear: "Hell, McAlpin! There +comes your dead man now!" + +Kate recognized the heavy voice of Carpy and shrank back. The doctor, +McAlpin behind him dumbly staring, confronted Laramie at the door: +"What are you doin' here, Jim?" he demanded. + +"What would I be doing anywhere?" retorted Laramie. + +"Go back to your den. This man says you're dying." + +"Well, I'm not getting much encouragement at it--I've been waiting for +you three hours to help things along. I'm done with the hay." + +"Looking for a feather bed to die in. Some men are blamed particular." +As he spoke Carpy caught his first glimpse of Kate. "Hello! There's +the pretty little girl from the great big ranch. No wonder the man's +up and coming--what did you send for me for, McAlpin? Where you +heading, Jim?" + +With his hands on the door jambs, Carpy effectually barred the exit. +Knowing his stubborn patient well, he humored him, to the verge of +letting him have his own way, but with much raillery denied him the +drug store trip. A compromise was effected. Laramie consented to go +to Belle's to get something to eat. In this way, refusing help, the +obdurate patient was got to walk to the cottage. + +"Don't let him fall on y'," McAlpin cautioned Kate, as the two followed +close behind. "I helped carry him upstairs. He's a ton o' brick." + +But Laramie, either incensed by his condition--the idea of any escort +being vastly unpleasant to him--or animated by the stiff hypodermics of +profanity that Carpy injected into the talk as they crossed the street, +did not even stumble; he held his way unaided, met Belle's amazement +unresponsively and, sitting down, called for something to eat. + +"How does he do it, Doc?" whispered McAlpin, craning forward from the +background. + +"Pure, damned nerve," muttered Carpy. "But he does it." + +They got him into bed. While the doctor was excavating the channel +ripped through his shoulder, Laramie said nothing. When, however, he +discovered that Kate was missing, he crustily short-circuited Belle's +excuses. Words passed. It became clear that Laramie would start out +and search the town if Kate were not produced. + +"She wanted to see _me_," he insisted, doggedly. "Now I want to see +_her_." + +Carpy found he must again intervene. He despatched McAlpin as a +diplomatic envoy over to his own house whither he had taken Kate as his +guest when she peremptorily declined to return to Belle's. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +MCALPIN AT BAY + +However others may have felt that night about Laramie's affairs, one +man, McAlpin, was proud of his ride, desperately wounded, all the way +to town. Laramie had made a confidant of no one but Kate. His +experience in being trapped was not so pleasant that he liked to talk +about it and neither McAlpin's shrewd questioning nor Carpy's +restrained curiosity was gratified that night. + +In the circumstances, McAlpin's fancy had full play; and distrustful of +his imagination unaided, he repaired early to the Mountain House bar to +stimulate it. Thus it gradually transpired along the bar, either from +the stimulant or its reaction or from McAlpin's excitement, that a big +fight had taken place that morning in the Falling Wall from which only +Laramie had returned alive. It was known that he had come back and +inference as to who the dead men might be could center only on his two +active enemies, Tom Stone and Harry Van Horn. The pawky barn boss, who +possessed perfectly the art of tantalizing innuendo, thus stirred the +bar-room pool to the depths. + +McAlpin chose the rustler's end of the bar--as Abe Hawk's old stand was +called--and held the interest of the room against all comers. As the +place filled for the evening, his cap, its vizor more than ordinarily +awry, was a conspicuous object and it became a favor on his part to +accept the courtesies of the bar at any man's hands. + +"I knowed how it had to end," he would repeat when he had rambled again +around all aspects of the mysterious encounter. "I knowed if they kept +after Jim how it _had_ to end. Why, hell, gentlemen," he would aver, +planting a hob-nailed barn boot on the foot-rail, while swinging on one +elbow from the polished face of the mahogany, "I've _seen_ the boy stop +a coyote on the go, at 900 yards--what could you expect? No, no, not +again. What? Well, go ahead; just a dash o' bitters in mine, Luke. +Thank you. + +"Well, boys, accordin' to my notion, there's two men never would be +missed in this country, anyway, if nobody ever seen 'em again. 'N' if +my count is anywhere near right, nobody ever will see 'em again. They +chased Laramie one foot too far--just one foot--'n' it looks as if they +got what was comin' to 'em. I won't name 'em--they won't bother no +more in this country." + +He had become so absorbed in his recital that the entrance into the +bar-room from the barber shop of a booted and spurred man escaped him. +The man, advancing deliberately, heard the last of McAlpin's words. He +got fairly close to the unsuspecting barn boss unobserved. A few in +the listening circle, noting the approach of the new arrival, stepped +back a little--for, of all men that might be expected, after McAlpin's +dark intimations, to appear, then and there, alive and aggressive, was +Tom Stone. + +Freshly barbered, head forward, keen eyes peering from under staring, +sandy brows; thumbs stuck in his belt and his face framing a confident +leer. Stone sauntering forward, listened to McAlpin. So intent was +McAlpin on impressing his hearers that the foreman elbowed his way, +before McAlpin saw him, directly to the front. + +"So you won't name 'em?" grinned Stone, confronting the startled +speaker. McAlpin caught his breath. The wiry Scotchman was not a +coward, but he knew the merciless cruelty of Stone. Armed, McAlpin +would have been no man to affront his deadly skill; he now faced him +unarmed. + +Stone, leaving his right hand hooked by the thumb in his belt, rested +his left elbow on the bar. The bartender, Luke, just back of him, +leaning forward, mopped the bar more slowly and, listening, moved a +little farther down the bar until his fingers rested on an electric +button underneath connecting with Tenison's office in the hotel. + +"Name the two men, McAlpin," said Stone, ominously, "while you're able +to talk." + +McAlpin exhausted his ingenuity in his efforts to evade his danger, but +Stone drew the noose about him tighter and tighter. He played the +unlucky man with all the malice of an executioner. He baited him and +toyed with him. McAlpin, white, stood his ground. His fighting blood +was all there and he broke at length into a torrent of abuse of the man +that he realized was bent on murdering him. + +Made eloquent by desperation, McAlpin never rose to greater heights of +profane candor. It was as if he were making his last will and +testament of hatred and contempt for his murderer, and when he had +showered on his enemy every epithet stored in a retentive memory he +struck his empty glass on the bar and shouted: + +"Now, you hellcat, shoot!" + +It might have been thought Stone would check such a public castigation. +He did not. Impervious to abuse, because master of the situation, he +seemed to enjoy his victim's fury. "I'm finishing up with your gang +around here, McAlpin," he snarled, never losing his grin. "You've run +a rustler's barn in Sleepy Cat long enough. I've warned you and I've +warned Kitchen. It didn't do no good. Fill up your glass, McAlpin." + +"Stone, I'd never fill up a glass with you if I was in hell 'n' you +could pull me out." + +Stone's grin deepened: "Fill up your glass, McAlpin." + +Onlookers, knowing what a refusal would mean, held their breaths. But +McAlpin, white and stubborn, with another oath, again refused. + +"Fill it, McAlpin," urged a quiet voice behind the bar. Looking +quickly, like a hunted animal, around, McAlpin saw Harry Tenison, +white-faced and cold, pushing the bottle in friendly fashion toward +him. Every man, save one, watching, hoped he would humor at least that +much his expectant murderer. But the barn-boss had reached a state of +fear and anger that inflamed every stubborn drop in his blood. He +swore he would not fill his glass. + +Tenison spoke grimly: "Will you drink it if I fill it, you mule?" he +demanded, picking up the bottle and pouring into both glasses in front +of him. + +In the dead silence McAlpin's brain was in a storm. He collected a few +of his wildly flying thoughts. Perhaps he remembered the wife and +Loretta and the babies; at all events he stared at the liquor, gulped +to see whether he could swallow, and, reaching forward, picked up the +glass. Stone lifted his own. The two men, their glasses poised, eyed +each other. + +Stone barbed a taunt for his victim: "Goin' to drink, air you?" he +sneered, wreathing his eyes in leering wrinkles. + +"No," said a man, unnoticed until then by any except Tenison and Luke, +and speaking as he pushed forward through the crowd to face both Stone +and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink." + +[Illustration: "No," said a man, . . . as he pushed forward to face +both Stone and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink"] + +Stone's glass was half-way up to his lips; he looked across it and saw +himself face to face with Jim Laramie. Laramie who, unseen, had heard +enough of the quarrel, stood with his coat slung over his right +shoulder; one arm he carried in a sling, but as far as this concerned +Stone, it was the wrong arm. Daring neither to raise the whisky to his +lips nor to set the glass down, lest Laramie, suspecting he meant to +draw, should shoot, Stone stood rooted. "McAlpin's not going to drink, +Stone," repeated Laramie. "What are you going to do about it?" + +The mere sight of Laramie would have been a vastly unpleasant surprise. +But to find himself faced by him in fighting trim after what had taken +place in the morning was an upset. + +"What am I going to do about it?" echoed Stone, lifting his eyebrows +and grinning anew. "What are you going to do about it, Jim?" he +demanded. "You and me used to bunk together, didn't we?" + +"I bunked with a rattlesnake once. I didn't know it," responded +Laramie dryly. "Next morning the rattlesnake didn't know it." + +"Jim, I'll drink you just once for old times." + +"I wouldn't drink with you, Stone. No man would drink with you if he +wasn't afraid of you. And after tonight nobody's going to be afraid of +you. You're a thief among thieves, Tom Stone: a bully, a coward, a +skulker. You shoot from cover. When Barb made you foreman, you and +Van Horn stole his cattle, and Dutch Henry sold 'em for you and divvied +with you. Then, for fear Barb would get wise, you and Van Horn got up +the raid and killed Dutch Henry, so he couldn't talk. + +"Now you're going to quit this stuff. No more thieving, no more +man-killing, no bullyragging, no nothing. Tenison will clear this +room. Hold your glass right where it is, till the last man gets out. +When he gets out set down your glass; you'll have time enough allowed +you. After that, draw where you stand. You're not entitled to a +chance. God, Stone, I'd _rather_ bunk with a rattlesnake than with +you. I'd rather kill one than kill a thing like you. Your head ought +to be pounded with a rock. You're entitled to nothing. But you can +have your chance. Get the boys out of here, Harry." + +Not for one instant did he take his eye off Stone's eye, or raise his +tone above a speaking voice, and Laramie's voice was naturally low. To +catch his syllables, listeners crowded in and craned their necks. Few +men withdrew but everyone courteously and sedulously got out of the +prospective line of fire. + +What it cost Laramie even to stand on his feet and talk, Tenison could +most shrewdly estimate. From behind the bar he coldly regarded the +wounded man. He knew that Laramie must have escaped Carpy and escaped +Belle, to look for the men that had tried that morning to kill him. +Having found Stone he meant then and there to fight. + +Tenison likewise realized that he was in no condition to do it, and +promptly intervened: "Don't look at me, Jim," he said. "But I'm +talking. There's no man in Sleepy Cat can clear this room now. Most +of this crowd are your friends. They want to see this hell-hound +cleaned up. But you know what it means to some of 'em if two guns cut +loose." + +Stone saw the gate open. He welcomed a chance to dodge. Eyeing +Laramie, he swallowed his drink, set his glass on the bar. With a +voice dried and cracked, he cried: "Keep your hands off, Tenison. I'll +give Jim Laramie all the fight he wants, here or anywhere." + +Tenison was willing to bridge the crisis with abuse. "Shut up, you +coyote," he remarked, with complete indifference. + +"You'll throw a man down no matter how much of your whisky he drinks, +won't you, Tenison?" cried Stone. + +Tenison, both hands judicially spread on the bar, seemed to fail to +hear. "McAlpin," he said contemptuously, "walk around behind Laramie +and lift Stone's gun." + +Stone started violently. "Look out, Tenison! I lift my gun when +there's men to stand by and see fair play!" + +A roar of laughter went up. "I don't lift it for no frame-up," he +shouted, turning angrily toward the unsympathetic crowd. "Get out!" +cried one voice far enough back to be safe. "Send for Barb," shouted a +second. "Page Van Horn," piped a barber, as Stone moved toward the +door. + +The baited foreman turned only for a parting shot at Laramie: "I'll see +_you_ later." + +"If I was your friend," retorted Laramie, unmoved, "I'd advise you not +to. If you ride my trail don't expect anything more from me. And I +make this town," he hammered home the point with his right forefinger +indicating the floor, "and the Falling Wall range _my_ trail." + +"Stone ought to have tried it tonight," observed Tenison at the cash +register. He was speaking to his bartender long after Stone had +disappeared, Laramie had been put to bed again and the billiard hall +had been deserted. "He'll never get a chance again at Laramie half +shot to pieces." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +KATE BURNS THE STEAK + +Laramie, held for a week in bed, learned from the Doctor of Belle's +outburst at Kate, and, acting through him and with him, arranged peace. + +Complaining of a cold, with her other troubles, Belle took to bed when +Laramie was moved to the hotel and Kate turned in to nurse her. + +"You won't starve while she stays, Belle," declared Carpy, leaving Kate +in possession at the cottage, "and while I think of it," he added, +turning to Kate, "Laramie says he wants to see you. You call him up on +the telephone, will you?" + +"What for, doctor?" + +"To oblige me, girl. I want to hold that fellow in his room a few days +more and keep his arm in a sling. He's no easier to handle than a +wildcat." + +Kate looked perplexed: "What shall I say to him?" + +Carpy stood at the door with his hand on the knob: "Jolly him +along--you know how. He says he's coming down here for dinner tonight. +Tell him Belle's sick." + +Belle listened. The more Kate considered the mandate, the more +confusing it seemed. But she rang up the hotel, called for Laramie and +heard presently a man's voice in answer. + +"Is this Mr. Laramie?" she asked. + +"It is not," was the answer. + +"Isn't he there?" + +"No." + +"Can you tell me when he will be in?" + +"He won't be in." + +She sighed with impatience: "I want to speak to him. And I think this +is he speaking. You know very well who I am," she persisted. + +"I do." + +"And I know very well who you are." + +"In that you may be mistaken." + +"Surely I'm not mistaken in believing Mr. Laramie a gentleman." + +"But you are mistaken in believing any person by that name here." + +"There is a person there who loves to persecute me, isn't there?" + +"There is not." + +"Is there one there that likes to have his own way?" + +"No more than you like to have your own way." + +"Is there a man named Jim there?" + +"Speaking, Kate." + +"I've a message from Belle." + +"What is the message?" + +"She is in bed with a cold and fever and wants you not to come tonight. +As soon as she is up she will let you know." + +Belle held her peace till Kate left the telephone. "I can't make +Doctor Carpy out," she grumbled. "If he didn't want Jim Laramie to +come down here what did he ask _you_ to call him up for? If he doesn't +know any more than that about doctoring," she added, contemptuously, +"I'd hate to take his medicine." + +She waited for Kate's comment but Kate possessed the great art of +saying nothing. "I guess," continued Belle, at length, "it's time to +take that pill he left, but I guess I won't take it. What do you think +about it?" she asked, referring again to Carpy. + +Kate was not to be drawn out: "I found out a long time ago that Doctor +Carpy doesn't tell all he knows," she observed dryly. "But I do know +he wants Mr. Laramie to stay in his room. He says his shoulder will +never heal if he doesn't keep still." + +Belle made no response, but when Laramie knocked at the door in the +evening she knew who it was. Kate received him. + +Talking in leisurely fashion to her, he walked to the door of Belle's +room, looked in, wanted to know whom she had been fighting with and +asked if she would get up and get supper for him. + +He carried his right arm at his side with the thumb hooked into his +belt: "Where's your sling?" demanded Belle, tartly. Laramie pulled it +out of his pocket: "I put it on when Carpy comes around," he explained. + +"You keep fooling around the streets this way and they'll get you +sometime," said Belle, tartly. + +He turned the remark: "That idea doesn't seem to worry me as much as it +used to. Have I got to cook my own supper?" + +This venture after discussion was assumed by Kate. She put on her hat +to go across the street to get a steak. Laramie insisted on going with +her. She asked him not to. + +"Why not?" he asked. + +Kate was keyed up with apprehension: "Why take chances all the time?" +she asked in turn. "Someone might shoot from the dark." + +Belle answered for him: "Nobody in this country would shoot a man when +a woman's with him," she said. "Go along." + +The butcher stumping in from the back room to wait on them showed no +surprise at the two from hostile camps asking for one steak, but he +tried so hard to watch the pair and to hear what they were saying that +he nearly ruined one quarter of beef before he got what Kate wanted. +What he finally cut off and trimmed looked more like a roast than a +steak but neither customer seemed disturbed by this. + +Laramie paid, over indignant protests, and placing the package in the +loop of his left arm, opened the shop door for his companion. He +passed out behind her in excellent spirits. The butcher, looking after +them, took his surreptitious pipe from his pocket, watched the shop +door close, shook his head and ramming the burnt tobacco down hard with +the finger that lacked the first joint, stumped back to his lonely +stove. + +The kitchen was farthest removed from Belle's room. Laramie started +the fire with kerosene. When he lighted it there was a flare-back that +alarmed Belle in her bed, but she could hear nothing of what was going +on in the kitchen. While the supper was being cooked, Laramie stood on +the other side of the stove from his enemy's daughter, watching every +move. If Kate walked over to the cupboard, his eyes followed her +step--she walked with such decision and planted her heels so fast and +firm. If she turned from the stove to the table, his eyes devoured her +slenderness in amazement that one so delicately proportioned could so +crowd everything else out of his head. It seemed as if nothing before +had ever been shaped like her ankles--there was so little of them to +bear uncomplainingly even so slight a figure--and Kate was by no means +diminutive. + +As the supper progressed, Laramie watched almost in awe the short-arm +jabs she gave the meat on the broiler. The cuffs of her shirtwaist, +half back to her elbows, revealed white arms tapering to wrists molded +like the ankles, and hands that his eyes fed on as a miser's feed on +gold. The blazing coals flushed her cheeks and when she looked up at +him to answer some foolish question her own eyes, flushed and softened +by the heat, took on an expression that stole all the strength he had +left. When she asked him how he liked it, he exclaimed, "Fine," and +Kate had to ask him whether he liked the steak well done or rare. + +"Any way you like it," he stammered, "but lots of gravy." + +As he watched her laugh at his efforts to help her by picking up the +hot platter, a sense of his own clumsiness and size and general +roughness overcame him. She was too far removed, he told himself, from +his kind to make it possible for her ever to like him. + +The closer he got to her daintiness and spirit and laughter, the more +hopeless his wild dreams seemed. Whenever she asked if the steak were +cooked enough, he suggested--to prolong the pleasure of watching her +hands--that she give it one more turn. Every moment he saw something +new to admire. While she was attending to the meat he could look at +her hair and see where the sun had browned her pink throat and neck. +As the broiling drew near an end, almost a panic gripped Laramie. The +happiest moments of his life had been spent there at the stove. They +were slipping away. She was lifting the steak the last time from the +fire. He asked her to turn it once more. + +"Why, look at it," she exclaimed, "it's burnt up now; hold the platter +closer." + +It brought him closer in spirit than he had ever been to heaven, to +feel her elbow brush against his own, as she deftly landed the smoking +steak on the platter while Laramie held it. + +A great melancholy overcame him: "What do you want me to do?" he said +suddenly. + +Kate's eyebrows rose. She looked at him: "Why, set it on the table," +she laughed. + +"No, I mean what do you want me to do--myself." + +She could not wholly misunderstand his look, though little did he +realize how she feared it; or what a dread respect she secretly had for +the grave eyes so closely bent on her own. She laughed really to +gather courage, and it was easy to laugh a little because he did look +so odd as he stood before her, with the platter in both hands, but +terribly in earnest. "Set the platter on the table before you burn +yourself," she pleaded. + +"You must want me to do something," he persisted, "get off the earth or +stay on it--now, don't you? Say what you want me to do, and, by----" +He checked himself. "And I'll do it." + +She could restrain him but she could not turn him. He did put the +platter on the table without getting any answer but now that his mind +was set, it reverted stubbornly to the one subject and when supper was +over and they sat opposite each other in the little dining-room +talking, she said she knew he had burned his hands. "I wouldn't mind +if I had," he remarked frankly. "Almost every time I've talked with +you I've held the hot end of a poker; I'm getting to look for it." He +drew a deep breath. "You never liked me, did you, Kate?" + +"That isn't so." + +"You always kind of held off." + +"Perhaps I was a little afraid of you." + +"You're not afraid of me now--are you--with one arm out of commission? +Are you?" + +She looked at him in a troubled sort of way: "Why, no--not very," she +returned, half laughing. + +"You were never half as much afraid of me as I was of you," he murmured. + +His eyes across the table were growing very importunate. She could not +realize how flushed and soft and tantalizing her own eyes were, framed +by the warm color high in her cheeks. She rose with a hurried +exclamation and looked dismayed at him, her hands tilted on the table, +her brows high and her burning eyes still laughing: "We've left the +light on by the stove all this time," she whispered. "Belle will be +furious!" + +She slipped hurriedly out into the kitchen and turned off the light. +Her face was hot. She was thirsty and stepping to the water faucet she +picked up a glass. The mountain water tasted so cold and good; in some +way it made her think of great peaks and the crisp, clear air of his +home far up among them. She had not realized how heated she was. "Do +you want a drink?" she called back to the dining room. + +He was standing directly behind her. She turned only to stumble +against him and before she knew what had happened he was raining kisses +on her resisting cheeks. Then his lips found hers and, faint with the +moment, she resisted no more. + +After a long time she got one hand around his neck and laid the other +across his mouth: "Don't make so much noise," she whispered wildly. +"Belle will hear us!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE UNEXPECTED CALL + +The hush that followed the brain storm in the kitchen put Belle, quite +unsuspecting, to sleep. Laramie, with a tread creditable to a cat--and +a stealth natural to most carnivorous animals--closed the door without +breaking her heavy breathing. The shades, always drawn at nightfall, +called for no attention. In the living-room, there was preliminary +tiptoeing, and there were futile efforts on Kate's part to cool her +rebellious cheeks by applying her open hands to them--when she could +get possession of either one to do so. The small couch which served as +sofa was drawn out of range of even the protected windows, and the +floodgates were opened to the first unrestrained confidences together. + +When they could talk of more serious things, Kate could not possibly +see how she could marry him; but this, in the circumstances, seemed to +cause Laramie no alarm. She admitted she had tried not to like him and +confessed how she had failed. "Every time I met you," she murmured, +"you seemed to understand me so well--you knew how a woman would like +to be treated--that's what I kept thinking about." + +"You used to talk and laugh with Van Horn," he complained, jealously. +"When I came around, I couldn't drag a smile out of you with a lariat." + +"You're getting a smile now that he isn't getting, aren't you?" + +"Somehow you never acted natural with me." + +"Jim!" It was the word he most wanted to hear, even if the reproach +implied the quintessence of stupidity. "Don't you understand, I wasn't +afraid of him, and I was of you!" + +"And I only trying to get a chance to eat out of your hand!" + +"How could I tell--after all I used to hear--but that you'd begin by +eating out of my hand and finish by eating me?" + +He had to be told every word of her troubles at home, but her +uneasiness turned to the dangers threatening him. These, she +protested, he belittled too much. Ever since he had come in wounded +she had been the prey of fears for him. "It's a mystery how you +escaped." He had to tell every detail of his flight down the canyon. +"By rights," he said in conclusion, "they ought to have got me. No man +should have got out of that scrape as well as I did. Van Horn didn't +get into action quick enough. And it seemed to me as if Stone himself +was a little slow." The way he spoke the things strengthened her +confidence. And his arm held her so close! + +"I'll tell you, Kate," he added. "You can easy enough hire a fellow to +kill a man. But you can't really hire one to hate a man. And if he +doesn't really hate him, he won't be as keen on your job as you'd be +yourself. These hired men will booze once in awhile--or go to sleep, +maybe. It's work for a clear head and takes patience to hide in the +rocks day after day and wait for one certain man to ride by so you can +shoot him. If you doze off, your man may pass while you snore. And +the kind of man you can hire isn't as keen on getting a man as the man +himself is on not getting 'got'--that's where the chance is, sometimes, +to pull out better than even." + +Because his aim was to reassure, to relieve her anxiety, he did not +tell her that all the unfavorable conditions he had named, while never +before arrayed against him at one time, were now pretty much all +present together. Kate herself, he knew, stood more than ever between +him and Van Horn. Stone had been twice publicly disgraced by Laramie +at Tenison's--he would never forgive that. He had the patience of the +assassin and when hatred swayed him he did not sleep--these were still, +Laramie knew in his heart, bridges to be crossed. + +But why spoil an hour's happiness with the thought of them now? +Laramie drew his hand across his heated forehead as if to clear his +eyes and look again down into the face close to his and assure himself +he was not really dreaming. "What do I care about them all, Kate," he +would say, "now that I've got you? No, now that you've given yourself +to me--that's what I'll say--what do I care what they do?" + +But she would look up, sudden with apprehension: "But don't you think +_I_ care? Jim, let's leave this country soon, soon." + +Laramie laughed indulgently: "Somebody'll have to leave it pretty +soon--that's certain." + +A rude knock at the door broke into his words. Kate threw her hands +against his breast. She stared at him thunderstruck, and sprang from +the sofa like a deer, looking still at him with wide-open eyes and then +glancing apprehensively toward the door. + +Laramie sat laughing silently at her get-away as he called it, yet he +was not undisturbed. + +Nothing, in the circumstances, could have been less welcome than any +sort of an intrusion. But a knock at the door, almost violent, and +coming three times, stirred even Laramie's temper. + +The door was not locked. Laramie rose, his fingers resting on the butt +of his revolver, and stepping lightly into the dining-room, turned down +the lamp. He stood in the shadow and beckoned Kate to him. His face +indicated no alarm. + +"This may be something, or it may be nothing. You step into the +kitchen. I'll go to the door." + +She clung to him, really terror-stricken, begging him not to go. As he +tried to quiet her fears the heavy knock shook the flimsy door the +second time. Kate, declaring she would go, would not be denied. +Laramie told her exactly what to do. + +She reached the door on tiptoe and stood to the right of it. The key +was in the lock. Kate, reaching out one hand, turned the key. With +the door thus locked and standing close against the wall she called out +to know who was there. Laramie had followed behind her. He stepped to +where he could look from behind the window shade out on the porch. He +turned to Kate just as an answer came from outside, and signed to her +to open. Standing where she was, Kate turned the key swiftly back in +the lock and threw the door wide open. + +Stooping slightly forward to bring his hat under the opening, and +looking carefully about him, her father walked heavily into the room. + +Laramie had disappeared. Kate, dumb, stood still. Barb closed the +door behind him, walked to the table, put down his hat and turned to +Kate. "Well?" he began, snapping the word in his usual manner, his +stupefied daughter struggling with her astonishment. "You don't act +terrible glad to see me." + +Kate caught her breath. "I was so surprised," she stammered. + +"What are you staying in town so long for?" demanded Barb. His voice +had lost nothing of its husky heaviness. + +She answered with a question: "Where else have I to stay, father? I've +been waiting for money to get East with and it hasn't come yet." + +"What do you want to go East for?" + +"I've nowhere else to go." + +"Why don't you come home?" + +"Because you told me to leave." + +He sat slowly down on a chair near the table and with the care of a +burdened man. + +"Well," he said, "you mustn't take things too quick from me nowadays." +She made no answer. "I've had a good deal of money trouble lately," he +went on, "everything going against me." He spoke moodily and his huge +frame lost in the bulk of his big storm coat overran almost +pathetically the slender chair in which he tried to sit. His spirit +seemed broken. "I reckon," he added, taking his hat from the table and +fingering it slowly, "you'd better come along back." + +She was sorry for him. She told him how much she wished he would give +up trying to carry his big load, and she urged him to take a small +ranch and keep out of debt. He laid his hat down again. He told her +he didn't see how he could let it go, but they would talk it over when +she got home. + +This was the point of his errand that she dreaded to meet and putting +it as inoffensively as possible she tried to parry: "I think," she +ventured, "now that I've got some clothes ready and got started, I'd +better go East for awhile anyway." + +"No." His ponderous teeth clicked. "You'd better wait till fall. I +might go along. Tonight I'll take you out home. Put on your things +and we'll get started." + +She did not want to refuse. She knew she could not consent. She knew +that Laramie in the shadow, as well as her father in the light, was +waiting for her answer: "Father," she said at once, "I can't go +tonight." + +"Why not?" was the husky demand. + +"Belle is sick in bed," pleaded Kate. + +"Is that the only reason?" + +She saw he was bound to wring more from her. "No," she answered, "it +isn't, father." + +"What else?" + +"I'm afraid----" she hesitated, and then spoke out: "I can't come +back--not just as I was, anyway." + +"Why not?" + +"It's too late, father." + +"What do you mean?" he asked. + +"When I come back from the East," she spoke slowly but collectedly, "I +expect to go into a new home." + +"Where?" + +"In the Falling Wall." + +For a moment he did not speak, only looked at her fixedly: "What I've +heard's so, then?" he said, after a pause. + +"What have you heard?" + +"The story is you're going to marry Jim Laramie." + +Kate, in turn, stood silently regarding her father, and as if she knew +she must face it out. + +"Is that so?" he demanded harshly. + +She burst into tears, but through her tears the two men heard her +answer: "Yes, father." + +Barb picked up his hat without wincing: "I guess that ends things +'tween you and me." He started uncertainly for the door. + +"Father!" Kate protested, taking a quick step after him as he passed +out. "You don't do him justice. You don't know him." + +But slamming the door shut behind him, he cut off her words. If they +reached his ears he gave them no heed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +BARB MAKES A SURPRISING ALLIANCE + +By a happy chance, on the night of Laramie's great hour, Sawdy and +Lefever returned from Medicine Bend. It was late when they +arrived--into the early morning hours, in fact, and at the Mountain +House the bar was not only closed but securely closed--barricaded +against just such marauders. Even the night clerk had gone to bed. +But this was less of an embarrassment, for the two adventurers, turning +on the lights, took his pass keys from the drawer and, opening the +doors of one room after another in the face of a variety of protests, +kept on till they found satisfactory quarters that "seemed" +unoccupied--quarters in which at least the beds were unoccupied. + +The hardy scouts slept late. They breakfasted late, in what Sawdy +called the hotel "ornery," and while they were reducing the visible +supply of ham and eggs, Tenison walked in on them to ask about +complaints made at the office by indignant guests whose privacy had +been invaded during the night. Rebuffed on this subject, all knowledge +being disclaimed, Tenison was called on for the story of events since +the two had been away, and of these Laramie's escape from the canyon +came first. Tenison reported further, in confidence, Laramie's success +with Kate. Had the news provided every man in the Falling Wall with a +brand-new wife, it could not have been more to the humor of Sawdy and +Lefever. + +Sawdy rose and stretched himself from the waist down to make sure his +legs touched the floor: "I've got to have a good cigar on that," he +declared. "Take away, Mabel." He nodded courteously to the waitress. +"Harry, we had the dustiest trip I ever seen in my life," he added, as +with his companions he left the table. "The old Ogallala trail wasn't +a marker to it. Why, the dust was a mile deep. My tonsils are plumb +full of it yet." + +Not everyone in Sleepy Cat was so quick to credit the news that Kate +Doubleday was going to marry Jim Laramie. The cattlemen sympathizers +looked grumpy, when approached on the subject. They preferred not to +talk, but if taunted would retort with an intimating oath: "That show +ain't over yet." + +"Jim Laramie acts as if it was, anyway," grumbled Belle, when the +butcher told her what they were saying. In fact, all of Laramie's +intimates were out of patience with him when he announced he was going +to rebuild the cabin on his Falling Wall ranch and live there. + +"Wait till this cattle fight is over," they would urge. + +"It is over," he would retort. And heedless of their protests, he +spent his time getting his building materials together. + +"What do you want me to do?" he demanded, stirred at length by Belle's +remonstrances against going back to the Falling Wall. "I've got to +live somewhere. Danger? Why, yes--maybe. But I can't keep dying +every day on that account. Here in town a man was run over just the +other day by a railroad train." + +Kate said little either way. She heard all that Belle could urge and +held in her heart all the men said. But when Jim asked her what _she_ +wanted to do she told him, simply, whatever _he_ wanted to do. Then +Belle would call her a ninny, and Laramie would kiss her, and Belle in +disgust would disappear. + +There came one morning the crowning sensation in the suspense of the +situation. Barb Doubleday drove into town in the buckboard, headed his +team into Kitchen's barn to put up and gave McAlpin a cigar. + +An earthquake, where one had never been known, could not have stirred +the town more. When McAlpin ran up street to the Mountain House to be +first with his news, he was reviled as a vender of stories calculated +to start a shooting. + +But McAlpin, with a cigar in his mouth--where no cigar, except a free +cigar, was ever seen--his face bursting red with import, stuck to his +guns. He walked straight to the billiard room bar, and attracted +attention by brusquely ordering his own drink. This, it was known, +always meant something serious. + +When Sawdy saw the commotion about the barn boss, he walked in and +after listening began a stern cross-examination. + +"Explain?" McAlpin echoed scornfully. "I don't explain. No, he wasn't +drinking! Nor he wasn't crazy!" McAlpin took the burning cigar from +his mouth. "That's the cigar he give me, right there--and a bum one. +Barb never smoked a good one in his life--you know that, Henry? I +don't explain--I drink. Hold on!" he exclaimed, as he emptied his +glass with a single gulp. He was looking across the street and +pointing. "Who's that over there comin' out of the lumber yard with +Barb Doubleday right now--blanked if it ain't! It's Jim Laramie, +that's who it is." + +Doubleday had in fact run into Laramie in the lumber yard. With +nothing more than a greeting, he opened his mind: "I want a talk with +you, Jim," he said bluntly. "Where's Kate?" + +Not even the freedom of the bar fully established could hold McAlpin +after he had seen Laramie and Doubleday walk out of the lumber yard and +start down Main Street together. McAlpin had the reputation of having +missed no important shooting in Sleepy Cat for years. He had been +witness in more than one inquest and did not mean to imperil his +importance by slacking now. As he hastened out to trail the long-day +bitter enemies, he was framing in his mind the preliminary answers for +the coroner. He would be compelled to testify, he felt, that the dead +man had showed no sign of intoxication or excitement when he drove his +team into the barn--for in the circumstances, the barn boss already +figured Barb as the inevitable victim. + +Thus ruminating, he trailed the unsuspecting pair as far as Belle's. +At Belle's without sign of heated argument, they knocked and entered +the cottage together. This left McAlpin across the street with nobody +but the butcher to talk to, while he listened intently for the first +shot. + +Lefever was bolder. He followed the two men unceremoniously to Belle's +porch and bluffed Belle herself into admitting him to the living room. +Laramie had gone into the back part of the house to hunt up Kate; Barb, +alone, sat in the rocking chair, chewing an unlighted cigar. + +Lefever greeted the big cattleman effusively; Barb's response was cold. +He looked Lefever over critically: "What'you doing?" he asked, without +warm interest in any possible answer. + +"Buying a relinquishment now and again, Barb." + +"Railroad man, eh?" muttered Barb, irrelevantly. + +"No, no. I've quit that game; I've got a claim up near you. I'm going +to try to live the life of a small but dishonest rancher, Barb." + +"You ought to do well at that, eh?" + +"Why, yes and no. But I'm thinking, if I can't figure out the game, +some of my neighbors can help me catch on--what?" + +Barb's retort--if he had one--to Lefever's continued laugh, was cut off +by Laramie's entrance with Kate. John saw that he was _de trop_, that +it was a family conference, and only extracting from Laramie a promise +to see him--about nothing whatever--before leaving town he made what he +termed a graceful getaway. Kate and Laramie faced her father. Belle, +too, was for going out. Doubleday stopped her: "No secrets, Belle; +stay if you want to." + +All sat down. Kate was for a chair, but Laramie domineering, made her +sit with him on the sofa. Barb spoke first: "This Falling Wall fight +is off," he began briefly. "Anyway, I quit on it. I've got to, Jim. +The settlers there are in to stay," declared Barb philosophically. +"They've got to be reco'nized." The settlers, in this instance, meant +Jim Laramie, since practically everyone else had been driven or +frightened out. But all understood what was intended; for if the +fighting ceased the park would fill up. + +"Since yesterday," Doubleday went on, "I've found out something else." +He was speaking directly to Laramie. "That man Stone," he exclaimed, +"has been robbing me." + +The old man paused. No one made any comment. Abe Hawk had long ago +told Laramie as much. "He's been misbranding on me--him and that +rascally Van Horn have been selling my steers to the railroad camps on +the Reservation. I've got the evidence from some Indians that came +over yesterday with the hides. Last night," continued the victim +coolly, "I fired Stone. He went right over to Van Horn's. I told him +that's where he belongs. I'm through with 'em both." + +"Why don't you have 'em arrested?" demanded Belle. + +"I might, yet," muttered Barb vaguely. + +Laramie held his peace; but even Kate realized _that_ would never do. +"Jim and me has had our differences," added Barb, "but they're ended. +If you two get married----" + +"There ain't goin' to be any 'if,' Barb," interposed Laramie, "there's +just going to be 'married,' and married right off." + +"Well, that's for you and the girl to say; but when you say it, you've +got to have a house to live in. I met Jim," added her father, speaking +now to Kate, "over in the lumber yard this morning. When you get your +house up, turn the bill in to me." + +Kate's kisses confused and stopped her father. Belle made ready a good +dinner. The four ate together. Belle was excited, Kate happy and +Laramie content. But for the old man it was somehow hard to fit in. +Having had his say, he relapsed into grim silence and taciturn +responses. Even his presence would have repressed Belle but for Kate's +happy laugh. She looked at her father, talked to him, thought of him, +studied him, and throwing off lingering doubts--for she never felt she +quite knew her father--enjoyed him, eating as he was in peace with her +husband-to-be. + +When Laramie's cigars were lighted after the dinner, Barb seemed to +feel more at his ease. He told stories of his old railroad days and +laughed when Kate and Belle and Laramie laughed. Later, his daughter +and his new son-in-law walked up street with him. They went with him +on his errands and then to the barn. McAlpin, personally, hitched up +the ponies, both in compliment to a new customer and to hear every word +that passed in the talk. + +"Damme," he muttered to the hostler in the harness room, "y' can't get +around old Barb. Look at him. What do I mean? Don't he fight Laramie +five years 'n' get licked? Now he turns him into his son-in-law and +gets the Falling Wall range anyway--can y' beat it? Coming right +along, sir!" he shouted, as Barb in the gangway bellowed for more +speed. And with a flutter of activity, real and feigned, McAlpin and +his helper fastened the traces. + +When ready, the wiry team and the long narrow buckboard looked small +for Barb, who cautiously clambered into the seat and gingerly +distributed his bulk upon it. Laramie had taken the reins from +McAlpin; he passed them to Barb who, as he squared himself so as not to +fall off his slender perch, was huskily demanding when Laramie and Kate +would be out. At the last minute, Kate insisted on and was given, a +good-by kiss. She and Jim promised to go out next day. Barb spoke to +the horses. They jumped half-way out of the barn. Kate, with Laramie +following, hurried forward to see her father drive away. + +The broad back, topped by the powerful shoulders and neck, and the big +hat bobbing up and down with the spring of the buckboard, the little +team plunging at their bits, and her father heedless of their +antics--all this was a familiar sight, but never had it been so +pleasing. The setting sun touched with gold the thin cloud of dust +that rose from the wheels. It was the close of a beautiful day and it +had been next to the happiest in her life, Kate thought, while she +stood, watching and thinking. The ponies reaching a turn in the road +dashed ahead and her father disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +BRADLEY RIDES HARD + +The evening was spent at Belle's. Lefever came in late with +congratulations. He told them about his trip and the wonders. + +"I'll bet you're glad to get back to Sleepy Cat," objected Belle. + +Lefever pointed a serious, almost accusing finger at her: "Thank you +for saying it, Belle; and that's never hinting the Panhandle's not a +good country--not a bit of it. But, just the same, I'm glad to get +back to my own. There's no place like hell, Jim, is there?--especially +if you've got friends there--you know that." + +"You ought to be ashamed, John Lefever, to say such things," exclaimed +Belle, indignantly. But nothing could check Lefever's spirits. His +laugh was contagious: "I am, Belle, I am. I want you to feel that I +am." + +"And you came back across the Sinks?" interposed Laramie. + +"We did," responded John, starting all over again, "and I want to tell +you the Sinks are picking up. There's a better class of people going +in. I was laid up at Thief River--something I ate. I felt pretty bad." + +"How do you feel now?" Laramie asked. + +"Why, not very good to tell the truth. I had a kind of a sleepy night. +You wouldn't believe it, Jim, but there's quite a town at Thief River. +And the Sisters here at Sleepy Cat have got a little hospital going. +They treated me fine. Everybody, in fact, seemed to take an interest +in getting me on my feet. There's an awful nice undertaker there. I +forget his name; but he knew Henry de Spain well; said he'd done a good +deal of business for Henry, off and on--when he could get the coffins. +He sent some flowers over to me at the hospital with his card. I sent +back my own card--wrote: 'Not yet.' When we were leaving I went over +to thank him and tell him I was sorry I hadn't been able to throw him a +job. Even then, I didn't feel I could logically say good-by to an +undertaker--I just said '_Au revoir_.'" + +The two men afterward joined Sawdy at the Mountain House. In the +morning, breakfasting together early, Sawdy and Lefever with Laramie +walked in the bright sunshine down to Kitchen's barn to saddle up and +ride across the river to look at some horses. Laramie stopped at +Belle's to see whether he could get Kate to go over with them; and +while Sawdy went on to the barn, Lefever waited at Belle's gate to find +out whether Kate was going. + +When Laramie came to the door after a few moments to say that Kate +would go, Lefever stood outside the gate looking intently into the +north. + +"Somebody from the Crazy Woman," he observed as Laramie joined him, +"must have an urgent call in town this morning." + +He was watching what appeared to be little more than a speck on the +northern horizon, but even at that distance it was moving fast. +Lefever walked over to Kitchen's to order the fourth horse. Rejoining +Laramie he found him still at the gate. And when Kate, fresh as the +morning, appeared, the two men though talking of indifferent things, +had their eyes fixed on a horseman galloping at breakneck speed down +the long slope of the northern divide. He was now less than a mile +away and the dust thrown from his horse's hoofs rose evenly behind him +in the stillness of the sunshine. He must pass the barn to reach town. +Kate asked a question. + +"It may be one of your father's horses," mused Lefever aloud, "and it +rides something like old Bill Bradley." + +Still pushing his speed to the limit and cutting in reckless fashion +the turns of the open road, the rider drew rapidly nearer. They could +see he was hatless and coatless and urging his horse. "It's Bradley," +declared Lefever decisively. Laramie said nothing. Kate instinctively +drew closer to him. The horseman disappeared at that moment behind the +railroad icing plant. The next, he whirled with a sharp clatter of +hoofs into Main Street, and, dashing past Carpy's, pulled his foaming +horse to its haunches in front of Kitchen's barn. + +McAlpin and Sawdy were leading the four saddle ponies to the stable +door. The group at Belle's gate could not hear what Bradley shouted; +but they saw McAlpin start. Sawdy, too, spoke quick, and pointed, with +his words, across the way. Bradley jerked his panting horse around and +spurred toward Belle's gate. + +The old man, his thin hair flying and his blood-shot eyes bulging, +reined up before Laramie with his arm out, to speak. But the ride and +the excitement had been too much. His features worked convulsively but +he could not utter a word. + +"For God's sake, Bill," cried Lefever, catching his arm and jerking +him. "What's up?" + +Bradley, his eyes glued on Laramie, got back his voice: "It's Barb, +Jim!" he shouted wildly. "Tom Stone shot him this morning!" + +Kate's sharp cry rang in Laramie's ears. He caught her in his arm. +Belle ran out, only adding to the confusion with her scream. Lefever, +joined now by Sawdy and McAlpin, who had hurried over, got Bradley off +his horse, into a chair on the porch, refreshed him with water and +steadied his whisky-wrecked nerves with whisky. + +Stone and Van Horn came over from Van Horn's early, Bradley told his +hearers brokenly. They asked for Barb and he was down at the creek. +Barb had sent Bradley about a mile below the house to repair a small +break in the irrigation ditch and had ridden down to show him what he +wanted done. After giving instructions, he had started back for the +house. Before he got far, Stone and Van Horn met him. Bradley heard +voices up the creek but paid no special attention to them, and busied +himself with his job. Some minutes later he heard the voices again, +loud and angry. As they were close by, Bradley, shovel in hand, walked +along the ditch bank to where he could see what was up. + +"They'd all got off their horses," continued Bradley, "and was standin' +not fur apart. I was close to the willows along the ditch. 'Fore you +could say Jack Robinson, Stone and Van Horn snapped out their guns and +begun to shoot. The old man was game, boys, but he didn't have no +show. He managed to get his gun out, both men a-shootin' at him." + +"Both!" echoed Laramie, bitterly. Sawdy swore a withering oath. + +"Is my father dead?" cried Kate in agony. + +"Not yet," replied Bradley disconcertingly. + +"We must get Carpy up there quick. Hunt him up, will you, John?" said +Laramie to Lefever. + +"Hold on," interposed Bradley. "Carpy's there afore this. I met him +drivin' north and he put right out for the ranch." + +"Couldn't you do something while they were trying to murder Father?" +sobbed Kate, wringing her hands as she appealed to Bradley. + +"Why, what could _I_ do?" stared Bradley. "_I_ didn't have no gun. +Kelly and me got the wagon down and picked Barb up 'n' got him to the +house. He told me to put out for town and get you and Jim Laramie; +he's out of his head, you see." + +"Did they see you, Bradley?" interrupted Laramie. + +"Never seen me, Jim." + +"Did Barb hit either of them?" asked Laramie. + +"'Tain't likely. He only got in one shot. When they seen him +wrigglin' on the ground, all doubled up--you know, Jim--they jumped +their horses and put across the creek." + +For a moment Kate's suppressed sobs broke the silence. Laramie held +her in his arm. He promised her he would get her right out to her +father as soon as he could take measures for pursuit. When the other +men questioned Bradley, Laramie listened. He urged Kate to go inside +with Belle, but she begged to stay: "I won't cry, Jim," she pleaded in +a whisper. "I must stay. Let me stay." + +He placed her in a chair. Belle, schooled in silence during such +moments, stood beside her. Laramie placing himself near Kate, half sat +on the edge of the porch floor, one foot resting on the ground and the +other curled under. Lefever facing him, sat on the end of the porch +steps while Sawdy stood with the horses. McAlpin had hurried over to +the barn to get Kitchen and telephone Tenison to come down. + +"There's two ways they can get out," said Laramie, casting up the +situation with his companions. "One is across the Falling Wall and +over the Reservation. If they've gone that way they've got a start; +but they're easy to trail. The other way would be to strike east or +west for the railroad. That's the big gamble--it's the easiest to play +and the worst if they lose. They may separate." + +"My Godfrey, Jim, don't let 'em get away," exclaimed Belle, fearfully. + +"And there's one more angle," remarked Laramie. "They may show up +right here and try to bluff it out." + +Sawdy shook his head against that idea. Lefever supported him. +Laramie did not urge the view. "Van Horn plays cards different from +everybody else," was all he said. + +Kitchen drove up and Tenison was in the buggy with him. + +What help might be had from the sheriff's office was put in Tenison's +hands to manage. The railroad men were warned across the division. +Outgoing train crews were notified and the enginemen told what to do, +if stopped. Sawdy and Lefever were directed to strike for the Falling +Wall and watch the Reservation trails, while Laramie, with Kate, was to +ride straight to the ranch and pick up the trail across the creek. + +The news of the shooting of Barb Doubleday filled the corners of Main +Street with little knots of men eager to hear all that was known and to +be first to catch what might come. Women sometimes stopped to listen +and men making ready to ride the northern trails supplied clattering in +the streets for every moment and added to the tense scene. The chances +for the escape of Van Horn and Stone were canvassed among critics and +listeners, and with almost as much insight as they had been cast up in +the war council at Belle's. The men that might be expected to give +battle if they encountered the fugitives were watched for and every +time they rode past, the maneuvering and fighting abilities of each +were speculated on with surprising accuracy; records were recalled and +inferences drawn as to the possibilities now ahead. + +The picture of the busy street, constantly renewed and dissolved, +changed fast. Lefever and Sawdy, together, were the first to clear for +their long ride. Kitchen, strapping on, for the first time in years, a +well cared-for Colt's revolver, got fresh ammunition, and throwing +himself on a good horse, rode for where he had sworn he would never +appear again, the Doubleday ranch--to get the cowboys started at poking +out the hiding places along the creek. + +McAlpin, with much ado, enlisted every man with any sort of a claim to +being a tracker--and this included pretty much every loafer interested +in a drink or a fight. He assembled a noisy crew at the barn and +despatched them singly with orders to scatter and watch the trail +points outlying the town. But birds of this feather were hard to keep +scattered. Urged both by prudential and social reasons, they tended +continuously to flock together. They kept the barn boss busy by riding +back furiously in bunches to report nobody seen, to ask for further +orders and to get a drink before reestablishing a patrol. + +Knowing the value of every moment in a long chase, and working with all +possible haste, Laramie had to throw out his dragnet carefully before +he could get away himself. He had told Kate to prepare at Belle's for +a hard ride and he would get her to the ranch. + +With every minute lingering like an hour, both women, nervously +expectant, waited, talked, and watched for Laramie's return. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS + +Divide lands north of Sleepy Cat lie high and over their broad spread, +trails open fan-like, north, northeast and northwest. Each of the +trails penetrates at a negotiable point the broken country running up +to the mountains that battle with the northern sky. + +The first highways of the country followed the easiest travel lines. +Without fences or boundaries, their travelers, to escape washouts or +dust, were free to broaden them as they fancied. In this way older +ruts were gradually abandoned and new ones formed. And with heavy +travel these trails grew into sprawling avenues. + +As settlers took up lands and fenced their claims, such pioneer roads +were blocked at intervals. To meet this difficulty new trails were +made around the gradually increasing obstacles and in the end roads +along section lines were laid out, with grading and bridging. But the +wagon and cattle trails of the early days, rut-cut, storm-washed, and +polished by sun and wind and sand to a shining smoothness, still +stretch across country, truncate and deserted. Under their +weather-beaten silence lies the story of other days and other men and +women. + +Along one of the earliest and broadest of these trails running into the +north country, Laramie, an hour after Bradley's arrival, was galloping +with Kate Doubleday. + +But for the shadow of her father's condition there was everything in +the ride to make for Kate's happiness. The sweep of the matchless sky, +the glory of the sunshine, the wine of the morning air, the eager feet +and spreading nostrils of the horses, and at her side--her lover! The +trust a woman gives to a man, the security of his protection, the daily +growth of her confidence in her choice and her surrender--these could +temper, if they could not extinguish, her confused grief. + +For Laramie the shadow meant less; sympathy drew him closer to Kate; +there was even happiness in knowing that she turned in her distress to +him for consolation and guidance. + +Timidly, she tried to tell him, as they rode, of some of the better +traits of her father, traits that might extenuate his cold, hard +brutality--as if to build him up a little in the eyes of one she wished +not to think of him too harshly. + +"Don't worry over what I'm going to think about him," said Laramie. +"If I worried over what a lot of people think about me, where should I +be? There's some good in most every man; but it doesn't always get a +chance to work." + +Kate's anxiety was reflected in her manner. "If only," she exclaimed, +"they haven't killed him today." + +The two had crossed the first divide. Below them lay the Crazy Woman, +spanned by the Double-draw bridge. + +"His friends were his worst enemies," continued Laramie. "But they've +got to get out of this country now. And the worst men are out of the +Falling Wall. Still if you don't like it there, we won't live there," +he added, sitting half sidewise toward Kate in his saddle to feast his +eyes on her freshness and youth. + +"I shall like it anywhere you are, Jim," she said, looking at him +simply. + +The picture was too much for his restraint. He reined eagerly toward +her. + +With a laugh she shied away, struck her horse and dashed ahead. +Laramie spurred after her. But they were on the level creek bottom and +riding swiftly. She gave him a long run--more than he had looked for. + +He realized, as they raced toward the bridge, that he had for one +moment forgotten everything but his complete happiness. He called to +Kate to stop. In her zest she spurred the harder. He knew she must +not reach the bridge ahead of him. Yet he realized the difficulty he +faced; she would not understand; and at every cost he must stop her. +Animated by this sudden instinct of danger he crowded his horse, forged +abreast the flying girl, caught her bridle, and to her astonishment +dragged her horse and his own rudely to their haunches. They were +almost at the bridge itself. + +"Back up!" he exclaimed. "Back up!" + +"Jim!" she cried, "_please_ don't throw me!" + +"Don't speak--back!!" he said low and sharply. Something in the tone +and manner of the command admitted of no parley. + +With her horse cavorting, half strangled, as he was jerked and backed, +Kate, looking amazed at Laramie, saw in his face a man new to her--a +man she never had seen before. Not her questioning look, nor the +frantic struggles of the rearing horses touched him; nothing in the +confusion of the sudden moment drew his eye for an instant from the +bridge before him and his drawn revolver was already poised in his +hand. Kate knew her part without another protest. She tore her +horse's mouth cruelly with the curb. Where the danger was, or what, +she did not know, but she could obey orders. Her eyes tried to follow +Laramie's, bent ahead. The bottoms spread level in every direction. +The approach to the little bridge and beyond was as open as the day. +Not a living creature was anywhere in sight, nothing with life had +anywhere stirred, nothing of sound broke the silence of the morning, +except--when Laramie allowed them to stop--the startled breathing of +the horses. + +"Jim!" exclaimed Kate in awed restraint. "What is it?" + +His eyes were riveted straight ahead, but he answered in a most +matter-of-fact tone: "There's somebody under that bridge." + +She strained her eyes to see something he must have seen that she could +not see. The dazzling sunshine, the dusty road, the rough-built, short +wooden bridge before them, were all plain enough. And Kate realized +for the first time that Laramie, who had been riding on her right was +now on her left and presently that his revolver was sheathed and his +rifle, which had hung in its scabbard at the horse's shoulder, was +slung across the hollow of his right arm. + +"Kate," he said, speaking without looking at her, "will you ride back +about a mile and wait for me?" + +She turned to him: "What are you going to do, Jim?" + +"Smoke that fellow out." + +She spoke almost in a whisper: "Is it Van Horn, Jim?" + +"I don't believe he'd hide there. It's more like Stone." + +"Jim! Stone's a deadly shot!" + +Looking into the distance he only replied: "From cover. This may be a +long-winded affair, Kate." He added, pausing, "you'd better ride as +far as the hills." + +She looked at him bravely restrained but with all her love in her eyes: +"I don't want to leave you, Jim." + +"It's poor business for you to be in," he returned firmly. "There's no +way to make it pleasant." + +"Don't drive me away!" + +He hesitated again: "You might do this: Ride back fast about eighty +rods. Leave the road there, bear to the west and circle around the +little knoll you'll see. There's a clump of willows below the west +side of that knoll." + +"Do you know every clump of willows in this country, Jim?" + +He answered unmoved: "I know that one for I've crawled up there more +than once to take observations under that bridge myself. Get around +behind those willows and you can see the creek bottom all the way to +the bridge. I'm going up the creek about five hundred yards. I'll +work down. Whoever's under the bridge can't get away except down the +creek. If you see a man trying that, just fire two shots--in the air, +close together--I'll understand. If you get into any kind of +trouble--which you're kind of trying to do--fire two shots a few +seconds apart. I won't be far off." + +With a plea to him to be careful--behind which all her agony of +apprehension was repressed and mastered--Kate wheeled her horse and +galloped back. + +Laramie, skirting a depression, rode into a break leading to the creek +bed. The creek was practically dry; just a thread of water here and +there among the rocks marked the course of flood time. Dismounting, +Laramie shook himself out of the saddle and laying his rifle across his +arm, walked carefully down-stream along the bed of the creek. + +He knew if he were seen first, the fight would be over before he got +into it; of chances to kill from cover, the criminal he felt sure he +was hunting, would need but one. No man from the Falling Wall country +was Stone's superior in the craft of hiding; but none was Laramie's +equal in the art of surprise; and Laramie meant, for once, to make an +antagonist formidable from cover, show in the open. + +With this alone in purpose, he stalked with the patience of an Indian +from point to point and cover to cover down toward the bridge; +crouching, halting and peering; slipping from the shoulder of a rock to +the shelter of a boulder; flattening on his stomach to worm his way +under a projecting ledge and sliding noiselessly on his back down the +face of a water-worn glacis--but drawing closer all the time to the +bridge. + +He knew every inch of the ground. He knew how well his quarry had +concealed himself to render surprise impossible. But Stone's very +safety in this respect made his retreat more difficult. A man lying in +wait under the Double-draw, staked practically everything on one +chance: that the man he sought to kill should cross the bridge. It +were then easy to pick him off from behind. But if the intended +victim, suspicious, should get unseen into the creek bed, the skulker +could hardly avoid a fight. + +Three hundred yards above the bridge, the creek walls open in an +ellipse, narrowing abruptly where the bridge spans them. This open +space has been scoured by floods until the bedrock lies like a polished +floor and it was now dry except where the piers of the bridge stood in +stagnant pools. Once within this amphitheater whose vertical walls +rise twenty to thirty feet, no fighting cover is available. + +Behind a rocky point that guarded the upper entrance of the opening, +stood Laramie. He was watching the shadow cast by a shrub that sprang, +shallow-rooted, from a crevice in the bedrock. For an interminable +time he waited, only noting the slow swing of the narrow shadow as the +morning sun, flooding the rock-basin, rose in majestic course. +Gradually the deflection of the slender indicator, moving like a finger +on the rock dial, marked the turn of the sun well past the shoulder of +the point at which Laramie must emerge. When that moment came he +looked sharply out, sprang from behind the point and ran sidewise into +the narrow shadow thrown from the curving wall. + +Stone, uneasy and alert, stood under the bridge, his rifle across his +arm. The two men saw each other almost at the same instant. For +Stone, it was the climax of a hatred long nursed because of a supremacy +long challenged. And for him it was an open field with weapons in +which his skill was as matchless as Laramie's was held to be, at close +quarters, with a Colt's revolver. + +Nor had Laramie underestimated the chances of an encounter under such +circumstances. He counted only on the slight advantage of a +surprise--knowing from disagreeable experiences how a surprise jars the +poise; and there persisted in his mind, what he had never until then +hinted to another, that Stone, shooting as an assassin from cover and +Stone himself facing death, might shoot differently. On these slender +hopes he covered Stone, as the ex-rustler jumped his rifle to his +check, and cried to him to pitch up. + +Stone's answer was a bullet. His shot echoed Laramie's, and as Laramie +whipped the hat from his enemy's head, his bullet tore through the +right side of Laramie's belt. Bare-headed, and thirsty to close on his +antagonist, Stone, jumping from Laramie's second bullet, ran forward, +hugging the creek wall, dropped on one knee, fired, and ran in again. +Laramie refused to be tempted from the shadow in which he stood, until +Stone, rounding the wall again as he came on, firing, threatened to +find partial cover should Laramie stand still. It was a contest of +deadly fencing, of steady heads and cool wit, a struggle in instant +strategy. And if Stone meant to force Laramie into the sunshine, he +now succeeded--but at a fearful cost. Laramie jumped not only into the +sunshine but into the blinding sun itself, and when Stone ran in again, +Laramie tore open his hip with a bullet. It knocked the foreman over +as if it had been a mallet. But he was swiftly up and firing +persistently almost outlined with bullets Laramie's figure against the +rock wall. He splintered the grip of Laramie's revolver in its +holster, he cut the sleeve from his wrist, and tore hair from the right +side of his head; but he could not stop him. Enraged, and realizing +too late how every possibility in the fight had been figured out by his +enemy before he stepped into sight, Stone, crippled, yet forced to +circle, dropped once more on his knee to smash in a final shot. + +He was covered the instant he knelt. A bullet from Laramie's rifle +shook him like a leaf. His head, jerking, sunk to his breast. With a +superhuman effort he rallied. He looked at Laramie--narrowly +watching--shook the hair from before his eyes and fumbling at the +firing lever tried to elevate his rifle to pump. But he swayed on his +bent knee; the rifle slipped from his grasp. He sank to the rock +floor, clutching with his big hands at the gravel, while Laramie +running to him turned him over, snatched his revolver from its holster +and throwing it out of reach, lifted his enemy's head. + +When Kate, in an agony of suspense, made her way to the creek bed she +found Laramie scooping water up in his hands for Stone. She could not +go near the wounded man. Only by word from where she stood, piteously, +and by dumb sign, she drew Laramie to her to learn whether _he_ was +hurt. When he declared he was not, she would not believe him till she +had felt his arm where one bullet had cut his sleeve, and where the +deadliest had raised a sullen red welt along his temple. + +Ben Simeral was first to come along on his way to town, in his wagon. +John Frying Pan was with him. With their help, Laramie got Stone up to +the bridge and into the wagon to take to town. He had shut his eyes +and refused to talk. Kate made Laramie tell her every detail of the +fight and breathed anew the terrors of each moment. + +"I stole toward the bridge the minute I heard the firing," she +confessed, unsteadily. "Oh, yes, I know! I might have been killed. +But if you were, I wanted to be. How could you tell, when you stopped +me so, Jim, there was a man under the bridge?" + +"A bunch of bank swallows nests under that bridge right where Stone was +hiding," he said, reflecting. "Those swallows always fly out when I +ride up to it. If they don't fly out, I don't cross. Today they +didn't fly out." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +WARNING + +By nightfall Kate had the hope that her father might live. Doctor +Carpy, indeed, promised as much, though he confessed to Laramie that he +was partly bluffing. It was, he explained, a question of constitution +and nerve and he thought Barb had both. For better care he had him +brought to town, and within the same hospital walls that sheltered +Doubleday, lay Stone, in even more serious condition. The sole promise +Carpy would make concerning him was that he would fit him up either for +trial, or for his museum--or, as Lefever suggested, for both. + +The excitement of the town lay in the pursuit of Van Horn. Laramie +during the first uncertain days of her father's condition stayed within +Kate's call. + +"While Van Horn's loose, Jim," said Tenison one day, "you're the man +that's in danger; don't forget that." + +"I'd like to forget it," he returned. "But I guess it wouldn't be just +exactly safe to. Barb warned me yesterday to look out for a +surprise--Van Horn's good at them. Then again he may have left the +country--there's no word of him from anybody yet. + +"Things up at Barb's ranch have got to have some attention," he +continued. "Barb will be laid up a long time; and if I don't see after +things the banks will. I'm going to take McAlpin up there tomorrow." + +The two men were sitting before a large window in the hotel office. As +McAlpin's name was mentioned they saw the man himself stepping +sailor-fashion at a lively pace up Main Street. He made for the hotel, +burst through the office door and headed straight for Laramie: + +"Kitchen's just rode into the barn, Jim, with word from Lefever and +Sawdy--they've got track of Van Horn. He come to Pettigrew's ranch +yesterday for food and a fresh horse. One of John Frying Pan's boys +seen him. Lefever says they've got him located near the head waters of +the Crazy Woman. You know that rough country east of Pettigrew's? +Lefever says if you'll get right up there and watch the creek, he can't +get away. The boys at Pettigrew's say he's got lots of ammunition; +Lefever and Sawdy stayed at Pettigrew's last night." + +At the barn, Kitchen, who had ridden in from the Doubleday ranch, had +few details to add. But the Indian runner that brought the word from +Lefever and Sawdy had made it clear to Kitchen the two were depending +on Laramie to help them bottle Van Horn up. + +Laramie laid the news before Kate at the hospital. He called her from +her father's room and they talked at the end of the corridor. + +She looked at him wistfully: "I don't want you to go, Jim," she +whispered. + +Her hands lay on his free arm. "I don't want to go, Kate," he said. +"But the boys have sent to me for help--what can I do? He's a hundred +times more my enemy than theirs. The only interest they've got in +rounding him up is friendship for me and you. Suppose they close with +him and get killed?" + +Kate could only look up into his eyes: "Suppose you get killed, Jim?" + +He hesitated. Then he looked down into her own eyes: "You'd know I did +what I ought to do, Kate." + +She withdrew herself from his embrace and looked at him: "I know you're +going, Jim; only, don't ask me to say 'go.' I couldn't bear to think +_I_ sent you." + +McAlpin had armed himself and was determined, despite Laramie's +protests, to ride with him. The plucky boss was saddling the ponies +and stood momentarily expecting Laramie at the barn when the telephone +rang. + +Too occupied with his watch for Laramie to give it any heed, McAlpin +let it ring. And the barn men let it ring. It rang, seemingly, more +and more sharply until McAlpin, with an impatient exclamation, ordered +a hostler to answer. "It's you, McAlpin," bawled the hostler from the +office, "and they want you quick." + +McAlpin hurried to the instrument and glued his ear to the receiver. +Tenison was on the wire. He spoke low and fast: "Is Laramie there?" + +"No." + +"Where is he?" + +"Couldn't tell you, Harry, I'm lookin' for him every minute." + +"Drop everything. Find him quick or you'll be too late. Van Horn's in +town." + +McAlpin gasped and swallowed: "What d' y' mean, Harry?" + +"Damnation!" thundered Tenison. "You heard me, didn't you?" + +"I did." + +"Do as you're told." + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE LAST CALL + +The canny Scot knew well what the message meant. With little +ostentation and much celerity he hurried up street. Belle, at her, +door with Kate, drawn-faced, could only say that Laramie had promised +to come there before starting. "Warn him," was McAlpin's excited word. +"You know Van Horn, Belle." + +Red-faced and heated, McAlpin ambled rapidly in and out of every place +where he could imagine Laramie might be. Deathly afraid of running +into Van Horn--who bore him, he well knew, no love--but doggedly bent +on his errand, McAlpin asked fast questions and spread the rapid-fire +news as he traveled. More than once he had word of Laramie, yet +nowhere could he, in his exasperation, set eyes on him. How nearly he +succeeded in his mission he never knew till he had failed. + +Laramie had completed his dispositions and was free, after a brief +round of errands, to start north, when Carpy encountered him in the +harness shop next to the drug store. Laramie was in haste. But Carpy +insisted he must speak with him and, against protest, took him by way +of the back door of the shop over to the back door of the drug store +and into the little room behind the prescription case. + +The doctor sat down and motioned Laramie, despite his impatience, to a +chair: "It won't take long to tell you what I've got to tell you," said +Carpy, firmly, "but you'll be a long time forgetting it. And the time +you ought to know it is now. + +"Jim!" Carpy, facing him four feet away, looked squarely into +Laramie's eyes. "I know you pretty well, don't I? All right! I'm +going to talk pretty plain. You're going to marry Kate Doubleday. +Whatever her father's faults--and they've been a-plenty--they'd best be +let lie now. That's what Kate would want, I'm thinkin'--that's what +her husband would want--anyway, her children would want it. Barb, +after he deserted Kate's mother, went out into the Black Hills. He got +into trouble there--a partnership scrape. I don't know how much or how +little he was to blame; but his partner got the best of him and Barb +shot him. + +"The partner's friends had the pull. Barb was sentenced for +manslaughter. He broke away the night he was sentenced. He came out +into this country, took his own name again, got into railroad building, +made money, lost it, and went into cattle. + +"Two men here know this story. I'm one; the other is Harry Van Horn. +He lived in the Hills when this happened. He wouldn't tell because he +wanted Kate. + +"Jim, if Van Horn comes in alive, he'll be tried for this job on Barb. +He'll plead self-defense and spring the Black Hills story. Van Horn +has done his best to kill you and hired Stone to do it. You and Kate +ought to know why. It's up to you whether he comes in alive and +blackens her father's name to get even with both of you. Now start +along, Jim--that's all." + +Laramie did not rise. + +For himself he cared nothing. But he cared for Kate. And though she +had little reason to care for her father, and the tragedy of a record +such as his was not a pleasant memory for any daughter; how much more +would she suffer if his record were exposed by one whose interest it +would be to blacken it? + +"I said that was all," continued Carpy; "it ain't quite all, either. +Van Horn will swear everything in this Falling Wall raid on old Barb to +make feeling against him--it'll be a mess." + +Laramie's eyes were fixed on the floor. When he raised them he spoke +thoughtfully: "I see what you mean, Doctor. I'll talk plain, too--as +you'd want me to, I know. No one can tell till it's over how a man +hunt is going to work out. But whatever my feelings are, there's +something else I've got to think about. You're leaving it out. No +matter what stories have been told about me, my record up to this, is +clear. I've never in my life shot down a man except in self-defense. +I couldn't begin by doing it now. You know what I've stood from these +cattlemen in the last year----" + +"Why," demanded Carpy, "did you do it?" + +"Why did Kate Doubleday shun me like a man with the smallpox? Because +they put it up to her I was a man-killer. When they couldn't make me +out a rustler, they made me out a gambler. When they couldn't make me +out a thief, they made me out a gunman. I had a fine reputation to +live down; and all of it from her own father and his friends--what +could you expect a girl to do? + +"I won out against the bunch. I couldn't have done it without playing +straight. It's too late for me to switch my game now. I'd hate to see +more grief heaped on Kate. And Van Horn doesn't deserve any show. But +if his hands go up--though I never expect to see Harry Van Horn's hands +over his head--I can't do it, Doctor, that's all there is to it--he'll +come in alive as far as anything I have to do with it." + +Carpy laughed cynically: "Jim," he exclaimed with an affectionate +string of abuse, "you're the biggest fool in all creation. It's all +right." The doctor opened the door of the little room as Laramie rose. +"Go 'long," he said roughly, "but bring back your legs on their own +power." + +Laramie passed around from behind the prescription case where the clerk +was filling an order, and, busily thinking, walked rapidly toward the +open front door. A little girl waiting at the rear counter piped at +him. "How d' do, Mr. Laramie!" It was Mamie McAlpin. He stopped to +pinch her cheek. "I don't know you any more, Mamie. You're getting +such a big girl." Passing her, he stepped into the afternoon sunshine +that flooded the open doorway. + +The threshold of the door was elevated, country-store fashion, six or +seven inches above the sidewalk. Laramie glanced up street and +down--as he habitually did--and started to step down to the walk. It +was only when he looked directly across to the opposite side of the +street, lying in the afternoon shadow, that he saw, standing in a +narrow open space between two one-story wooden store buildings, a man +covering him with a revolver. + +At the very instant that Laramie saw him, the man fired. Laramie was +stepping down when the bullet struck him. Whirled by the blow, he +staggered against the drugstore window. Instinctively he reached for +his revolver. It hung at his left hip. But struggling to right +himself he found that his left arm refused to obey. When he tried to +get his hand to the grip of his revolver he could not, and the man, +seeing him helpless, darted from his hiding place out on the sidewalk +and throwing his gun into balance, fired again. + +It was Van Horn. Before the second shot echoed along the street a +dozen men were out. Not one of them could see at that moment a chance +for Laramie's life; they only knew he was a man to die hard, and +dying--dangerous. In catching him at the moment he was stepping down, +Van Horn's bullet, meant for his heart, had smashed the collar bone +above it and Laramie's gun arm hung useless. + +Realizing his desperate plight, he flung his smashed shoulder toward +his enemy. As the second bullet ripped through the loose collar of his +shirt, he swung his right arm with incredible dexterity behind him, +snatched his revolver from its holster, and started straight across the +street at Van Horn. + +It looked like certain death. Main Street, irregular, is at that point +barely sixty feet wide. Perfectly collected, Van Horn trying to fell +his reckless antagonist, fired again. But Laramie with deadly purpose +ran straight at him. By the time Van Horn could swing again, Laramie +had reached the middle of the street and stood within the coveted +shadow that protected Van Horn. In that instant, halting, he whipped +his revolver suddenly up in his right hand, covered his enemy and fired +a single shot. + +Van Horn's head jerked back convulsively. He almost sprang into the +air. His arms shot out. His revolver flew from his hand. He reeled, +and falling heavily across the board walk, turned, shuddering, on his +face. The bullet striking him between the eyes had killed him +instantly. + +Twenty men were running up. They left a careful lane between the man +now standing motionless in the middle of the street and his prone +antagonist. But Laramie knew too well the marks of an agony such as +that--the clenching, the loosing of the hands, the last turn, the +relaxing quiver. He had seen too many stricken animals die. + +Limp and bleeding, overcome with the horror of what he had not been +able to avert, he walked back to his starting point and sat down on the +edge of the sidewalk. His revolver had been tucked mechanically into +the waistband of his trousers. Men swarming into the street crowded +about. Carpy, agitated, tore open his bloody shirt. + +Laramie put up his right hand: "I'm not damaged much, doctor," he said +slowly and looking across the street. "See if you can do anything for +him." + +While he spoke, the tremor of a woman's voice rang in his half-dazed +ears--a woman trying to reach him. "Oh! where is he?" + +Men at the back of the crowd cried to make way. The half circle before +Laramie parted. He sprang to his feet, held out his right arm, and +Kate with an inarticulate cry, threw herself sobbing on his breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST + +"I'm telling you, Sawdy," expostulated McAlpin, in the manner of an +ultimatum, "I'm a patient man. But you've got to get out of that room." + +Sawdy stood a statue of dignity and defiance: "And I'm telling you, Hop +Scotch, I'll get out of that room when I get good and ready." + +"A big piece of ceiling came down last night," thundered McAlpin. + +Belle was listening; these sparks were flying at her gate: "Whatever +you do," she interjected contemptuously, "don't get a quarrel going +over that room." + +McAlpin, inextinguishable, turned to Belle: "Look at this: Henry Sawdy +gets into that bathtub. He turns on the water. He goes to sleep. +Every few weeks the ceiling falls on my new pool tables. First and +last, I've had a ton of mortar on 'em. If there was any pressure, I'd +be ruined." + +"If there was any pressure," interposed Sawdy, "I wouldn't go to sleep. +Do you know how long it takes to fill your blamed tub?" + +McAlpin in violent protest, scratched the gravel with his hobnailed +shoes: "I'll ask you: Am I responsible for the pressure, or the water +company?" Sawdy undisturbed, continued to stroke his heavy mustache. +"The water it takes to cover you, Henry," sputtered McAlpin, "would run +a locomotive from here to Medicine Bend." + +"I have to wait till everybody in town goes to bed before I can get a +dew started on the faucet," averred Sawdy. "Sometimes I have to set up +all night to take a bath. Look at the unreasonableness of it, Belle," +he went on indignantly. "I'm paying this Shylock a dollar and a half a +week for my room--and most of the time, no water." + +McAlpin ground his teeth: "No water!" was all he could echo, doggedly. + +"Do you know what this row is about, Belle?" demanded Sawdy. "He's +trying to screw me up to a dollar seventy-five for the room. And +everybody on the second floor using my bathtub," continued Sawdy, +calmly. + +"_Your_ bathtub," gasped McAlpin. "Well, if you could get title to it +by sleeping in it, it surely would be your tub, Sawdy." + +"I don't want your blamed room any longer, anyway," declared Sawdy. +"I'm going to get married." + +McAlpin started: "Henry, don't make a blamed fool o' yoursel'." + +"I said it," retorted Sawdy, waving him away. "Move on." + +"I've had no notice," announced McAlpin, raising his hand. "You'll pay +me my rent to the first of the year. You rented for the full year, +Henry, remember that!" With this indignant warning, McAlpin started +for the barn. + +Sawdy followed Belle into the house. He threw his hat on the +living-room table: "Sit down, Belle," he said recklessly. "I want to +talk." + +Belle was suspicious. "What about?" she demanded. "You can't room +here, I'll tell you that." + +"Now hold your horses a minute--just a minute. Sit down. I know when +a thing needs sugar, don't I? You know when it needs salt, don't you? +Why pay rent in two places? That's what I want to know. Let's hitch +up." + +"Stop your foolishness." + +"My foolishness has got me stopped." + +"If you expect to eat supper here tonight, stop your noise." + +"Honor bright!" persisted Sawdy, "what do you say?" + +Belle took it up with Kate: "With him and John Lefever both nagging at +me what can I do?" she demanded, greatly vexed. "I've got to marry a +fat man anyway I fix it." + +When Lefever learned Belle's choice had fallen on his running mate he +was naturally incensed: "I've been jobbed all 'round," he declared at +Tenison's. "First, Jim sends me up to the Reservation on a wild-goose +chase after his two birds and bags 'em both himself within gunshot of +town. Then my own partner beats me home by a day and cops off Belle. +Blast a widower, anyway. He'll beat out an honest man, every time. +Anyway, boys, this town is dead. Everything's getting settled up +around here. I'm sending my resignation in to Farrell Kennedy today +and I'm going to strike out for new country." + +"Not till I get married, John," said Laramie, when John repeated the +dire threat. "And Kate wants a new foreman up at the ranch. You know +her father's turned everything over to her." + +"What'll she pay?" + +"More than you're worth, John. Don't worry about that!" + +Some diplomacy was needed to restore general good feeling, but all was +managed. From the men, John got no sympathy. The women were more +considerate; and when Kate and Belle threatened there would be no +double wedding unless John stood up with the party, he bade them go +ahead with the "fixings." + +The breakfast at the Mountain House, Harry Tenison's personal +compliment to the wedding party, restored John Lefever quite to his +bubbling humor. It was a brave company that sat down. And a +democratic one, for despite feminine protests it numbered at the +different tables pretty much every friend of Laramie's, in the high +country, including John Frying Pan--only the blanket men from the +Reservation were excluded. Lefever acted as toastmaster. + +"Jim," he demanded, addressing Laramie in genial tones, when everything +was moving well, "just what in your eventful career do you most pride +yourself on?" + +Laramie answered in like humor. "Keeping out of jail," he retorted +laconically. + +"Been some job, I imagine," suggested Lefever cheerily. + +"At times, a man's job." + +"But you're not dead yet," persisted Lefever. + +"I'm married--that's just as good." + +"Why, Jim!" protested his bride with spirit. + +"I mean," explained Laramie, looking unabashed at Kate, "I'm looking to +you now to keep me out." + +The boisterous features of similar Sleepy Cat celebrations were omitted +in deference to Kate's feelings and the too recent tragedies: her +father still lay in the hospital. + +But her guests were agreed that she looked very happy over her new +husband. The tell-tale glow not wholly to be suppressed in her frank +eyes; the unmanageable pink that rose even to her temples and played +defiantly under her brown hair curling over them; the self-conscious +restraint of her voice and the sense of guilt bubbling up, every time +she laughed--these were all "sign," plain as print to married men, like +McAlpin and Carpy, and grounds for suspicion even to confirmed +bachelors like John Lefever and the old priest that came down from the +Reservation to perform the ceremony; and in everyone of them the +observing read the trails that led to Kate's heart. + +Laramie, on the other hand, disgusted those that expected a stern and +heroic showing. Towards the close of the breakfast he was laughing +deliriously at every remark, and looking dazed when an intelligent +question was put at him; Harry Tenison pronounced it disedifying. + +But when the young couple swung into their saddles for the wedding +trip--their destination, naturally, a secret--criticism ceased. +Laramie again looked his part; and those who had heard him pledge his +life to cherish and protect Kate, felt sure, as the two melted away +into the glow of the sunset, that his word was good. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE*** + + +******* This file should be named 23242-8.txt or 23242-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/23242-8.zip b/23242-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..423eb5a --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-8.zip diff --git a/23242-h.zip b/23242-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..46de972 --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-h.zip diff --git a/23242-h/23242-h.htm b/23242-h/23242-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc33835 --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-h/23242-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18327 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Laramie Holds the Range, by Frank H. Spearman</title> +<style type="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 5%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.salutation {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.closing {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.index {font-size: small ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.dedication {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 15%; + text-align: justify } + +P.published {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 15% } + +P.quote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report2 {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +H3.h3left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H3.h3right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H3.h3center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgleft { float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 1%; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgright {float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1%; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgcenter { margin-left: auto; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: auto; } + +.pagenum { position: absolute; + left: 1%; + font-size: 95%; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; } + +.sidenote { left: 0%; + font-size: 65%; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0%; + width: 17%; + float: left; + clear: left; + padding-left: 0%; + padding-right: 2%; + padding-top: 2%; + padding-bottom: 2%; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; } + + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + a:visited {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + a:hover {color:#ff0000; + text-decoration: underline; } + pre {font-size: 85%; } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Laramie Holds the Range, by Frank H. +Spearman, Illustrated by James Reynolds</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Laramie Holds the Range</p> +<p>Author: Frank H. Spearman</p> +<p>Release Date: October 29, 2007 [eBook #23242]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p> </p> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT=""Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . "You'll hear what I've got to say"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="404" HEIGHT="640"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 404px"> +"Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . "You'll hear what I've got to say" +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +FRANK H. SPEARMAN +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATED BY +<BR> +JAMES REYNOLDS +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +NEW YORK +<BR> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +<BR> +1921 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY +<BR> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +<BR><BR> +Published August, 1921 +<BR> +Reprinted September, 1921 +<BR><BR> +Copyright, 1921, by Frank H. Spearman +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TO MY SON +<BR> +FRANK HAMILTON SPEARMAN, JR. +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">SLEEPY CAT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">THE CRAZY WOMAN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">DOUBLEDAY'S</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">AT THE EATING HOUSE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CROSS PURPOSES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">WHICH WINS?</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">THE CLOSE OF THE DAY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">THE HOME OF LARAMIE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">AT THE BAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">A DUEL WITH KATE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">THE BARBECUE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">AGAINST HIS RECORD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">THE RAID OF THE FALLING WALL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE GO-DEVIL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap21">THE HIDING PLACE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap22">STONE TRIES HIS HAND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap23">KATE RIDES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap24">NIGHT AND A HEADER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap25">A GUEST FOR AN HOUR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap26">THE CRAZY WOMAN WINS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap27">KATE DEFIES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXVIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap28">A DIFFICULT RESOLVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXIX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap29">HORSEHEAD PASS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap30">THE FUNERAL AND AFTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap31">AN ENCOUNTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap32">A MESSAGE FROM TENISON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap33">THE CANYON OF THE FALLING WALL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap34">KATE GETS A SHOCK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap35">AT KITCHEN'S BARN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXVI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap36">MCALPIN AT BAY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXVII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap37">KATE BURNS THE STEAK</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXVIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap38">THE UNEXPECTED CALL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XXXIX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap39">BARB MAKES A SURPRISING ALLIANCE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XL </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap40">BRADLEY RIDES HARD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XLI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap41">THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XLII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap42">WARNING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XLIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap43">THE LAST CALL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XLIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap44">TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATIONS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +"Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . "You'll<BR> +hear what I've got to say" . . . . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-054"> +"And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-196"> +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie<BR> +drooped over his pommel +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-320"> +"No," said a man . . . as he pushed forward . . . "He's not<BR> +going to drink!" +</A> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SLEEPY CAT +</H3> + +<P> +All day the heavy train of sleepers had been climbing the long rise +from the river—a monotonous stretch of treeless, short-grass plains +reaching from the Missouri to the mountains. And now the train stopped +again, almost noiselessly. +</P> + +<P> +Kate, with the impatience of girlish spirits tried by a long and +tedious car journey, left her Pullman window and its continuous, +one-tone picture, and walking forward was glad to find the vestibule +open. The porter, meditating alone, stood below, at the car step, +looking ahead; Kate joined him. +</P> + +<P> +The stop had been made at a lonely tank, for water. No human +habitation was anywhere in sight. The sun had set. For miles in every +direction the seemingly level and open country spread around her. She +looked back to the darkening east that she was leaving behind. It +suggested nothing of interest beyond the vanishing perspective of a +long track tangent. Then to the north, whence blew a cool and gentle +wind, but the landscape offered nothing attractive to her eyes; its +receding horizon told no new story. Then she looked into the west. +</P> + +<P> +They had told her she should not see the Rockies until morning. But +the dying light in the west brought a moving surprise. In the dreamy +afterglow of the evening sky there rose, far beyond the dusky plain, +the faint but certain outline of distant mountain peaks. +</P> + +<P> +Bathed in a soft unearthly light, like the purple of another world; +touched here and there by a fairy gold; silent as dreams, majestic as +visions, overwhelming as reality itself, Kate gazed on them with +beating heart. +</P> + +<P> +Something clutched at her breath: "Are those the Rocky Mountains?" she +suddenly asked, appealing to the stolid porter. She told Belle long +afterward, she knew her voice must have quivered. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah'm sure, Ah c'dn't say, Miss. Ah s'pecs dey ah. Dis my first trip +out here." +</P> + +<P> +"So it is mine!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mah reg'lar run," continued the porter, insensible to the glories of +the distant sky, "is f'm Chicago to Council Bluffs." +</P> + +<P> +A flagman hurried past. Kate courageously pointed: "Are those the +Rocky Mountains, please?" He halted only to look at her in +astonishment. "Yes'm." But she was bound he should not escape: "How +far are they?" she shot after him. He looked back startled: "'Bout a +hundred miles," he snapped. Plainly there was no enthusiasm among the +train crew over mountains. +</P> + +<P> +When she was forced, reluctant, back into the sleeper, she announced +joyfully to her berth neighbors that the Rocky Mountains were in sight. +One regarded her stupidly, another coldly. Across the aisle the old +lady playing solitaire did not even look up. Kate subsided; but dull +apathy could not rob her of that first wonderful vision of the strange, +far-off region, perhaps to be her home. +</P> + +<P> +Next day, from the car window it was all mountains—at least, +everywhere on the horizon. But the train seemed to thread an +illimitable desert—a poor exchange for the boundless plains, Kate +thought. But she grew to love the very dust of the desert. +</P> + +<P> +The train was due at Sleepy Cat in the late afternoon. It met with +delays and night had fallen when Kate, after giving the porter too much +money, left her car, and suitcase in hand struggled, American fashion, +up the long, dark platform toward the dimly lighted station. Men and +women hastened here and there about her. The changing crews moved +briskly to and from the train. There was abundance of activity, but +none of it concerned Kate and her comfort. And there was no one, she +feared, to meet her. +</P> + +<P> +Reaching the station, she set down her suitcase without a tremor, and +though she had never been more alone, she never felt less lonely. The +eating-house gong beat violently for supper. A woman dragging a little +boy almost fell over Kate's suitcase but did not pause to receive or +tender apology. Men looking almost solemn under broad, +straight-brimmed hats moved in and out of the station, but none of +these saw Kate. Only one man striding past looked at her. He glared. +And as he had but one eye, Kate deemed him, from his expression, a +woman-hater. +</P> + +<P> +Then a fat man under an immense hat, and wearing a very large ring on +one hand, walked with a dapper step out of the telegraph office. He +did see Kate. He checked his pace, coughed slightly and changed his +course, as if to hold himself open to inquiry. Kate without hesitation +turned to him and explained she was for Doubleday's ranch. She asked +whether he knew the men from there and whether anyone was down. +</P> + +<P> +John Lefever, for it was he whom she addressed, knew the men but he had +seen no one; could he do anything? +</P> + +<P> +"I want very much to get out there tonight," said Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"Jingo," exclaimed Lefever, "not tonight!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tonight," returned Kate, looking out of dark eyes in pink and white +appeal, "if I can possibly make it." +</P> + +<P> +Lefever caught up her suitcase and set it down beside the waiting-room +door: "Stay right here a minute," he said. +</P> + +<P> +He walked toward the baggage-room and before he reached it, stopped a +second large, heavy man, Henry Sawdy. Him he held in confab; Sawdy +looking meantime quite unabashed toward the distant Kate. In the light +streaming from the station windows her slender and slightly shrinking +figure suggested young womanhood and her delicately fashioned features, +half-hidden under her hat, pleasingly confirmed his impression of it. +Kate, conscious of inspection, could only pretend not to see him. And +the sole impression she could snatch in the light and shadow of the +redoubtable Sawdy, was narrowed to a pair of sweeping mustaches and a +stern-looking hat. Lefever returned, his companion sauntering along +after. Kate explained that she had telegraphed. +</P> + +<P> +At that moment an odd-looking man, with a rapid, rolling, right and +left gait, ambled by and caught Kate's eye. Instead of the formidable +Stetson hat mostly in evidence, this man wore a baseball cap—of the +sort usually given away with popular brands of flour—its peak cocked +to its own apparent surprise over one ear. The man had sharp eyes and +a long nose for news and proved it by halting within earshot of the +conversation carried on between Kate and the two men. He looked so +queer, Kate wanted to laugh, but she was too far from home to dare. He +presently put his head conveniently in between Sawdy and Lefever and +offered some news of his own: "There's been a big electric storm in the +up country, Sawdy; the telephones are on the bum." +</P> + +<P> +"How's she going to get to Doubleday's tonight, McAlpin?" asked Sawdy +abruptly of the newcomer. McAlpin never, under any pressure, answered +a question directly. Hence everything had to be explained to him all +over again, he looking meantime more or less furtively at Kate. But he +found out, despite his seeming stupidity, a lot that it would have +taken the big men hours to learn. +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't want to take a rig and driver," announced McAlpin, after +all had been canvassed, "there's the stage for the fort; they had to +wait for the mail. Bill Bradley is on tonight. I'm thinkin' he'll set +y' over from the ford—it's only a matter o' two or three miles." +</P> + +<P> +"Are there any other passengers?" asked Kate doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Belle Shockley for the Reservation," answered McAlpin, promptly, +"if—she ain't changed her mind, it bein' so late." +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy put a brusque end to this uncertainty: "She's down there at the +Mountain House waitin'—seen her myself not ten minutes ago." +</P> + +<P> +Scurrying away, McAlpin came back in a jiffy with the driver, Bradley. +Thin, bent and grizzled though he was, Kate thought she saw under the +broad but shabby hat and behind the curtain of scraggly beard and deep +wrinkles dependable eyes and felt reassured. +</P> + +<P> +"How far is it to the ranch?" she asked of the queer-looking Bradley. +</P> + +<P> +"Long ways, the way you go, ain't it, Bill?" McAlpin turned to the old +driver for confirmation. +</P> + +<P> +"'Bout fourteen mile," answered Bradley, "to the ford." +</P> + +<P> +"What time should I get there?" asked Kate again. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley stood pat. +</P> + +<P> +"What time'll she get there, Bill?" demanded Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"Twelve o'clock," hazarded Bradley tersely. "Or," he added, "I'll stop +when I pass the ranch 'n' tell 'em to send a rig down in the mornin'." +</P> + +<P> +"That would take you out of your way," Kate objected. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a great ways." +</P> + +<P> +A man that would go to this trouble in the middle of the night for +someone he had never seen before, Kate deemed safe to trust. "No," she +said, "I'll go with you, if I may." +</P> + +<P> +The way in which she spoke, the sweetness and simplicity of her words, +moved Sawdy and Lefever, the first a widower and the second a bachelor, +and even stirred McAlpin, a married man. But they had no particular +effect on Bradley. The blandishments of young womanhood were past his +time of day. +</P> + +<P> +With Lefever carrying the suitcase and nearly everybody talking at +once, the party walked around to the rear door of the baggage-room. +</P> + +<P> +The stage had been backed up, a hostler in the driver's seat, and the +mail and express were being loaded. Sawdy volunteered to save time by +fetching Belle Shockley from the hotel, and while McAlpin and Lefever +inspected and discussed the horses—for the condition of which McAlpin, +as foreman of Kitchen's barn, was responsible—Kate stood, listener and +onlooker. Everything was new and interesting. Four horses champed +impatiently under the arc-light swinging in the street, and looked +quite fit. But the stage itself was a shock to her idea of a Western +stage. Instead of the old-fashioned swinging coach body, such as she +had wondered at in circus spectacles, she saw a very substantial, +shabby-looking democrat wagon with a top, and with side curtains. The +curtains were rolled up. But the oddest thing to Kate was that +wherever a particle could lodge, the whole stage was covered with a +ghostly, grayish-white dust. While the loading went on, Sawdy arrived +with the second passenger, Belle Shockley. She had, fortunately for +Kate's apprehensions, <I>not</I> changed her mind. +</P> + +<P> +Belle herself was something of an added shock. She wore a long rubber +coat, in which the rubber was not in the least disguised. Her hair was +frizzed about her face, and a small, brimless hat perched high, almost +startled, on her head. She was tall and angular, her features were +large and her eyes questioning. Had she had Bradley's beard, she would +have passed with Kate for the stage driver. She was formidable, but +yet a woman; and she scrutinized the slender whip of a girl before her +with feminine suspicion. Nor did she give Kate a chance to break the +ice of acquaintance before starting. +</P> + +<P> +Under Lefever's chaperonage and with his gallant help, Kate took her +seat where directed, just behind the driver, and her new companion +presently got up beside her. +</P> + +<P> +The mail bags disposed of, Bradley climbed into place, gathered his +lines, the hostler let go the leads and the stage was off. The horses, +restive after their long wait, dashed down the main street of the town, +whirling Kate, all eyes and ears, past the glaring saloons and darkened +stores to the extreme west end of Sleepy Cat. There, striking +northward, the stage headed smartly for the divide. +</P> + +<P> +The night was clear, with the stars burning in the sky. From the rigid +silence of the driver and his two passengers, it might have been +thought that no one of them ever spoke. To Kate, who as an Eastern +girl had never, it might be said, breathed pure air, the clear, high +atmosphere of the mountain night was like sparkling wine. Her senses +tingled with the strange stimulant. +</P> + +<P> +To Belle, there was no novelty in any of this, and the strain of +silence was correspondingly greater. It was she who gave in first: +</P> + +<P> +"You from Medicine Bend?" she asked, as the four horses walked up a +long hill. +</P> + +<P> +"Pittsburgh," answered Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"Pittsburgh!" echoed Belle, startled. "Gee! some trip you've had." +</P> + +<P> +Belle, encouraged, then confessed that a cyclone had given her her own +first start West. She had been blown two blocks in one and had all of +her hair pulled out of her head. +</P> + +<P> +"They said I'd have no chance to get married without any hair," she +continued, "so I got a wig—never <I>could</I> find my own hair—and come +West for a chance. And they're here; if you're looking for a husband +you've come to the right place." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't the least idea of getting married," protested Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"They'll be after you," declared Belle sententiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you married?" ventured Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet. But they're coming. I'm in no hurry." +</P> + +<P> +She talked freely about her own affairs. She had worked for Doubleday, +for whose ranch Kate was bound. Doubleday had had a chain of eating +houses on the line, as Belle termed the transcontinental railroad. +They had all been taken over except the one where she worked—at Sleepy +Cat Junction—and this would be taken soon, Belle thought. +</P> + +<P> +"That's the trouble with Barb Doubleday," she went on. "He's got too +many irons in the fire—head over heels in debt. There's no money +now-a-days in cattle, anyway. What are you going up to Doubleday's +for?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's my father." +</P> + +<P> +"Your father? Well! I never open my mouth without I put my foot in +it, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"I've never seen him," continued Kate. +</P> + +<P> +Belle was all interest. She confided to Kate that she was now on her +way, for a visit, to the Reservation where her cousin was teaching in +an Indian school, and divided her time for the next hour between +getting all she could of Kate's story and telling all of her own. +</P> + +<P> +On Kate's part there was no end of questions to ask, about country and +customs and people. When Belle could not answer, she appealed to +Bradley, who, if taciturn, was at least patient. Every time the +conversation lulled and Kate looked out into the night, it seemed as if +they were drawing closer and closer to the stars, the dark desert still +spreading in every direction and the black mountain ridges continually +receding. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CRAZY WOMAN +</H3> + +<P> +They had traveled a long time it seemed to Kate, and having climbed all +the hills in the country, were going down a moderate grade with the +hind wheels sputtering unamiably at the brakes, when Belle broke a long +silence: "Where are we, Bill?" she demanded, familiarly. +</P> + +<P> +"The Crazy Woman," Bradley answered briefly. Kate did not understand, +but by this time she had learned in such circumstances to hold her +tongue. +</P> + +<P> +"He means the creek," explained Belle. "It's way down there ahead of +us." +</P> + +<P> +Strain her eyes as she would, Kate could see only the blackness of the +darkness ahead. +</P> + +<P> +"'N' b' jing!" muttered Bradley, as Kate peered into nothingness, +"she's whinin' t'night f'r fair." +</P> + +<P> +Again for an instant Kate did not comprehend. Then the leads were +swung sharply by Bradley to the left. The stage rounded what Kate +afterward frequently recognized as an overhanging shoulder of rock on +the road down to the creek, and a vague, dull roar swept up from below. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley halted the horses, climbed down, and taking the lantern went +forward on foot to investigate. +</P> + +<P> +"Must have been a cloudburst in the mountains," remarked Belle, +listening; and Kate was to learn that a cloudless sky gives no +assurance whatever for the passage of a mountain stream. +</P> + +<P> +The lantern disappeared, to come into sight again farther down the +trail, and while both women talked, the faint light swung at intervals +in and out of their vision as Bradley reconnoitered. Kate was a little +worried, but her companion sat quite unmoved, even when Bradley +returned and reported the creek "roarin'." +</P> + +<P> +"That bein' the case," he muttered, "I'm thinkin' the Double-draw +bridge has took up its timbers and walked likewise." +</P> + +<P> +The Double-draw bridge! How well Kate was to know that name; but that +night it seemed, like everything else, only very queer. +</P> + +<P> +"Bradley," protested Belle, now very much disturbed, "that can't be." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll see," retorted Bradley, gathering his reins and releasing his +brake as he spoke to the horses. "I don't guess myself there's much +left o' that bridge." Only the expletive he placed before the last +word revealed his own genuine annoyance and Kate prudently asked no +further questions. Some instinct convinced her she was already a +nuisance on the silent Bradley's hands. The ford—off the main +road—was where he had purposed setting Kate over, as he expressed it, +to the ranch. Double-draw bridge—on the road to the fort and +Reservation—was two miles above. +</P> + +<P> +The horses climbed the long hill again and started on the road for the +bridge. +</P> + +<P> +"If the Double-draw is out," sighed Belle resignedly, "I reckon we're +trapped." +</P> + +<P> +For the first time now they could hear the hoofs of the two teams +sinking into and pulling out of mud. It grew deeper as they descended +the long grade toward the bridge and clouds obscured the light of the +stars. +</P> + +<P> +With the horses stumbling on, the women watched for something to meet +either sight or hearing, but there was nothing until they again neared +the creek. Then the same vague roar rose on the night and as they +rimmed the bench above the creek a faint, ghastly light on the eastern +horizon betokened a rising moon. Down the trail they stopped in +darkness and Bradley again clambered down from his box with the lantern +to investigate. +</P> + +<P> +"'Z fur 'z I c'n see," he reported when he came back, "th' bridge is +all right, but mos'ly under water." +</P> + +<P> +"Can we get across?" Belle Shockley asked querulously. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley answered with hesitation: "Why—yes——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, good!" +</P> + +<P> +"And no." +</P> + +<P> +"What does that mean?" snapped Belle. +</P> + +<P> +"We can't get across tonight—we might in the mornin'." +</P> + +<P> +Kate kept silence, but Belle was persistent. "What are we going to +do?" she demanded; "go 'way back to Sleepy Cat?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not in a milyun years," returned Bradley, calmly. "We're goin' to +pull out t' one side 'n' camp right here till daylight. Ef I didn't +have you wimmen on my hands, I might take a chanst with the mail," he +went on, drawing his horses carefully around to where he meant to camp. +"Me and the horses could make it, even 'f we lost the wagon. But I +w'dn't like the job of huntin' for you folks in the Crazy Woman with a +lantern—not tonight. She's surely a-rip-roarin'. Well; t'hell with +her 'n' all creeks like her, say I," he wound up, chirruping kindly to +his uncomplaining beasts. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't like creeks," suggested Belle. +</P> + +<P> +"Dry creeks—yes. Wouldn't care if I never seen another wet creek from +now till kingdom come—Whoa, Nellie!" he called to the off lead mare +who was feeling the way for her companions back to a safe spot for a +halt. "This is good, right here." +</P> + +<P> +Belle showed her fellow-traveler how to lie down with some comfort on +the leather seat, and as they had one for each she gave Kate her +choice. Kate, to put Belle between her and any man in front, took the +back seat. The side curtains were let down and with a mail sack +supplied by Bradley for a pillow, Kate, drawing her big coat over her, +curled up for a rest. +</P> + +<P> +The excitement of the journey had worn away. The delay she was +disposed to accept philosophically. It took some time for Bradley to +unhitch and dispose of the horses to his satisfaction, and theirs, and +his mumblings and the sound of their moving about and champing their +bits fell a long time on Kate's drowsy ears. Belle went to sleep at +once, and though sleep was the last thing Kate expected to achieve, she +did fall asleep—with the Crazy Woman singing wildly in her ears. +</P> + +<P> +She had hardly lost herself, it seemed, when Bradley roused his +passengers. The storm waters were creeping up over the bench where +they had camped and with much impatient sputtering, Bradley hitched the +pole team to the stage and, in his pet, retreated into the hills for +assured safety. Even the noise of the flood failed to follow them +there and they disposed themselves once more to rest. +</P> + +<P> +How long she slept this time, Kate did not know, but she was awakened +by voices. +</P> + +<P> +The night had grown very cold and death itself could not have been more +silent. Yet at intervals Kate heard the low converse of two voices; +they were not far away and both were men's. +</P> + +<P> +A panic seized her. Her heart beat like the roll of a drum and then +nearly stopped. What might happen now? she asked herself. And what +could she fear but the worst? In the dead of night—marooned in a wild +country, with only a queer woman and two strange men. Could it be a +plot? she asked herself. In the fear that gripped her she could hardly +breathe, and to think was only to invite added agonies of apprehension. +She sat quickly up, breathing hurriedly now and her heart racing. Then +she heard the even breathing of her companion on the seat ahead. To +make sure it was she, Kate put her hand over and touched Belle's +shoulder. Reassured a little, but ready to push aside the curtain and +spring from the stage at the least alarm, Kate listened painfully; the +voices reached her ears again. +</P> + +<P> +One was Bradley's—of that she felt sure; the other, deeper, more full, +and with a curiously even carrying quality through the silent night, +she knew she had never heard before; but the darkness, the solitude, +the shock of strange surroundings, if nothing else, made it terrifying +to her. Kate had never been reckoned a timid girl, but she listened +dumb with fear. Bradley did most of the talking. He was recounting, +with occasional profanity, the mishaps of his trip, beginning with the +late train. +</P> + +<P> +"Any passengers?" Kate heard the stranger ask. +</P> + +<P> +"Two women—c'n y' beat it? One of 'em a girl for Doubleday's." +</P> + +<P> +"What can a girl be wanting at Doubleday's?" +</P> + +<P> +"D'no. Came off the train tonight." +</P> + +<P> +"The Double-draw is out." +</P> + +<P> +"Jing!" exclaimed Bradley, "it was there an hour ago." +</P> + +<P> +"The ford is your only chance to get her over." +</P> + +<P> +"Can I make it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You've got good horses; you ought to make it by daylight." +</P> + +<P> +"Hear they got a new foreman over at Doubleday's," Bradley said. +</P> + +<P> +There was no comment, unless the silence could be so construed. +</P> + +<P> +"Tom Stone," added Bradley, as if bound to finish. +</P> + +<P> +There was an instant and angry exclamation, none the less ferocious +because of the restrained feeling in its sudden utterance. +</P> + +<P> +"Doubleday sets a good deal by what Van Horn says; I reckon he put him +in there," suggested Bradley. +</P> + +<P> +There was a further silence. Then she heard the stranger dryly say: "I +expect so." It seemed as if behind everything he did say there was so +much left unsaid. +</P> + +<P> +"I never got rightly, Jim," Bradley went on, "how you 'n' Van Horn's +related." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you never will," returned the man saluted as "Jim," in the same +low, cold tone. "We're not related. He was my partner—once." +</P> + +<P> +"Stone will change things at the ranch." +</P> + +<P> +"He can't hurt them much." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess they're full bad," said Bradley, and then, lowering his voice: +"The gal's asleep there in the stage. How'd the land contest they made +on y' at Medicine Bend come off?" +</P> + +<P> +"The cattlemen own that Land Office. I'll beat the bunch at +Washington." +</P> + +<P> +"Doubleday wanted me to go down to swear. I wouldn't do it—wasn't +even at the trial——" +</P> + +<P> +"No honest man was, from Doubleday's." +</P> + +<P> +"Was it Stone cut your wire, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know as much about it as I do." +</P> + +<P> +"Got it up again?" +</P> + +<P> +"All I could find." +</P> + +<P> +"Meaner 'n' hell over there, ain't they?" +</P> + +<P> +There was no comment. +</P> + +<P> +"How long you goin' to stand it, Jim?" persisted Bradley. And after +the odd pause, the slow answer: "Till I get tired." +</P> + +<P> +"That'll be about the time they rip it off again." +</P> + +<P> +"About that time, Bill." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," hazarded the old driver, meditatively, "the boys are waitin'. +They say you're slow to start anything, Jim; but they look f'r hell t' +pay when y' do." +</P> + +<P> +To the stranger—it seemed to Kate—words must be worth their weight in +gold, he parted with them so sparingly. +</P> + +<P> +"What's this talk 'bout Farrell Kennedy makin' a depity marshal, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mostly talk, Bill. Good night." +</P> + +<P> +"Farrel offered it to y', didn't he?"' +</P> + +<P> +"So Lefever says." +</P> + +<P> +"Where y' headin' f'r now?" persisted Bradley, as Kate heard the +shuffle of a horse's feet. +</P> + +<P> +"Home." +</P> + +<P> +"They ain't burned your shack?" Bradley asked with a half chuckle. +</P> + +<P> +Kate just heard the man's reply: "Not yet." +</P> + +<P> +The hoofbeats drew away. Kate cautiously pushed back her curtain. +</P> + +<P> +The late moon was shining in an old and ghostly light. Distant heights +rose like black walls against the sky. At intervals a peak broke +sharply above the battlements, or a rift in a closer sierra opened to +show the stars. +</P> + +<P> +Kate could hear but could not for some time see the galloping horseman. +Then of a sudden he reached the brow of a low hill and rode swiftly out +into the spectral light. There he halted. Horse and rider stood for a +moment silhouetted against the sky. The horse chafed at his bit. He +stretched his head restively into the north, his rider sitting +motionless, a somber flat hat crowning his spare figure. For barely a +moment the man sat thus immovable. Then he turned slightly in the +saddle and the horse struck off into the night. +</P> + +<P> +Drowsiness had deserted the tired girl that watched him. While her +companions slept she sat in the solitude waiting for day. Bradley, as +good as an alarm dock, was stirring with the first streak and feeding +his horses. He told his passengers that the bridges were all out and +he was going back to the ford. +</P> + +<P> +Belle, incredulous, when first told by Kate of a visitor in the night, +had no scruples in asking questions: +</P> + +<P> +"Who was here last night, Bill?" +</P> + +<P> +"Wha'd' y' mean?" he countered, gathering up his lines. +</P> + +<P> +"What man was it, you were talking to?" she demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess if I was talkin' to any man," he grumbled, "I was talkin' in +my sleep. You must 'a' been 'a' dreamin'." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, come now, 'fess up, Bill." Belle nodded toward Kate. "She was +awake." +</P> + +<P> +Bradley started the horses, shifted on the box and looked not too well +pleased: "I wasn't talkin' to nobody last night——" +</P> + +<P> +"Bill, what a whopper." +</P> + +<P> +"If you mean this mornin'——" he went on, doggedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—who was here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jim Laramie." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim Laramie!" echoed Belle, catching her breath and poking Kate with +her elbow. "Wonder he didn't hold us up." +</P> + +<P> +Bradley scowled but said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Bradley doesn't like that," murmured Belle to Kate, as soon as the +creaking of the wheels gave her a chance to speak without his hearing. +"He's a friend of Jim's." +</P> + +<P> +"Where did he come from?" continued Belle, raising her voice toward +Bradley. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley took his time to answer: "Claimed he was goin' home," he said +laconically. +</P> + +<P> +"How could he get across the creek with the bridges out?" persisted +Belle. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley's eyes were on his horses. He was weary of question: "High +water wouldn't bother him much." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I want to know! I should think it would bother anybody the way +it was sweeping down last night." +</P> + +<P> +"Hell!" ejaculated Bradley, parting with his manners and his patience +together: "Jim could swim the Crazy Woman with his horse's feet tied." +</P> + +<P> +"Who <I>is</I> 'Jim'?" Kate demanded of her companion in an undertone. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim Laramie? He lives in the Falling Wall." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DOUBLEDAY'S +</H3> + +<P> +When they got back to the ford it was daylight and the Crazy Woman was +hurrying on as peacefully as if a frown had never ruffled its repose. +Gnarled trees springing out of gashes along its tortuous channel +showed, in the debris lodged against their flood-bared roots and +mud-swept branches, the fury of the night, and the creek banks, scoured +by many floods, revealed new and savage gaps in the morning sun; but +Bradley made his crossing with the stage almost as uneventfully as if a +cloud-burst had never ruffled the mountains. +</P> + +<P> +Kate was eager to meet her father, eager to see what might be her new +home. The moment the horses got up out of the bottom, Bradley pointed +with his whip to the ranch-house. Kate saw ahead of her a long, +one-story log house crowning, with its group of out-buildings, a level +bench that stretched toward the foothills. The landscape was bare of +trees and, to Kate, brown and barren-looking, save for a patch of green +near the creek where an alfalfa field lay vividly pretty in the sun. +The ranch-house, built of substantial logs, was ample in its +proportions and not uninviting, even to her Eastern eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley, with a flourish, swept past the stable, around the corral and +drew up before the door with a clatter. In front of the bunk-house on +the right, a cowboy rolling a cigarette, was watching the arrival, and +just as Bradley plumped Kate, on his arms, to the ground, her father, +Barb Doubleday himself, opened the ranch-house door. +</P> + +<P> +Kate had never seen her father. And until Bradley spoke, she had not +the slightest idea that this could be he. She saw only a rough-looking +man of great stature, slightly stooped, and with large features burnt +to a deep brown. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Barb," said Bradley, without much enthusiasm. +</P> + +<P> +His salutation met with as little: "What's up?" demanded Doubleday. +Kate noticed the huskiness in the strong, cold tone. +</P> + +<P> +"Brought y' a passenger." +</P> + +<P> +From the talk of the night she recognized her father's nickname. It +was a little shock to realize that this must, indeed, be he. And the +unmoved expression of his face as he surveyed her without a smite or +greeting, was not reassuring. +</P> + +<P> +But she hastened forward: "Father?" there was a note of girlish appeal +in her greeting: "I'm Kate—your daughter. You don't remember me, of +course," she added with an effort to extort a welcome. "You got my +letter, did you?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her uncertainly for a moment and nodded slowly. "Was it +all right," she asked, now almost panic-stricken, "to come to see you?" +</P> + +<P> +Confused or preoccupied, he stumbled out some words of welcome, spoke +to Belle on the stage, took the suitcase out of Bradley's hand and led +Kate into the house. In the large room that she entered stood a long +table and a big fireplace opened at the back. On the left, two +bedrooms opened off the big room, and on the right, the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +The chill of the strange greeting embarrassed Kate the more because she +felt Belle could hardly fail to notice it, and her own resentment of it +did not easily wear off. But hoping for better things she freshened up +a little, in her father's bedroom, and by that time a man cook was +bringing breakfast into the big room, which served as living-room and +dining-room. Bradley, Belle, Kate and her father sat down—the men had +already breakfasted. +</P> + +<P> +Kate, her head in a whirl with novelty and excitement, was overcome +with interest in everything, but especially in her father. Sitting at +the head of the table—at one end of which fresh places had been +set—he maintained her first impression of his stature. His spreading +frame was covered with loose corduroy clothes—which could hardly be +said to fit—and his whole appearance conveyed the impression of +unusual physical strength. It had been said of Barb Doubleday, as a +railroad builder, that he could handle an iron rail alone. His +powerful jaw and large mouth—now fitted, or rather, supplied—with +artificial teeth of proportionate size—all supported Kate's awe of his +bigness. His long nose, once smashed in a railroad fight, was not +seriously scarred; and originally well-shaped, it was still the best +feature of a terrifically weather-beaten face that had evidently seen +milder days. The good looks were gone, but not the strength. His +mouth was almost shapeless but unmistakably hard, and his grayish-blue +eyes were cold—very cold; try as she would, Kate could discern little +love or sympathy in them. This was the man who almost twenty years +earlier had deserted her mother and wee Kate, the baby, and long +disappeared from Eastern view—until by accident the fact that he was +alive and in the far West had become known to his wife and daughter. +Kate thought she understood something of the tragedy in her mother's +life when the first sight of her father's eyes struck a chill into her +own heart. +</P> + +<P> +But he was her father—and her mother had tried, in spite of all, to +hide or condone his faults; and more than once before she died, had +made Kate promise to hunt him up and go to him. What the timid girl +dreaded most was finding another woman installed in his household—in +which case she meant to make her stay in the West very short. But +every hour lessened these fears and as he himself gradually thawed a +little, Kate took courage. +</P> + +<P> +The breakfast went fast. Platters were passed without ceremony or +delay. Her father and Bradley ate as Kate had never seen men eat; only +her amazement could keep pace with their quiet but unremitting efforts +to clean up everything in sight. There was little mastication but much +knife and fork work, with free libation of coffee; and Belle, Kate +noticed, while somewhat left behind by the men, paid strict attention +to the business in hand. +</P> + +<P> +Conversation naturally lagged; but what took place had its surprise for +Kate. Doubleday asked a few questions of Belle—everybody seemed to +know everybody else—and learning she was headed for the Reservation, +possibly to teach school, hired her on the spot away from the job, to +go back to his eating-house at Sleepy Cat Junction. No sooner was this +arranged, and Bradley told to take her luggage off the stage, than a +diversion occurred. +</P> + +<P> +A horseman dashed up outside and presently strode into the room. He +was tall and well put together; not quite as straight as an arrow, but +straight, and not ungraceful in his height. This was Harry Van Horn, a +neighboring cattleman, and he wore the ranchman's rig, including the +broad hat and the revolver slung at his hip. But everything about the +rig was fresh and natty, in the sunshine. He looked alert. His step +was clean and springy as he crossed the room, and his voice not +unpleasant as he briskly greeted Doubleday and looked keenly at his +guests—last and longest at Kate sitting at her father's right hand. +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday introduced him to his daughter. Van Horn nodded, without +much deference, to Belle and to Bradley, neither of whom responded more +warmly. He sat down near Kate and with a look of raillery scrutinized +the remnant of meat left on the general platter: "How is it, Barb?" he +asked. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"The antelope." +</P> + +<P> +"All right, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn with a laugh turned to Kate: "Excited over it, isn't he? I +got an antelope yesterday, so I sent half of it over to your father." +Then he lowered his voice in pretended disgust. "<I>He</I> doesn't know +what he's eating—it might as well be salt pork. And you're a stranger +here? I never knew your father had a daughter. He's very +communicative. How do you like antelope?" +</P> + +<P> +Without paying attention to anyone else, he set out for a moment to +entertain Kate. When he talked his face lighted with energy. Every +expression of his brown eyes snapped with life, and his big Roman nose, +though not making for beauty, one soon got used to. +</P> + +<P> +Barb broke abruptly in on the conversation: "What did Stone find out?" +he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn answered a question of Kate's and turned then, and not until +then, to her father: "That's what I came over to tell you. Dutch Henry +and another fellow—described like Stormy Gorman—sold ten head of +steers to the railroad camp last week—that's where our cattle are +going right along now. And Abe Hawk," he exclaimed, pointing his +finger at Doubleday and poking it forward to emphasize each point, +"sold ten head of your long yearlings to a contracting outfit north of +the Falling Wall and never changed the brands!" +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday stared at the speaker. Van Horn, speaking to Kate, went +right on: "There's a bunch of rustlers over in the Falling Wall, +snitching steers on us right and left," he explained in a lower and +very deferential tone, but a warm one. +</P> + +<P> +While Van Horn talked and Doubleday muttered husky and bitter +questions, Bradley and Belle paid continuous attention to their coffee +and griddle cakes. +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday by this time had forgotten all about Kate. Completely +absorbed by the reports brought in he rose from the table and followed +Van Horn to the open door where Van Horn turned and paused as he kept +on talking so that with his eyes he could still take in Kate at the +table. The two men were now joined at the door by a third. This man +looked in to see who was at the table. Bradley glanced up at him only +long enough to recognize Tom Stone, the new foreman; no greeting +passed. Kate looked longer, though when she saw the eyes of the +new-comer were on her she gave her attention to Belle. +</P> + +<P> +Belle had told her that a woman at the ranch would be a great curiosity +and Kate every day resigned herself to inspection. When she got better +acquainted with the men, and while there were good and bad among them, +she liked them all, except Stone. His face did not seem kindly. At +times agreeable enough, he was only tolerable at best and when even +slightly in liquor he was irritable. His low forehead, over which he +plastered his hair, and his straight yellow eyebrows and hard blue eyes +were not confidence inspiring; even his big mustache was harsh and +lacked a generous curve—his normal outlook seemed one of reticence and +suspicion. Kate refused to like him; his smile was not good. +</P> + +<P> +On this morning he showed the signs of a hard journey. He had brought +the news from the Falling Wall and was just in after a troublesome +ride. Bradley and Belle left the table together and Kate followed to +the door. Bradley tried to edge past the three men without speaking, +but Stone not only stopped him with a cold grin but followed the driver +toward the stage: "Wouldn't that kill you"—Kate heard him say to +Bradley, and she saw his attempt at an ingratiating grin: "Abe Hawk +rustling?" +</P> + +<P> +Bradley gave him scant sympathy: "What did Doubleday discharge him +for?" he demanded. "What did the cattlemen blacklist him for? He's +the best foreman this ranch ever had—or ever will have," added +Bradley, summoning his scant courage to rub it in. "He fired him +because he took up a little piece of land agin the Falling Wall and got +together a few cows of his own. That's a crime, ain't it? Like ——. +These cattlemen will learn a thing or two when they get old." +</P> + +<P> +Stone flared back at him: "What are you over here eating their bacon +for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not f'r any likin' I've got f'r 'em," retorted Bradley, "n'r f'r any +o' their pets." +</P> + +<P> +The old driver got away without a fight, but he had little to spare. +Van Horn rode off presently with Stone, and Doubleday returned to the +house, where Kate was sitting with Belle. He told Belle he would send +her over to the Junction in the afternoon, and after dinner told Kate +she had better go over and stay at the Junction with Belle till they +could get a room "fixed up" at the ranch. +</P> + +<P> +There were really no accommodations at the ranchhouse for Kate until +some could be prepared. A room had to be made ready and there was no +bed or furniture. And Belle told her that her father spent most of his +time at the Junction, anyway, where he had a cottage. She explained +about the railroad branching off the main line at the Junction. Her +father had built this to coal mines on the Falling Wall river. He was +supposed to own this branch line and the mines, but she hinted strongly +that his creditors had got everything there was of the railroad but the +rust, and would sometime get that. +</P> + +<P> +Kate wished her new acquaintance had been less candid. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AT THE EATING HOUSE +</H3> + +<P> +Doubleday drove the two women down from the ranch. At the Junction +there were, besides the railroad eating house, a few houses and a few +stores, and almost as many saloons as at Sleepy Cat itself—the place +being, Belle said, a shipping point both for cattle and for miners. +</P> + +<P> +Kate was relieved to find her father's cottage, on a hill across the +railroad track, quite livable-looking. It was, like all the other +houses, one story and square, being divided into kitchen, dining-room +and two bedrooms. The interior, its shiny furniture covered with dust, +was dreary enough, but Kate knew she could make the place presentable, +and after the first few days in her new surroundings, began to recover +her high spirits. Her father had not yet said she was to stay; but she +thought he liked her—Belle told her as much—and she set about making +her woman's hand felt. Her father took his meals at the eating-house, +and the cottage had been indifferently cared for by old Henry, the +eating-house porter. Kate, as a housekeeper, was a marked improvement, +one that even so absorbed a man as her father could not but notice. +</P> + +<P> +She naturally spent much time at the eating-house herself, because +Belle, her sole acquaintance at the Junction, was there. +</P> + +<P> +"How you going to like it out here?" demanded Belle, scrutinizing Kate +critically, after she had known her a few months. +</P> + +<P> +"I love it," was the prompt answer. +</P> + +<P> +Belle seemed dismayed: "How about the alkali?" she asked, as if to +convict Kate of deceit. +</P> + +<P> +Kate only nodded: "It's all right." +</P> + +<P> +"And the sagebrush?" +</P> + +<P> +"I like it." +</P> + +<P> +"And the greasewood?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle had begun to like Kate's laugh: "Not going to get lonesome out in +this country?" Belle flung at her, as a gloomy clincher. +</P> + +<P> +"Lonesome!" At this idea Kate laughed outright. "Do I look it?" she +cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess you like to horseback pretty well," muttered Belle, casting +about for a solution of so surprising an attitude and unable to find +any other fault with her protégée. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather ride than eat," declared Kate, youthfully exuberant. +</P> + +<P> +"What about swimming?" inquired Belle, determined to fasten discontent +on her. +</P> + +<P> +"I hate swimming." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," grumbled her companion, defeated at every point, "Barb's got +plenty of horses." Kate did not like to hear her father called Barb, +but Belle would not call him anything else. +</P> + +<P> +Back of the cottage, Doubleday had a small barn, where Henry—an +ex-cowboy—looked after Doubleday's driving horses. And the very first +pledge from her father that she was to be tolerated in the strange +household she had invaded in this far-away country, came to Kate when +he sent down for her use two saddle ponies. The fleeting suspicion of +loneliness that she would not confess even to herself, all vanished +when the ponies came: She could then ride to and from the ranch. And +when Henry failed to appear, Kate took care of her pets herself. After +her father told her they were really hers, she would hardly let Henry +himself lay a hand on them. +</P> + +<P> +When the evenings grew tedious she would go down for supper with Belle +and sit with her in the small alcove off the office, where the two +could see and hear without being seen; and Belle's stories had no end. +</P> + +<P> +The only feature of her situation that would not improve was her +father's aloofness. He seemed to try at times to thaw out but he +persistently congealed again. One evening he got in late from the +ranch, cold and wet, complaining of rheumatism. The driver went on +with the team to Sleepy Cat and Doubleday told Kate he would stay all +night. She had a good fire in the grate and made her father a toddy. +</P> + +<P> +He sat with her before the fire late and talked for the first time +about his affairs, which seemed mostly money troubles. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning he could hardly get out of bed, but he was set on going to +the ranch and Kate helped him to dress and got him a good breakfast, +with a cup of strong coffee. He softened enough to let her go up to +the ranch with him. She had already coaxed from him the furniture for +the spare room so she might spend the night there occasionally. Van +Horn had promised to teach her sometime how to use a rifle and to take +her out after antelope and Kate was keen for going. The next day her +father brought her the rifle from Sleepy Cat. +</P> + +<P> +They drove out in the evening, but the minute they reached the +ranch-house, Kate perceived something was up. Van Horn greeted her +with a good deal of freedom, Kate thought—but apologized for hurrying +away after she had shown him her new rifle—with the hint that they had +bigger game in sight just then, and after a long talk with her father +and much preparation he and Stone rode off, two of the men from the +bunk-house with them. Her father plainly let Kate see that he himself +had no intention of entertaining her. He was outside most of the time +and Kelly, the cook, being the only man to talk to, Kate in +self-defense went to bed. +</P> + +<P> +During the night she was awakened by voices. Van Horn and Stone were +back and they were talking to her father in the living-room. Kate +thought at first some accident had happened. Van Horn, eager, pleased +and rapid in utterance, did much of the talking, Stone breaking in now +and again with a few words in harsh nasal tones—harsher tonight than +usual. Her father seemed only to ask a question once in a while. Kate +tried not to eavesdrop, but she could not occasionally help hearing +words about wire, which Van Horn was sure somebody would never find. +The men had apparently been somewhere and done something. The clink of +glasses indicated drinking, and there was much cursing of something or +somebody. Then the talk got loud and her father hushed it up and the +party went to bed. +</P> + +<P> +There seemed something furtive and secret about the incident that Kate +could not fathom. Why should honest men get together in the dead of +night to exult and curse and drink? She composed herself to sleep +again; these were simply things she did not understand. She thought +she did not want to understand them, but even after she got back to the +Junction she wondered why her father should be mixed up in them. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime she spent a week of delight at the ranch, mostly on horseback, +learning the Western horse and Western riding. +</P> + +<P> +After her outing, Doubleday took Kate down to the Junction. He went on +to Sleepy Cat, but that night he came back ill. In the morning he was +not able to get up. +</P> + +<P> +Kate telephoned, as he directed, to Sleepy Cat, for Doctor Carpy. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor, when he came, looked Kate over with interest. He was a +smooth-faced, powerfully-built man, rough-looking and rough in speech, +but he knew his business. It was an acute attack of rheumatism, he +said, and he told Kate to keep her father in bed and to keep him quiet +and nurse him. +</P> + +<P> +"He's so active," said Kate regretfully. "He seems to be on the go all +the time." +</P> + +<P> +"Damn him!" exclaimed Carpy with blunt emphasis. "He's nervous all the +time—that's what's the matter. He's got too many irons in the fire." +</P> + +<P> +Kate swallowed her astonishment at so extraordinary a medical outburst. +She reminded herself she was really out West. +</P> + +<P> +Belle, when Kate saw her the following morning at the eating-house, +said much the same thing and added in her coldly philosophic way, "I +reckon the banks have got him. And say, Kate, here's a telegram just +come for your father." +</P> + +<P> +Kate took the despatch up to the cottage. It was from Van Horn at +Medicine Bend, and it so upset her father that she was sorry she had +had to deliver it. After an interval, unpleasant both for the disabled +man and his nurse, Kate ventured to ask whether there was not something +she could do. There was not. Litigation against him, long dormant—he +explained between twinges—had been revived, papers issued and a United +States deputy marshal was on the way to serve him. "I thought," he +growled, "the thing was dead. But nothing against me ever dies. If +it'd gone past today it would 'a' been outlawed. You'll have to send +some telegrams for me." +</P> + +<P> +He gave her the substance of them and of a letter he wanted +written—all of which she carefully took down. Then putting on her +hat, she hastened to the eating-house to send the telegrams. +</P> + +<P> +It was well past noon. At the lunch-counter desk Kate copied the +messages on telegraph blanks, took them up to the operator and came +downstairs to write the letter for her father. +</P> + +<P> +While she was doing this, the two o'clock Medicine Bend train pulled +in. It was the big through train of the day, the train that Belle had +said must bring the dreaded summons server from Medicine Bend, if he +came that day at all. But Kate, absorbed in her letter writing, had +forgotten all about this unpleasantness when something—she was never +able to say just what—recalled her to herself. She became all at once +conscious that she was writing a letter, and at the same time conscious +that she was no longer alone in the little room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CROSS PURPOSES +</H3> + +<P> +The only thing Kate could have noticed was a slight darkening of the +room; something momentarily obscured the sunlight streaming through the +platform doorway; someone sauntered into the room itself, but Kate was +signing the letter and gave the entrance no thought. Still she could +not shake off the consciousness of somebody walking up close to the +desk where she stood and sitting down on one of the counter stools. +She refused to look up, even though she felt that eyes were on her. +</P> + +<P> +A natural impulse of defiance at the uninvited scrutiny possessed her. +And being resolved she would not admit she was conscious of it, she +turned from the desk and looking straight toward the glass door +connecting with the dining-room, and behind the end of the counter, she +walked briskly past the intruding presence. +</P> + +<P> +As she did so, Kate somehow felt with every step that she could not get +out of the room unchallenged. But even then she was riding to a rude +surprise for she had reached the door without incident when she heard +two words: "Slow, Kate." She had already laid her hand on the knob and +she turned it with indignation. The wretched door refused to open! It +was Belle's afternoon off and she had locked the door. +</P> + +<P> +Even then a collected girl would not have surrendered to the situation. +But Kate never could be collected at just the right time. She was +usually quite collected when it made no difference whether she was +collected or not. All she now did was to look blankly around. A man +sat at the counter, a man she had never seen before. He was +deliberately lifting a broad horseman's hat from a rather round, high +forehead and disclosing a head of inoffensive-looking sandy hair, very +much sun-and-wind bleached. His smooth face, his ears and neck and +open throat, were colored by a strictly uniform pigment—tinctured by +many mountain winds into a reddish brown and burnt by many mountain +suns into a seemingly immutable bronze. The face was long with an +ample nose, a peaceful-looking mouth and unruffled gray eyes. The man +was very like and yet unlike many of the mountain men she had seen. +She remembered afterward that this was her first impression: at that +moment she was not analyzing it: "Where are you going?" he asked, as +she stood looking at him. +</P> + +<P> +Her resentment at the rudeness rose. Could a prophetic spirit have +warned Kate that this was to be only the first of more than one serious +encounter with the eyes steadily regarding her, her astonishment and +indignation might have been restrained. As it was, forgetting her own +position and descending to Western brusqueness, she retorted icily: "I +can't see how that can possibly interest you." +</P> + +<P> +If she hoped that a frigid tone and utterance might abash her intruding +questioner, they failed. He spoke again with surprisingly even +impertinence—quite as if she were as friendly as he. "You're wrong," +he said. "I'm mightily interested. I want some coffee and you don't +act to me as if you meant to come back." +</P> + +<P> +It was undignified and improper for her to bandy words with a heckler, +but Kate had already breathed too much of the freedom of the mountains +to resist a second retort, and said, almost without thinking—and +certainly in a very positive manner: "I am not coming back." +</P> + +<P> +"Give me a cup of coffee before you go." +</P> + +<P> +"There is no service here this afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Beg your pardon. There will be one service here this afternoon. You +will serve me." His emphasis was slight, but unmistakable. She was so +fussed she turned to the door and grasped the knob the second time. +Her persecutor raised his left hand firmly. "You can't get out there," +he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why can't I?" demanded Kate indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Because you can't open the door." She stood mute at his assurance. +"Come," he continued, "give me some coffee, like a good girl." +</P> + +<P> +What should she do? She did not speak the question, but weighed it +pretty rapidly in her mind. What manner of man had she to deal with? +If not actually threatening he was extremely domineering. While she +hesitated he regarded her calmly. +</P> + +<P> +But there was one way to do as he demanded and to punish him as well. +Of the two coffee urns kept filled in readiness for the rush in serving +a trainload of passengers, only one was now heated. Kate stepped to +the urns, murmuring as if to herself: "I know nothing about these." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't either," he said. From the nearer urn Kate drew a cup of +coffee; it was very cold—but she pushed it with a jug of cream and a +bowl of sugar, toward him. +</P> + +<P> +"A teaspoon, please?" Kate's excitement had already heightened her +color. She looked very much alive as she added, impatiently, a spoon +to the equipment—expecting then to be able to get out of the room. It +seemed as if this ought to big easy; it was not. Her tormentor +professed to have had no dinner and wanted a sandwich. The sandwiches +were rebelliously hunted up—a plateful was supplied. If he was +surprised at the prodigality he made no comment, but at intervals some +tantalizing word from him entangled her in another exchange; and at +each encounter of wits, just enough fear tempered her resentment to +make her irresolute. +</P> + +<P> +She was malicious enough to observe in silence the unobtrusive +pantomime by which the enemy tried to coax a semblance of warmth into +his cold coffee. He had begun by pouring cream into it, but the cream +refused to assimilate and only made the mixture look less inviting. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad I met you today," he said, while she was getting her breath. +"Looks lonesome around here. Not much doing at the mines, is there?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a great deal," she answered coldly. +</P> + +<P> +"How about Barb Doubleday—is he up at the mines, or here?" +</P> + +<P> +He was indifferently lifting matches from the stand at his hand, +striking them and burning them patiently against the side of his cup of +coffee. Like a flash came to Kate with his question, the thought that +this disagreeable person must be the court officer. He looked up at +her now as if waiting for an answer: "Why do you ask?" she countered. +</P> + +<P> +"Mostly because I'd like to hear you say something." +</P> + +<P> +"Anything, I suppose," she suggested ironically. +</P> + +<P> +"That's not far from it," was the reply. "Also, I want to see Barb." +</P> + +<P> +"What about?" she asked, borrowing his own assurance. It was time, she +thought, for defensive strategy. +</P> + +<P> +"Just a little business matter." It was long, very long afterward that +Kate learned, and fully realized, the significance of the indifferently +spoken words; when she did, she wondered that a man's manner could so +completely mask all that lay behind them. +</P> + +<P> +"He isn't hiring any men," she ventured, adapting a set phrase she had +often heard Belle use. +</P> + +<P> +"And in spite of my looks," he returned, "I'm not hunting a job—for a +wonder." +</P> + +<P> +But now that Kate wanted to hear more he took his turn at reticence. +"Where are you from?" she asked as unconcernedly as she could. +</P> + +<P> +"Medicine Bend." +</P> + +<P> +"From the marshal's office?" It was foolish of her to ask. She fairly +blurted out the words. He looked at her for the first time keenly—and +just the change in his expression, undefinable but unmistakable, almost +frightened her to death. +</P> + +<P> +"I was in the marshal's office yesterday," he answered, picking up a +sandwich evasively. Kate was no longer doubtful. This was the man to +serve the dreaded, summons. An instant of panic seized her. +Fortunately her persecutor was regarding his stubborn coffee as he +stirred it. Her heart, which had stopped, started with a thump. Her +thoughts cleared. Instinct, self-preservation, asserted itself. She +thought hard and fast. The first step was to temporize. +</P> + +<P> +He looked up in time to see the blood sweeping back into her cheeks; +and almost spoiled the first really good breath she was drawing. In +his lean, bronzed hands he clasped his cup of coffee as if trying to +put a degree of heat into it: "What would be the extra charge for a +shot at that hot tank?" he asked, directing his glance first at the +other tank, then at Kate's burning face. +</P> + +<P> +With all his confidence, he must have been surprised at the revulsion +of manner that greeted him. Kate recovered her poise—her coldness +vanished, a smile broke through her reserve and her confused regret was +promptly expressed: "Did I give you coffee out of the cold tank? How +stupid!" +</P> + +<P> +"And never in my life," said her queer customer, as if continuing her +words, "did I do anything mean to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, you did," objected Kate, coupling nervous haste with the +declaration as she tried to take the cold cup from between his hands. +The ease with which she assumed the role of a lunch-counter waitress +astonished her. +</P> + +<P> +"What did I do?" he drawled, resisting her attempt to make amends. +</P> + +<P> +"You said I couldn't go out that door," she answered, refusing to be +denied the cup. +</P> + +<P> +"I was hoping if you stayed a few minutes, you wouldn't want to." A +moment earlier she would have been indignant. Now she reconciled +herself to necessity. She was, indeed, wildly hoping she might be able +to coax him not to serve any paper. And she had to repress an absurd +laugh at the thought as she set a fresh and steaming cup before him. +</P> + +<P> +While he made ready to drink it she leaned with assured indifference +against the buffet shelf behind her. She spread her left arm and hand +innocently along its edge as she had seen waitresses do—and with her +right hand, toyed with the loose collar of her crepe blouse—chatting +the while like a perfectly good waitress with her suspect. The funny +part seemed to her that he took it all with entire seriousness, hardly +laughing; only a suspicion of a smile, playing at times around his +eyes, relieved the somberness of his lean face. His parted lips showed +regular teeth when he spoke, and gave a not unpleasant expression to +his mouth. His eyes were as inoffensive as a mountain lake. +</P> + +<P> +But there remained something stubborn in his dry manner and at times +her heart misgave her as to the hope of dissuading him from his +purpose. Trying to form some idea of how to act, she studied him with +anxiety. All she could actually reach as a conclusion was that he +might be troublesome to dissuade. +</P> + +<P> +Yet with every moment she was the more determined to keep him from +carrying out his mission and the more resolved to make him pay for his +Western manners. All this was running through her head while the +coffee was being sipped. Unhappily, her father was where she could not +possibly reach him with a warning until Belle should reappear on the +scene. She tendered her now tractable guest a second cup of coffee. +It was accepted; he talked on, asking many questions, which were +answered more or less to his satisfaction. Not that his inquiries were +impertinent; they were chiefly silly, Kate thought. He seemed most +intent on establishing a friendly footing with a lunch-counter +attendant. +</P> + +<P> +When his third cup had been drunk and payment tendered for it, and for +five or six sandwiches, Kate decided her time to escape had arrived. +She refused to accept his money: "No," she persisted, "I will not take +a thing for your lunch. Positively not. Oh, you may leave your dollar +on the counter, if you like—it will never go into the register." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've told you." +</P> + +<P> +"Say it again." +</P> + +<P> +"You were very patient over my blunder in giving you cold coffee." +</P> + +<P> +"To tell you the truth," he remarked with candor, "it didn't look to me +altogether like a blunder." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it was," she insisted shamelessly; but she did not feel at all +sure he believed her. "And I won't take your money. I want you—" her +eyes fell the least bit with her repentant words—"to have a better +impression of this counter than cold coffee would give you. We're +trying so hard to build up a business." +</P> + +<P> +"Golly!" observed her calm guest. "I thought a few minutes ago you +were trying to wreck one." +</P> + +<P> +"You Medicine Bend men always make fun of this valley," Kate complained. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't really belong in Medicine Bend," was his return. +</P> + +<P> +"Where do you belong?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the Falling Wall." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! that awful place?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why knock the Falling Wall?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never heard any good of it. No matter anyway; you may put up your +money. And some time when I am up in your country," she added +jestingly, "you can give <I>me</I> a cup of cold coffee." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll say nothing more about the coffee," he declared in blunt +fashion. "Just you come!" He yielded so honestly to deceit that Kate +was half ashamed at imposing on him. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me," he went on, spinning his silver dollar in leisurely fashion +on the smooth counter, "how am I going to get up to the mines today +after I look around here for Barb—where can I get a horse?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate reflected a moment. "I can get you <I>some</I> kind of a horse," she +said slowly. "But it would take you forever to get there on +horseback—the trail runs around by the river. The train will get you +there first. It goes up at four o'clock." +</P> + +<P> +She knew she said it all blandly, though conscious of her duplicity. +It was not exactly falsehood that she spoke—but it was meant to +mislead. The man was regarding her steadily with eyes that seemed to +Kate not in the least double-dealing. +</P> + +<P> +"What am I going to do till four o'clock?" he asked, making without +discussion her subtle suggestion his own. +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her eyebrows disclaimingly—even shrugged her shoulders: +"What are you going to do?" he persisted. She was ready. She looked +longingly out of the window. The sun blazed over the desert in a riot +of gold. +</P> + +<P> +"It's my day off," she observed, adding just a suspicion of discontent +and uncertainty to her words. She fingered her tie, too; then dropped +her eyes; and added, "I thought I might take a ride." +</P> + +<P> +He started: "Couldn't get two horses, could you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Two?" echoed Kate, looking surprised. +</P> + +<P> +He rose: "I'll turn up two if I have to steal 'em," he declared, +reaching for his hat. +</P> + +<P> +"That would be too much trouble for one little ride," Kate said +ironically. "I'll see what I can do, first. But," she added, basely, +"if you want to be sure of catching the train, I should advise you to +stay right here. It backs down and doesn't stay but a minute—just +long enough to hook on to the empties." +</P> + +<P> +Her warning had no effect. It was not meant to have any. She knew if +he got to the mines and learned that her father was at the Junction he +would return in no time to serve him. He was decently restrained now, +but he swallowed her bait, hook and all: "Where do you think you can +find horses?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Where I work." +</P> + +<P> +"Where do you work?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes here and sometimes up at Mr. Doubleday's cottage. The +barn-boy gets up a horse for me any time." +</P> + +<P> +He raised an unexpected difficulty: "I wouldn't feel just right, today, +riding a horse of Barb Doubleday's," he said doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +The words only confirmed her suspicions. Her fears rose but her wits +did not desert her: "Ride mine," she suggested. "I've got my own +horse, of course." +</P> + +<P> +He drew a breath: "All I can say is, if you ever come over my way, I'll +show you as good a time as I know how to." +</P> + +<P> +She put up her hand: "Wait till you see how you like <I>my</I> good time." +</P> + +<P> +He was quick to come back. "I'll agree right now to like anything you +offer—and I don't care a hang what it is, either." +</P> + +<P> +Looking straight at him she asked a question. Its emphasis lay in her +quiet tone: "Will you stand to that?" He looked at her until she felt +his eyes were going right through her: "I've got enemies," he said +slowly, and there was now more than a touch of hardness in his voice; +"most men have. But the worst of 'em never claimed my word isn't good." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," exclaimed Kate, hastening to escape the serious tone, "you tend +counter while I go and see about the horses." +</P> + +<P> +"No," he objected, "that's a man's job. You tell me where to go and +<I>I'll</I> get the horses." +</P> + +<P> +Kate was most firm: "If you're going to ride with <I>me</I>," she said, "you +must do my way. Take a woman's job for a few minutes and see how you +like it." +</P> + +<P> +He regarded her with the simplicity of a child, but replied like a +case-hardened cowboy: "I don't like a woman's job, of course. But I'm +ready to do any blamed thing you say." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you suppose," Kate demanded with an air, "they would turn two +horses over to <I>you</I> up at Doubleday's?" +</P> + +<P> +She had put her foot in it: "I tell you," he protested, "I don't want +to ride a horse of Doubleday's. I'm up here to talk to Barb Doubleday. +And nobody can say just how it's coming out. At the ranch they swore +he was at Sleepy Cat. I rode down there and they told me he was at the +Junction, so I took the train over here. Now you tell me he's at the +mines—that's where I'll say what I've got to say. But I don't want to +take any advantage. And I don't want to impose on his property rights +so much as a single hair. That's exactly what's between us." +</P> + +<P> +Kate, established in treacherous ambush, felt qualms at his stern, +clear code. +</P> + +<P> +She tried to shut him off, but he was wrought up: "Barb swore to me +once he had nothing to do with it," he persisted obstinately. "All I +can say is, if a man fools me once it's his fault; if he fools me +twice, it's mine." +</P> + +<P> +"What about a woman?" asked Kate, trying hard to say one thing and +think another. +</P> + +<P> +He opened his eyes: "I never thought much about that. A man can't +fight a woman," he returned reflectively. "And I've yet to see one I +could fool." +</P> + +<P> +"What should you do," she asked, turning her back while she +straightened her hat in the buffet mirror, "if you ever met one that +fooled you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No woman would ever take the trouble." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed a little: "You never can tell." +</P> + +<P> +"If a woman ever fooled me, she'd have to fool herself first—so she'd +be the loser." +</P> + +<P> +"What a philosopher!" +</P> + +<P> +"First and last, I've been called a good many names—some full +hard—but never a philosopher before." +</P> + +<P> +Kate started for the front door: "Hold on a minute," he objected, +"what's to do here while you're gone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Serve coffee and sandwiches if anybody comes in. This time of day +there's never anybody comes in." +</P> + +<P> +He turned on his stool: "How soon'll you be back?" +</P> + +<P> +"In a few minutes." +</P> + +<P> +"Get a good horse for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Kate gave him a parting shot: "Of course you think I can't ride." +</P> + +<P> +It did not take her long to get up the hill. Breathless, she +encountered old Henry in the garden, asked him for the ponies and +almost ran into the house. Her father was asleep. There was no reason +to stir him up over a situation that she was resolved to handle and +felt she could handle. She got into her riding clothes in a trice, all +the time wondering whether she could hold her wild man in leash long +enough to defeat him. Had he been more like anybody she had ever met +and known, the problem would have been less confusing. But she +determined to shut her eyes and win the fight if she could, and to this +end draft every resource. So she thought, at least, as she caught up +her little revolver and, dropping it into the scabbard she had belted +about her waist, set forth. +</P> + +<P> +She rode back one of her own ponies and led the other. Her enemy had +good ears for when she was half way to the eating-house he walked out +on the platform and silently surveyed her approach. Kate watched him +narrowly and drew up before him to estimate the effect. She was +disappointed, she had to confess, at his cool indifference, for she +thought her riding rig unusually pretty. It had seemingly failed to +impress her queer Westerner. His eyes were all for the horses. "Clean +ponies," he observed, taking the bridle rein from her hand as he looked +the two over. +</P> + +<P> +"I forgot to ask what kind of a saddle you like," she observed +indifferently. He was scanning the horses and his eyes not being on +her she got her first real good look at her antagonist—whether he was +to be her victim she was in somewhat anxious doubt. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WHICH WINS? +</H3> + +<P> +He was long of limb, rather loose-jointed; but not ungraceful, except as +his simple manner and unassuming rig—neither soiled nor fresh—made him +seem so; at all events what he might look like was apparently of slight +moment to him. He had a good walk—Kate noticed that when he crossed the +platform; not the choppy, high-heeled gait of a man that never does +anything but ride, but an easy step that matched the expressions of his +eyes. His quick movements seemed, as usual with bronzed Western men, +younger than his face; and his twenty-eight years would, as a first +impression, have passed for well above thirty, with Kate. She had +struggled too long with charcoal and lead pencils not to perceive that +his frame was clean and his shoulders good; and his head was well set on +them, if the man would carry it where it belonged. But he was plainly +not vain; and since we usually accept at sight whatever draft men and +women themselves draw on our impressions, Kate would have regarded him +ordinarily with no more than he demanded—indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"Any kind of saddle will do me," he answered in response to an inquiry; +and he repeated his compliment to the horses. He looked well at his own: +"This is a good pony." Kate assumed a little: "All our ponies are good." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you'd show them to me sometime," was his unassuming request. The +remark should have been enough to warn Kate that her deception rested on +very thin ice; that it was more than probable he had already penetrated +much of it. But, a beginner in deception, she was intent only on her own +part and took his good-natured acquiescence at its face value. The +moment he saw her ponies he knew they were Doubleday's: yet he seemed +willing to forego his scruple rather than to lose the ride. +</P> + +<P> +Kate, too, was disposed to be amiable: "I will show them to you +sometime," she said promptly. +</P> + +<P> +But whenever she thawed for an instant she felt directly the necessity of +freezing up again. Her remarks were divided as evenly as a mountain +April day—one moment spring, the next winter. Happily for her purposes, +the day itself was spring. She had mounted her horse but as she spoke, +she slipped from her saddle, threw her lines and, walking hurriedly into +the dining room, returned with a handful of wrapped sandwiches. She +looked at him as she held the package out: "How can we carry them?" +</P> + +<P> +He disposed of the store in a capacious pocket and then hesitated: "I +wonder if you'd mind waiting five minutes while I go up to Doubleday's +house." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" she asked, professing surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"To see what I can find out about where he is." +</P> + +<P> +"I've told you all you can find out by going to the house," she returned +deprecatingly. He looked at her as if undecided. "When you ask to go +riding with me and I get the horses—I come first, don't I?" she asked +cavalierly; and before he could help her she was back again in the saddle. +</P> + +<P> +He hesitated no longer: "You come first any time," he said, "and +anywhere," he added, swinging up on his own pony. +</P> + +<P> +She looked sidewise at him as they trotted up the street: "You don't mind +rather rough riding?" +</P> + +<P> +"Anything the ponies can stand," was all he said. +</P> + +<P> +Kate had given him her dun pony. Spirit-free all the time the trim beast +either through instinct knew his rider or meant to cast off care in a +long fling. He took the stage the moment his rider touched the saddle. +Kate rode Dick, her lighter but faster gray pony. He danced attendance +for a time, but the dun kept the spotlight and gave Kate a chance to +regard the man just from Medicine Bend critically. She had meant to put +him on exhibition—perhaps cherished a hope he might ride only +indifferently well—yet in a country where everybody rode, this was much +to hope for. At all events, the result, with an added surprise, was a +disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if +there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in +the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before +Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his +careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted +riotously, the rider's head, rising like a monitor straight from his +slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces. +</P> + +<P> +"You take the trail," said Kate's guest tersely, as they swung out on the +desert. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she returned, "you." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll take it together," was his reply. +</P> + +<P> +But despite her disclaiming, Kate did the guiding and her object was to +get a good way from town. Her companion's frequently repeated effort was +to slow down for a talk; hers was to tantalize him by speeding away from +one. But she couldn't speed all of the time, and he eyed either her +riding, or her habit, pretty closely for a good while without comment. +Then a chance offered itself and he put a question: "Where did you learn +to ride?" +</P> + +<P> +"All mountain girls ride, don't they?" she suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"You're not a mountain girl." +</P> + +<P> +"It was a mountain girl that taught me to ride,—away back in the +Alleghanies—long before I ever saw this country." +</P> + +<P> +"Your mountain girl's pupils don't all ride like that, I'll gamble." +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't very bright." Kate spurred ahead. The dun pony kept after her. +</P> + +<P> +"Compliments don't set very well on you, do they?" was the shot from her +left a moment later. +</P> + +<P> +She turned a full face on her companion: "I hate them," she declared with +energy. +</P> + +<P> +In luring this man away from his errand, she had yielded to a really wild +impulse and now the spirit of recklessness that ruled her mood seemed to +revenge itself by counseling added dangers. She invited riding-hazards, +that her victim disdained to comment on, until they must have appeared +silly to him. A long way from home they were crossing a high bench above +the Falling Wall river, a bench cut by frequent lateral washes—some wide +and all very deep. These breaks they jumped one after another without +taking serious trouble to head them, though Kate's companion, riding on +the river side, gave her every chance to do so. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose," he suggested at length, "you're pushing into rough country +because you like it." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him: "Yes," she said, icily, "I do like it. But," she +added, "if it's too rough for you, we'll go back." In that much of a +challenge she felt safe. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm riding with you," he returned, a little dryly. "I like anything you +like." +</P> + +<P> +And at this juncture Kate's luck deserted her; it always seemed to when +she most needed it. Ahead, there lay a stretch of smooth bench and she +took a run to cross it. But below a slight rise on the near side an ugly +break suddenly faced her. Decision was forced. Recklessness said: "Take +it." She spurred. The gray hesitated—almost as if to give his wanton +mistress a chance to reconsider; but he got the quirt for his pains. +</P> + +<P> +The wiry beast was almost on the brink—he had hardly a moment to coil, +but he shot across the gulf with a convulsive leap that carried his rider +over, with nothing—absolutely nothing—to spare. He made the farther +side with three feet—the left hind foot slumped on the edge of the bank +and down went the leg! +</P> + +<P> +Kate never forgot that moment. It was thirty feet, sheer, to the rocks +below. And it would have been poor Dick on top of his foolish mistress. +Kate really expected nothing better until with a terrific snort the pony +scrambled to safety. What a horse will do for thankless man! +</P> + +<P> +The frightened girl hardly dared look around even after she recovered her +breath—which she thought would never come back. On the sudden spurt, +her companion had been a little behind her. She presumed that the dun +with commendable sense had refused the jump for when she glanced half way +around—she was afraid her white face would betray her little panic—his +rider was galloping him back in an easy circle and heading him the second +time for the formidable break. This time, too, the rider was letting his +reluctant beast understand who was master; and with enough of authority +to force him and enough consideration to give him confidence, he jumped +him over the gap as Kate should have jumped Dick—with room and to spare. +</P> + +<P> +Her cheeks were burning again: "You did it much better," she said coolly, +as he joined her. "Dick is getting slow." +</P> + +<P> +"That wasn't Dick's fault," he remarked, for he appeared a trifle upset +himself by the misadventure. "It was yours," he added bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +Her only answer was to push ahead. She could at least keep the man +busy—though she felt somewhat diffident about offering him further +lessons in horsemanship. +</P> + +<P> +The trail led up a commanding ridge and her companion scanned the valley +lying to the north beyond. Through it they could trace a slender water +course. "This should be not far from Falling Wall Canyon," he suggested. +"And that creek must be a branch of the Sinking Water." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I've heard about that wonderful canyon," she exclaimed. "Tell me +about it." +</P> + +<P> +"It breaks through that near range," he said, pointing. "There are elk +in the park across the next divide. There isn't a great deal to tell +about the canyon—it's just there, that's about all." +</P> + +<P> +"How deep is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three to six hundred feet." +</P> + +<P> +"Straight up and down, they say." +</P> + +<P> +"As near as the Lord could make it." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there any way of getting to the bottom of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The easiest way would be to jump from the rim." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, could we see it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not tonight unless you want to camp out; and we're not exactly fixed for +that. Up close to the old mine bridge there's a trail into the canyon. +It's pretty stiff. A sailor would warp his way down with a rope." +</P> + +<P> +The horses had halted by consent and their riders were contemplating the +mountains and valleys surrounding them. Her companion took advantage of +the pause to dismount and inspect the legs of the ponies—and while he +examined those of his own horse for politeness' sake—he looked more +closely at Dick's. +</P> + +<P> +"He must have got a wrench in that jump," confessed Kate, watching. "We +were riding pretty fast, weren't we?" +</P> + +<P> +"For that kind of country, yes. I thought for a while," added her +companion, in a dry way, "you must be showing me how to ride. Then I +figured out you must be showing me how <I>you</I> could ride." +</P> + +<P> +Kate stared straight ahead: "How absurd!" she exclaimed with cold +contempt for his conclusions, yet feeble in her sarcasm against his +penetration. +</P> + +<P> +"All I want to say is," he continued, remounting, "that I see you can +ride. You don't have to cover much country to prove that. You ride like +a Western girl—and talk like an Eastern girl. Which are you?" +</P> + +<P> +She unfeelingly closed all inquiries: "Both," she answered indifferently. +"Let's head for the bottoms; about two miles from here there's a +spring—good water." +</P> + +<P> +He looked skeptical: "If you can show me good water near here, I'll be +learning something. I didn't know there was a water hole within ten +miles—but I don't know this lower country as well as my own." +</P> + +<P> +"What is your own?" +</P> + +<P> +He pointed to the Northeast to where a range of snow-capped peaks rose +above from the desert: "Those are the Lodge Pole mountains. That's where +the Falling Wall river begins—where you see that snow. It circles clear +around the range, crosses the Reservation to the West and opens South +into a high basin—that's my country—the Falling Wall. Then the river +cuts out of there through the canyon we're talking about and gets away to +the West again." Coming a step nearer to her he pointed again: "Now look +close to the left of that strip of timber. You can just see a break +above it—that's the high point of the canyon. A long time ago there was +a mining camp in those mountains—Horsehead—they started to build a +railroad up there—did a lot of grading and put in the abutments for a +bridge across the canyon. Before they got the road built the camp played +out; they never finished it. All that country below there is the Falling +Wall." +</P> + +<P> +"Are they all thieves and outlaws over there?" +</P> + +<P> +He started a little in spite of himself and took his time to reply: "It +must have been a thief or an outlaw that put that idea in your head," he +observed finally. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, it was Tom Stone." +</P> + +<P> +His expression changed into contempt: "I didn't need but one guess." +</P> + +<P> +Kate asked him to explain, but he did not and she was not in a position +to object. She found the trail to the spring. Van Horn had taken her +there once. Dismounting at a little distance, the two made their way +down to it. "Score one for the rough rider," said her companion after he +had drunk. "And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-054"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-054.jpg" ALT=""And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country."" BORDER="2" WIDTH="397" HEIGHT="624"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 397px"> +"And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country." +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +He produced the sandwiches and they sat down. Kate could judge the hour +of the day only from the sun and dared not mention "time." Her companion +asked as many questions as he could think of, and she managed her answers +with a minimum of information. And she asked herself one question that +did not occur to him: "Why was she not frightened to death?" It must +have been the duel she felt she was fighting with this man to keep him +away from her father that banished her fears. In the saddle, events +moved too rapidly to admit of extended misgivings, and she had purposely +assigned to him the slower horse. +</P> + +<P> +It was only when they were taking the almost enforced moment of rest +together at the water hole—which might as well have been a thousand +miles from help as ten—that little chills did run up and down her back. +As for her companion, it was useless to try to read him from his face or +manner; if she were playing one game, he might well be playing another as +far as anything she could gather from his features was concerned. But +she had to confess there was never a look in his eyes—when she did look +into them—that frightened her. +</P> + +<P> +And as she cautiously regarded him munching a sandwich and keeping his +own eyes rather away from than on her own, she asked herself whether she +had undertaken too much, and whether this sphinx-like face might hide +danger for her. She at least knew it was far from being possible to tell +by looking at the outside of a man's head what might be going on inside. +Only the plight of her father's affairs had seemed to justify her; even +this did not seem to now, but it was too late to wish herself out of it. +Besides—for most extraordinary notions will come into foolish girls' +minds—was she not in the company of a great Federal court; and shouldn't +she feel safe on that score? +</P> + +<P> +He certainly ate slowly. His appetite was astonishing. He invited Kate +more than once to continue eating with him, but her first hasty sandwich +and her latent uneasiness had more than satisfied her. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be very exciting, to be a deputy marshal," she remarked once, +when she could think of no other earthly thing to say, and was still +afraid they might get back in time for the train. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be sometimes." +</P> + +<P> +"How does it feel to be chasing men all the time?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've had more experience myself in getting chased." +</P> + +<P> +She attempted to laugh: "Do they ever chase deputy marshals?" +</P> + +<P> +He took up, gravely, the last sandwich: "I expect they do once in a +while." +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to know, I should think." +</P> + +<P> +He offered her the sandwich and on her refusal bit into it: "No," he +returned simply, "for I'm not a deputy marshal." +</P> + +<P> +Kate was stunned: "Why, you said you were! What do you mean?" she +demanded when she could speak. He ate so deliberately! She thought he +never would finish his mouthful and answer: "I mean—not regularly. Once +or twice I've been deputized to serve papers—when the job went begging. +Farrell Kennedy, the marshal at Medicine Bend, is a friend of +mine—that's the nearest I come to working for him." +</P> + +<P> +"But if you're not a deputy marshal, what are you?" demanded Kate, +uneasily. +</P> + +<P> +His face reflected the suspicion of a smile: "I guess the answer to that +would depend a good deal on who told the story." +</P> + +<P> +"I could hardly imagine anyone chasing you," she continued, not knowing +in her confusion what to say. +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to see me run sometime," he returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, there's a prairie dog!" she exclaimed. She was looking to the +farther side of the water hole. "See? Over there by that bush! I +wonder if I could hit it?" She put her hand to her scabbard: "I've lost +my revolver!" She looked at him blankly. "Had it when you started, +didn't you?" inquired her companion, undisturbed. Her hand rested on the +empty scabbard in dismay: "I must have lost it on the way." +</P> + +<P> +He plunged his left hand into a capacious side pocket and drew out her +revolver. But instead of handing it to her he began to examine it as if +he might return it or might not. She was on pins in an instant. Now she +<I>was</I> at his mercy. "Is that mine?" she asked, frightened. +</P> + +<P> +"It is." +</P> + +<P> +"Where did you get it?" she demanded. Was she to get it back? He made +no move to let her know; just fingered the toy curiously. "Where you +dropped it—before you made your leap for life." And looking up at her, +he added: "We ought to've eaten our sandwiches first and drank afterward." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand—what did I do?" Kate knew her voice quivered a bit +though she was bound she would not show fear. "And while we are +talking"—she pointed—"the prairie dog is gone." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll be back," predicted her companion with slow confidence. "The gun +bounced from your scabbard when you were running your horse along the +bench. So I picked it up for you." He presented it on the palm of his +hand. +</P> + +<P> +"How odd!" she exclaimed, trying to take it without appearing in a hurry. +"How stupid of me!" She knew her face, in spite of herself, flushed +under his gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"You were going a pretty good clip," he continued. +</P> + +<P> +"But a man would never do such a thing as to drop a revolver—you never +would." +</P> + +<P> +"It might be a whole lot worse for me to do it than it would for +you—though if I carried a nice little gun like that it maybe wouldn't +make so very much difference. There's your prairie dog again," he added, +looking across the hole. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course a man would have to make fun of a pistol like this," she +answered, the revolver lying in her hand. "Let me see yours." Thus far +she had seen no sign of any scabbard or holster. "And shoot that prairie +dog for me," she added. +</P> + +<P> +"Mine would be pretty heavy for a prairie dog. You try him." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my poor little pistol is in disgrace," she returned, putting it up. +"Sec what you can do." +</P> + +<P> +He slipped his left hand under the right lapel of his coat and drew from +a breast harness a Colt's revolver. Had she realized it was carried that +day in this very unobtrusive manner in anticipation of an unpleasant +interview with her father, Kate would have been speechless with fear. As +it was, no gun, though she had seen many since coming to the mountains, +ever looked so big or formidable. The setting of the scene and her +situation may have magnified its impressiveness. +</P> + +<P> +"Why smash the prairie dog?" he asked quietly. "Look at his whiskers—he +may be the father of a family." +</P> + +<P> +"You might miss him." +</P> + +<P> +"If I should it would be time for me to quit this country." +</P> + +<P> +"Shoot at something else." +</P> + +<P> +"Why shoot at all?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to see you." +</P> + +<P> +"We might get a shot at something on the way home." +</P> + +<P> +"You're not obliging." She held out her hand for his revolver. "Let me +see." +</P> + +<P> +"It makes me feel kind of foolish," he said defensively, "kind of like an +old-fashioned cowboy, to be shooting right and left." On his right hand +he held the heavy gun toward Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you get practise?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He lifted his eyebrows the least bit: "To tell the truth I haven't had +much lately." +</P> + +<P> +"How can you tell then whether you could hit anything if you did shoot at +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"That wouldn't be hard. If I didn't hit it, it would most likely hit me." +</P> + +<P> +"How could I practise to learn to shoot the way you do?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her inquiringly; "What do you know about the way I shoot?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, of course. I mean the way that men who carry guns like this +shoot." +</P> + +<P> +He thought a moment. "Get down into a dark cellar with just one window. +Block out all the light from that window except one small circle. Shoot, +off-hand, till you can put five bullets through the circle without +mussing up the general surroundings." +</P> + +<P> +"That sounds like hard work." +</P> + +<P> +"It's certainly——" He just hesitated and then continued: "hard on the +ammunition." +</P> + +<P> +She found by this time she could tolerate the dry smile that lighted his +face now and again, and the drawl of words that went with the expression. +At times he seemed simple, yet there was shrewdness behind his humor. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't see you stop back there on the bench to pick anything up," she +remarked abruptly, thinking of her own pistol again. +</P> + +<P> +"I circled back to get it." +</P> + +<P> +"Without dismounting?'" +</P> + +<P> +"You wouldn't hardly want to get off to pick up anything as light as +that." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I'd seen you do it." +</P> + +<P> +"If you'd been looking I might've been trying to get hold of it yet." +</P> + +<P> +She examined the Colt's gun curiously. She asked him how to handle it. +He obligingly broke it, emptied the cylinders and explained how it was +fired. But she was not equal to handling the big thing, and told him so. +</P> + +<P> +"Though if I should want to kill you now it would be easy, wouldn't it?" +she reflected, after he had reloaded the gun and laid it in her hand, the +muzzle pointing toward himself and her finger resting on the trigger. +</P> + +<P> +"Not without cocking the gun." +</P> + +<P> +"No, but I mean suppose I really <I>should</I> want to kill you——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll show you." He cocked the revolver and placed it again in her hand +and it lay once more with her finger on the trigger. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," he explained, "I'm covered." +</P> + +<P> +"And to kill you all I have to do is to pull the trigger." +</P> + +<P> +"Pulling the trigger, the way things are now, would certainly be a big +start in that direction. But"—the dry suspicion of a laugh crossed his +eyes—"to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger doesn't always kill +him—not, anyways, in this country. If it did, the population would fall +off pretty strong in some of these northern counties. And you might be +surprised if I told you you couldn't pull the trigger right now, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Try it." +</P> + +<P> +"But I might kill you!" +</P> + +<P> +"That's the point." +</P> + +<P> +"Nevertheless," she persisted, "I could if I <I>wanted</I> to." +</P> + +<P> +"No matter how you put it, it's all the same—you can't want to." +</P> + +<P> +"No, but suppose I were bound to keep you from doing something—like +serving papers, for instance." +</P> + +<P> +His legs were crossed under him and he was tossing bits of the gravel +under his hand: "You'd have a better show to do that if you went at it in +another way." +</P> + +<P> +"What way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well—by asking me not to serve them, for instance." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say if I asked you not to serve papers you wouldn't do +it?" She eyed him with simulated indignation. +</P> + +<P> +He returned her gaze unafraid: "Try it," was his answer. +</P> + +<P> +She took a deep breath. Then she tossed her head: "I probably shouldn't +care enough about it for that. Why don't you carry two revolvers?" +</P> + +<P> +"Too much like baggage." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't it be a lot safer?" +</P> + +<P> +He smiled: "If one gun refused to go off promptly, two wouldn't help a +lot." +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes and her thoughts returned to the gun in her hand. For a moment +she had forgotten it. Suppose her finger, while she was talking, had +mechanically closed on the trigger. She blanched. "Take it," she said, +holding the gun out in both hands and looking away. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we let the dog go this time?" she heard him ask as he lowered the +hammer. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CLOSE OF THE DAY +</H3> + +<P> +They rode straight home. On the way Dick went lame and both dismounted +to examine him. "This will make you miss your train," she suggested, +hypocritically. +</P> + +<P> +He had Dick's foot up. His comment on the remark was very like the +rest of his comments. "Not this," he said—and without looking up. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say you've missed it anyway?" asked Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"What does the sun say?" +</P> + +<P> +She bit her lip: "Too bad," she exclaimed, looking across the distance +that still lay between them and the Junction. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see anything wrong with his foot," he announced, completing +his inspection. "I think he wrenched himself." +</P> + +<P> +He said no more till they started again. And then resumed in his odd +way just where they had left off talking: "I've been trying to figure +out why you wanted me to miss the train." She looked at him in +surprise. "I think you did want me to," he continued. "But I can't +figure out why." +</P> + +<P> +She protested, but not with too many words. She felt sure he was not +easily to be deceived. In any case, however, he was unflinchingly +amiable. +</P> + +<P> +After they got back to the Junction the totally unexpected happened. +They dismounted and she went into the lunch room. Her victim pursued +an examination of Dick's leg. An early supper was being served in the +dining-room to a freight train crew. Two of the Doubleday cowboys from +the ranch came into the lunch-room from the front door. Kate, at the +desk, was making ready to manage her own escape from the scene. The +smaller cowboy, walking in last, looked back curiously at her riding +companion as he stood with Dick's hoof on his knee. The man slouched +up to the counter: "Wouldn't that kill you?" muttered the smaller man +to his partner. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" demanded the other. +</P> + +<P> +The first speaker hitched his thumb guardedly over his shoulder: "Know +who that is out there?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't—who is he?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate's ears were wide open: "None other," continued the man, pulling a +face, "than the well-known Jim Laramie himself." His partner checked +him and the two, talking in low tones, walked into the dining-room. +</P> + +<P> +Kate could not at first believe her ears; then she felt that the cowboy +must know what he was talking about. +</P> + +<P> +Worst of all, Laramie, at that moment—before she could think of +collecting herself—walked in through the open door. He came directly +to the counter. She hardly attempted to hide her consternation: "Are +you Jim Laramie?" she burst out in her excitement. +</P> + +<P> +It must have been the manner of her words rather than the words +themselves that startled him. For just an instant the curtain lifted; +a flash of anger shot from his eyes; it was drawn again at once: "Is my +reputation over here as bad as that?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Kate was dumb. Try as she would, she could not think of a thing to +say; the recollection of her reckless ride overwhelmed her. "What's +happened?" he continued with a little irritation. "If you weren't +afraid of me when you didn't know my name, why be afraid now?" +</P> + +<P> +She stammered something, some apology, which he received, she afterward +thought, coldly: "I'm running up to the house now to change," she went +on hurriedly, "but I must thank you for——" +</P> + +<P> +What on earth was she to thank him for? He helped her out: "Before you +go," he interrupted, sitting up on the counter stool nearest her and +looking at her without paying the slightest attention to her +meaningless words, "before you go, tell me your name." +</P> + +<P> +Oddly enough, by just speaking he restored order to her faculties. She +looked straight at him: "You guessed that this morning," she said +frankly. +</P> + +<P> +"Kate?" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"That's queer," he mused. "It must've been pure accident. I heard +that the man I came to round up today had a girl named Kate, so I +suppose that was the first name came into my head. Kate, what else?" +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose," she suggested gravely, "we keep the rest for the next time." +</P> + +<P> +"For our next ride?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked just away from his persistent eyes: "Perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +"Will your name," he went on, "surprise me as much as my name surprised +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who knows?" she retorted, and speaking she started for the front door. +</P> + +<P> +"Stop." He stepped in front of her just enough to bar her way. There +was a tinge of command in his voice and manner quite new. Halted, but +not pleased, she waited for him to go on: "You'll come back, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try to." +</P> + +<P> +"I want to listen," he added coolly, "to the worst story you ever heard +about Jim Laramie." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't pay much attention to cowboy stories." +</P> + +<P> +He certainly paid no attention to her words: "Will you come back?" he +persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"I will if I can," she said, confusedly. +</P> + +<P> +He was just enough in front of her to detain her: "Say you will." +</P> + +<P> +It was somewhat between command and entreaty. Old Henry at the side of +the platform was just mounting the dun horse. Kate was getting +panicky: "Very well," she answered, "I'll come back." +</P> + +<P> +The moment she got to the cottage she locked the front door and drew +all the shades. And every mouthful of the cold supper she ate with her +father lodged in her throat. To him she dared not say a word. Once in +the evening the door bell rang and some man asked for Barb Doubleday. +He made a few inquiries when Henry answered that Doubleday was not in +town, but he did not ask for Kate. She felt curious tremors, listening +to the low voice. But Laramie—for it was he—presently turned from +the door and she heard his footsteps crunching down the gravel path to +the street. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning Henry told her a man had lingered around the lunch room +until the lights were put out at ten o'clock. By that time he must +have known every pine knot in the varnished ceiling. When peaceably +put out of the room by the night man he had walked out on the platform +to the post where the horses had stood and looked long across the +tracks toward Doubleday's cottage on the hill. No lights were burning +in the cottage. He turned to walk toward it. But as he stepped into +the street the whistle of the eastbound Overland train sounded in the +hills to the west. Evidently this changed his mind, for he retraced +his steps and entered the waiting-room, walked to the ticket window and +bought a ticket for Sleepy Cat. He waited until the train pulled in +and loitered on the platform till it was ready to pull out, speaking to +no one. When the conductor finally gave the starting signal the man +looked for the last time around toward the lunch room door. Everything +was dark. +</P> + +<P> +He caught the hand rail of the last open sleeper and swung up on the +step. There he stood looking down the platform and across the street +while the train drew slowly out. Then turning to go into the car he +uttered only one word to himself—and that a mild one: "Gypped!" +</P> + +<P> +But, even then, had Kate heard it she would have been frightened. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HOME OF LARAMIE +</H3> + +<P> +Almost due north of Sleepy Cat the Lodge Pole Mountains, tumbling over +one another in an upheaval southward, are flung suddenly to the west +and spread in a declining ridge to the Superstition range. South of +the Lodge Poles the country is very rough, but at the point where the +range is so sharply deflected there spreads fanlike to the east an open +basin with good soil and water. It is known locally as the Falling +Wall country, and, as the names of the region indicate, it was once +famous as a hunting ground, and so, as a fighting ground, for the +powerful tribes of early days. And an ample Reservation in this +basin—ending just where the good lands begin—is the stamping ground +of the last of the mountain red men. +</P> + +<P> +But the struggle for possession of the Falling Wall country did not end +with the red men. White men, too, have coveted the lands of the +Falling Wall and fought for them. Among the blind the one-eyed are +kings, and the Falling Wall basin lies amid inhospitable deserts, +barren hills and landscapes slashed to rags and ribbons by mountain +storms—regions that have failed to tempt even a white man's cupidity. +The Indians fought for the basin with arrows, bullets, tomahawks and +scalping knives; the whites have fought chiefly in the land offices and +courts, but, exasperated by delays and inflamed by defeat, they have at +times boiled over and appealed to the rifle and the hip holster for +decrees to quiet title. +</P> + +<P> +It is for these reasons, and others, that the Falling Wall country has +borne a hard and somewhat sinister name, even in a region where men +have been habitually indifferent to restraint and tolerant of violent +appeals to frontier justice. In the very early days of the white man +the Indian clung to the Falling Wall country as his last stand; for the +bad lands along the canyon of the Falling Wall river made, as they yet +make, an almost impenetrable fastness for sally and retreat. +</P> + +<P> +But even before the Indians were driven into their barren cage to the +north, white adventurers had penetrated the basin and it became, with +the shifting of possession, a region for men of hard repute. Its +traditions have been bad and few in the Falling Wall country have felt +concern over the fact. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, from the earliest days, despite the many difficulties of living in +the widely known but not large park, a few hardy settlers managed from +the beginning, in secluded portions of the region, to keep their scalps +and their horses and to live through Indian days and outlaw +days—though not often in peace, and never in quiet. +</P> + +<P> +Among these early adventurers was one known as "Texas" Laramie, because +he had the extraordinary courage, or hardihood, to bring into the +Falling Wall the first cattle ever driven into the mountains from the +Panhandle. In a country where the sobriquet is usually the only name +by which it is courteous or safe to address a man, and where it is +invariably apt, few men are accorded two. But Laramie had also been +known as "Pump" Laramie because he brought into that country the first +Winchester rifle; and the instinctive significance the mind attaches to +the combination of cows and a repeating rifle was, in this instance, +justified—there was between the two a direct, even dynamic, +connection. Laramie thus figured prominently in the older Falling Wall +feuds. It would have been difficult for him to figure obscurely, and +do it more than once. +</P> + +<P> +Enemies said that he stole the bunch of cattle he first drove into the +Falling Wall. It was not true but it made a good story. And in any +event, Texas Laramie defended his steers vigorously against all men +advancing claim to them between darkness and daylight—as enterprising +neighbors not infrequently undertook to do. With the cattle, Laramie +had brought into the mountains a wife from Texas. She was a young +mother with a little boy, Jim; a good mother, never happy in the +country so far away from the Staked Plain—and not very long to live +there. But she lived long enough to send Jim year after year to the +Sisters' School on the Reservation. +</P> + +<P> +To obtain for a boy any sort of an education in a region so wild and so +inhospitable would have seemed impossible. Yet devoted +Sisters—refined and aristocratic American women—were already in this +mountain country devoting their lives to the Indian Missions. Under +such women little Jim learned his Catechism and his reading and from +them and their example a few of the amenities of life—so far removed +from him in every other direction. Under their care he grew up, after +he had lost his mother, among the Indian boys. With these he learned +to fish and hunt, to trap for pocket money, to use a bow and arrow and +a knife, to trail and stalk patiently, to lie uncomplainingly in cold +and wet, to ride without saddle or bridle or spur, to face a grizzly +without excitement, to use a rifle where the price of every cartridge +was reckoned and a poor aim sometimes cost life itself. +</P> + +<P> +And every summer at home his father added extension courses in the +saddle and bridle, spur, hackamore and lariat to his education. He +taught him to rope, throw and mark, to use a coffee pot and frying pan, +and at last on the great day—the Commencement day, so to say of the +boy's frontier education—he presented him with his degree—a Colt's +revolver and a box of cartridges—and died. As he lay on his deathbed, +Texas Laramie left a parting advice to his young son: "You've learned +to shoot, Jim—you don't shoot bad for a youngster. A man's got to +shoot. But the less shooting you do, after you've learned—without +you're forced to it, mind you—the more comfortable you'll feel when +you get where I am now. All I can say is: I never killed an honest man +that I knowed of. In fact," his breath came very slowly, "I never yet +seen an honest man in the Falling Wall to kill." +</P> + +<P> +And Jim began life with the ranch, youth, a little bunch of cattle, no +money and much health in the Falling Wall. His first year alone he +never forgot, for in the spring he drove all his steers—not a great +many—into the new railroad town, south—Sleepy Cat—and sold them for +more money than he had ever seen at one time in his life. He wandered +from the bank into Harry Tenison's gambling rooms—Harry having sold +out his livery stable to Joe Kitchen shortly before that—just to look +on for a little while before starting home. When Laramie did start +home, Tenison had all his steer money and Laramie owed the sober-faced +gambler, besides, one hundred dollars. Laramie then went to work on +the range for twenty-five dollars a month. He worked four months, and +it was hard work, took his pay check in and handed it to Tenison. That +was strangely enough the beginning of a friendship that was never +broken. Tenison tried to give the check back to Laramie. He could +not. But Laramie never again tried to clean out the bank at Tenison's. +</P> + +<P> +The Laramie cabin on Turkey Creek—the son built afterward on the same +spot—stood on a slight conical rise some distance back from the little +stream that watered the ranch. From his windows Jim Laramie could look +on gently falling ground in all directions. Toward the creek lay an +alfalfa field which, with a crude irrigating ditch and water from the +creek, he had brought to a prosperous stand. Below the alfalfa stood +the barn and the corral. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The day after Kate Doubleday's adventure with him at the Junction, +Laramie was riding up the creek to his cabin when a man standing at the +corral gate hailed him. It wag Ben Simeral. Ben, old and ragged, met +every man with a smile—a bearded, seamed and shabby smile, but an +honest smile. Ben was a derelict of the range, a stray whose appeal +could be only to patient men. Whenever he wandered into the Falling +Wall country, where he had a claim, he made Laramie's cabin a sort of +headquarters and spent weeks at a time there, looking after the stock +in return for what John Lefever termed the "court'sies" of the ranch. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, greeting Ben, made casual inquiry about the stock. Ben looked +at him as if expectant; but Ben was not aggressive for news or anything +else. He grinned as he looked Laramie over: "Well, you're back again, +Jim." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie responded in kindly fashion: "Anybody been here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nary critter," declared the custodian, "'cept Abe Hawk—he came over +to borry your Marlin rifle." +</P> + +<P> +"What did he want with that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Said he was going up into the mountains but he's comin' over again +before he starts. I knowed he helped you track them wire scouts over +to Barb's. The blame critters tore off all the wire t'other side the +creek, too. Get any track of 'em?" he asked, sympathetically alive to +what had been most on Laramie's mind when he had started from home. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie barely hesitated but he looked squarely at Ben and answered in +even tones: "No track, Ben." +</P> + +<P> +Ben looked at him, still smiling with a kindly hope: +</P> + +<P> +"Hear from the contest on the creek quarter?" +</P> + +<P> +"They told me at Medicine Bend it had gone against me." +</P> + +<P> +"Psho! Never! You've got another 'go' to Washington, hain't y'?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie nodded and got down from his horse. Ben, removing the saddle, +asked more questions—none of them important—and after putting up the +horse the two men started for the house. Its rude walls were well laid +up in good logs on which rested a timbered roof, shingled. +</P> + +<P> +A living-room with a fireplace roughly fashioned in stone made up the +larger interior of the cabin. To the right of the fireplace a kitchen +opened off the living-room and adjoining this, to the right as one +entered the front door, was a bedroom. To the left stood a small +table, on which were scattered a few old books, a metal lamp and +well-thumbed copies of old magazines. Beside the table stood a heavy +oak Morris chair of the kind sold by mail-order houses. Two other +chairs, heavily built in oak, were disposed about the room, and on the +left of the entrance—there was but one door—stood a cot bed. On the +floor between the door and the fireplace lay a huge silver tip +bearskin, the head set up by an Indian taxidermist. It was some time +afterward when Kate saw the cabin, but she remembered, even after it +lay in ruins, just how the interior had looked. +</P> + +<P> +The four walls were really more furnished than the rest of the room. +To the right and left of the fireplace hung twin bighorn heads, and elk +and stag antlers on the other walls supplied racks for an ample variety +of rifles, polished by familiar use and kept, through love of trusty +friends, in good order. Trophies of the hunt, disposed sometimes in +effective and sometimes in mere man fashion, flanked the racks and +showed the tastes of the owner of the isolated habitation; for few +trails led within miles of Laramie's ranch on the Turkey. +</P> + +<P> +"Breakfast?" Simeral looked at his companion, who stood vacantly +musing at the door of the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +"Coffee," answered Laramie, taking off his jacket, laying his Colt's on +the table and slipping off his breast harness. +</P> + +<P> +"I got no bread," announced Ben, to forestall objection. "Flour's low +'n' I didn't bake." +</P> + +<P> +"Crackers will do." +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't no crackers, neither," returned Ben, raising his voice and his +smile in self-defense. +</P> + +<P> +"Give me coffee and bacon," suggested Laramie, impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"'N' I'll fry some potatoes," muttered Ben, shuffling with a show of +speed into the kitchen, and calling inquiries back in his unsteady +voice to the living-room, patiently digging at Laramie for scraps of +news from Sleepy Cat, volunteering, in return, scraps from the range +and ranch. Laramie sat down in the nearest chair, tilted it slightly +back, and resting one arm on the table gazed into the empty fireplace. +He appeared as if much preoccupied—nor would, nor could, he talk of +what was in his mind, nor think of anything else. +</P> + +<P> +Some minutes later he began in the same absent-minded manner on a huge +plateful of bacon, with a pot of coffee in keeping, and was eating in +silence when the stillness of the sunshine was broken by the sound of a +horse's hoofs. Laramie looked out and saw, through the open door, a +horseman riding in leisurely fashion up from the creek. +</P> + +<P> +The man was tall. He swung lightly out of his saddle near the door, +and as he walked into the house it could be seen that he was +proportioned in his frame to his height; strength and agility revealed +themselves in every move. A rifle slung in a scabbard hung beside the +shoulder of the horse, and the man's rig proclaimed the cowboy, though +aside from a broad-brimmed Stetson hat his garb was simplicity itself. +</P> + +<P> +It was the way in which he carried his height and shoulders that +arrested attention, nor was his face one easily to be forgotten. He +wore a jet-black beard that grew close and dropped compactly down. It +was neither bushy nor scraggly and with his black brows it made a +striking setting for strong and rather deep-set eyes which if not +actually black were certainly very dark. His smile revealed white, +regular teeth under his dark mustache, and his olive complexion, though +tanned, seemed different from those of men that rode the range with +him—perhaps it was owing to the glossy, black beard. +</P> + +<P> +Abe Hawk was evidently at home in Laramie's cabin. He stepped through +the door and pushing his hat back on his forehead took a chair and sat +down. The two men, masters of taciturnity, looked at each other while +this was taking place, and as Hawk seated himself Laramie called for a +cup and pushed the coffee pot toward his visitor. Paying no attention +to the unspoken invitation, Hawk's features assumed the quizzical lines +they sometimes wore when he relaxed and poked questions at his friend. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he demanded, banteringly, "where's Jimmie been?" +</P> + +<P> +"Medicine, Sleepy Cat—pretty near everywhere." +</P> + +<P> +"I hear you got a job." +</P> + +<P> +"I was offered one." +</P> + +<P> +"Deputy marshal, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Farrell Kennedy got me down to Medicine Bend to talk it over." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter, couldn't you hold it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't want it." +</P> + +<P> +"You're out of practise on this law-and-order stuff—you've lived up +here too long among thieves, Jim. Find out who tore down your wire?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie replied in even tones but his voice was hard: "I trailed them +across the Crazy Woman. It was somebody from Doubleday's ranch." +</P> + +<P> +"They had a story at Stormy Gorman's you'd gone over there to blow +Barb's head off." +</P> + +<P> +"Barb wasn't home." +</P> + +<P> +Hawk was conscious of the evasion. "Was Stormy's talk true?" he +demanded curtly. +</P> + +<P> +"I expected to ask Barb whether he wanted to put my wire back. I was +going to give him a chance." +</P> + +<P> +"It wouldn't be hard to guess how that would come out. Where was he?" +asked Hawk, with evident disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +"They said he was in Sleepy Cat. I rode in and missed him there. He'd +gone to the mines. I took the train up to the Junction, There I +accidentally got switched off my job and came home." +</P> + +<P> +"How'd you get switched off?" asked Hawk, resenting the outcome. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's manner showed he disliked being bored into. He leaned +forward with a touch of asperity and looked, straight at his visitor: +"By not 'tending strictly to my own business, Abe." +</P> + +<P> +Hawk knew from the expression of Laramie's eyes he must drop the +subject, and though he lost none of his bantering manner, he desisted: +"They didn't have a warrant for me down at the marshal's office, did +they?" +</P> + +<P> +"They were short of blanks," retorted Laramie coolly. +</P> + +<P> +"How you fixed for flour?" +</P> + +<P> +"Plenty of it." Laramie spoke loudly for fear Simeral might protest. +Then he called promptly to the kitchen: "Ben, get up some flour for +Abe." +</P> + +<P> +Ben quavered a protest. +</P> + +<P> +"Get it up now before you forget it," insisted Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Tom Stone still foreman over at Doubleday's?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess he is," returned Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"What does Doubleday aim to do with Stone?" asked Hawk, cynically, +"steal his own cattle from himself?" +</P> + +<P> +"A cattleman nowadays might as well steal his own cattle as to wait for +somebody else to steal 'em." Laramie spoke with some annoyance. +"There's going to be trouble for these Falling Wall rustlers." +</P> + +<P> +"Meaning me?" asked Hawk, contemptuously. +</P> + +<P> +"I never mean you without saying you, Abe—you ought to know that by +this time. But this running off steers is getting too raw. From the +undertalk in Sleepy Cat there's going to be something done." +</P> + +<P> +"Who by?" +</P> + +<P> +"By the cattlemen." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought," Hawk spoke again contemptuously, "you meant by the +sheriff." +</P> + +<P> +"But I didn't," said Laramie. "I meant by the bunch at the range. And +when they start they'll stir things up over this way." +</P> + +<P> +Hawk hazarded a guess on another subject: "It looks like Van +Horn—putting in Stone over at Doubleday's." +</P> + +<P> +"It is Van Horn." +</P> + +<P> +Hawk looked in silence out of the open door at the distant snow-capped +mountains. "Why don't you kill him, Jim?" he asked after a moment, +possibly in earnest, possibly in jest, for his iron tone sometimes +meant everything, sometimes nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, at all events, took the words lightly. He answered Hawk's +question with another. But his retort and manner were as easy as +Hawk's question and expression were hard. "Why don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +The bearded man across the table did not hesitate nor did he cast about +for words. On the contrary, he replied with embarrassing promptness: +"I will, sometime." +</P> + +<P> +"A man that didn't know you, Abe, might think you meant it," commented +Laramie, filling his coffee cup. +</P> + +<P> +Hawk's white teeth showed just for the instant that he smiled; then he +talked of other things. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AT THE BAR +</H3> + +<P> +The arrival of a baby at the home of Harry Tenison in Sleepy Cat had an +immediate effect on Kate Doubleday's fortune in the mountains—and, +indeed, on the fortunes of a number of other people in Sleepy Cat—wholly +out of proportion to its importance as a family event. It was not, it is +true, for the Tenisons a mere family event. Married fifteen years, they +had been without children until the advent of this baby. And the birth +of a boy to Harry Tenison excited not alone the parents, but the town, +the railroad division and the hundred miles of range and desert, north +and south, tributary to the town. +</P> + +<P> +For a number of years Tenison had run his place in Sleepy Cat undisturbed +by the swiftly changing fortunes of frontiersmen and railroad men. +Tragedies, in their sudden sweep across the horizon of his activities, +the poised gambler and hotel man had met unmoved. Men went to the +heights of mining or range affluence and to the depths of crude passion, +inevitable despair and tragic death, with Harry Tenison coldly unruffled. +He was a man in so far detached from his surroundings, yet with his +finger on the pulse of happenings in his unstable world. But the birth +of one baby—and that a small one—upset him completely and very +unexpectedly shocked others of his motley circle of acquaintance. +</P> + +<P> +The complications followed on the announcement—on a Monday when the baby +was three days old and the mother and boy were reported by the nurse to +be coming along like kittens—that the following Saturday would be "open +day" at the Mountain House—Tenison's new and almost palatial hotel; with +the proprietor standing host for the town and the countryside. +</P> + +<P> +Before the week was out this word had swept through the mountains, from +the stretches of the Thief River on the South to the recesses of the +Lodge Poles on the North. It was the one topic of interest for the week +on the range. Few were the remote corners where the news did not +penetrate and the unfortunates who missed the celebration long did +penance in listening to long-winded accounts of Sleepy Cat's memorable +day. +</P> + +<P> +It dawned in a splendor of blue sky and golden sun, with the mountain +reaches, snow-swept and still, brought incredibly near and clear through +the sparkling air of the high plateau. The Sleepy Cat band were +Tenison's very first guests for breakfast. +</P> + +<P> +"'N' you want to eat hearty, boys," declared Ben Simeral, who had reached +town the night before in order that no round crossing the Tenison bar +should escape him: "Harry expec's you to blow like hell all day." +</P> + +<P> +Few men are more conscientious in the discharge of duty than the members +of a small-town brass band. The Sleepy Cat musicians held back only +until the arrival of the early local freight, Second Seventy-Seven, for +their bass horn player, the fireman. When the train pulled up toward the +station on a yard track, the band members in uniform on the platform +awaited their melodic back-stop, and the fireman, in greeting, pulled the +whistle cord for a blast. The switch engine promptly responded and one +whistle after another joined in until every engine in the yard was +blowing as Ben had declared Tenison expected the band itself to blow. +</P> + +<P> +In this wholly impromptu and happy way the day was opened. The band, +laboriously trained for years by the local jeweler—said to be able to +blow a candle through an inch board with his South Bend B flat +cornet—now formed in marching order, the grimed fireman gamely in place +even after a night run, with his silver contrabass. At an energetic +signal from their leader they struck up a march and started down street +with the offering as a pledge of what they might be expected to do. They +were not called on, however, to do all, for at noon the Bear Dance Band +arrived from the West and an hour later came the crack thirty-two-piece +military band from Medicine Bend, carrying more gold on their lacings and +their horns than the local musicians carried in the savings bank. +</P> + +<P> +By the time the noon whistle blew at the roundhouse every trail and road +into Sleepy Cat showed dust—some of them an abundance. The hotel was +naturally the center of attraction, and Main Street looked like a +Frontier Day crowd. The Reservation, too, sent a delegation for the +occasion and mingling in the jostling but good-natured crowd were chiefs, +bucks and squaws, who, in a riot of war bonnets, porcupine waistcoats, +gay trappings and formal blankets, lent yellows and reds and blues to the +scene. All entrances to the Mountain House were decorated and a stream +of visitors poured in and out, with congratulations for Tenison, who +received them at the bar in the big billiard hall opening on Main Street. +</P> + +<P> +By evening the hall presented an extraordinary scene. Every element that +went to make up the shifting life of the frontier could be picked from +the crowd that filled the room. Most numerous and most aggressive in the +spectacle, cattlemen and range riders in broad hats, leathern jackets and +mottled waistcoats, booted and spurred and rolling in their choppy steps +on pointed heels, moved everywhere—to and from the bar, around the pool +tables and up and down the broad flight of stairs leading to the second +floor gambling rooms. At the upper end of the long bar there was less +crowding than nearer the street door and at this upper end three men, +somewhat apart from others, while nominally drinking, stood in confab. +First among them, Harry Van Horn was noticeable. His strong face, with +its hunting nose, reflected his active mind, and as he spoke or listened +to one or the other of his companions—standing between them—his lively +eyes flashed in the overhead light. On his left stood Tom Stone, foreman +of the Doubleday ranch. His head, carried habitually forward, gave him +the appearance of always looking out from under his eyebrows; and the +natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never +lighted by more than a strained smile—a smile that suggested a grin, +that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his +cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk of human +kindness. +</P> + +<P> +On Van Horn's left stood an older man of massive features, the owner of +the largest ranch in the north country, Barb Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +Miners from Thief River, with frank, fearless faces, broad-throated, +belted and shifted, and with brawny arms for pick and sledge and +doublejack, moved to and from the bar like desert travelers breathing in +an oasis. Men from the short spillway valleys of the Superstition +Range—the coyotes and wolves of the Spanish Sinks—were easily to be +identified by their shifty eyes and loud laughter and handy six-shooters. +Moving in a little group rather apart from these than mingling with them, +talking and drinking more among themselves, were men from the Falling +Wall—men professedly "ranching" on the upper waters of the Horse, the +Turkey and Crazy Woman creeks, tributaries of the Falling Wall river—in +point of fact, rustlers between whom and the big cattlemen of the range +there always existed a deadly enmity and at times open warfare. +</P> + +<P> +At two card tables placed together in the upper inner corner of the room +sat a little party of these Falling Wall men smoking and drinking in +leisurely, or, more correctly, in preliminary fashion, for the evening +was still young; and inspecting the moving crowd at the bar. At the head +of the table sat the ex-cowboy and ex-pugilist, Stormy German, his face +usually, and now, reddened with liquor—square-shouldered, square-faced +and squat; a man harsh-voiced and terse, of iron endurance and with the +stubbornness of a mule; next him sat Yankee Robinson, thin-faced and +wearing a weatherbeaten yellow beard. And Dutch Henry was there—bony, +nervous, eager-eyed, with broken English stories of drought and hardship +on the upper Turkey. These three men—brains and resource of several +less able but not less unscrupulous companions who preyed on the cattle +range north of Sleepy Cat—led the talk and were the most carefully +listened to by the men that surrounded them. +</P> + +<P> +It was later that two men entered the room from the hotel office +together. The contained, defiant walk of the slightly heavier and taller +of the two was characteristic, and without the black beard, deep eyes and +the pallor of his face, would almost have identified him as Abe Hawk; +while in the emotionless, sandy features of his companion and in his more +frank, careless make-up, the widely known ranchman of the Falling Wall, +Jim Laramie, was easily recognized. +</P> + +<P> +Hawk, separating from his companion, walked to the right. German hailed +him and Hawk paused before the table at which the former prize fighter +sat with his friends. Each of these in turn had something effusive to +say to Hawk. Hawk listened to everything without a change of +countenance—neither smile nor word moved him in the competition to +arouse his interest. When all had had their fling of invitation and +comment he refused an oft-repeated invitation to sit down: "I might +injure your reputations," he said grimly, and moved unconcernedly on. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn's eyes had not missed the inconspicuous entrance of the two +Falling Wall men: "There's the man himself, right now," he exclaimed, +looking toward Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"No better time to talk to him, either, than right now," added Barb +Doubleday hoarsely. "Take him back into the office, Harry. When you're +through come up to the room." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn, leaving the bar, intercepted Laramie. Doubleday and Stone, +pretending not to observe, saw Van Horn, on the plea of important talk, +succeed, after some demur, in inducing Laramie to return with him to the +hotel office. Once there and in a quiet corner with two chairs, Van Horn +lost no time in opening his subject: "You know as well as I do, Jim, what +shape things are in on the North range. It can't go on. Everybody is +losing cattle right and left to these rustlers. They've been running +Doubleday's steers right down to the railroad camp on the Spider +Water—we traced the brands on 'em. You know as well as I do who took +'em." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie listened perfunctorily, his eyes moving part of the time over the +room. "Speak for yourself. Harry," he intervened at this juncture. "I +know exactly nothing about who took anybody's steers, nor that any were +taken." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn uttered a quick exclamation: "Well, you sure heard about it!" +</P> + +<P> +"In this country a man can hear anything," observed Laramie, not greatly +moved. "I've heard there isn't a crooked cattleman north of Sleepy Cat." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn stared. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," continued Laramie, looking at the passers-by, "I'm listening." +</P> + +<P> +"Doubleday has sold the eating house and disposed of his property at the +Junction——" +</P> + +<P> +"You mean his creditors took it, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Put it any way you like. He's going in for more cattle and we're going +to put this range on the map. But—we've got to clean out this Falling +Wall bunch first. The big men can't stand it any longer and won't stand +it." +</P> + +<P> +"What then?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want you to get in right, on the move, with us, Jim—this is your +chance. You're in a tough neighborhood over there. Now I know you're +not a rustler." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you don't." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I do," averred Van Horn. "But everybody doesn't know you as well +as I do. And your name suffers because you don't get along with the +cattlemen—Doubleday, Pettigrew and the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"What then?" +</P> + +<P> +"What then?" echoed Van Horn, feeling the up-hill pull. "Why, line up +with us against these rustlers. We're going to have a big get-together +barbecue this summer and when it's pulled we want you there. You'll have +a friend in every man on the range—however some of 'em feel now. They +know the stuff you're made of, Jim; they know if you put your hand to +your gun with them, you'll stay; and if you do it, they know it's good-by +to the rustlers." +</P> + +<P> +Closely as Van Horn, while speaking, watched the effect of his words, it +was impossible to gather from Laramie's face the slightest clue as to the +impression they were making. Laramie sat quite relaxed, his back to the +corner, his legs crossed, listening. He looked straight ahead without so +much as blinking. Van Horn, nervous and impatient, scrutinized him: +"That's my hand, Jim," he said flatly. "What have you got?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie paused. After a moment he turned his eyes on his questioner: "No +hand. This is not my game." +</P> + +<P> +"Make it your game and your game in this country is made. Doubleday and +Dan Pettigrew want you. They're the men that run this country—what do +you say?" +</P> + +<P> +"The men that run this country can't run me." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn, in spite of his assurance, felt the blow. But he put on a +front. "What makes you talk that way?" he flared. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the same bunch," continued Laramie evenly, "that sent two +different men to get me two years ago—and when I defended myself—had me +indicted. That indictment is still hanging for all I know. This is the +bunch that owns the district court." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn made a violent gesture. "What's the use raking up old sores? +That's past and gone. That indictment's been quashed long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"This is the bunch," and Laramie spoke even more deliberately; he looked +directly, almost disconcertingly at Van Horn himself, "that sent the men +to rip off my wire just a while ago. I tracked 'em to Doubleday's and if +I'd found Doubleday or you or Stone there that day—if I'd got my eyes on +Barb Doubleday that day—you'd 've turned the men that pulled that wire +over to me or I'd known the reason why. +</P> + +<P> +"Now these same critters and you have the gall to talk to me about +joining hands. Hell, I'd quicker join hands with a bunch of +rattlesnakes. When that crowd want me let them come and get me. I'm not +chiding. They talk about cattle thieves! Why, your outfit would steal +the spurs off a rustler's heels. And when men like Hawk and Yankee +Robinson and German set up a little ranch with a few head of cows for +themselves your bunch blacklists them, refuses 'em work anywhere on the +range. Where did Dutch Henry learn to steal? Working for Barb +Doubleday; he branded mavericks for him, played dummy for his land +entries, swore to false affidavits for him. Now when he turns around and +steals the steers he stole for Barb, Barb has the nerve to ask me to +round him up at my proper risk and run him out of the country!" +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn rose: "That's the answer, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie sat still. He looked dead ahead: "What did it sound like?" he +asked, as Van Horn stood looking at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Just the same, Jim," muttered Van Horn, "the rustlers have got to go." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie looked across the office: "That all may be," he observed, rising. +And he repeated as Van Horn started away: "That all may be. And the men +that ripped off my wire have got to put it back. Tell 'em I said so." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn whirled in a flash of anger: "You talk as if you think I'd +ripped it off myself." +</P> + +<P> +"I do think so." +</P> + +<P> +For one instant the two men, confronting, eyed each other, Van Horn's +face aflame. Both carried Colt's revolvers in hip holsters; Van Horn's +gun slung at his right hip, Laramie's slung at his left. Both were known +capable of extremes. Then the critical moment passed. Van Horn broke +into a laugh; without a yellow drop in his veins, as far as personal +courage went, he had thought twice before attempting to draw where no man +had yet drawn successfully. He put out his hand in frank fashion: "Jim, +you wrong yourself as much as me when you talk that way." +</P> + +<P> +He made his peace as well as it could be made in words. But when his +protestations were ended Laramie only said: "That all may be, Harry. But +whoever pulled my wire—and left it in the creek—will put it back—if +it's ten years from now." +</P> + +<P> +The two men, Van Horn still talking, made their way back to the billiard +hall—Laramie refusing to drink, and halting for brief greetings when +assailed by acquaintances. After they parted, Van Horn, as soon as he +could escape notice, passed again through the door leading to the hotel +office. He walked up the main stairway to the second floor, thence to +the third floor and following a corridor stopped in front of the last +room, slipped a pass key into the lock and, opening the door, entered and +closed it behind him. +</P> + +<P> +Two men sat in the room, Doubleday and Stone. Stone was just out of the +barber's chair, his hair parted and faultlessly plastered on both sides +across his forehead, and his face shaven and powdered. His forehead +drawn in horizontal wrinkles rather than vertical ones, looked lower and +flatter because of them. To add to the truculence of his natural +expression, he was now somewhat under the influence of liquor and looked +perplexed. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn did not wait to be questioned; he walked directly to the table +between the two men and took a cigar from the open box: "Can't do a thing +with that fellow," he reported brusquely. +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday, by means of questions, got the story of the fruitless +interview. Stone listened. The slow movement of his eyes showed an +effort but none of the story escaped him. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn, answering with some impatience, had lighted one cigar, and +bunching half a dozen more in his hand stowed them in an upper waistcoat +pocket. Doubleday, between heavy jaws and large teeth, shifted slowly or +chewed savagely at a half-burned cigar and bored into Van Horn. Van Horn +was in no mood for speculative comment: "You might as well talk to a +wildcat," he said. "Pulling that wire has left him sore all over." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday looked at Stone vindictively: "That was your scheme." +</P> + +<P> +"No more than it was Van Horn's," retorted Stone. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the use squabbling over that now?" demanded Van Horn impatiently. +"I'm done, Barb. You've got to go ahead without him." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday chewed his cigar in silence. Van Horn, restless and +humiliated, spoke angrily and thought fast. From time to time he looked +quickly at Stone—the foreman was in condition to do anything. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, Tom," exclaimed Van Horn in low tones, "suppose you go +downstairs and give him a talk yourself. What do you say, Barb?" He +shot the words at Doubleday like bullets. Doubleday understood and his +teeth clicked sharply. He said nothing—-only stared at the foreman with +his stony gray eyes. Stone drew his revolver from his hip and, breaking +the gun, slipped out the cartridges and slipped the five mechanically +back into place. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie in the meantime had joined a group of men at the upper end of the +bar in the billiard hall—McAlpin, Joe Kitchen's barn boss; Henry Sawdy, +the big sporty stock buyer of the town, and the profane but always +dependable druggist and railroad surgeon, Doctor Carpy. With one of +these, Sawdy, Harry Tenison from behind the bar was talking. He +interrupted himself to hold his hand over toward Laramie: "Been looking +for you, scout," he said, in balanced tones. "Been looking for you," he +repeated, releasing Laramie's hand and holding up his own. "If you'd +failed me today, Jim——" +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't fail you, Harry." +</P> + +<P> +"It's well you didn't—champagne, Luke," he added, calling to a +solemn-faced bartender who wore a forehead shade. +</P> + +<P> +"No champagne for me, Harry," protested Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you going to have?" asked the mild-voiced bartender, +perfunctorily. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie tilted his hat brim: "Why," he answered, after everybody had +contributed advice, "if I've got to take something on this little boy, a +little whisky, I suppose, Luke." +</P> + +<P> +"No poison served here tonight, Jim," growled Sawdy, throwing his +bloodshot eyes on Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any, anyway, Henry," was the unmoved retort. +</P> + +<P> +Luke, wrapping the cork of the champagne bottle under his long fingers, +hesitated. Tenison, looking with his heavily-lidded eyes, did not waver: +"You'll drink what I tell you tonight," he maintained coldly. "Open it, +Luke." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie stood sidewise while talking, one foot on the rail, his elbow +resting on the bar, and with his head turned he was looking back at +Tenison, who stood directly opposite him behind the bar. Laramie +submitted to the dictation without further protest: "A man will try +anything once," was his only comment. +</P> + +<P> +As he uttered the words he felt a point pressed tightly against his right +side and what was of greater import, heard the familiar click of a gun +hammer. +</P> + +<P> +It was too late to look around; too late to make the slightest move. All +that Laramie could get out of the situation, without moving, he read, +motionless, in Tenison's eyes, for Tenison was now looking straight at +the assailant and with a frozen expression that told Laramie of his +peril. The next instant Laramie heard rough words: +</P> + +<P> +"Turn around here, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +They told him all he needed to know, for in them he recognized the voice. +In the instant between hearing the words and obeying, a singular change +took place in the Falling Wall ranchman's eyes. Looking over at Tenison +his eyes had been keen and clear. Slowly and with a faint smile he +turned his head. When his eyes met those of Tom Stone, who confronted +him pressing the muzzle of a cocked Colt's forty-five gun against his +stomach, they were soft and glazed. Laramie had changed in an instant +from a man that had not tasted liquor to a man half tipsy. +</P> + +<P> +It was a feint, but a feint made with an accurate understanding of a +dangerous enemy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE +</H3> + +<P> +There was not a chance of escape. Laramie's left arm was resting on +the bar. Under the overhang, Stone, as he faced Laramie, now pressed +the gun with his right arm, into Laramie's stomach. For Laramie to +attempt to knock it away with his own right hand would be to take an +almost certainly fatal chance; while for any friend of his to touch +Stone or shoot him would mean certain death to Laramie. Feeling that +he had his enemy dead to rights, Stone baited him: +</P> + +<P> +"Laramie," he began, fixing his eyes on those of his victim, "there's +some men's lived in this country too long." +</P> + +<P> +The words carried the irritable nasal tone familiar to Stone's +acquaintances. Laramie's eyes merely brightened a little with the +effort to reply: "Tom," he declared, with just enough of hesitation to +play the game, "that's the first thing my wife said yes'day morning." +</P> + +<P> +Stone stared: "When," he demanded, "did you get married?" +</P> + +<P> +"Put up your gun. I'll tell you about it." +</P> + +<P> +Stone only grinned: "I can hear pretty well, right now." +</P> + +<P> +"If you want to see her picture, Tom, uncock your gun." +</P> + +<P> +"Not a little bit. I've got you right." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie smiled: "Sure, Tom, but there's plenty of time; put down the +hammer." Stone, without moving his gun, did silently lower the hammer. +Laramie counted one. Then he began to describe his trick bride. Stone +cut him off. He cocked his gun again: "Show me her picture," he +snarled. +</P> + +<P> +Tenison took the instant to lean impressively across the bar. He +pointed a long finger at Stone: "Tom," he said, with measured emphasis, +"no man can pull a gun here tonight and get away with it. That'll be +enough." +</P> + +<P> +Stone scowled: "Harry, this scout is through; nobody wants him any +longer in this country," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Take your quarrel somewhere else tonight—this is my celebration—do +you get me, Tom?" +</P> + +<P> +Under the implied threat of the determined gambler the hammer of +Stone's gun came down: "I c'n get along with any man that'll do what's +right," asserted Stone, trying to keep his head clear. "Laramie won't." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Tom!" expostulated Laramie, reproachfully. +</P> + +<P> +The revolver clicked; the hammer was up again. +</P> + +<P> +"Y' won't do what's right, will y', Laramie?" demanded Stone thickly. +</P> + +<P> +There were probably fifty men in the room. As if by instinct each of +them already knew on what a slender thread one man's life hung. Hawk, +the quickest and surest of Laramie's friends, stood ten paces away, up +the bar, but the silence was such that he could hear every deliberate +word. Glasses, half-emptied, had been set noiselessly down, +discussions had ceased, every eye was centered on two men and every ear +strained. A few spectators tiptoed out into the office. Others that +tried to pass through the swinging front-door screen into the street +found a crowd already peering intently in through the open baize. +</P> + +<P> +"Tom," resumed Laramie, in measured seriousness, "it's not you 'n' me +can't get on—it's men here has made trouble 'tween you and me, Tom. +You 'n' me rode this range when we didn't have but one blanket atween +us—didn't we, Tom?" he demanded in loud tones. +</P> + +<P> +Stone, in drunken irresolution, uncocked his gun but held it steady. +"That's all right, Laramie," he growled. +</P> + +<P> +"Did we quarrel then?" demanded Laramie, boisterously. "I'm asking +you, Tom, did you 'n' me quarrel then?" +</P> + +<P> +"When a man can't turn in with Harry Van Horn an' Barb Doubleday," +grumbled Stone, "it's time for him to quit this country." His revolver +clicked again; the hammer went up. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie regarded him with sobering amazement: "Who told you I wouldn't +turn in with Barb Doubleday?" he exclaimed loudly. "Who told you that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Harry Van Horn told me." +</P> + +<P> +Tenison tried to interpose. "You shut up, Tenison," was the answering +growl from Stone. But Tenison stuck to it till the hammer came down. +It was only for a moment—the next instant a score of breathless men +heard the click of the gun as it was cocked again. +</P> + +<P> +"Why," demanded Laramie, more cool-headed than his friends, drawn-faced +and tense about him, cooler far than his maudlin words implied, and +still fighting for a forlorn chance, "why didn't Harry Van Horn tell me +to turn in with a friend—why didn't he tell me to turn in with you, +Tom Stone—with a man I rode and bunked with? Why did they make you +their scapegoat, Tom? You've got me all right; I know that. But what +about you? You can't get ten feet. Abe Hawk's right back of you, +waitin' for you now. They'd dump us into the same hole, Tom. You +don't want to go into the same hole with me, do you? Let's talk it +over." +</P> + +<P> +The rambling plea sounded so reasonable it won a brief reprieve from +Stone. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't uncock your gun till I'm through, Tom," urged Laramie. "I don't +want to take any advantage at all of an old pardner. Keep it cocked +but listen. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to talk with Van Horn," Laramie went on, "not even with +Barb Doubleday, fine a man as he might be—I ain't 'a' sayin', Tom. +But I don't want to talk to him. I want to talk to you. Just you and +me, Tom—talkin' it over together. Don't be goat for nobody, Tom. +What?" +</P> + +<P> +The drunken foreman's brow contracted in irresolute perplexity: "What +do you say?" urged Laramie. Vacillating, Stone let down the hammer to +talk it over. It went up again almost instantly. There may in that +last brief instant have flashed across his muddled consciousness a +realization of his fatal mistake; perhaps he saw in the wicked flash of +Laramie's glazed eyes a warning of blunder. +</P> + +<P> +Knowing that mountain men carry only five cartridges in their +revolvers, leaving the hammer for safety on an empty chamber, Laramie +had parleyed with Stone only long enough to suit his own purpose. His +right arm shot out at Stone's jaw. As his fist reached it, the gun +against his stomach snapped viciously. But the hammer, already raised +six times, came down on the sixth and empty chamber. It was the chance +Laramie had played for. Stone sank like an ox. As he went down his +head struck the foot-rail. He lay stunned. +</P> + +<P> +Men drew long breaths. McAlpin, stooping in a flash, wrenched Stone's +revolver from his hand and with a grin, laid it on the bar. Laramie, +watching Stone coldly, did not move. His left foot still rested on the +rail, his left arm on the bar. But without taking his eyes off the +prostrate man he in some way saw the white-faced bartender peering over +in amazement at the fallen foreman: +</P> + +<P> +"It seems to take you a good while, Luke," protested Laramie, mildly, +"to open that bottle." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A DUEL WITH KATE +</H3> + +<P> +When the eating-house at the Junction was closed, Harry Tenison sent +for Belle and offered her the position of housekeeper at the Mountain +House. This Belle declined. She had long had in her head the idea of +taking a place and serving meals on her own hook, as she expressed it. +Her instinct for independence, always strong, had not only prevented +her getting married but made her restive under orders. She was +stubborn—her enemies called her abusive names and her best friends +admitted that she was sometimes difficult. At Sleepy Cat she took a +cottage in lower Main Street. She had some furniture, and having a +little money saved and a little borrowed from McAlpin, Belle bought a +few new pieces, including a folding bed secured at a bargain, and +opened her doors for business. And whatever her faults of temperament, +Belle could cook. +</P> + +<P> +Kitchen's barn was headquarters for the small ranchers from the north +and for the Falling Wall men, and McAlpin soon had a trade seeking +Belle's place. The cottage itself faced the side street, but a little +shop annex opened on Main. In this and in the cottage dining-room +Belle served her meals. Very soon, however, she made trouble for +McAlpin. It developed that she would not serve anybody she did not +like and as her fancy was capricious she gave most of McAlpin's +following the cold shoulder. He spent much time in the beginning, +hot-footing it, as Belle termed it, between the barn and the cottage +trying to straighten things out. In the end he gave over and told +Belle she could starve if she wanted to. Whereupon she said tartly +that she did want to; and McAlpin snatching off his baseball cap, as he +did when greatly moved, and twirling it in his hand asked for his +money—which he failed to get. +</P> + +<P> +Yet one man among the hardy friends of the barn boss did find favor at +the cottage and he the last whom McAlpin would have picked for a likely +favorite. This was Jim Laramie. Laramie soon became a regular +customer of Belle's and his friends naturally followed him. +</P> + +<P> +The closing out of her father's interests at the Junction was without +regret for Kate, since it sent her up to where she wanted to be—at the +ranch. For some time after establishing herself there she rarely came +into Sleepy Cat. Then as the novelty wore off and small wants made +themselves felt, she rode oftener to town—mail and shopping and +marketing soon established for her a regular round and when she did +ride to Sleepy Cat she nearly always saw Belle; sometimes she lunched +with her. Belle was a stickler in her home for neatness, even though +the cyclone might have been supposed to harden her to dust. +</P> + +<P> +More than this, Belle knew what was going on—she had the news. +Little, in the daily round of the town and its wide territory, got by +the modest scrim curtains of Belle's place; she became Kate's reporter. +Men would say this was the principal attraction for Kate, and that the +cooking came second—not so. The real reason Belle got the gossip of +the country was because her customers were men. Kate was probably the +only woman, certainly almost the only one, among her patrons. Belle +explained this by saying that none of the rest of the ranchwomen would +spend their money for lunch. The truth really was that Belle did not +like women, anyway—Kate she tolerated because she did like her. +</P> + +<P> +It was the day after Tenison's big celebration that Kate rode into town +for the mail, and after some shopping walked down to Belle's for lunch. +Belle was at the butcher shop across the street, telephoning. She came +in after a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems to me you spend a good deal of time with that butcher," said +Kate, significantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, he's got a club foot. Has Harry Van Horn been shining up to +you?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate was taken aback, but she had been to blame for giving Belle an +opening and could only enter a confused denial. +</P> + +<P> +"The first serious symptom," said Belle, garrulously, "will be, he'll +have a headache; he'll ask for cold cloths on his forehead. When that +works pretty well he'll tell you your hair is like his sister's and +some evening he'll ask you to take it down. He asked me one night to +take mine down. I handed him my wig. Say! he was the most surprised +man in Sleepy Cat. I've been trying for an hour to get that rascally +milkman on the telephone—there's not a drop of cream in the house. +Well, how are you? Was Tom Stone home when you left?" +</P> + +<P> +One question followed another. Kate had not only not seen the ranch +foreman—she had not heard of the excitement of the night before. From +Belle she got the details of Stone's attempt to kill Laramie. The +story lost nothing in Belle's hands. She had heard all versions and +was pretty good at story telling herself. +</P> + +<P> +"After McAlpin picked up Stone's gun Laramie told him to turn it over +to Luke; and he told Luke not to give it back to Stone till this +morning—I guess they hid Stone last night." She wound up with an +abusive fling at Doubleday's foreman. "What do you keep such a beastly +critter around for?" she asked, looking at Kate hard for an answer. +</P> + +<P> +Humiliated at the recital, Kate thought it time to say something +herself: "Why do you ask me a question like that?"' +</P> + +<P> +Belle arched her eyebrows belligerently. "Why shouldn't I?" she +demanded. And bridling with further criticism of Stone and by +implication of those that employed him, she let fly again. +</P> + +<P> +Kate tried to ignore her outburst: "You know perfectly well," she said +firmly, "I have nothing to say about the ranch or how it is run, or who +runs it. And I don't care to listen to any comments on that subject." +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't like my comments you needn't come here to listen to +them," retorted Belle, flaming. +</P> + +<P> +The two were standing at the cook stove. +</P> + +<P> +"While I am here," returned Kate with tart dignity, "please don't abuse +me." +</P> + +<P> +"I say what I please to anybody if it's right," exclaimed Belle rudely. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be ashamed of yourself when you cool off," Kate returned, +pointing to the broiler: "You don't expect me to eat all that meat, do +you?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle answered with an offended dignity of her own: "I expect Jim +Laramie to eat the biggest part of it. And there he comes now!" +</P> + +<P> +The front door opened, in fact, while she was speaking; Kate stood with +her back to it and though by turning she could have peeped through the +curtained archway, she would not have looked for a million dollars. If +Belle wanted her revenge she had it at that moment. Kate could not +sink through the floor to escape, but how she wanted to! She did step +quickly aside hoping she had not been seen, and retired to the farthest +corner of the kitchen. Belle's mouth, before the stove, set grimly and +with her left hand she gave her wig the vicious punch she used when +wrought up. Kate motioned to her frantically. Belle regarded her +coldly but did come closer and Kate caught at her sleeve: "For heaven's +sake," she begged in a whisper, "don't let him know I'm here." +</P> + +<P> +Kate eyed her anxiously. Belle's face was hard, and quick, firm steps +were coming from the front door. +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Belle!" was the greeting. Had they been Kate's death message +the words could not have frightened her more. She knew, too well, the +voice. +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't get my message," were the next words flung through the +archway. +</P> + +<P> +"I got it," answered Belle, going forward and providentially stopping +Laramie before he reached the curtains. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down right there," she added, pointing to a table at the rear of +the lunch room. "I hurried all I could but that rascally milkman +hasn't been here yet and there's no cream for your coffee. Your +dinner's most ready though." +</P> + +<P> +She started back to the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +"Not enough for two, is there?" asked Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's coming?" demanded Belle, stopping in her tracks. +</P> + +<P> +"Belle, you're suspicious as a cattleman. Nobody's coming, but I'm +hungry." +</P> + +<P> +While he continued his banter she served him and attempted to serve +Kate behind the curtains. By persistent, almost despairing pantomime, +Kate dissuaded her from this. But at that moment the front door opened +again, a brisk greeting was called out and a heavy tread crossed the +uneven floor of the outer room. +</P> + +<P> +"John Lefever!" Laramie got up to welcome the big deputy marshal. +"Just in time. Take off your manners and sit down." +</P> + +<P> +A bubbling laugh greeted the sally: "Jim, I just can't do it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, you'll eat with me. Where you from?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bear Dance; and Medicine Bend on the next train. Heard you were in +town and dropped off for just one hour. Say, this is more like life's +fitful fever to set eyes on you. Heard you were threatened last night +with appendicitis. How about it?" and John bubbled over again. In the +next breath he greeted Belle as gaily. Laramie asked for another plate +and Lefever promptly resumed: "You look kind of down in the mouth, Jim. +What's the matter with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing's the matter with me." +</P> + +<P> +Lefever shrugged his shoulders: "You're a kind of low-spirited Indian, +anyway. What you doing up in the Falling Wall?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"Always nothing," repeated Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"Better come up," suggested Laramie. "What are you doing?" +</P> + +<P> +Lefever's eyes expanded with cheer, but his voice choked with emotion: +"Doing? Rusting!" +</P> + +<P> +"That doesn't sound much like 'life's fitful fever.'" +</P> + +<P> +John glared at his companion: "Life's fitful <I>fever</I>! Why, this is +only a passing flash! How about it when you can't raise even a normal +temperature? Fever? I haven't felt so much as a gentle perspiration +for months! The rust is eating into my finger tips," he declared with +violence. "I'm a fat man. A fat man must have action,"—his voice +fell—"else he gets fatter. I've got to do something. Once or twice +I've come pretty near having to go to work." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's expression may have been skeptical; at all events John +pointed a corroborating finger at him: "You don't believe it! Just the +same," he added, moodily, "it's straight." +</P> + +<P> +"What's de Spain doing, John?" +</P> + +<P> +The tone of the answer bordered on the morose: "Running a nursery at +Medicine Bend." +</P> + +<P> +"Trees?" +</P> + +<P> +"Trees!" John snortingly invoked the hottest place he could think of. +"Trees? Babies! Jim," he exclaimed, "I'm no family man—are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"You like Medicine Bend, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Too many people there." John settled gloomily back. Then with +wide-open eyes he started suddenly forward: "Give me a gun, Jim," he +said wildly, "a gun and a horse." +</P> + +<P> +"And a north wind!" exclaimed Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"And a high country," cried Lefever with flashing eyes, "a country +where you can't see a damned thing in any direction for a hundred and +fifty miles!" +</P> + +<P> +Though talking vigorously he was eating, without protest from Laramie, +everything in sight. Kate could not help listening; Lefever's high +spirits were contagious. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim," came next between mouthfuls. "What was that story about you +being up at the Junction the day I wanted you to serve those papers on +old Barb Doubleday?" +</P> + +<P> +"I went up there that day because I had business of a different kind +with Barb." +</P> + +<P> +"About the wire ripping, yes. But I heard you got sewed up by a skirt +and didn't talk wire to Barb at all." +</P> + +<P> +"No more of that, John." +</P> + +<P> +"What was there to it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess there was." +</P> + +<P> +"A ride or something—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Something, John." +</P> + +<P> +"Thunder! It must have been the ride. I had a deputy marshalship all +lined up for you if that hadn't happened. And believe me, boy, a +deputy marshalship isn't lying around loose every day!" +</P> + +<P> +Kate listened keenly for Laramie's comment: +</P> + +<P> +"The ride was worth the price, John," was all he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Some skirt, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie squirmed and with an expletive protested: +</P> + +<P> +"Hang it, John——" +</P> + +<P> +"No matter, no matter. I'll get it all from Belle some day. And after +you get through with your wire thieves we'll tell the story of your +brief romance——" +</P> + +<P> +"Over my grave." +</P> + +<P> +"Right, Jim—over your grave." +</P> + +<P> +"John," Laramie ran on, "do you remember that song Tommie Meggeson used +to sing on the round-up—a pretty little thing. It had one good line +in it: 'Death comes but once, and then, sometimes—too late.'" +</P> + +<P> +Belle appeared with a vegetable: "It won't keep you waiting an awful +while if things go on the way they're going now," she put in grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"That was a good song," mused Laramie, "a good old song." But he heard +a slight sound in the kitchen and his eyes were turned toward the +archway. +</P> + +<P> +"Just the same that song won't keep you from getting killed," persisted +Belle. +</P> + +<P> +"Even that would beat appendicitis clean to death, Belle," maintained +Laramie, still listening. +</P> + +<P> +"You've got lots of time," he added, as Lefever looked at his watch. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't," exclaimed his companion. "I've got to send a message. +Come over to the train." +</P> + +<P> +"I've got to write a couple of letters." +</P> + +<P> +"Come over to the station and write your letters." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie shook his head: "I couldn't even get to the station by one +o'clock. Every man in Main Street wants to talk about Tom Stone. +You'd think I had a million friends among the cattlemen this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"I heard old Barb Doubleday is grinning like a hangman today." +</P> + +<P> +"If Belle's got some ink I'll write my letters right here." +</P> + +<P> +Kate's spirits, which had risen at the hope of being so luckily rid of +one who might prove troublesome, fell at his refusal to leave. John +urged, but Laramie only asked Belle again for the ink. Lefever tried +to coax Belle to go to the train with him. Belle would do almost any +fool thing—as John bluntly averred—but this time she must have had +pity on Kate and would not leave her unprotected. Lefever went his +way. From a shelf near where Kate, with clasped hands, sat in silence +Belle took paper and ink in to Laramie and began to clear the table. +</P> + +<P> +At this unlucky moment the front door was opened swiftly and a boy from +the butcher shop stuck his head inside. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Shockley," he called, "the milkman is on the 'phone now, if you +want him." Closing the door he ran back across the street. With a +sense of her wrongs keen upon her, Belle, forgetting her charge in the +kitchen, hurried after him. +</P> + +<P> +Even then, Kate hoped that by keeping deathly still she might escape an +unpleasant meeting. She never breathed more carefully in her life, yet +she was doomed. She heard Laramie's chair pushed back and heard his +footsteps. She could not be sure which way he was walking, but she +thought only of flight. As stealthily and rapidly as possible, she +started for the back door. Without looking around she felt as if he +had come to the archway and was looking at her. With courage and +resolve, she grasped the knob to open the door. It was locked. She +fumbled with the key. Behind her, silence. She locked and unlocked +the door more than once, and with a fast-dying hope, for the wretched +door would <I>not</I> open. Flushed with annoyance, she turned around only +to see Laramie standing precisely where she had imagined him. +</P> + +<P> +They faced each other. Kate could not have found a word to say had her +life depended on it. Laramie held in his left hand an ink bottle, in +his right a pen. He, too, seemed surprised but he recovered himself: +"You are certainly unlucky with doors," he said. "If you'll tell me +where Belle keeps her ink, I'll tell you how to open that," he added +calmly. +</P> + +<P> +Kate stiffened and shrugged her shoulders the least bit: "I haven't any +idea where Belle keeps the ink," she replied, clearing her throat of +its huskiness. +</P> + +<P> +He pointed to beyond where she stood: "I think the ink supply is on +that shelf; she gave me an empty bottle. Should you mind handing me +one with ink in it?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate turned to the shelf: "There seem to be two kinds here," she said +as coldly as possible. +</P> + +<P> +"Any bottle with a hole in the top will do," he suggested. "This one," +he held the bottle up in his hand and looked at it, "seems to have a +hole top and bottom. Give me the blue ink, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure I don't know which is which. Perhaps you had better help +yourself," Kate said icily. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you. But I'll show you how to open the door first." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't trouble yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"No trouble at all." He walked to the door, explaining as he took hold +of the knob: "The door wasn't locked, but the catch held the latch. I +could tell that from the way you handled it. You locked it, +yourself——" +</P> + +<P> +Kate could not hide her resentment: "It wouldn't open when I first took +hold of it," she declared hastily. "I tried it before I touched the +key." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I'm explaining. When you did take hold of the key you +locked the door with the dead bolt and then you couldn't open it; so +you unlocked it and tried it again. After that you worked so fast I +lost track." He pointed to the back of the rim lock: "The catch was +on." And pushing down the catch, he turned the knob and opened the +door. +</P> + +<P> +Kate was thoroughly incensed: "You are doubtless better acquainted here +than I am." +</P> + +<P> +"To tell the truth, I have to be acquainted with rooms I go into. If +<I>I</I> ever tried to get through a door and failed, it might not be +pleasant for me. And there's a board fence, six feet high, all around +this yard, so unless you're a good climber you couldn't have got out +anyway." +</P> + +<P> +Kate felt she looked very silly, standing staring at him, and perhaps +looking frightened—as she really was—-for he went on as if he were +explaining to a child: "I'm not permitted to tell you, but I'm going +to——" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't bother, please——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I'd rather: There is a way to get out without climbing the fence; +a loose board I'll show you sometime—but you must handle yourself fast +to make your get-away." +</P> + +<P> +"I never expect," she said contemptuously, "to have to make a get-away." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I was wrong," he returned frankly, "for I kind of thought you +were trying to make one a minute ago." +</P> + +<P> +His composure irritated Kate: "You are very much mistaken," she +declared with spirit in her words, for she saw—indeed knew—how +persistent he was. "I was only trying to leave for home quietly and +quickly." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes were a study in silent laughter: "That's all I've ever claimed +to be doing, any time in my life." +</P> + +<P> +"But I can just as well leave by the front door—which, perhaps," +retorted Kate, "you haven't always been able to do." +</P> + +<P> +"Before you go"—he was standing directly in the archway, so she had to +listen—"tell me about things at the Junction; I hear the lunch room +was closed up a while ago." +</P> + +<P> +"It was. But"—Kate thought the time for explanation had come—"I was +not working at the eating-house when you came in there. I am Kate +Doubleday and I wanted to save my father that day and I'm not a bit +sorry for it." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose, then, I ought to speak out, too. I was sure you were Kate +Doubleday soon after I got into the lunch-room that day and I'm not a +bit sorry for it. And I knew pretty soon you were trying to save your +father. And I helped you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh—" Kate suppressed an incredulous exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +"Believe it or not as you like, I helped you. And I'm not a bit sorry +for it. Though he is no friend of mine, you have been, from that day +on; and if you ever give me a chance I'll prove it. The worst thing +you did was to go back on your word——" +</P> + +<P> +"My word was not freely given," Kate was speaking furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"It shouldn't have been given at all, then. But it's all right. Will +you be friends with me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No man that speaks of my father as you spoke of him a moment ago can +be my friend." +</P> + +<P> +"It was Lefever spoke of your father. I couldn't shut him off. Of +course he didn't know you were here. I did know after I'd been here +awhile. I heard you whisper. That's why I asked for the ink—I had no +letters to write. There's a lot of hard feeling in this country right +now. Every man in it has his friends and enemies. You mustn't take it +seriously when you hear hard words—I don't; and I hear plenty. Hadn't +you and I better be friends to begin with, anyway?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," she exclaimed angrily. "Please let me pass." +</P> + +<P> +He stepped promptly aside: "I never dreamed of doing anything less." +</P> + +<P> +Kate started rapidly for the front door. Whom should she run into just +as she opened it but Belle coming back from her wretched telephoning +and with a bottle of cream! Kate inwardly blamed her for all her +trouble, and she was on edge, besides: "Where you going?" demanded +Belle. +</P> + +<P> +"Home," answered Kate, shortly. +</P> + +<P> +"Home? You haven't had your lunch." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any." +</P> + +<P> +Belle caught Kate's arm: "Now you just hold on. What's the matter? Is +it Laramie?" Belle must have read her face for she answered nothing, +only tried to get away. "But, child!" she exclaimed. "Where's your +coat—wait till I bring it—and your gloves!" Kate paused at the door. +In a minute Belle came running back: "He's gone, absolutely. There +isn't a soul anywhere about. Now you shan't go till you take a cup of +coffee. Here's the cream—he left it at the wrong door, the stupid!" +</P> + +<P> +Kate could not get away. And Belle had told the truth: Laramie was +gone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE BARBECUE +</H3> + +<P> +Whatever the shortcomings of the American frontier code there never was +a time in its history when a man could violate the principles of fair +play and keep public opinion on his side. In this instance, Stone's +conduct reacted unfavorably on the cattlemen. The townspeople that +made money out of the trade of the big ranches always stood up for the +cattlemen, but they were put most unpleasantly on the defensive by the +incident. Even had Stone's attempt on Laramie's life succeeded it +would have been easier, for the partisans, to handle than the failure +it proved. As a <I>fait accompli</I> it would have been regretted, but +forgotten; as a failure it settled nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Among the few townspeople that sturdily retained independence of +opinion on all matters, none stood higher than the surgeon, Doctor +Carpy. And encountering Doubleday in the street shortly after the +Stone incident, he took it on himself to talk to him. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor had his office at his home, but back of the prescription +case in his little drug store—no bigger than a minute—he had a small +room for emergency consultations. To this he invited Doubleday, and, +having ushered him in, seated him and closed the door, Carpy sat down: +"There's few men, Barb, in this country," the doctor began, "that dare +talk to you the way you ought to be talked to; of them few, I'm +probably the only one that would take the trouble. Your enemies won't +talk and everybody friendly with you is afraid of you. You've got so +much property and stuff here they're plumb afraid of you. I'm a poor +man, Barb—don't never expect to be anything else, and I don't give a +hang for anybody," averred the erratic surgeon, "and nobody gives a +hang for me." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday, chewing the stub of a cigar, eyed his medical adviser with +an unsympathetic stare, but this in no way disturbed the self-appointed +critic. "For a long time now, Barb," he continued, "you've been in the +nastiest kind of a fight on Jim Laramie. You've tried to run him off +the range and you tried to beat him out of his land and you've tried to +break him. He's got the best land in the Falling Wall and he's in your +way. One time his wire is all pulled off his fence. Another time your +foreman pokes a gun into his stomach." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday flared up: "Am I the only man that Laramie's got differences +with? When his fence is tore down, am I to blame? Am I to blame for +every drink Tom Stone takes? What are you talking about?" demanded +Doubleday with violence. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor could not have been calmer had he been reaching at the +critical moment of an operation for Doubleday's appendix. "Be patient +a minute; be ca'm, Barb; I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I don't +know who cut his wire. I don't know who done it and I won't undertake +to say, but what I do say to you, Barb, and I say it hard, you're +making a big mistake on this man, and if you don't slow up it'll cost +you your life yet." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday was grimly silent. "I've known Jim Laramie," Carpy went on, +"since he was a boy. He's stubborn as a broncho if you try to ride +him. He's the easiest man in the world to get along with if you make a +friend of him. No matter what's said of Jim Laramie there ain't a +crooked hair in his head; but he's no angel and when his patience +quits—look out. What I'm going to tell you now, Barb, is on the +square. It can't go no further. I tell you because you ought to know. +A while back, just after this wire pulling, Jim Laramie walked into +this room, shut the door and locked it and sat down right where you're +sittin' now. He told me the wire story; he told me he was through. +He'd tracked the men to your ranch and was going to square accounts +with you and Stone and Van Horn. He was on his way to the Junction and +he told me he might not come back and wanted to tell me how to dispose +of his property. He was after you and he meant, before he fell down, +to get some or all of you. He asked me where you were, because he +heard I knew. I did know but I didn't tell him. I lied, Barb. I told +him the mines, but I knew you were at the Junction. He started for the +mines. What happened to turn him off your trail I never yet learned. +I never asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you saw, or you heard anyway, what happened when Stone tried to +kill him the other night. That man never can get Laramie. And don't +depend on Stone and Van Horn to play you fair, for if they had to save +their hides, Barb, they'd sell you. My advice is this: Put back +Laramie's wire. Let the cattlemen, you and Pettigrew to lead 'em, do +it to clear their own names. Say you know nothing about it, but it was +a dirty trick, and tell this town that cattlemen fight but they fight +fair. It'll do more to set you right and to set everything else right +on the range than anything else you could possibly do. And don't make +a mistake. Laramie'll follow that wire pulling for years but what +he'll get the man that did it. I know him. He's got a memory like an +Indian." +</P> + +<P> +Like all well-meaning and candid friends, the doctor found himself at +once in for a deal of angry abuse, but, as he explained, he had taken +so much abuse from patients at various periods of his career—and abuse +fully justified—that nothing Barb could add, deserved or undeserved, +to the volume would move him: "As our old governor back in Wisconsin +said, Barb, 'I seen my duty and I done it,'" was the doctor's only +retort to Doubleday's wrath. "Now if you're in a hurry, Barb, don't +let me keep you, not a minute. I had my say and if there's anything +pressing you down street go to it." +</P> + +<P> +But angry as Doubleday appeared, Carpy had given him something to think +about. Consultations were held—by precisely whom, no one could say, +but in them there was dissension. Van Horn vehemently opposed any +further overtures to Laramie and he was vastly put out at being +overruled. While the discussions were going on, he talked in a veiled +but emphatic way to Kate about the queer way her father was acting. +Van Horn would shake his head with violent emphasis at the way things +were going. But when Kate poured oil on the waters of his discontent, +Van Horn was always responsive and stayed to supper or for the evening, +if he were asked—and Kate was alone. On the gentler side, however, he +could make no headway. When he tried headaches for sympathy, Kate was +stony hearted. When he asked her one day at the spring to take down +her hair, she told him she wore a wig. He looked at her amazed. +</P> + +<P> +And in spite of his objections to placating Laramie a decision very +unpalatable to him was reached. Pettigrew, as spokesman, approached +Laramie and insisted, in order to allay bad feeling, on replacing the +barb wire. When Laramie declared the wire must be put back by the men +that had cut it, there was naturally an <I>impasse</I>, but Tenison and +Carpy aided jointly by the representations of Lefever and Sawdy, +induced Laramie to forego his punitive attitude and accept the amende +as offered. This, as the doctor had predicted, put a pleasanter face +on the tangled affairs of the range. And to strike while their iron +was hot, and to keep it hot, the cattlemen announced a big Fourth of +July celebration, at which old scores should be forgotten and friends +and enemies meet in good-fellowship. The place for it, after much +talk, was fixed at Doubleday's ranch. The saloon-keepers of Sleepy +Cat, except Tenison, fought this, but they lost out. +</P> + +<P> +Since her own home was to be the scene of the celebration, Kate took a +particular interest in the undertaking. She made herself, in a way, +hostess and her father gave her free rein. The eager crowd that +responded to the public invitation found awaiting them, as they +picturesquely rode in twos and threes and groups up the creek to the +ranch house, all the "fixin's" for a rousing celebration. Men came for +as much as fifty miles and some of them by trails and over passes Kate +had never even heard of. There were cattlemen, cowboys, sheepmen, +little ranchers—all the conflicting elements of the country, besides a +crowd from Sleepy Cat with the band, and all the town loafers that +could possibly secure conveyance. +</P> + +<P> +There was for these latter worthies the attraction of a free feed—for +they knew the prodigality of cattlemen; but there was also the +underlying hope that where so discordant elements were assembled a +fight <I>might</I> occur; and nobody wanted to miss a fight. The principals +necessary for a serious affair were present. The fact that all were +armed was not significant, merely prudent. Men careless on this point +were no longer attending celebrations of any sort around Sleepy Cat. +</P> + +<P> +From the Falling Wall came the rustlers, every one of them except +Doubleday's old foreman, Abe Hawk, who scorned all pretense of +compromise. He advised Laramie not to go near the celebration. When +Laramie intimated he might go, Abe was greatly incensed. A master of +bitter sarcasm, he trained his batteries on his sandy-haired friend and +these failing he warned him he would be in serious danger. He +intimated that the scheme was to get the rustlers all together and +finish them in a bunch. In which event, one as hated as Laramie could +hardly hope to escape unmolested. But Laramie persisted in his resolve +to go, and he went. +</P> + +<P> +Doctor Carpy made it a point to go. He was usually needed +professionally at Fourth of July celebrations. But on this occasion he +was, in matter of fact, a sort of sponsor for the whole affair and he +brought Sawdy, Lefever and Tenison along. The four drove out in the +smartest wagon and behind the best team in the Kitchen barn, Kitchen +with them and McAlpin driving. +</P> + +<P> +By noon the big end of the crowd had arrived. The barbecue tables were +set out under the trees along the creek. The roasting itself was in +the skilled hand of John Frying Pan and before one o'clock he was ready +to serve. +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday had told Kate, when arranging for the tables, that his +particular friends would sit at his table, and she was on her way down +to the creek to ask him how many there would be in the party when whom +should she find him talking with, of all men, but Laramie, who had just +ridden over from the Falling Wall. +</P> + +<P> +Before Kate could retreat, her father had seen her. He called her +over. To her astonishment he insisted on introducing her to his +friend, Jim Laramie, of whom he was making as much as it was possible +to make of a wholly undemonstrative man. +</P> + +<P> +The band not far away was playing full tilt. Kate wished they could +have made even more noise to hide her confusion, but there was nothing +except to face the situation, much as it surprised her. Laramie, +fortunately, seemed indisposed to say anything. He spent most of his +time listening. Kate, being far from animated, her father was left to +do the honors. And on such rare occasions as Barb was communicative, +he was quite capable of good-fellowship. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, however, seemingly under some restraint, soon made excuses and +left to join the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +Some of the little ranchmen had brought their wives along. A few of +these women had their babies with them, and Kate returned to the house, +where she made the mothers comfortable. There, her father afterwards +ran across her. He stopped as he came up: "You remember that man I +introduced you to—Laramie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," assented Kate, wondering. +</P> + +<P> +"Treat him well at dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"But I'm going to eat here at the house." +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head: "You eat at the creek at my table." +</P> + +<P> +She had no choice but to obey. When she returned to the pits the +stones had been removed and John Frying Pan, with a pair of Sleepy Cat +ice tongs, was lifting out the first big chunks of roasted meat. The +crowd, being called, ran for the creek whooping and yelling, and while +Kate watched John and his helpers dish up the meat, the guests—nearly +all men—seated themselves pell mell at the long benches. It was a +noisy assemblage, overflowing with good-nature, and when Kate, very +trim in corduroy, appeared again at the tables the demonstrative ones +rose and led in a burst of cheers. Kate enjoyed it but when they began +calling for a speech, she ran to join her father. She found him and +old man Pettigrew at the table, Laramie calmly seated with them and the +fourth place waiting for her. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn, as host to other cattlemen and guests, presided at the next +table. Unluckily, where he sat, he could see Laramie opposite Kate. +But if he was discomfited, the group at the next table below, where +Doctor Carpy presided, flanked by Lefever, Sawdy, Kitchen and McAlpin, +was correspondingly elated at the spectacle of the Falling Wall and the +Crazy Woman sitting in harmony. +</P> + +<P> +Despite the unpleasant stories Kate had heard about him she found +nothing to complain of in Laramie's manners. But he was, she told +herself, on his good behavior, and under the circumstances would +naturally try to appear at his best. Little as she relished her +assignment of making things pleasant for him, the friendly spirit of +the occasion to some extent infected her, and soon she found it not +difficult to help along with small talk and make the queer combination +at the table go. +</P> + +<P> +There was really no great need for her to work hard in this way—both +her father and Pettigrew were very lively. Laramie seemed a bit dazed +at being set up with such honors in the house of his enemies. But +though he did not volunteer much, when Kate said anything that afforded +a chance for comment, he improved it. +</P> + +<P> +The talk went a good deal to cattle, and range matters, but Pettigrew, +a crafty fellow, told good stories about men that everybody in and out +of Sleepy Cat knew, and appealed frequently to Laramie for confirmation +or a laugh. Some of the laughs he got were a little dry but they were +not ill-natured, and Kate enjoyed the rough humor. The two cattlemen +finished their dinner, and without ceremony got up to see how the crowd +was being served, leaving Kate with Laramie. "How do you like old +Pettigrew?" was the first thing Laramie asked as the bearded cattleman +moved away with her father. +</P> + +<P> +"The only thing I don't like about him," answered Kate candidly, "is +his eyes." +</P> + +<P> +She was looking at Laramie as she spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a good observer," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"How so?" +</P> + +<P> +"A man's eyes are all there is to him. You don't mind if I smoke?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a bit." +</P> + +<P> +He drew a sack of tobacco from a breast pocket. +</P> + +<P> +"Not going to run away, are you?" He was fishing for cigarette paper +when he asked. He spoke as if he had no special interest in the +matter, yet the question startled her. Kate had not made a move to go, +but she <I>was</I> thinking, when the question came, of how she might manage +to escape. She flushed a little at being anticipated in her +intention—just enough perhaps to let him see he had caught her, not to +say irritated her. As luck would have it, Van Horn, who had risen, +sauntered towards them. Kate was glad just then to see him: "I hope +you got enough to eat," she said as he approached. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed stiff—Kate did not realize what he was put out about. He +made some answer and turned to Laramie. She felt at once the friction +between the two men, not from anything she had reason to suspect or +know—for she knew then nothing whatever of their personal relations. +Nor was it from anything said; for an instant neither man spoke. +Instinct must have made her conscious for as soon as Van Horn looked at +Laramie she felt the tension: "Well, Jim, where'd you blow from?" +demanded Van Horn after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie was making ready to smoke. He was in no haste to answer, nor +did he look at Van Horn, but continued, cowboy fashion, rolling his +cigarette in the finger-tips of one hand, his other hand resting on his +hip: "I didn't blow," he retorted. +</P> + +<P> +"How'd you get here?" asked Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +"I was invited." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn laughed significantly. While Kate would rather have been out +of it, she thought it proper, since she was in it, to say something +herself: "I didn't suppose anybody needed a special invitation for a +Fourth of July celebration," she interposed. "The town has been +covered for two weeks with bills inviting everybody." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn laughed again. "It wasn't you invited him, eh?" he demanded +of Kate. The thing was said so unpleasantly she would have retorted on +impulse, but Laramie took any possible words out of her mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you ask me who invited me? Barb Doubleday invited me. +That's enough, isn't it? And Pettigrew invited me. And," he added, +completing his cigarette in leisurely fashion, "while that wouldn't be +any particular inducement—you invited me." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn stared: "How do you make that out?" he asked quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"You asked me to take in this barbecue when you tried to get me to line +up with you at the Mountain House." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn took alarm: "That was put up to you in confidence," he said +angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"So was the barbecue," responded Laramie. "I wouldn't take in the +first proposition, so I'm enjoying the second." He turned from Van +Horn, and, ignoring him, spoke to Kate: "You remember you said you were +going to show me your ponies." +</P> + +<P> +It was Kate's turn to stare: "You must be mistaken." +</P> + +<P> +He did not press the subject: "Perhaps you've forgotten," was all he +said. +</P> + +<P> +"When or where did I ever say that?" Kate asked, resenting the +intimation. +</P> + +<P> +He looked down, then looking up his eyes rested on Kate's. He was not +disturbed: "Is that a challenge?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"If you wish to make it one," she returned coolly. +</P> + +<P> +"The 'where' was one day at Sleepy Cat Junction, the 'when' was the day +we rode up the Falling Wall river." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she exclaimed, collecting herself, "I had forgotten." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you remember now?" he asked; and she thought there was resentment +in the question. "If you don't," he added, "we'll let it go." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I suppose I must have said something like that. Anyway," she +added, "we'll go see them to make sure I've kept a promise. Come, Mr. +Van Horn," she suggested, turning sweetly to him, "don't you want to +see the ponies?" To include Van Horn, it was plain to be seen, would +spoil the trip for Laramie, but she cared little for that. "Wait just +a minute," she continued, "I must tell John Frying Pan before I go to +give the Indians something to eat." +</P> + +<P> +The feeling between the two men she left together flared up at once: +"Does this mean you're going to hitch up with the cattlemen, after +all?" demanded Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, who had lighted his cigarette, stood looking after Kate: "I +hitch up with nobody." +</P> + +<P> +"Then don't spend your time hanging around Kate Doubleday." +</P> + +<P> +"So that's where the shoe pinches?" Laramie threw away his cigarette +as he spoke. "I've taken a good deal from you, Van Horn." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn egged him on unabashed: "You've got your nerve with you to +show up here at all." +</P> + +<P> +"A man needs his nerve, Van Horn, to do business with crooks like you." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday, passing near the two men at that moment, heard the last +exchange. He called out in his heavy, raspy voice to Van Horn: "Look +here, Harry." Laramie walked away and Doubleday took Van Horn in hand: +"You messed up things once with Laramie, didn't you? And you didn't +get him, did you?" continued Doubleday, choking off Van Horn's words: +"Now we've got him here, let me run this thing." +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell you right now you won't line him up," blurted out Van Horn, +very angry. +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday had a way of raising his chin to override objection; and his +voice grew huskier with stubbornness: "Just let me run this thing, will +you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do as you please," retorted Van Horn, but with a stiff expletive that +irritated Barb still further. Then swinging on his heel, Van Horn +marched off. Barb was so incensed he could only keep his raised finger +pointed after Van Horn; and as his eyes blazed he shouted through a +very fog of throat-scraping: "I will." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AGAINST HIS RECORD +</H3> + +<P> +On the level stretch between the ranch-house and the creek the cowboys +staged, after dinner, a Frontier Day show and a Fourth of July +celebration combined. The fun began mildly with the three-legged races +and the business of the greased pig. From these diversions it +proceeded to foot races, in which Indians shone, and to keenly +contested pony races between cowboys, Reservation bucks and sports from +Sleepy Cat. Money was stacked with freedom and differences of opinion +were intensified by victory and defeat. +</P> + +<P> +While the spirit ran high, rodeo riding began with the master artists +of the range and the pink of American horsemanship in the saddle. In +each succeeding contest the Sleepy Cat visitors headed by Sawdy and +Lefever with big loose bunches of currency backed their favorites +freely, and men that counted nothing of caution in their make-up took +the other end of every exciting event. Flushed faces and loud voices +added to the rapidly shifting excitement as one event followed another, +and the betting fever keenly roused called, after every possible wager +had been laid, for fresh material to work on. +</P> + +<P> +It was at this juncture that the shooting matches began. In a line and +in a country in which many excelled in perhaps the most important +regard, rivalry ran high and critics were naturally fastidious. The +temptation to belittle even excellent work with rifle and revolver was, +in Sawdy and especially in Carpy, partly due to temperament. Both men +were bad gamesters because they bet on feeling rather than judgment. +They would back a man, or the horse of a man they liked, against a man +they did not like and sometimes thereby knew what it was to close the +day with empty pockets. +</P> + +<P> +On this Fourth of July at Doubleday's, both men, as well as Lefever, +had been hit by hard luck. Their free criticism of the horse-racing +and the shooting did not pass unresented and the fact that Tom Stone +and his following had most of the Sleepy Cat money while the sun was +still high did not tend to temper the acerbity of their remarks. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing that the crack shots of the range could do would satisfy either +Sawdy or Carpy. Van Horn, himself an expert with rifle and gun, was +master of these ceremonies and the belittling by the Sleepy Cat sports +of the best the cowboys could show, nettled him: "Before you knock this +any more," he said, "put up some better shooting." +</P> + +<P> +The taunt went far enough home to stir the fault-finders. Sawdy and +Carpy took grumpy counsel together. Presently they hunted up Laramie, +who in front of the ranch-house was talking horses with Kitchen and +Doubleday. They told him the situation and asked for help: "Come over +to the creek and show the bunch up, Jim," was Sawdy's appeal. +</P> + +<P> +The response was cold. Laramie refused to take any part in the +shooting. Sawdy could not move him. In revenge he borrowed what money +Laramie had—not much in all—and went back in bad humor. With the +peeve of defeated men, the Sleepy Cat sports called for more horse +racing to retrieve their fortunes—only to lose what money they had +left and suffer fresh jeering from Van Horn and his following. +</P> + +<P> +But abating in defeat and with empty pockets, nothing of their +confident swagger, Carpy and Sawdy reinforced this time by +Lefever—McAlpin trailing along as a mourner—headed again for the +ranch-house after Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +They found him on a bench where he could command the front door, +whittling and talking idly with Bill Bradley. Laramie was there intent +on waylaying Kate, within. His friends descended on him for the second +time in a body. They laid their discomfiture before him. They begged +him to pull them out of the hole. It was too much in the circumstances +to refuse men he counted on when he, himself, needed friends, but he +yielded with an ill grace: "What do you want me to do?" he demanded +finally. +</P> + +<P> +They told him. He would not stand up before a target, nor would he +shoot in competition with anybody else. +</P> + +<P> +"I've only got a few cartridges, anyway," he objected. "Suppose when +they're shot away these fellows get a fight going on me?" +</P> + +<P> +It was argued that there were enough gunmen in the Sleepy Cat crowd for +defensive purposes and that there was no end of available ammunition. +A way was found to meet Laramie's objection on every point and it only +remained to hatch up a scheme for lightening the cattlemen's pockets. +</P> + +<P> +With Carpy, Lefever and Sawdy, Laramie sat down apart. An exchange of +views took place. Sawdy had in mind something he had once seen Laramie +achieve and on this—and the possibility of its success—the talk +centered. The feat, it was conceded, would be a stiff one. It was put +up to Laramie; he consented, after some wrangling and with misgivings, +to try to save the day for his misguided Sleepy Cat friends. The +moment consent was assured, his backers hurried away in a body—McAlpin +as crier, Lefever and Sawdy to raise money, and Carpy to bully Van Horn +and Stone and their following. +</P> + +<P> +The news that Laramie would shoot caused a stir. Not everyone present +had seen him shoot. His reputed mastery of rifle and gun was often in +question; and no more grueling test before friends and enemies could +ever be given than what he was to attempt now. +</P> + +<P> +Not everyone got clearly as the talk went on just what the trial was to +be. Sawdy having reinforced his resources, announced the event as +Laramie against his record—to tie or to beat. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, himself, unmindful of the controversy, held to the bench. He +was still sitting, head down, and still whittling, when Bradley came to +say the crowd was waiting. He asked Bradley to bring up his horse. +</P> + +<P> +Kate coming out of the house drew his attention. He threw away the +stick in his hand and rose. +</P> + +<P> +"I hear you are going to shoot," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't get out of it very well, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +"You wouldn't shoot, the time I asked you to." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't actually refuse, did I?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty near it." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a harder case today. Your men have got all the money. My +friends are broke. And they've asked me to help them out somehow. +That's the only reason. If you really want to see me shoot, all you've +got to do is to tell me the next time you see me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm going to see you shoot now." She looked at the gun holster +slung at his left hip. "I hear you are left-handed." +</P> + +<P> +"They've got work enough lined up today for two hands." +</P> + +<P> +Bradley returned with the horse and climbed awkwardly down from the +saddle. Laramie tried the cinches and turned to Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you all ready?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Just about." +</P> + +<P> +"You try the cinches; I should think you'd want to try your gun." +</P> + +<P> +"I tried that this morning before I left home. All I've got to do +before I begin is to slip an extra cartridge into the cylinder." +</P> + +<P> +Leading his pony, Laramie, clinging to the talk as long as he could, +walked with Kate toward the creek. Leaving her on a slight rise, where +he told her he thought she could see, he got into the saddle and rode +down to where the crowd had assembled. +</P> + +<P> +On a stretch of the trail extending along the creek, John Frying Pan, +under the direction of Sawdy and Van Horn, was placing at intervals of +from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards a series of targets. These +were ordinary potatoes, left over from the barbecue, but selected with +great care as to size and shape by the man whose money was up—Sawdy; +Frying Pan's work was to impale them on low-growing scrub along the +trail to serve as targets. Against these targets—six in +number—Laramie was to undertake to ride and to split five out of the +six as he galloped past them with six and no more bullets. The +potatoes were up when Laramie joined Sawdy, and Lefever with leather +lungs announced the terms of the test. Accompanied by Sawdy, Van Horn +and Frying Pan, Laramie rode slowly down the course—a quarter of a +mile long—examining the roadway and the targets. Here and there a +loose stone was removed from the trail; one potato was moved from a dip +in the course to a safer point; one was raised and one placed more +clearly in sight. +</P> + +<P> +Having ridden to the end, Laramie expressed himself as satisfied with +the conditions. Alone, he went back over the course and starting down +the creek made a trial heat at full speed past the targets. One of +these at his request was shifted again. While he watched this change, +Sawdy and Lefever, surrounded by their followers, were crowding him as +race touts crowd a favorite jockey with final words of admonition and +advice. When the one target was satisfactorily adjusted, Laramie +breaking away from everybody returned alone to the starting point. +Dismounting, and taking his time to everything, he again tested his +cinches, drew his gun from its holster and breaking it slipped a sixth +cartridge into the cylinder. Dropping the gun back into place, he +pulled his hat a little lower, glanced down the course and up toward +the little hill on which he had parted from Kate. She was standing +where he left her but Van Horn had ridden up and, joining Kate, was +talking to her. While she listened to him she watched the preparations +below. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie spoke to his pony, patted him on the neck and mounted. +Wheeling, he swung out into a wide circle across the level bench and +with gradually increasing speed into a measured gallop. Molded into +one flesh with his mount, Laramie, impassive in the saddle as a statue, +watched and nursed to his liking the pony's gait. When the rhythm +suited, he urged the horse to a longer stride and circling back into +the course, drew his gun, held it high in the air and, swinging it +slowly as if like a lariat, bore down at full speed on the first target. +</P> + +<P> +Markers for both sides in the betting stood to watch each potato. No +signal would mean the potato had been missed; for each hit, a hat was +to be thrown into the air. In a complete silence among the spectators +every eye was fixed on Laramie. Those close at hand saw him, with his +left arm still high in the air, sway slightly backward and slowly +forward, while with the circling gun poised at arm's length he shrank +closer and lower into the saddle. When he neared the first target, +throwing his left arm toward it like a bolt, he fired, sped on and was +again swinging his gun. He had hardly covered six more paces before a +hat was tossed into the air behind him. +</P> + +<P> +A yell went up from his friends. Horsemen wheeled into the course +behind the flying marksman. With five potatoes still to negotiate they +were afraid to cheer. But as one hat after another along the shooting +line—the second, the third and the fourth—were tossed up from the +target behind the speeding horseman, the Sleepy Cat men bellowed with +joyful confidence. The fifth target was of unusual distance—a hundred +and fifty yards—from the fourth. Leaving the fourth, Laramie's horse +broke and the onlookers saw that his rider was in trouble. He kept the +swing of his gun without breaking the rhythm, but his efforts were in +his bridle arm to steady his horse. +</P> + +<P> +The hopes of his backers fell as they saw how stubborn the pony had +become. The hundred and fifty yards were barely enough to bring him +under control. Laramie still circling his raised gun did bring him +under. But he was already nearing the fifth target. And to the horror +of his friends passed it without attempting to fire. +</P> + +<P> +Of the two chances left him to tie—which meant to win—he had passed +up one; the sixth and last meant life or death to the shaken hopes of +his backers. +</P> + +<P> +They saw him settled once more into the long, even stride he needed for +the shot and their breaths hung on each flying leap that brought the +rider nearer his last chance. The sixth target was separated by barely +fifty yards from the fifth. Laramie had covered half the distance when +he completely reversed his form. He stretched gradually up in the +saddle and riding close in on the target itself, rose to his full +height in the stirrups and smashed his fifth shot almost straight down +on it; the potato split into a dozen fragments. Bill Bradley at the +sixth was watching for Sawdy; his hat sailed twenty feet in the air. +The yelling crowd rode Laramie down as he galloped in a long circle +back, his lines swung on his forearm, while he slipped four fresh +cartridges into the warm cylinder of his revolver. +</P> + +<P> +He dismounted to ease his cinches. "I guess I over-did it," he +explained to the friends that crowded closest. "I got the cinches a +little tight. The pony didn't like it. I couldn't get the gait in +time for the Number Five. But I knew I could make Number Six." +</P> + +<P> +Remounting, he made his way through the crowd back over the course. +Kate was still on the hill. "You won, didn't you?" she cried as he +rode toward her. +</P> + +<P> +"If I hadn't, I guess I'd have had to head straight across the creek +for home. Could you see?" +</P> + +<P> +"I watched you the whole way. What a long arm you have." +</P> + +<P> +"While these tin horns are counting their money, would you like to show +me the ponies?" +</P> + +<P> +"You have a long memory, too." +</P> + +<P> +"I was brought up a good deal with Indians. Shall I hunt up Van Horn +to go with us?" +</P> + +<P> +She darted a quick glance at him: "Why, yes, surely," she retorted, "if +you want him." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie was tearing out a cigarette paper: "I could look at them +without him," he returned calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see him, anyway," murmured Kate, professing to sweep the +crowded course with her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't look too hard," cautioned Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose we might save time," she suggested, ignoring his last +remark, "by going without him." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS +</H3> + +<P> +Those closest to headquarters sometimes know least of what is going on. +That the big celebration at the ranch could have been anything more or +less than what it professed to be, did not occur to Kate; nor could +anyone actually say that it was more or less. Hawk could +contemptuously refuse its overtures; Laramie could for reasons of his +own accept them; the Falling Wall rustlers were out for a good time or +they would not have been rustling and they would celebrate any time at +anybody's expense—except their own; Carpy could believe it was to +usher in a better feeling—everyone to his taste. +</P> + +<P> +But the suspicious, because they did not quite understand such a move, +harbored their suspicions, and among the doubting was Belle +Shockley—shrewd and very much alive to the drift of things since her +struggle with a cyclone. Had Belle, instead of Kate, been out at the +ranch, things now coming along that Kate failed to see, would have told +volumes to her. +</P> + +<P> +But Kate did not feel at liberty to make of Belle a confidant in +everything—certainly not in what happened at home; so she neither said +anything to Belle nor asked of her any explanation of things that she +herself did not understand—such as guarded and more frequent +consultations between her father and Van Horn, Pettigrew and Stone; and +such as men riding up with a clatter to the ranch-house at night and +calling Doubleday out and calling for Van Horn who often now spent the +night at the ranch and left before daybreak. +</P> + +<P> +Some of this, Kate saw. She could see how absent-minded her father +was. He grew so taciturn she hardly knew him but the reason for it was +beyond her. More than she saw, she picked up from Bradley, working +then at the ranch. Bradley had taken a liking to Kate and often +reminded her of the night he brought her into the Falling Wall country. +</P> + +<P> +Whenever she was in Sleepy Cat, Belle was inquisitive. She always +wanted to know what Van Horn was doing, what her father was doing, and +then fell back on vaguely general questions about ranches and the range +and rustlers. More than once she spoke of strangers in town, Texas +men—cowboys and gunmen she called them—who bothered her for meals, +and whom she scornfully sent packing. +</P> + +<P> +And Henry Sawdy, too, one of her frequent visitors, was trying to court +her, she complained; all this made her suspicious. Of whom? Of what? +Kate asked. Belle could not tell exactly of whom, of what—she was +just suspicious: "Why should that big fat man come courting me?" she +demanded one day when Kate had come in for lunch. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't think it possible he likes you?" suggested Kate, barely +glancing Belle's way, and taking care to make her tone very skeptical. +Belle only snorted contemptuously and turned to her cooking; but as she +did so, she gave her wig a punch. +</P> + +<P> +By the merest chance, John Lefever came in a few minutes later. Belle +and Kate were at the table. John asked for something to eat. When +Belle wanted to be rid of him he refused "no" for an answer: +</P> + +<P> +"You wouldn't send me away without a cup of coffee, would you? No +potatoes? Well, I never eat potatoes"—John coughed. "They are +fattening." Then he looked up cheerfully as if a new idea had struck +him: "What's the matter with a little soft-boiled ice cream?" +</P> + +<P> +The upshot was that he had to be asked to share the lunch which he did +with relish, paying his way with his usual foolery. When the plates +were emptied and John had officiously asked leave to light a cigarette, +he glanced toward the folding bed and asked Belle to play something. +</P> + +<P> +"That's no piano," exclaimed Belle, with contempt. "That's a bed." +</P> + +<P> +John seemed undisturbed: "Curious," he mused, "we used to have an +upright piano at home with that same kind of wood, same pattern +exactly; you could have that bed made over into a piano, Belle. +Straighten out the springs and you wouldn't have to buy hardly any wire +at all." +</P> + +<P> +Belle stared at him: "Where would I sleep if I did?" she demanded. +</P> + +<P> +John threw back his head, blew a delicate puff of smoke toward the +ceiling and looked across at his unsympathetic hostess. Then he +brought his fist down on the table; "Marry me, Belle, and sleep in a +regular bed! What?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle was justly indignant. Kate's laughing made her more indignant. +For John had fairly bubbled his proposal through a laugh of his own. +</P> + +<P> +"I used to sleep in a box like that myself," he went on. "But the year +it was so dry the grasshoppers got into it." John coughed again +unobtrusively. "I raffled that bed off," he continued, low and +reminiscently. "A conductor won it. But it didn't fool him. He knew +the bed as well as I did; he'd slept in it. So I bought it in again, +cheap, and traded it to an old Indian buck—a one-eyed man—for a pony. +Many a time I've laughed, thinking of that bed up on the Reservation. +Those bucks, you know, are desperate gamblers. I understand they've +been playing hearts with that blamed bed ever since and putting it on +the high man." +</P> + +<P> +At this, John laughed harder than ever, Belle sputtering as she watched +him. +</P> + +<P> +Then he turned his amiable face on Kate: "How are you all at the home?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very well." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the news up your way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a thing since the Fourth of July." +</P> + +<P> +"Father pretty well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Quite." +</P> + +<P> +"When did you see him last?" +</P> + +<P> +It was an odd question: "Last night—why?" asked Kate in turn. +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't come in town with you today?" countered John. +</P> + +<P> +"He rarely does," said Kate. +</P> + +<P> +John nodded soothing assent to her explanation: "How's Van Horn?" he +asked casually. "And Stone?" he added, with undiminished interest. +"All well," was his echo to her perfunctory answers. "Say, Belle, was +Jim Laramie in town yesterday?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle shook her head. "How about the day before?" he asked. Again she +said, "no"; and went on with an impatient comment of her own: "You're +always asking questions. What for? That's what I want to know." +</P> + +<P> +John laid his cigarette on the rim of his plate and appealed to Kate: +"Did you ever in your life see a more unreasonable woman than Belle? +How am I to find things out without asking questions of my friends? +And among them I number you both," he added. +</P> + +<P> +Leaning forward, he spoke on: "Now I'll tell you why I asked those +harmless little questions—for I wouldn't ask either of you any other +kind. This news will get to each of you, about evening. By morning it +will be all over Sleepy Cat and by tomorrow noon across the Spanish +Sinks. This morning, early, Van Horn, Tom Stone, Pettigrew with +Bradley, and a bunch of Texas men and cowboys rode over into the +Falling Wall country and there's been hell to pay there every minute +since daylight—that's the word I got about half an hour ago, by +telephone, from a little ranch away up on the head-waters of the Crazy +Woman." +</P> + +<P> +He drew his handkerchief and wiped his brow. "The only man up +there—Belle knows that—that I'm any ways interested in, is Jim +Laramie. According to what I can hear, Jim is home. That's worrying +me just a little. +</P> + +<P> +"What will Jim do? That's what I'm thinking of. How will he stack up +if that bunch goes to his ranch on the Turkey? He hates 'em like +poison. They've gone up there, you understand," he added, speaking to +Kate, as if some further explanation were due a comparative stranger, +"to clean out the rustlers. You can imagine it'll be done—or at least +attempted—without much talk. There won't be very much talk. I've +known for some little time what's been going forward. They tried to +get Jim to join them; offered him about anything he wanted; offered to +see that the contests on his preemption and homestead be withdrawn; +offered him quite a bunch of cattle, I heard; and some money." +</P> + +<P> +Belle's face, her staring eyes and strained expression as she listened, +showed how well she knew what the news meant. "What answer did Jim +give?" she asked anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"From what I can pick up," declared John, dropping calmly into the +inelegant expression, "he told 'em to go to hell. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I'm worrying about now. Not about their going, but about +what Jim will do. What do you think, Belle?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle shook her head; she offered no comment. +</P> + +<P> +"And," John added, looking at Kate, "that was hatched mostly, right at +your place. And they rode away from there about two o'clock this +morning. That's why I was pumping you a little, till I see you didn't +know a thing about it." +</P> + +<P> +Why Kate had not asked before, she could not tell; but the possibility +never crossed her mind—until Lefever told her of their starting from +the ranch that morning—that her father might have gone. She +recollected now she had not seen him, as she usually saw him, the first +thing when she came from her room. Her heart leaped into her throat: +"Was my father with them?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +She must have shown her excitement and fear in her manner, as well as +in her words, for Lefever looked at her considerately: "According to my +reports," he answered carefully, "your father was with them." +</P> + +<P> +"Godfrey!" muttered Belle. Kate could say nothing. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE RAID OF THE FALLING WALL +</H3> + +<P> +Against the alert, the effective blow is a sudden blow. Secrecy, and a +surprise, were the only hope of success in what the cattlemen were now +attempting in the Falling Wall. Of the men on whom they could count to +organize and carry through such a raid, they had just one capable of +energizing every detail—Harry Van Horn. Laramie, the man Doubleday +and Pettigrew would have chosen, they had failed to enlist, and what +was more serious—though this, perhaps, Doubleday did not realize—they +had likewise failed to rid themselves of; Tom Stone had bungled. +</P> + +<P> +But Doubleday in especial was not a man to lose time over a failure. +He knew that Van Horn had "go" enough in him to clean out a whole +county if he were given the men and backing, and that he stood high in +the councils of the range. When Van Horn spoke, men listened. His eye +flashed with his words and his long, straight hair shook defiance at +opposition. He swore with a staccato that really meant things and cut +like a knife. When once started, mercy was not in him. +</P> + +<P> +In the Falling Wall park there lived a mere handful of men, and these +widely scattered; but Van Horn was the last man to underestimate the +handful he was after. He knew them every one, and knew that no better +men ever rode the range than Stormy Gorman, Dutch Henry, Yankee +Robinson and Abe Hawk, and their associates—if, indeed, for a man that +never mixed with other men, Hawk could be said to have associates. +</P> + +<P> +But the four named were the men to whom the lesser rustlers of the park +looked; the men whose exploits they imitated, and these were the men on +whose heads a price had, in effect, been set. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn assembled his men, earlier than Lefever had been informed. An +old trail from Doubleday's ranch to the Falling Wall crosses the road +to the Fort some distance north of Sleepy Cat. The party from the +ranch—Tom Stone with some of the most reckless cowboys and +Doubleday—waited there for the Texans whom Van Horn was bringing from +Pettigrew's. Both parties were at the rendezvous that night by twelve +o'clock, and within thirty minutes were headed north by way of the +Crazy Woman for Falling Wall park. +</P> + +<P> +The night for the raid had been chosen. The sky was overcast, and when +the party left the crossing between twelve and one o'clock their exact +destination was still a secret to the greater number. Small ranchers +along the creek might have wakened at the smart clatter of so many +horses, but men to and from the Fort traveled late at times and made +even more noise. This night there were riders abroad; but there was no +singing. +</P> + +<P> +Dawn was whitening the eastern sky when the raiding party halted near a +clump of trees on the south fork of the Turkey. The valley into which +they had ridden during the night was very broken, but offered good +grazing. Along the tortuous water course, Stormy Gorman, the old +prize-fighter, and Dutch Henry, the ex-soldier, had preempted two of +the very few pieces of land that did not stand directly on edge and +built for themselves cabins. Gorman's cabin lay a mile above the fork +where the raiders had halted; Henry's lay a few miles farther up the +creek. +</P> + +<P> +During the long night ride it had been decided to strike at Gorman's +ranch first; thence to follow the creek trail up to Dutch Henry's, +despatch him in turn, to cross rapidly a narrow rough divide beyond +which they could reach Hawk's cabin on the east fork of the Turkey and +thence sweep into the northwest to clean out the smaller fry—the +"chicken feed" rustlers—as Van Horn called them. But toward morning, +following much ill-natured dispute between Stone and Van Horn, the +tactics were changed. It was decided to go after Dutch Henry first—as +the more alert and slippery of the two—and as quietly as possible the +silent invaders rode slowly along the creek past Gorman's place up to +Henry's. +</P> + +<P> +Day was breaking as the riders, dismounting and leaving their horses on +the creek bottom, crept noiselessly, under Stone's guidance, up a wash +to the bench on which Henry's cabin stood. Hiding just below a shallow +bank at the head of a draw, they lay awaiting developments. Where +Stone had posted them they commanded the cabin perfectly. He had lived +part of one year with Henry when they two preyed jointly on the range +and he knew the ground well. +</P> + +<P> +They had hardly disposed of themselves in this manner and were +beginning, in the gray dusk, to distinguish objects with some +certainty, when the door of the distant cabin opened and a mongrel +collie bounded out followed by a man who left the door ajar. The man, +carrying a water pail, set it down, yawned, stretched himself and +tucked his shirt slowly inside his trousers. Wild with joy the dog +danced, leaped and barked about his master—only to be rewarded by a +kick that sent him yelping to a little distance, where turning, +crouching with extended paws, whining and frantically wagging his tail, +the poor beast tried to beg forgiveness for its half-starved happiness. +The man, giving this demonstration no heed, picked up the pail and +started for the creek. +</P> + +<P> +His path took him in a direction roughly parallel to the line along +which his hidden enemy lay. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't fire at that man," exclaimed Van Horn to his companions under +cover of the draw. "That's not Dutch Henry," he whispered the next +moment. "Don't fire. I'll take care of him." +</P> + +<P> +The rustler, quite unconscious of his deadly danger, tramped unevenly +on. His dog, no longer repulsed, dashed joyously back and forth, +scenting the trails of the night and barking wildly at his master by +turns. The man was walking hardly three hundred yards from where +Stone, rifle in hand, lay, and had reached the footpath leading from +the bench to the creek bottom when Stone, half rising, covered him +slowly with point-blank sights. In the path ahead, the dog had struck +a fresh gopher hole and, still yelping, was pawing madly into it, when +a rifle cracked. The man with the pail, swung violently half around by +the shock of a spreading bullet, jerked convulsively and the pail flew +clattering from his hand. He struggled an instant to keep his footing, +then collapsing, fell prone across the path and lay quite still. +</P> + +<P> +Stone, followed by a man nearest him, scrambling down the draw, hurried +along the creek bottom, and ran up to reach the path where the murdered +man lay. The dog, barking and dashing wildly around his prostrate +master, spied the foreman and sprang furiously down the trail at him. +Stone, rifle in one hand and revolver in the other, was ready, and, +firing from the hip, broke the collie's back. With a howl the stricken +brute turned, and, dragging his helpless hindquarters along the ground +with incredible swiftness, pawed himself back to the dying man's head +and yelping, licked frantically at the hand of his master. Coming up +into plain sight, Stone got a good look at the man he had killed: +"Stormy Gorman!" he exclaimed, with an oath of surprise. "Who'd 'a' +thought," he continued, "that big bum would be up at Dutch Henry's this +morning!" +</P> + +<P> +The old prize-fighter was struggling in his last round. His +heavy-lidded eyes, swollen with drink and sleep, were closed, and from +his mouth, as his head hung to one side, a dark stream ran to a little +pool in the dust. Only a stertorous breathing reflected his effort to +live and even this was fast failing. Van Horn hurried up the path from +the bottom, whither he had followed Stone; anger was all over his face: +"Kill that damned dog," he exclaimed, out of breath, to those about +him. Two of the three men drew revolvers and shot the collie through +the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Damnation!" cried Van Horn in a fury. "Stop your shooting. Couldn't +you knock him in the head? Do you want to start up the whole country?" +he demanded, as he saw the man who lay at his feet and had taken the +brief count for eternity was Gorman. He turned on Stone with rage in +his eyes and his voice: "Now," he cried, punctuating his abuse with the +fiercest gestures, "you've done it, haven't you!" Anger almost choked +him. "You've got Gorman with a brass band and left Dutch Henry in the +cabin waiting for us, haven't you? Why," he roared, "didn't you obey +orders, let this tank get down to the bottom and knock him on the head +into the creek?" A violent recrimination between Stone and Van Horn +followed. But the milk was spilt as well as the blood of the stubborn +rustler, and there was nothing for it but new dispositions. +</P> + +<P> +Gorman's presence indicated that Henry was at home. If he were at +home, he was, no doubt, within the cabin; but just how, after Stone's +blunder, to get at him, was a vexing question. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn started down the foot trail back to the bottom and around to +the first hiding place. Lingering with a companion to look at Gorman +in his blood, Stone turned for approval: "See where I hit him?" he +grinned. "Poor light, too." +</P> + +<P> +A brief council was held in the draw. Watched for more than an hour, +not the slightest sign of life about the lonely cabin could be +detected. Various expedients, none of them very novel, were tried to +draw Henry's fire should he be within. But these were of no avail. A +dozen theories were advanced as to where Henry might or might not be. +To every appearance there was not, so far as the enemy could judge, a +living man within miles of the spot. The older heads, Pettigrew, +Doubleday, Van Horn, even Stone, talked less than the others; but they +were by no means convinced that the house was empty. +</P> + +<P> +One of the least patient of the cowboys at length deliberately exposed +himself to fire from the sphinx-like cabin. He stood up and walked up +and down the edge of the draw. Nothing happened. Emboldened, he +started out into the open and toward the cabin. No shot greeted him. +A companion, jumping up, hurried after him; a third, a Texas boy, +sprang up to join them. For those watching from hiding it was a +ticklish moment. Toward the draw there was a considerable growth of +mountain blue-stem, none of it very high and gradually shortening +nearer the house. The three men were hastening through the grass, +separated by intervals of perhaps fifty feet. The foremost got within +a hundred yards of the cabin door, which still stood open as Gorman had +left it, before Van Horn's fear of an ambush vanished. He himself, not +to be too far behind his followers, then rose to join the procession +through the blue stem and the crack of a rifle was heard. Van Horn, +with a shout of warning, dropped unhurt into the draw. But the last +man of the three in the field stumbled as if struck by an ax. Of the +two men ahead of him, the hindermost dropped into the grass and crawled +snakelike back; the man in front dropped his rifle and started at top +speed for safety; from the edge of the draw his companions sent a +fusillade of rifle fire at the cabin. +</P> + +<P> +Apparently the diversion had no effect on the marksman within. He +fired again; this time at the Texan crawling in the blue stem, and the +half-hidden man, almost lifted from the ground by the blow of the +bullet, dropped limp. Meantime the first cowboy in his dash for safety +was making a record still unequaled in mountain story. He jumped like +a broncho and zig-zagged like a darting bird, but faster than either. +The efforts of his companions to divert attention from him were +constant. Some of them poured bullets at the cabin. Others jumped to +their feet, and, yelling, sprang from point to point to expose +themselves momentarily and draw the fire of the enemy. This was of no +avail. The hidden rifle with deliberate instancy cracked once more. +The fleeing cowboy, slammed as if by a club, dashed on, but his right +arm hung limp. No snipe ever made half the race for life that he put +up in those fleeting seconds; and by his agility he earned then and +there the nickname of the bird itself, for before the deadly sights +could cover his flight again he threw himself into a slight depression +that effectually hid him from the range of the enemy. +</P> + +<P> +A swarm of hornets, roused, could not have been more furious than the +company under the lee of the draw. Shooting, shouting, cursing deep +and loud, they made continual effort to keep the deadly fire off their +fallen companions. They saw the half-open door of the cabin swing now +slowly shut and they riddled it with bullets. They splintered the logs +about it and, scattering in as wide an arc as they dare, continued to +pour a fire into the silent cabin. At intervals they paused to wait +for a return. There was no return. All ruses they had ever heard of +they tried over again to draw a fire and exhaust the besieged man's +ammunition. Nothing moved the lone enemy—if he were, indeed, alone. +The day wore into afternoon. By shouting, the assailants learned that +two of their three hapless companions lying in the blue stem were still +alive—the Snipe very much alive, as his stentorian answers indicated. +He called vigorously for water but got none. His refuge was too +exposed. +</P> + +<P> +How to get rid of Dutch Henry taxed the wits of the invaders. The +whole morning and the early afternoon went to pot-luck firing from the +trench along the draw, but although it was often asserted that Henry +must long since be dead—having returned none of the shooting that was +meant to call his fire—no one manifested the curiosity necessary to +prove the assertion by closing in on the cabin. Stone was still +sulking over Van Horn's sharp talk of the morning when Van Horn came +over to where the foreman had posted himself to cover the cabin door: +"We've got to get that guy before dark, Tom, or he'll slip us." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," replied Stone, "get him." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE GO-DEVIL +</H3> + +<P> +"I want a wagon," scowled Van Horn. "There's one down at Gorman's +place he won't need any more. There's some baled hay down there, too. +Take the men you need, load what hay you can find on the wagon and +hustle it up here." +</P> + +<P> +Too stubborn to ask questions, and only starting after many hard +words—with which all the ground of the morning quarrel and much more +was traversed—Stone took two men and started reluctantly for Gorman's. +He spent a long time on his job, but came back as directed with the +wagon loaded with hay. +</P> + +<P> +The wagon was not much to view. It looked like the wagon of a man that +spent more time in Sleepy Cat saloons than on his ranch. A rack, +equally old and dilapidated, had been set on the running gear. The +paint had long since blown off the wheels, and one of these, a front +wheel, had lost a tire on the rough trip up the creek. But the felloes +hung to the spokes and the spokes to the hub. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn inspected the outfit grimly. With half a dozen men he set +quickly to work and under his resourceful ingenuity the wagon and hay +were speedily turned into what would now-a-days be termed a tank. Only +lack of hay kept him from making a mobile fortress of it. By means of +wire he slung along the sides what baled hay he could spare, and with +much effort to avoid exposure the armored wagon was dragged over the +roughest kind of ground, to the north and west of the cabin. From this +direction the ground, fairly smooth, sloped from a ridge fringed by +jutting patches of rock, directly toward the cabin itself and eager +hands made the final preparations to smoke Henry out. With the load of +hay set ablaze and the wagon run down against the cabin the defender +was bound to be driven from cover or burnt. +</P> + +<P> +When the bustling, contradicting and confusion finally subsided, the +wagon was stealthily pushed over the ridge, the hay fired and the +blazing outfit, christened a go-devil, was started with a shout down +the slope. +</P> + +<P> +If there existed in the minds of those that talked least a lingering +suspicion that Dutch Henry was still alive it was soon strongly +justified. Before the wagon had rolled twenty feet the challenge of a +rifle-shot from the cabin answered the attack. Everybody dodged quick, +but no one was hit and a yell of derision rose from behind the rocks. +With ropes, borrowed from the men that carried them, and knotted +together, the wagon was kept under partial control and the line, as +paid out, served in some measure to guide it. On it went accompanied +with shouts and yells. From the threatened cabin came no answering +defiance. Henry's case looked bad as the wagon rolled down on him, but +his rifle fire, though seemingly wasted, answered unflinchingly. +</P> + +<P> +Stone danced with joy: "He'll be running the gauntlet next clip. He's +not hitting anybody. He must be shooting," yelled the excited foreman, +"at the blamed wagon." +</P> + +<P> +A steady fire, undismayed, did continue to come from the cabin. Van +Horn, who had run to the extreme right of the new sector, and was +keeping a close watch on the go-devil, was the first to perceive +trouble. "Hell's delight, boys," he cried, taken aback, "he's shooting +up the wheels." +</P> + +<P> +The words flew around behind the rocks. The rifle fire was explained. +Every eye was turned to the danger point, the wheel without the tire +which, as the wagon wobbled, was unluckily exposed to the cabin fire. +It could easily be seen where the deliberate marksman was getting in +his work. He had knocked one felloe off the rim and was hitting at the +spokes. It began to look like a race between the burning wagon and +Henry at bay. The hay was a mound of flame and sparks and smoke shot +high into the air. A hundred feet more would lodge the fire trap +against the rear wall of the cabin. But under the steady pounding of a +rifle that seemed never to miss its mark the injured wheel showed fast +increasing signs of distress. A second felloe was tracking uncertainly. +</P> + +<P> +As a diversion, Van Horn, active, energetic and covering every part of +his little line at once, ordered an incessant fire centered on the +threatened cabin. Nothing seemed to check the regular report of the +hidden high-powered rifle and the bullets that were splintering the old +oak spokes. When the roaring wagon struck a loose stone or rough spot +in its trackless path it wobbled and hesitated. Yet, jerked, steadied, +halted and started by means of the long cable, it rolled to within +twenty yards of its mark. There it pitched a bit, recovered and for +another ten yards sailed down a smooth piece of ground. The cowboys +were yelling their loudest when a lucky shot from the cabin knocked off +a second felloe. A second and third shot smashed rapidly through the +spokes of the staggering wheel. A threatening boulder lying to the +right of the wagon's course could not be avoided. The men on the line +jerked and swore. It was useless. One side of the wheel collapsed, +the front axle swung around and the blazing wagon straddled the +troublesome boulder like a stranded ship. The men guiding heaved to on +the line—it parted; the cabin stood safe. +</P> + +<P> +At once, the rifle fire from the cabin ceased. No taunt, no threat +could draw another shot from the silence. Chagrined, eyes flashing, +silent in his defeat, Van Horn, contemplating the last of the burning +wagon and watching the cabin as a dog, baffled, watches a cat on a +fence, was let alone even by the most reckless of his companions; for +the failure no one tried to bait him. Nor were he and Doubleday ready +to quit. They got ready a circle of fires to block any attempt made to +escape the beleaguered place after dark. This proved a difficult +undertaking, both because fuel was scarce and because the dead line, +drawn by the rifle fire of the wary defender, extended a long way in +every direction around his log refuge. +</P> + +<P> +The night, however, was fairly clear and a pretty good moon was due by +ten o'clock. The fires were lighted, not without some sharp objection +from the cabin, the moment darkness fell. The difficulty then was to +keep them replenished and maintain an adequate guard. Dark spots and +shadows fell within and across the circle around the cabin. Van Horn +ordered a rifle fire directed into these places; it was placed so +persistently that when the moon rose, the besiegers felt pretty +confident Henry had not escaped. And just before its light had +penetrated the narrow valley, the invaders had a cheering surprise when +the wounded man, nicknamed "The Snipe," crawled from his hollow between +the lines back to his comrades and told them in immoderate terms what +he thought of them for leaving him wounded and thirsty under the enemy +fire. Volunteers, inspired by his abuse, crawled out to the second man +that had fallen in the morning and by really heroic effort got him back +into the draw; badly hit, he was given long-needed attention. The +first man, shot through the head, the rescuers reported dead. +</P> + +<P> +When midnight came, the men had been fed and the watch well maintained. +A steer, interned earlier, had been cut up for the men's supper and Van +Horn and Doubleday were seated together before the camp fire near the +creek eating some of the reserve chunks of meat when a hurried alarm +called them up the draw—the cabin was on fire. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing could have happened to take the besiegers more by surprise. +There was hasty questioning but no explanation. Of all the +possibilities of the night none could have been so unexpected. But +whatever the cause, and theories were broached fast, the cabin was +ablaze. Smoke could be seen pouring through the chinks in the roof and +little tongues of flame darted out at the rear under the eaves. Though +there was not a breath of air stirring, the roof within fifteen minutes +was in flames and the cowboys, confident of victory, set up, Indian +fashion, their death chant for Dutch Henry. +</P> + +<P> +The old shack made a good fire. The roof collapsed and with the +incantations of the cowboys, the stout walls, worm-eaten and +bullet-splintered, falling gradually, blazed on. +</P> + +<P> +"The jig's up here, boys," announced Van Horn, as the fire burned down. +"The two biggest thieves on the range are accounted for. It's a good +job. If I guess right you'll find the Dutchman in the fire. Yankee +Robinson's next. He won't put up much of a fight, but the hardest man +to get is still ahead of us. This was a boy's job beside rounding up +Abe Hawk. He'll never be taken alive, because he knows what's comin' +to him. +</P> + +<P> +"There's not a minute to lose now. Stone and I will take two of your +men, Barb, and round up Yankee Robinson. From there we'll ride over to +Abe's place on the Turkey. About our only chance is to catch him +before he's up. If he's got wind of this, we'll have a hell of a chase +to get him. Feed the horses, the rest of you eat, and we're off! You +can follow us with Pettigrew and the bunch, Doubleday, just as soon as +you look the cabin over after daylight." Within half an hour Van Horn +and Stone and the two men crossed the creek, rode into the hills and +disappeared into the night. +</P> + +<P> +Setting a watch, Doubleday and his men curled up on the ground. When +earliest dawn streaked the sky the logs were still smoking, and the +cowboys, rifles in hand, walked down to where the cabin had stood. +</P> + +<P> +Everything within the walls had been consumed. Long after daylight, +with some of the men asleep, and others waiting for the fire to cool, +one of Doubleday's cowboys, poking about the sill log of the rear wall +with a stick, gave a shout. What had been taken for a half-burned log +was the charred body of a man. The invaders gathered and the body was +presently declared by those who knew him well to be that of Dutch +Henry. There was nothing more to detain the men that were waiting. +The cowboy worst wounded had started with a companion for home. The +Snipe insisted on going on with Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +The horses had been left in good grass a little way down the creek. +When they were disturbed it was found that one was missing. A hurried +search failed to recover the horse. +</P> + +<P> +While trackers were at work, the Snipe, always alert, found a clue that +upset all calculations. It was a small dark red spot soaked into the +dust of the creek trail. It was very small, such as might have been +made by a single drop of blood; but one such sign was enough to put on +inquiry a man versed like the Snipe in mountain craft. Keeping his +discovery to himself, he tracked back and forth from his single spot, +almost invisible in the dust, until he found a second similar spot. +This he marked, and dodging and circling, like a hound on a scent, the +Snipe ran his trail from his first tiny spot to the trees near the +creek where the horses had been left. Doubling, he patiently tracked +the telltale spots up the path that led to the cabin. Then he called +to Barb. +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday, much out of temper, was in the saddle waiting to get +started. He bawled at the Snipe, and not amiably. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep cool," was the answer; "I'm 'a' comin'. But look here before you +start; there was two men in that cabin, Barb." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you givin' us?" blurted out a cowboy. Doubleday stared +ferociously. "There was two of 'em, boys," persisted the Snipe. +</P> + +<P> +"You must 'a' seen double when you was runnin'," was the skeptical +suggestion of another man. But Doubleday listened. +</P> + +<P> +The Snipe took him from the cabin down to the creek. Then back to the +cabin. There he showed him where someone had dug what might have been +a hole under the sill log, near the door. +</P> + +<P> +A horse was certainly missing. Then, shells from two different rifles +were picked out of the ashes. One size had been fired from a +Winchester rifle; the others, much more numerous, belonged to a Marlin. +</P> + +<P> +"Who was it, Barney?" asked Doubleday, breathing heavily. He was so +wrought up and so hoarse he could hardly frame the words. But he was +already convinced. +</P> + +<P> +The Snipe shook his head. "There's two or three fellows up here shoots +a Marlin rifle. If I got one guess on this man that's made his +get-away, Barb, I'd say——" The Snipe poked further into the ashes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, say!" thundered Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd say it was Abe Hawk." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK +</H3> + +<P> +A bomb exploding in the smoking remnants could hardly have caused more +consternation among the man hunters than the Snipe's naming of Abe +Hawk. But however Doubleday's jaw set at the unwelcome surprise he was +not the one to swerve in the face of any personal danger, and those +with him were not men to bolt whatever adventure they embarked in. +However, it was remarked by the Snipe that those least acquainted with +Abe were least disturbed by the news of his almost certain presence in +the cabin the day and night before and his escape after the fight. +</P> + +<P> +Common prudence made it necessary to cross the small divide with care +and to get word of the unpleasant discovery as soon as possible to Van +Horn in order that he and his companions might not be picked off by the +wounded man from ambush. The Snipe was assigned to Hawk's trail and +two men were sent to the wings to scout for him among the rocks. +Bradley rode to warn Van Horn; but the old man did not sweat his horse +in the effort. +</P> + +<P> +The trackers soon made it plain to those behind that the escaping man +had ridden a pretty straight course himself, and had picked his way in +the night like one thoroughly at home in the hills of the Turkey. And +though losing the trail at times, the Snipe had no serious trouble in +picking it again from the grass or the rocks. +</P> + +<P> +The country lying north of the forks of the Turkey is rougher than to +the south and pretty well covered with pine. On the Northern slope, +Hawk's trail led down a long and winding break mile after mile and in +the end pointed straight for his shack on the creek. +</P> + +<P> +Moving as nearly as possible in the order in which they had started, +the party emerged from the hills half a mile from the creek, and not +much farther from Hawk's, when they encountered Bradley and Van Horn +with one of his men. Doubleday hoarsely asked for the news. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn rode up close before he answered, and, though his tone was +confident, his manner showed his annoyance at the way things had +turned: "Robinson's shack was empty," he said. "Whether he got wind of +yesterday I don't know; anyway, he's skipped—there's nothing left on +his place." +</P> + +<P> +"What's there to this talk of Barney's about Abe Hawk?" demanded +Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"From what Bradley says, it looks as if he might be right," said Van +Horn. "The horse Hawk took is eating grass in front of his cabin; we +saw him when we got here and waited for Hawk to show himself." +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't do it," interrupted Doubleday huskily and baring his teeth +as he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Stone's watching the place." +</P> + +<P> +"Is Abe there?" demanded Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"You tell," responded Van Horn. "He may or may not be. That horse may +be a stall. We've got to close in somehow on the shack and find out." +</P> + +<P> +A cowboy clattered up from the creek and pulled his horse to its +haunches between Doubleday and Van Horn: "He's just closed the door," +declared the cowboy. "The door was open when we got here—wasn't it, +Harry?" He pointed his finger at Van Horn in his excited appeal. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn scowled and waved his head from side to side in irritation: +"The door was open, yes; the door is shut, yes." Then he swore at the +alarmist: "You blamed monkey," he pointed to the cottonwood. "Don't +you see how the wind is blowing? That door has been swinging half an +hour. The shack is empty." +</P> + +<P> +But nobody could be found with confidence enough in Van Horn's belief +to close in and demonstrate its truth. After a litany of hard words in +which everybody took more or less part, Van Horn declared he would +demonstrate. Whatever his faults, he was dead game, a formidable +antagonist in an encounter. He was risking his life on his belief that +either Hawk was disabled, or the cabin was empty. Stripping himself to +shirt and trousers, turning his effects over to a cowboy, bare-headed +and with only a six-shooter in hand, he shook out his long, brown hair, +hooked up his belt and started to crawl up a little wash breaking into +the creek not far from the cabin. +</P> + +<P> +There was no point from which he could be seen and his companions, +secreted where they could watch, bent their eyes along the course of +the wash up which their hidden leader was making his way. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately for the slippery undertaking, Van Horn, by a little digging +as he made his way carefully ahead, was able to crawl to within fifty +feet of the door without exposing himself to fire. Reaching the +nearest spot he could attain with safety, he called in stentorian tones +to the cabin: +</P> + +<P> +"You're surrounded, Abe. You can't get away. If you want to +surrender, I'll guarantee your life. Come out unarmed and I'll meet +you unarmed. If not, it's what Gorman and Dutch Henry got, for you, +Abe." +</P> + +<P> +The cabin gave no answer back. But Van Horn would not be baffled. +Knowing it would be suicide to venture closer he patiently sought his +answer on the ground he now began to cover on his way back to the +creek. And on the ground he found it. +</P> + +<P> +"He's slipped us," Van Horn called out when Doubleday arrived, "but +I've got his trail." +</P> + +<P> +"Two hundred and fifty dollars to the man that gets him!" shouted +Doubleday, huskily. Some of the boys gave a whoop and began to look +around, but they did not scatter much. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn, losing no time, led Doubleday part way up the break along +which he had crawled. Telltale traces of blood at irregular intervals, +sometimes imprinted as if by a hand on the flat face of rock that +bedded the wash; sometimes smeared on a starving bunch of grass, where +it clung desperately to a crevice in the scant soil—all so slight and +so well concealed that only the mere chance of Van Horn's crawling up +the very break chosen by Hawk for his escape to the creek had revealed +it to his pursuers. The tracker took the slender trail, followed the +wounded rustler to the creek bottom and thence down the creek to its +junction with the North Fork. There they lost the trail in a pool of +water, nor could they pick it up again. +</P> + +<P> +A mile below the fork of the Turkey stood Jim Laramie's cabin. The +raiders had already entered on his land; his cattle and some of his +horses were, in fact, grazing in and about the creek fork. The +following of Hawk's trail had been a nerve-racking job. Hawk, his +enemies knew, might be waiting at any turn in it and that meant, in all +probability, death for someone. In consequence, the pioneering fell +chiefly on Van Horn; even Stone showed little stomach for the job. But +the trail was completely lost. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a bunch of horses grazing at the fork," reported Van Horn, as +Doubleday reached the front, "Laramie's, I guess—anyway, the trail's +gone." +</P> + +<P> +A council was held. Doubleday, long-headed and crafty, listened to all +that was said. Van Horn finally asked for his opinion. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know no more than the rest of you; but a blind man can figure +a few things out. He's hit, ain't he?" Barb put the question as one +not to be gainsaid and found none to say him nay. "He's looking for +help, that's more'n likely, ain't it? He's a mile from Jim Laramie's +cabin, not more; he's three miles from anybody else's—what?" he +exclaimed, as Bill Bradley interrupted to suggest that it was less than +two miles over to Ben Simeral's. "All right," shouted Barb, "Hawk's +here, ain't he? He's close to Laramie. Laramie's his friend. Where +would he go—what?" +</P> + +<P> +Chopping his ideas out as with an ax, Doubleday showed his companions +what they should have thought of without being told. "The thing to +do," he added, "is to go down to Laramie's cabin and see what we can +see—and find out what we can find out." +</P> + +<P> +It was precisely what Bradley had feared would happen, but there was no +escape from Doubleday's logic and no help for what others as well as +Bradley feared might follow. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE +</H3> + +<P> +On the morning the raiders entered the Falling Wall, Laramie had +started with Henry Sawdy for the Reservation to appraise some allotted +Indian lands. Laramie rode home that night; Sawdy, promising to stop +at the ranch on his way down in the morning, stayed overnight at the +Fort with Colonel Pearson. Laramie got home late. He was asleep next +morning when a door was pushed open and a man walked unceremoniously in +on him. To what instinct some mountain men owe their composure when +disturbed in their sleep by a friend, as contrasted with the instant +defense they offer in like circumstances to an enemy, it would be +difficult to say—certainly there is a difference. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie half opened his eyes to realize that Abe Hawk had come into his +room and seated himself on the one chair. The sleepy man was not +inclined to wake up. "You're early, Abe," was his only greeting. Hawk +made no answer. +</P> + +<P> +After a further effort the drowsy man roused himself to the attention +that seemed demanded in the case: "Going somewhere?" he mumbled +perfunctorily. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." Hawk's hard tone might have surprised his host for a moment; +but if it did, drowsiness overpowered his senses once more and it was +some time before he realized that his visitor was sitting silent at his +side and that he himself ought to say something. In protest he shifted +his comfortable position in bed: "Get your breakfast ready, Abe," he +suggested, hospitably, but with his heavy eyes closed. +</P> + +<P> +"I've had breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"Where you bound for today?" +</P> + +<P> +"On a long trip." +</P> + +<P> +"Which way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Home." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean, 'home'?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean hell, Larrie—the home long waiting for me." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's eyes batted slowly. Not a half a dozen times in all their +long acquaintance had Hawk shortened Laramie's name in speaking to him; +and then only when he spoke as he rarely did from a depth always hidden +from the men among whom his wasted life had been spent. Roused by +something in the utterance of his guest, Laramie looked up. +</P> + +<P> +If the sight was a shock, the mountain man gave no outward sign of it. +The lower right side of Hawk's face had been torn away as if by some +explosion, and blood, darkened by clay and rude styptics, clotted the +long beard that naturally fell in a glossy black. His disordered +garments, blood-smeared and hanging loose—his coat sleeve and his +shirt torn from his forearm for bandages, his soft hat jammed low over +his eyes—for an instant, Laramie hardly recognized him. But the cold +black eyes that looked out of the wreck of a man before him pierced so +clearly the long shadows of the early light that Laramie had no choice +but to realize it was Hawk and even the shock only served to restrain +and steady him. He showed but little of his amazement when he sat up +and spoke quietly: "What's up, Abe?" +</P> + +<P> +"Night before last I was playing cards with Gorman over at Henry's. +After daylight Gorman went out for a bucket of water. We heard a rifle +crack. I looked out the window. Stormy was tumbling. +</P> + +<P> +"You know the draw that runs down past his corral? Barb Doubleday, +Pettigrew, Van Horn, Stone and a bunch of cowboys and Texas men lay in +that draw. It was hell to pay from daylight till dark. The Dutchman +got laid out cold right at the start. They tried to rush me. I +stopped three of 'em and dug myself in. We went at it hammer and +tongs. In the afternoon they put a hole through my whiskers. After +awhile they clipped my shoulder. Then I got a bullet through my arm." +He held up his left forearm swathed in a mass of soiled and +blood-soaked bandages. And he told of Van Horn's go-devil. +</P> + +<P> +"The raid's on," muttered Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"Soon as it was dark, I began to dig under the sill," Hawk went on. +"They began lighting fires. I knew they couldn't keep those going a +great while. About ten o'clock I crawled out under the front sill and +got to the creek; I never was so gone for water in my life. I set a +candle so it would fire the shack when it burned down and sneaked a +horse from their bunch and got over to my place." He looked at his +arm. "I tried to keep things bound up. Maybe I left a little red +behind me. If I did, they'll be after me." +</P> + +<P> +His story haltingly told; his utterance through his torn cheek thick +and painful but savagely uncompromising; carrying a physical burden of +wounds that would have overwhelmed a lesser man but with a deadly hate +showing in his manner, Hawk, from sheer weakness, paused: "I went to my +cabin to look for more cartridges," he added slowly, "and not a one was +there left on the place." He hesitated again. "I didn't want to come +here——" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie sprang to his feet: "Where the hell else would you go?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawk heard unmoved the rough assurance; perhaps his eyes flashed, for +Laramie's voice rang strong and true. He already had his hand on +Hawk's chair: "Come over here to the light," he said, "till we get some +of this dirt off you. You need a bath, Abe. For a clean man you look +like——" +</P> + +<P> +Hawk put up his right hand: "I'll do for all the job that's left ahead +of me." +</P> + +<P> +"What job's left ahead of you?" +</P> + +<P> +"You've got a rifle like mine, Jim; the Marlin you don't use." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"I come to see if you'd lend it to me again." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Got any shells for it?" snapped Hawk. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess so." +</P> + +<P> +"I left the horse at the cabin to stand 'em off awhile. They'll lose a +little time there. They'll come down the creek—can't come any other +way. I'm going to wait for 'em in the timber." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll finish with Doubleday and Van Horn, anyhow. Maybe I can with +Stone." +</P> + +<P> +"And they'll finish with you." +</P> + +<P> +"After I get them three the rest are welcome to what's left of me. +I've got to be moving." +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on a minute, Abe." Laramie sat down on the side of his cot, his +knees spread apart, his elbows resting on them, and his hands clasped +as he leaned forward, head down, to think. +</P> + +<P> +"Them fellows are riding every minute," Hawk reminded him grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's talk this thing over," persisted Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll pay you for your rifle right now," mumbled Hawk, feeling with his +right hand in his trousers pocket for some gold pieces. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't talk monkey stuff, Abe." +</P> + +<P> +"Then don't make a monkey out of <I>me</I>," snapped Hawk. "Give me your +rifle and let me go!" +</P> + +<P> +"After we've talked it over." +</P> + +<P> +Hawk pulled himself up out of the chair. "You blamed fool," he said +brokenly. "Don't you know that bunch will track me to your door and +smash us with lead or burn us up in this shack if they get here first? +Give me the rifle," he thundered, "or I'll go into the timber with this +six-shooter. What do you mean? Are you going to turn yellow on me +because I'm a thief?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie moved neither hand nor foot: "You're an older man than I am, +Abe," he replied, without even looking up. "I can take words from you, +I'd hate to take from anybody else—you know that; and you know why. +You won't talk; all right. Now I'll tell you where you get off; you're +not going down to the timber—not a blamed step," he added +deliberately. "Finger your six-shooter as much as you like." Laramie +waved his hand with his words. "Use it on me if you like. But, by +——, Abe——" As his voice changed, he jumped to his feet, adding +like lightning, "you're not going to use it on yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +He sprang for Hawk, reaching with his left hand for the gun. In +tigerish ferocity the two men came together. Sleepy Cat worthies had +sometimes speculated on what might happen if the two men most known and +most feared in the Falling Wall country, Hawk and Laramie, should ever +quarrel. They met now; but in a quarrel the wildest gossip had not +fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes +staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the +middle of the cooped-up room—Hawk striving to free and kill himself; +Laramie determined to wrest the gun from his grasp. +</P> + +<P> +It was an unequal contest. Weakened by loss of blood, Hawk was not +long a match for the only man on the range who under other conditions +could have stood up before him. Gradually, with the gun in his right +hand, Hawk was bent backward, with Laramie's left hand slipping along +the barrel closer and closer to the grip. Prolonged by the fear of +further injuring the wounded man, the tempestuous effort for mastery +ended when Hawk was forced to the bed and Laramie's iron fingers, +closing on the gun, wrenched it from him. +</P> + +<P> +Hawk was done out and Laramie without more resistance straightened him +out on the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"You're worse hit than you think," panted the conqueror. "I've got a +scheme better than yours, if there's time to put it through. Wait till +I get a couple of horses." +</P> + +<P> +The clatter of a horse outside cut into his last words. Laramie +instantly slipped Hawk's revolver back into his hand, picked up his own +gun and holster, strapping it to his waist as he ran, crossed the room, +tore up a board in the floor, snatched a pair of rifles from their +cache and hastening back to Hawk, his eyes glued all the while to the +door, pushed one rifle into Hawk's hand and swung the other to his hip. +</P> + +<P> +Not a word had been spoken. But preparations for a reception had been +made complete and eventualities thoroughly considered. Heavy footfalls +outside announced the approach of a man. The next moment the door was +flung open and the intruder heard Laramie's voice in savage emphasis: +</P> + +<P> +"Pitch up!" +</P> + +<P> +The intruder did not, however, pitch up. It was John Lefever. He +stood amazed. "For the love of God," he exclaimed, "what's broke +loose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Come in, John," cried Laramie, seizing his arm. "I want your horse a +minute. Stay here till I get back—come, Abe, lively!" +</P> + +<P> +"Where you going?" demanded Lefever, staring as he tried to collect his +wits. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie hurried Hawk past him: "That'll depend on the shooting, John," +was all Laramie hastily said. "Doubleday and Van Horn have got a bunch +of Texas men raiding the Falling Wall." +</P> + +<P> +Lefever, gazing stunned at Hawk, talked as if he saw nothing. "I know +all about that," he cried. "Man alive, that's what I'm here for. Hold +on, can't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not now. Stick around till I get back." +</P> + +<P> +Lefever caught his breath in time to fire one more question: +</P> + +<P> +"What about Abe?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's not coming back. Scout around down along the creek, John, so you +can see those fellows when they ride in. Hold 'em as long as you can +and for God's sake keep 'em out of this cabin—there's blood on +everything." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS +</H3> + +<P> +Laramie knew Lefever to be quite equal to the highly particular job he +had assigned to him and that John would give his best to it. Hardly +thirty minutes later, the raiders rode out of the timber along the +creek. Van Horn stopped his pack for a word of warning: +</P> + +<P> +"Look to your guns," he said harshly. "You can guess most o' you what +you'll be up against, if there's trouble at this joint." Leaving the +creek, the party rode out on a rarely used trail that, Stone told them, +led to Laramie's cabin. They followed this for some distance, keeping +two men ahead as they had done in the early morning. These two men, +reaching the bench, which at that point had been cut sharply away by a +flood, halted. The main party riding up the hill debouched on level +ground at the crest and joined their scouts. Half a mile to their +right stood Laramie's cabin. The bench land lying in front of it was +as smooth as a table and covered with mountain blue stem. Out of the +level ground, a hundred yards from the edge of the bench where +Doubleday's party had halted, rose a huge and solitary fragment of rock. +</P> + +<P> +Beside this rock stood a large man facing the intruders; slung over his +left forearm he carried a rifle and his right hand he held well out +toward them with its open palm raised in the air. The raiders +understood the signal; it warned them to advance no farther. +</P> + +<P> +"What's that fat buck doing up in this country?" asked Van Horn, +angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is it?" demanded Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"John Lefever," returned Van Horn, greatly nettled. "What are you +doing here?" he bellowed at the unwelcome sentinel. +</P> + +<P> +John pointed a stubby forefinger at Van Horn and returned a perfectly +intelligible retort: "That's not the first question, Harry; that's the +second question," he yelled. "What are you doing here?" +</P> + +<P> +This was not in all respects a question easy to answer. But Van Horn +was resourceful: "We're on our way down the creek, John. Rode up from +the bottom to see Jim Laramie a minute." +</P> + +<P> +"Just a friendly call," assented John. "Well, how about sidearms," he +shouted, "and how many of you are there?" +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn looked around him: "Why, maybe a dozen, I reckon, John. You +know most everybody here." +</P> + +<P> +"How many of you are there want to see Jim a minute, Harry?" asked +Lefever, calm but conveniently close to the rock and quite conscious of +the delicacy of his position should shooting begin. +</P> + +<P> +There was some exchange of talk before the question was answered: "Look +here, Lefever," roared Doubleday huskily; "what the hell's all this +fuss about?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it's like this, Barb," returned Lefever, nothing abashed. "When +I seen you crossing down there at the forks I thought maybe you'd lost +your Bibles in the creek. That's the way you acted. But when I seen +you and Harry Van Horn and Tom Stone loading your rifles in the timber, +I reckoned you must be comin' up to ask Jim to run for sheriff on the +cattle ticket." +</P> + +<P> +Sarcasm could hardly convey more defiance and contempt. The riders +realized they had been watched and that deception was useless; Van Horn +was furiously angry. "Look here, Lefever," he called out, short and +sharp. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm looking right there, Harry," yelled Lefever irreverently. "With a +bunch of mugs like that on the horizon I sure wouldn't dare look +anywhere else!" +</P> + +<P> +"These boys won't stand any more fooling," roared Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't either, Barb, if you'd got me into this scrape as deep as +you've got them," was the retort. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing less than violent outbursts of profanity served now. And these +proceeding to a climax of strength and rapidity, gradually subsided as +such outbursts do and the two sides started to argue all over again. +</P> + +<P> +After much parley and protestations of peaceful intent, provided they +were treated fair, Doubleday and Van Horn were allowed to ride up to +the rock, but not to dismount. "Now," suggested Lefever to the two, +"talk just plain business." +</P> + +<P> +"Right you have it, John," returned Van Horn briskly. "The rustlers +have got to go. We're looking for Abe Hawk. Gorman and Dutch Henry +are lifting cattle now in the Happy Hunting Grounds. We're going to +clean out the rest of 'em. We've tracked Abe here. Without any hard +words, we want him." +</P> + +<P> +"Then, boys, you want to ride right on; keep on riding, for he's not +here. I don't know anything, but that much I do know," asserted the +big fellow positively. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know?" demanded Doubleday grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"I just walked down here from the cabin; there's no one there. I rode +in here this morning from the Reservation, Barb. A buck looking for +horses over on the North Fork yesterday saw the fight at +Gorman's—everybody knows about it." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn showed his teeth: "You're a pretty good artist, John, with +your buck looking for horses." +</P> + +<P> +Lefever deprecated the compliment: "You must remember, Harry, I worked +seven year for you. Seven year—and then didn't get all was coming to +me." +</P> + +<P> +"If you had," returned Van Horn candidly, "your headstone would be +covered with moss by this time, John. Where's Laramie?" +</P> + +<P> +Lefever stood with his left hand eagerly extended and appeared as if +sensitive at Van Horn's incredulity: +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, Harry," he exclaimed, "I can take you to that buck +inside two hours' ride and get his story. I've got five twenty-dollar +gold pieces in my pocket that says so. I'll put 'em up in Barb +Doubleday's hands right now against your five." +</P> + +<P> +"A man couldn't pry you loose from five twenty-dollar gold pieces if +you had five thousand in your pocket, John. What are you stalling +around for?" demanded Van Horn suspiciously. "Where's Laramie?" +</P> + +<P> +Lefever was frankness itself; almost over-frank in his genuine +simplicity. Had it not been for his big, blunt eyes and round, smooth +face he might have been suspected of duplicity—but not by the two men +now talking to him; they knew beyond a doubt that John was "stringing" +them. Unfortunately they could not prevent it. He answered Van Horn's +sharp question as innocently as a child. +</P> + +<P> +"That's more than I can say this minute, Harry, where Jim Laramie is; +but he's not far, I can tell you that, for the coffee pot was on the +stove when I got to the shack a while ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Then what are you holding us up here for?" barked Doubleday with rough +words. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a peace officer, Barb, a deputy marshal." The bursting expression +of disgust on his questioners' faces did not ruffle John's candor. "I +know what you fellows are up to. I won't have any bloodshed here this +morning—that's flat. Laramie gets hot sometimes and this is one of +the times for folks to go slow. If you want to talk to Laramie come +along up to the shack. But send them longhorns over there down to the +creek," he added, as an afterthought and in the bluntly candid tone of +appeal that distinguished his persuasiveness. +</P> + +<P> +"Long hell!" spluttered Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"Longhorns," persisted Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +Barb growled at the proposal to send the boys down to the creek, and +Van Horn objected, but there was no escape from Lefever's stubbornness, +except a fight and this was not wanted. Lefever passed his word that +Hawk was not in the cabin, but he was adamant on sending the men to the +bottoms and his demand was grudgingly acceded to. In point of fact, +John reckoned himself on foot with a rifle equal to two men on +horseback, even if Van Horn were one. But not being able to take care +of a dozen horsemen he was resolved to have no volleying applause from +other guns, if the unexpected should happen on the open bench land. +</P> + +<P> +After Doubleday and Van Horn's following had at length filed down to +the creek bottom, Lefever walked beside the two horsemen toward the +cabin, and, since he would not walk fast and the two refused to ride +ahead of him, the pace was deliberate all the way. Nor could Lefever +be persuaded even to walk between the two horsemen; he kept them both +religiously on his left, his rifle lying carelessly across his forearm +as he entertained them with a moderately timed and unfailing flow of +Reservation small talk. +</P> + +<P> +But he could not control Van Horn's quick, flashing eyes, and these +were busy every moment and every foot of the way with reconnaissance +and inference. It did not escape either him or Doubleday that a bunch +of horses had been but lately driven over the ground they were +crossing, and every trail leading to and from the cabin obliterated; +this, however, only assured both that their man was close at hand and +strengthened their determination to get him in their own way when they +were ready. So intent were they on reading the ground as well as on +keeping a sharp eye on the cabin itself, that they had almost reached +it before Van Horn, halting, fixed his eyes on the hills to the +left—that is, down the creek—and exclaimed sharply: "Who's that?" +</P> + +<P> +Riding in a leisurely fashion down and out of the rough country to the +South, a mile away, a man emerging from a rift between two hills could +be seen following one of the cattle trails toward the creek. +</P> + +<P> +Lefever, after a minute's study, answered the question blandly: "I'm +thinkin' that's Jim Laramie, right now." +</P> + +<P> +He waved his hat at the distant horseman, who, also rode with a rifle +slung across his pommel and carried his lines high in his right hand. +The horseman continued for some moments toward the creek, then looking, +seemingly by accident, toward the house he saw the signaling, stopped +his pony, paused, and reigning him around, headed at an easy pace for +the group before the cabin. It was, as Lefever had said, Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +A few minutes later he trotted his horse across the field and slowed +him up in front of Van Horn and Doubleday. His greeting to his +visitors was dry; their own was somewhat strained, but Lefever at once +took the initiative: "Jim," he said, identifying himself in his bluntly +honest way with the interests of the raiders, "we're looking for Abe +Hawk." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's response was merely to the point: "He's not here." +</P> + +<P> +"Has he been here?" demanded Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," answered Laramie. Lefever at intervals looked virtuously from +questioner to questioned. +</P> + +<P> +"How long ago, Jim?" continued Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie regarded him steadily: "Several times in the last few weeks." +</P> + +<P> +"Was he here yesterday?" asked Van Horn suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"I was on the Reservation yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +"Has he been here this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +If Lefever jumped inwardly at this most unexpected admission he +suppressed all outward sign of surprise; his wide open eyes did not +blink and his close-cut mustache preserved its honesty undefiled. But +he wondered what might be coming. +</P> + +<P> +"How long ago?" continued Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +"Early. What's all this questioning about?" Laramie demanded in turn, +looking from Van Horn to Doubleday and to Lefever. "Who wants Hawk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jim, we're cleaning up the rustlers," said Van Horn. "Things have got +so bad it had to be done. We want Hawk. We've got Gorman and Henry. +Now, if it's a fair question, is Abe here?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's not." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in your shack?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you willing we should search it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Search hell! What do you mean?" asked Laramie curtly. "Isn't my word +good as to who's in my shack?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jim!" Lefever held up a peacemaker's hand. "We thought maybe he +might have come in since you rode away." +</P> + +<P> +"Well——" Laramie cooled somewhat, "if it'll do you any good, I'll +look inside and see." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn sarcastically demurred: "Don't take the trouble, don't take +the trouble, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +"Still he might be there," urged Lefever, "in the way I say—he +might've walked in since you went into the hills—what? No objection +to my looking in there, is there, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"No man can search my cabin," snapped Laramie. "Have you got a warrant +for Abe Hawk?" He threw the question sharply at Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +With Lefever's disclaimer, Doubleday interposed a savage rejoinder: "A +rope'll fit Abe's neck better than a warrant." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie eyed the old cattleman unmoved: "And you're here to get me to +help you slip the noose, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"We're here to clean out these cattle thieves," stormed Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +"There are no cattle thieves here," retorted Laramie undisturbed. +"You're wasting the time you'll need on your job. Move on!" +</P> + +<P> +Even Van Horn was taken aback by the rude command; he pulled his horse +around: "Look here, Jim; let me talk to you a minute alone." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, guiding his horse with his heels, followed Van Horn twenty +feet away and listened: "Jim, I'm leading this bunch, and whatever +troubles you've had with Barb and his friends, now's the time to fix +'em up. They'll give you the best of it. If you've got any line on +where Hawk is, say so and it puts you with us; say nothing, and you're +against us." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie eyed him without a quiver: "I'm against you, Harry." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn did not give up. He talked again, and talked hard. It was +useless. Doubleday rode over to where Van Horn held Laramie in deadly +earnest conference. Van Horn, ready to quit, gladly let the older man +take over the case. But Doubleday made no better success. Laramie +could not be moved. If coaxed, he was obstinate; if threatened, +impatient—contemptuous. Doubleday, when Laramie coldly refused even +to answer his questions concerning Hawk, boiled over. +</P> + +<P> +He moved his horse a step and opened his vials of wrath: "Laramie, +you've turned down the last chance decent folks on the range'll ever +try to hand you—the last chance you'll ever see to pull away from +these Falling Wall thieves. Now," he exclaimed, raising his right hand +and arm with a bitter imprecation, "we'll show you who's going to run +the Sleepy Cat range. I'll drive you out of this country if it takes +every cowboy I can hire and every dollar I've got. This country won't +hold you and me after today. D'ye hear?" he shouted, almost bending +with his huge frame over Laramie and beside himself with rage. Then +spurring his horse, he wheeled it around to rejoin Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +Even then Laramie was too quick for him. Almost in the very instant, +he jumped his own pony after the angry man and gaining the head of +Doubleday's horse, caught the bridle and jerked the beast almost to its +haunches. +</P> + +<P> +It was a ticklish instant. Van Horn, with his hand on his revolver, +attempted to spur to Doubleday's assistance. Lefever interposed with a +sharp move that put him plumply in front of Van Horn: "Not till them +two are through, Harry. We stay right here till them two's done." +</P> + +<P> +The very impudence of Laramie's move had taken Doubleday by surprise +and Laramie was hurling angry words at him before Lefever had +intervened: "Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, "you can't put +your abuse all over me first and then run away with it. You'll hear +what I've got to say. I rode this range before you ever saw it; I'll +ride this range when you're gone. I was born here, Doubleday; my +father lived here before me. The air I breathe, this sky over my head, +this ground under my feet, are mine, and I stick here in spite of you +and your cattle crooks. If men run off your cattle it's your sheriff's +business—you own him. And it's your business to run 'em down—not +mine. You come here without a warrant, without a definite complaint, +and ask me to turn an old man over to a bunch of lynchers! Not on your +life. Not today or any other day." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday interrupted, but he was forced to listen: "You talk about +thieves," Laramie spoke fast and remorselessly, "and you belong to the +bunch that's tried to steal every foot of land I own in the Falling +Wall. After you and your lawyers and land office tools have stolen +thousands of acres from the government, you talk as if you were an +angel out of heaven about the men that brand your mavericks. Hell!" +The scorn of the expletive drew from the very depths of furious +contempt. "I'd rather stand by a thief that calls himself a thief, +than a thief that steals under a lawyer. Send your hired men after me; +give 'em plenty of ammunition. They'll find me right here, Barb—right +here where I live." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE +</H3> + +<P> +When Sawdy rode into Sleepy Cat next morning it was known that he had +come from the Reservation and he was besieged for news from the Falling +Wall. At Kitchen's, where he put up his horse; on his way up street to +his room over McAlpin's pool hall, he was assailed with questions. +Pretty accurate reports of the two exciting days in the North country +had already trickled into Sleepy Cat. To these, Sawdy listened with +stolid attention but he managed to add to them very little. He +possessed to a degree the faculty of talking freely, sententiously +even, without contributing anything strictly pertinent to a subject. +What he conveyed, when he meant to withhold information, was really no +more than an air of reserve in which wisdom seemed discreetly +restrained. On this present occasion he realized it would be known +that he had encountered the raiders the day before at Laramie's—but +while admitting this profusely, he minimized all else. +</P> + +<P> +Not until he had bathed, slept, shaved and set himself down near +nightfall at Belle Shockley's did he tell any considerable part of his +story. But all that prudence would permit he told, or rather, Belle +demanded and received at his hands. Where the heart is involved the +strongest men are helpless. +</P> + +<P> +"I ran into the bunch on my way down, right at Laramie's cabin," Sawdy +said to Belle. "Laramie and Doubleday were having the hottest kind of +a row when I rode up. I made sure we'd be shooting in the next couple +of minutes. But John Lefever was watching pretty close and holding Van +Horn. Barb cooled down when he saw three of us on deck. I told him on +the side, the Governor had telephoned Pearson and the Colonel was going +to send cavalry down after them and they'd better scatter. It was a +bluff, but for a few minutes I had him and Van Horn guessing. They +said they'd go home when they got Hawk. Lefever is staying up there +for a day or two." +</P> + +<P> +"What did they do after that?" demanded Belle, referring to the men +whose names were on everybody's tongues. +</P> + +<P> +"Beat the bushes from Laramie's to the Reservation," answered Sawdy. +"Didn't leave a square yard of country unturned from the Falling Wall +to the Crazy Woman." +</P> + +<P> +"Will they ever find Hawk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you ever find a needle in a haystack?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never looked for one." +</P> + +<P> +"Them fellows are looking for the stack. They can't locate the hay. +Slip me that Worcestershire sauce, Belle. Yours truly. No more +potatoes. This is a good piece of ham, Belle. I wish to God you'd +serve a glass of beer with a man's supper." +</P> + +<P> +"You can get all the supper and all the beer you want at the hotel," +flared Belle. "This is no blind pig——" +</P> + +<P> +"It's the only place in Main Street, then, that ain't." +</P> + +<P> +"And it never will be," averred Belle, indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Come up to the hotel with me right now," returned Sawdy coldly, "and +I'll buy you a bottle of beer. Bet you ten dollars you da'ssent do +it—who the devil—" Sawdy almost choked as the two heard a knock at +the door—"who the devil is that?" he repeated. The door opened and +Jim Laramie walked in. +</P> + +<P> +He sent his hat sailing toward a side table, stepped forward and, +catching at a chair on the way, greeted Belle and her guest and sat +down before a plate cover opposite Sawdy. He pointed to what remained +of Sawdy's supper and, with knife and fork, started in: "There's enough +for me right here, Belle," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy raised his chin: "Not this time, Jim. Not on your life. That's +the way you always eat my supper." +</P> + +<P> +"You eat too much, Henry—it will kill you some time," observed +Laramie, losing no time in his initiative. He ignored Sawdy's stare +and the big man, disgusted, sat dumb: "Don't surrender, Sawdy," +counseled Laramie. "Keep going, and excuse me if I seem to begin." +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy paused, his knife and fork firmly in hand, but pointing +helplessly into the air: "This is the first square meal I've had for +two days," he said, as one whose hopes have been dashed. +</P> + +<P> +"First I've had for ten days," returned Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"What are they doing up there, Jim?" asked Sawdy peremptorily. +</P> + +<P> +"Killing their horses." +</P> + +<P> +"They won't find him," Sawdy predicted in words inaudible six feet away. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not." +</P> + +<P> +"How's he holding out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hard hit, Henry." +</P> + +<P> +"Will he make it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You can't kill a cat." +</P> + +<P> +"Well"—Sawdy resumed his supper, "it's your game, Jim, not mine; but +I'd think twice before I'd get that range bunch after me on any man's +account." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's eyes flashed, but he spoke quietly: "I couldn't see Abe +killed like a rattlesnake." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you down for?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've got to have a couple of needles, a little catgut and some gauze." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are you going to get them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Going to steal them over at Doc. Carpy's." +</P> + +<P> +"Nervy." +</P> + +<P> +"You can do it for me, Henry." +</P> + +<P> +"Me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll give you the key to his cabinet." +</P> + +<P> +"Where'd you get that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Met him on my way in. He was going up to Pettigrew's to look after +the wounded. The window in the end of the wing opens into the +operating room, where the supplies are." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd look fine climbing into a window at two hundred and twenty pounds." +</P> + +<P> +"It's on the ground floor," returned Laramie, unmoved. +</P> + +<P> +"What will the family be doing while I'm burgling?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Carpy and the girls are in Medicine Bend. The house is empty. +When you're through, leave the key in the skull of the skeleton behind +the door." +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy stared without much enthusiasm at the little key that Laramie +passed to him; then he slipped it without comment into his pocket. The +talk went on in low, leisurely tones until the second portion of ham +had been served, when both resumed their supper as if nothing had been +eaten or said. Afterward, Laramie spent an hour getting together some +things he needed at home. He met Sawdy later at Kitchen's barn. +Sawdy, with abundance of grumbling at his assignment, had the gauze and +the catgut, but he had brought the key back. He could not find the +surgeon's needles. There seemed nothing for it but for Laramie to go +to the office and make the search himself. He thought of Belle; she +would do it for him, he knew, but he felt it would not be right to mix +her up in what might prove a still more tragic affair. After brief +reflection he started for Carpy's himself. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor's house stood back of Main Street, a block and a half from +the barn. Laramie walked half a mile to reach it, choosing unlighted +ways for the trip. The night was dark and by crossing a vacant lot he +reached the rear of the house unobserved. The office, divided into a +consulting room and an operating room, consisted of a one-story wing +connecting with the residence—the consulting room adjoining the +residence, the operating room occupying the end of the wing. This +latter was the room Laramie sought. The window that Sawdy had already +burglariously entered, opened easily, and Laramie, standing alone in +the dark room, felt in his pocket for a match. +</P> + +<P> +He had been in the office more than once before and knew about where +the cabinet containing the surgical instruments stood. A connecting +door led from the room he had entered to the office proper. He tried +this. It was unlocked and he left it closed. The curtains of the +windows were drawn and he took a match from his pocket, lighted it and +looked around. The first thing he saw was the articulated skeleton +suspended near the door from the ceiling. It would have been a shock +had he not seen it before and been familiar with the label fastened to +the breastbone reciting that this had once been Flat Nose George, an +early day desperado of the high country. +</P> + +<P> +Turning from this relic, Laramie set about his work, disdaining to +inspect various gruesome specimens in alcohol ranged along a shelf. +Aided by an occasional match which he lighted and shielded in his left +hand, he found the cabinet and with his key opened the door. The flame +of his match too carefully guarded, flickered in his fingers, failed +and went out. He thrust it hastily into one pocket, drew a fresh match +from another and was about to scratch it across his leather wristlet +when he heard a door open. The next moment he saw, under the door +leading from his room to the consulting room, a flash of light. +</P> + +<P> +Awkward as it was to be interrupted, he faced the surprise with such +composure as he could muster. Who could it be? he asked himself. The +family was accounted for, the house locked. He scratched the match +again. As it flared up he looked into the cabinet, found the packet of +needles, tore a card of them in two, slipped one piece into a waistcoat +pocket and closed the cabinet door. He turned to listen to the office +intruder. Laramie hoped that nothing would bring the unwelcome visitor +into the operating room, but as he stood awaiting developments the +unlocked door was pushed open and a tiny flashlight was thrown into the +room in which he stood. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately Laramie outside the circle of light was left in the dark. +The intruder was a woman. He shrank back and she luckily turned her +light from him but only to encounter, as she stepped forward, Flat Nose +George, no less forbidding now than he had been in life. The woman +with the light started back in horror and a sharp little exclamation +betrayed her identity; Laramie was at once aware that he was facing +Kate Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing could have pleased him less. In so small a room it was +impossible to escape detection. He could almost hear her breathe and +would have reveled in her presence so close, but that the apprehension +of frightening her weighed on him like a mountain. Hardly daring to +breathe himself he cursed the erratic doctor's skeleton pet—hung, of +all places, where every little while he was cutting people open. +</P> + +<P> +The skeleton had already set the girl's nerves on edge. What would +happen if she discovered a live man as well as the ghastly remains of a +dead one—not to mention alcoholic clippings from other subnormal +notables of the mountains? With the flashlight she was evidently +searching for something and Laramie surmised it must be the electric +light switch: "I think," he suggested in as steady a tone as possible, +"you'll find the light button to the right of the door behind you." +</P> + +<P> +He was prepared for a scream or a swoon. Instead, the flashlight was +turned directly on him: "Who are you?" came sharply and quickly from +behind it. +</P> + +<P> +"I might ask the same question. You can see I'm Jim Laramie. I can +guess you're Kate Doubleday." +</P> + +<P> +"I am, and I've come here for dressings for wounded men at Pettigrew's. +What are you doing here?" she demanded, peremptorily. +</P> + +<P> +His lips were sealed for more reasons than one. Least of all would it +do for him to expose Doctor Carpy's friendliness and embroil him in a +feud which Laramie knew he ought to face alone. +</P> + +<P> +Kate held the light excitedly on him. It was an instant before he had +his answer in hand: "I've lied to a good many people at different times +about different things," he said deliberately. "I've still got my +first lie to tell to you, Kate. And I certainly won't tell it tonight. +Don't ask me what I'm doing here. Turn on the light by the door, or +let me do it, so I can see you. You here alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, there are plenty of men outside with me," she exclaimed abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't have asked that question," he continued in the same tone. +"I know you're alone. You say 'men' because you're afraid of me——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not the least afraid of you. And don't deceive yourself. There +are men here." +</P> + +<P> +"But they are mostly in bottles, Kate—and in pieces. Live men don't +ride up to a place like this without making a noise. Flat Nose George +is the only man here besides me, outside the alcohol, and I can claim +him as well as you can." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure you would feel perfectly at home with Flat Nose George," she +retorted swiftly. +</P> + +<P> +If the words stung, Laramie kept his temper. "Probably there's a good +deal I deserve that you haven't heard about me," he said slowly. "But +from the way you talk, you've heard a few things maybe I don't deserve. +Nobody's got any right to class me with Flat Nose George or anybody +else in Carpy's museum." +</P> + +<P> +"You've classed yourself with him," she exclaimed vehemently. +"Defending cattle thieves and harboring them! Everyone knows that!" +</P> + +<P> +"I did talk rough to your father this morning. I was pretty angry. +Just the same, don't believe everything you hear about me. At present, +it's just us two. What do you want to do, surrender to me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" she snapped the word out furiously. "I won't, not if you kill +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose I surrender to you? What do you want me to do—stick up my +hands? So far, they haven't been up—if I remember right. But I +expect I'll have to learn sometime how to surrender." +</P> + +<P> +"I want no surrender, no parley with you. The doctor told me his house +was empty and directed me here for the dressings. When I come, I find +you. I'll get away at once. Before I go——" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'll go. But let me turn on the light." He stepped to the door +and pressed the button. "I wanted," he continued, as a light flooded +the queer room, "to have just one look at you before I go." She stood +before him quite unafraid. Her eyes flashed as if she were actually +mistress of the situation instead of really helpless in the presence of +her father's most resourceful enemy. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie half-smiled at her serenity: "Why don't you go?" she exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +Still regarding her, he shifted his position a little and replied with +entire good-nature: "I only live along, from one sight to another of +you. I'm just filling up, like a man at a spring. You don't object to +my only looking at you for a minute?" +</P> + +<P> +"I object to being delayed and annoyed," she declared in a blaze. +"I've come here for dressings needed for wounded men——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, so have I, if you must have it." +</P> + +<P> +"I was sent here by Doctor Carpy for things he wants tonight; you have +no more right here helping yourself to his property than you have +taking other people's." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't say I take other people's property!" Laramie spoke fiercely. +"Don't call me a thief." His words burned with anger. "My hands may +not be as white as yours—they're just as clean!" +</P> + +<P> +Stunned as she might well have been at the outburst, Kate stood her +ground: "Did Doctor Carpy give you permission to come here tonight?" +She shot the words at Laramie without giving him time to breathe. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie checked the flood of anger he had loosed: "I don't need +permission from Doctor Carpy to come here night or day. Ask him if you +want to," he said with scornful disgust. He sank down on the chair at +his side in complete resentment of the whole situation and, leaning +forward with a hand spread over one knee and one fist clenched on the +other, he stared not at Kate's eyes, but at the floor, with only her +trim boots in his field of vision. "What's the use?" he exclaimed, +drawing the words up seemingly all the way from his own disorderly and +alkali-stained foot coverings. "What's the use?" he repeated, in +stronger and more savage tones. "I've treated her from the first +instant I saw her, and every instant since, as I thought a woman ought +to be treated—would like to be treated. Now I get my reward. She +calls me a thief—and, my God! I take it. I don't ride out and kill +her father who taught her to do it, quick as I can reach him; I just +take it!" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +He hesitated a moment. Then he flung a question at her like a +thunderbolt: "What do you want here?" +</P> + +<P> +She was frightened. His rage was plain enough; who could tell the +lengths to which it might carry him? +</P> + +<P> +She kept her dignity but she answered and without quibbling: "I want +some gauze and some cotton and some medicines." +</P> + +<P> +He strode to the cabinet and, concealing the movement as he unlocked it +with Carpy's key, he threw open the glass door: "You'd be all night +finding the stuff," he said curtly, taking the supplies from various +cluttered piles on different shelves. "You say he wants this tonight," +he added, when her packet was complete: "How are you going to get it to +him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Carry it to him." +</P> + +<P> +"At Pettigrew's? What do you mean? It would take an experienced +horseman all night to ride around by Black Creek." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going over the pass." +</P> + +<P> +He could not conceal his anger: "Does your father know that?" +</P> + +<P> +"He said I might try it." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie flamed again: "A fine father to send a tenderfoot girl on a +night ride into a country like that!" +</P> + +<P> +She was defiant: "I can ride anywhere a man can." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me tell you," he faced her and his eyes flashed, "if you try +riding 'anywhere' too often, some night your father's daughter will +fail to get home!" +</P> + +<P> +Ignoring the door, he stepped to the open window by which he had +entered and, springing through it, was gone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HIDING PLACE +</H3> + +<P> +Disdaining any further attempt at concealment, Laramie rode angrily +over to Kitchen's barn; anyone that wanted a dispute with him just then +could have it, and promptly. Kitchen got up his horse and, cutting +short the liveryman's attempt to talk, Laramie headed for home. +</P> + +<P> +The sky was studded with a glory of stars. He rode fast, his fever of +anger acting as a spur to his anxiety, which was to get back to dress +Hawk's wounds. +</P> + +<P> +His thoughts raced with the hoofs of his horse. Nothing could have +galled and humiliated him more than to realize how Kate Doubleday +regarded him. Plainly she looked on him as no better than one of the +ordinary rustlers of the Falling Wall country. This was distressingly +clear; yet he knew in his own heart that hers was the only opinion +among her people that he cared anything about. Furious waves of +resentment alternated with the realization that such an issue was +inevitable—how could it be otherwise? She had heard the loose talk of +men about her—Stone, alone, to reckon no other, could be depended on +to lie freely about him. Van Horn, he was as sure, would not scruple +to blacken an enemy; and added to Laramie's discomfiture was the +reflection that this man whose attentions to Kate he most dreaded, held +her ear against him and could, if need be, poison the wells. +</P> + +<P> +To these could be added, as his implacable enemy, her own father. This +last affair had cut off every hope of getting on with the men for whom +he had no respect and who for one reason or another hated him as +heartily as he hated them. +</P> + +<P> +Under such a load of entanglement lay the thought of Kate. What utter +foolishness even to think of her as he let himself think and hope! +Clattering along, he told himself nothing could ever come of it but +bitterness; and he cast the thought and hope of knowing her better and +better until he could make her his own, completely out of his heart. +</P> + +<P> +The only trouble was that neither she, nor the bitterness would stay +out. As often as he put them out they came in again. The first few +miles of his road were the same that she would soon be riding after +him. Again and again he felt anger at the idea of her riding the worst +of the Falling Wall trail at night to Pettigrew's. More than once he +felt the impulse to wait for her, and even slackened his pace. +</P> + +<P> +But when he did so, there arose before him her picture as she flung the +hateful words at him; they came back as keenly as if he heard them +again and he could feel his cheeks burning in the cold night air. +Self-respect, if nothing else, would prevent his even speaking another +word to her that night. His hatred of her father swelled in the +thought that he should let her attempt such a ride. +</P> + +<P> +For several miles beyond where he knew Kate must turn for the pass, +Laramie rode on toward home; then watching his landmarks carefully he +reined his horse directly to the left and headed for the broken country +lying between the Turkey and the mountains. At some little distance +from the trail, he stopped and sitting immovable in his saddle, +listened to ascertain whether he was followed. For almost thirty +minutes—and that is a long time—he waited, buried in the silence of +the night and without the slightest impatience. He heard in the +distance the coyotes and the owls but no horseman passed nor did the +sound of hoofs come within hearing. Then reining his pony's head again +toward the black heights of the Lodge Pole range he continued his +journey. +</P> + +<P> +Soon all semblance of any trail was left behind and he rode of +necessity more slowly. More than once he halted, seemingly to reassure +himself as to his bearings for he was pushing his way where few men +would care to ride even in daylight. He was feeling across precipitous +gashes and along treacherous ledges esteemed by Bighorn but feared by +horse and man; and among huge masses of rocky fragments that had +crashed from dizzy heights above before finding a resting place. And +even then they had been heaved and tumbled about by the fury of +mountain storms. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie was, in fact, nearing the place—by the least passable of all +approaches—where he had hidden Hawk. Yet he did not hesitate either +to stop or to listen or to double on his trail more than once. +Maneuvering in this manner for a long time he emerged on a small +opening, turned almost squarely about and rode half a mile. +Dismounting at this point and lifting his rifle from its scabbard he +slung his bag over his shoulder and walked rapidly forward. +</P> + +<P> +The hiding place had been well chosen. On a high plateau of the +Falling Wall country, so broken as to forbid all chance travel and to +be secure from accidental intrusion—a breeding place for grizzlies and +mountain lions—there had once been opened a considerable silver mining +camp. Substantial sums had been spent in development and from an old +Turkey Creek trail a road had been blasted and dug across the open +country divided by the canyon of the Falling Wall river. In its escape +from the mountains the river at this point cuts a deep gash through a +rock barrier and from this striking formation, known as the canyon of +the Falling Wall, the river takes its name. +</P> + +<P> +Where the old mine road crosses the plateau an ambitious bridge, as +Laramie once told Kate, had been projected across the river. It was +designed to replace a ferry at the bottom of the canyon but with the +ruinous decline in the value of silver the mines had been abandoned; a +weather-beaten abutment at the top of the south canyon wall alone +remained to recall the story. The earth and rock fill behind this +abutment had been washed out by storms leaving the framing timbers +above it intact, and below these there remained a cave-like space which +the slowly decaying supports served to roof. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie on a hunting trip had once discovered this retreat and had at +times used it as a shelter when caught over night in its vicinity. +During subsequent visits he found an overhang in the rock behind the +original fill that made a second smaller chamber and in this he had as +a boy cached his mink and rat traps and the discard of his hunting +equipment. +</P> + +<P> +To the later people coming into the Falling Wall country with cattle +the existence of all this was practically unknown. Nothing visible +betrayed the retreat and to men who rarely left the saddle and had +little occasion to cross the bad lands, there was slight chance to +stumble on it. It was here, a few miles west of his own home, that +Laramie had carried Hawk. +</P> + +<P> +Making his way in the darkness toward the dugout, Laramie whistled low +and clearly, and planting his feet with care on a foothold of old +masonry swung down to where a fissure opening in the rock afforded +entrance into the irregular room. +</P> + +<P> +A single word came in a low tone from the darkness: "Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, answering, struck a match and, after a little groping, lighted +a candle and set it in a niche near where Hawk lay. The rustler was +stretched on a rude bunk. The furnishings of the cave-like refuge were +the scantiest. Between uprights supporting the old roof, a plank +against the wall served as a narrow table; the bunk had been built into +the opposite wall out of planking left by the bridge carpenters. For +the rest there was little more in the place than the few belongings of +a hunter's lodge long deserted. A quilt served for mattress and +bedding for Hawk and his sunken eyes above his black beard showed how +sorely he needed surgical care. To this, Laramie lost no time in +getting. He provided more lights, opened his kit of dressings and with +a pail of water went to work. +</P> + +<P> +What would have seemed impossible to a surgeon, Laramie with two hours' +crude work accomplished on Hawk's wounds. But in a country where the +air is so pure that major operations may be performed in ordinary +cabins, cleanliness and care, even though rude, count for more than +they possibly could elsewhere. The most difficult part of the task +that night lay in getting water up the almost sheer canyon wall from +the river three hundred feet below. It would have been a man's job in +daylight; add to this black night and the care necessary to leave no +traces of getting down and climbing up. +</P> + +<P> +Leaving Hawk when the night was nearly spent, Laramie returned to his +horse, retraced his blind way through the bad lands and got to the road +some miles above where he had left it. He started for home but left +the road below his place and picking a trail through the hills came out +half a mile northwest of his cabin. Here he cached his saddle and +bridle, turned loose his horse and going forward with the stealth of an +Indian he got close enough to his cabin to satisfy himself, after +painstaking observation, that his cabin was neither in the hands of the +enemy, nor under close-range surveillance. When he reached the house +he disposed of his rifle, slipped inside and struck a light. On the +stove he found his frying pan face downward and the coffee pot near it +with the lid raised. From this he knew that Simeral in his absence had +cared for his stock; and being relieved in his mind on this score he +laid his revolver at hand and threw himself on the bed to sleep. Day +was just breaking. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +STONE TRIES HIS HAND +</H3> + +<P> +In getting home safely, Laramie had not flattered himself that he was +not actually under what in mountain phrase is termed the death watch. +In matter of fact, Van Horn and Doubleday had gone home to stay until +the excitement should blow over. But they had left Stone and two men +charged with intercepting Laramie on his return. The investing lines +had not, however, been skilfully drawn and Laramie had slipped through. +</P> + +<P> +He slept undisturbed until the sun was an hour high. Then peering +through a corner of the blanket that hung before the window he saw +Stone and two companions half a mile from the house, riding slowly as +if looking for a trail; particularly, as he readily surmised, for his +own trail. As to his horse betraying him, Laramie had no fear, knowing +the beast would make straight for the blue stem north of the hills. It +was no part of Laramie's plan of defense to begin fighting or to force +any situation that favored him—as he believed the present one to do. +</P> + +<P> +Few men that knew his enemies would have agreed with him in this view; +they would, indeed, have thought it extremely precarious for Laramie to +be caught in any place he could not escape from unseen. But Laramie +was temperamentally a gambler with fortune and he put aside the worries +that occasionally weighed on his friends. Standing at his one small +window—though this was by no means the only peephole in the cabin +walls—he watched without undue concern the scouting of the trio, who +beyond doubt had been hired to kill him and were only waiting their +chance. +</P> + +<P> +After a long inspection of the ground—much of it out of sight of the +cabin—broken by frequent colloquies, the three rode from the creek +bottom out on the upper field and, halting, surveyed the distant cabin +with seeming doubt and suspicion. Two of them reined their horses +toward the creek. The third man spurred up the long slope straight for +the house. +</P> + +<P> +This put a different aspect on things. Laramie tightened a little as +he watched the oncoming rider. If it should prove to be Stone—he +hesitated at the thought, deciding on nothing until sure who the man +might be. But watching the approach of the unwelcome visitor coldly, +Laramie put out his hand for his rifle. He thought of firing a warning +shot; but to this he was much averse since it would mean a fight and a +siege—neither of which he sought. As the man drew closer it was +apparent that it was not Stone and Laramie decided that milder measures +might answer. He held his rifle across his arm and waited. But the +man, as if conscious of the peril to which he was so coolly exposing +himself, galloped rapidly away, rejoined his companions and the trio +disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie at the window watched the departing horsemen. It appeared, +from what he had seen, as if the watch had really been set on him. He +got out his little bottle of oil and a rag and ramrod to clean his +rifle. He made the preparations and sat down to his task in a brown +study. +</P> + +<P> +The rifle had not been fired for some time, and it was a very long time +since it had been trained on a man. He took it apart slowly, thinking +less of what would next appear through the range of the sights than of +Kate, as she confronted him the night before in Carpy's office. He +realized with a sort of shame that he was trying to forgive her for +calling him a thief—which, in point of fact, he argued, she had not +actually done. And though she had certainly spoken careless-like, as +Bill Bradley might say, she had only credited the tales of his enemies +in her own household. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie poked and squinted as he pondered his difficulties. He had +refused to give up Hawk to be merely murdered; he could not do less and +respect himself. It had made her father more than ever his enemy; +still he wanted Kate. Stone would assassinate him at any time for a +hundred dollars; Van Horn, now that he was aware Laramie liked Kate, +would do it for nothing. Laramie, indeed, realized that if he stood in +Van Horn's way with a woman he would not figure any more in Harry's +calculations than a last year's birds' nest. And back of all loomed +rancorous Barb Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +How, he asked himself, could a girl like Kate, pick such a bear for a +father? All of which troublesome thinking brought him no nearer a +solution of his difficulties. He had his life to look out for, Hawk to +take care of and a strong-willed girl to bring to his way of thinking. +</P> + +<P> +He reached, at last, the conclusion that the sooner he knew whether he +could leave his own place and ride to and from Sleepy Cat without being +"potted" from ambush, the sooner he would know what to do next. +Persuading himself that the watch would wait for him somewhere down the +road, Laramie, making coffee and cooking bacon, breakfasted, made his +final preparations for death by shaving himself with a venerable razor, +and rifle in hand, got down as directly and briskly as possible to the +corral. He got up a horse, rode back into the hills, and recovering +his saddle, started for Simeral's. Having spoken with Ben, Laramie +made a detour that brought him out on the creek a mile below his usual +trail. Thence he rode as contentedly as possible on his way. +</P> + +<P> +The country for a few miles ahead was adapted for ambuscades. The +valley was comparatively narrow and afforded more than one vantage +point for covering a traveler. It was wholly a matter, Laramie felt, +of bluffing it through. And beyond keeping a brisk pace with his +horse, he could do nothing to protect himself. "You're a fool for +luck, Jim," he remembered Hawk's saying once to him, "but you'll get it +sometime on your fool's luck, just the same." +</P> + +<P> +When old Blackbeard, as he sometimes called Hawk—though no one else +ventured to call him that—uttered the warning, it made no impression +on Laramie. Now it came back. Not unpleasantly, nor as a dread—only +he did recall at this time the words—which was more than he had ever +done before. And he reflected that it would be very awkward for Hawk, +if their common enemies should get his nurse at this particular time. +</P> + +<P> +While this was running through his mind, he was not sorry to notice +ahead of him the dust of the down stage. At that particular stretch of +the road it would be less nerve-wearing to ride beside it a way. He +overtook the wagon and to his surprise found McAlpin on the box. +McAlpin, overjoyed to see him, explained with a grin he was filling in +for a sick man. In reality, he had substituted for the northern trip +in the hope of seeing some fighting while out and the sight of Laramie +was the nearest he had got to it. Laramie, after a long talk, made an +appointment to meet him in town in the evening and as they reached the +foot of the hill where the road climbed to the Sleepy Cat divide, +Laramie feeling he had no further excuse for loitering, put spurs to +his horse and took a bridle trail, used as a cut-off, to get into safer +country. +</P> + +<P> +He rode this trail unmolested, crossed the divide and coming out of the +hills could see, to the south, Sleepy Cat lying below. He made up his +mind that his judgment was more nearly right than his apprehension, and +rode down the slopes of the Crazy Woman, over the Double-draw bridge +and up the south hill in good spirits. He had, in fact, got half-way +up the long grade when he heard a rifle shot. +</P> + +<P> +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie drooped over +his pommel. As his heels struck the horse's flanks, the beast sprang +ahead. The rebound jerked back the rider's head and shoulders. While +the horse dashed on, Laramie with as little fuss as possible pulled his +rifle from its scabbard, trying all the time to get his balance. A +careful observer could have noted that the rifle was drawn but held low +in the right hand as if the rider could not bring it up. Yet even a +close observer could hardly have detected in his convulsive swaying +that the wounded man was closely scanning the sides of the narrow road +along which his horse was now flying. At all events, he seemed with +failing strength to be losing his seat as he lost control of his horse, +and a hundred yards from where he had been struck he toppled helplessly +from the saddle into the roadway. The speed at which the horse was +going sent the fallen rider rolling along the grade, the sides of which +had been torn in spots by summer torrents. Near one of these holes, +Laramie had left the saddle, and into it he rolled headlong. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-196"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-196.jpg" ALT="Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie drooped over his pommel" BORDER="2" WIDTH="399" HEIGHT="631"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 399px"> +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, <BR> +Laramie drooped over his pommel +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The hole, between four and five feet deep, looked like an irregular +well with an overhang on one side and to the bottom of this, Laramie, +covered with dust, tumbled. He righted himself and turning under the +overhang took breath, put down his rifle, whipped out his revolver, +looked toward the top of his well and listened. +</P> + +<P> +Not a sound broke the stillness of the sunny morning. With his right +hand, but holding his eyes and ears very much at attention, he drew a +handkerchief, wiped the dust from his eyes and face and twisted his +head around to investigate the stinging sensation high on his left +shoulder, almost at the neck. The rifle bullet had torn his coat +collar and shirt and creased the skin. He could feel no blood and soon +inventoried the shot as only close. But he was waiting for the man +that fired it to appear at the hole to investigate; and with at least +this one of his enemies he was in a mood to finish then and there. +</P> + +<P> +Taking off his coat, as his wits continued to work, he spread it over a +little hump in front of him so it would catch the eye for an instant +and with patient rage crouched back under the overhang. He so placed +himself that one could hardly see him without peering into the hole and +that might mean any one of several things for the man that ventured +it—much depended, in Laramie's mind, on whose face he should see above +the rim. +</P> + +<P> +An interminable time passed. The first sound he heard was that of +horses toiling up the long grade and the creaking of battered hubs; +this he reckoned must be McAlpin with the stage. Where his hat had +rolled to, when he tumbled out of the saddle to simulate death, he had +no idea. If it lay in the road he might expect a visit from McAlpin. +But without stopping, the stage rattled slowly up the grade. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed then as if the distant gunman, after waiting for the stage to +pass, would not fail to reconnoiter the hole. Yet he did so fail. The +high hours of midday passed with Laramie patiently resting his Colt's +up between his knees and studying the yellow rim of the hole and the +heavenly blue of the sky. His neck ached from the cramped position, +long held, in which he had placed himself; but he moved no more than if +he had been set in stone. Neither hunger, which was slight, nor +thirst, at times troublesome, disturbed his watch. But it was in vain. +</P> + +<P> +He sat like a spider in its web through the whole day without an +incident. A few horsemen passed, an occasional wagon rumbled up and +down the hill; but none of the travelers looked in on Laramie. Toward +dusk he heard a freighting outfit working laboriously up from the +creek. Resolving to give up his watch and go into town with this, he +felt his way cautiously out of his hiding place. Without really hoping +to recover it, he began to search for his hat and to his surprise found +it in another gully near where he had tumbled from his horse. The +driver of the freighting outfit wondered at seeing Laramie on foot. He +explained that he had been hunting and that his horse had taken a +short-cut home. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Stone's companions under instructions had left him and returned to +Doubleday's before the shot across the Crazy Woman. Stone himself got +back to Doubleday's ranch at about the time that Laramie started for +Sleepy Cat in the evening. But Barb Doubleday and Van Horn, he was +told, were in town. He followed them and discovered Van Horn in the +bar room at the hotel. +</P> + +<P> +"I hear you got him," muttered Van Horn, bending his keen eyes on Stone. +</P> + +<P> +"Who said so?" demanded Stone. +</P> + +<P> +"His horse came into Kitchen's barn this afternoon, all saddled. +McAlpin is telling he heard a rifle shot on the Crazy Woman. They're +wild down at the barn over it. Did you get him?" +</P> + +<P> +Stone paused over a glass of whisky; his face brightened: "I tumbled +him off his horse, if you call that getting him." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn asked questions impatiently. Stone answered with the +indifference of the man that had turned a big trick. But Van Horn +insisted on knowing what had become of Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"He tumbled into a hole," said Stone. "I didn't cross the creek to +look for him." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you?" asked Van Horn nervously. +</P> + +<P> +Stone dallied with his glass: "I watched the hole all day. He didn't +come out. That was enough, wasn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," snapped Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll tell you, Harry; next time you and the old man want a job +done, do it yourself. I never liked Laramie: I didn't care for getting +too close to the hole he tumbled into. After he was hit, he stuck to +his horse a little too long to suit me," said Stone shrewdly. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn's retort was contemptuous and pointed. He laughed: "Afraid of +him, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Stone regarded him malevolently: "Look here!" he exclaimed harshly, +"I'll make you a little proposition. When I get shaved we'll ride over +to the Crazy Woman and you c'n look in the hole for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +The uncertainty irritated Van Horn. When Stone, newly plastered, +emerged from the barber shop, Van Horn took him with his story to +Doubleday whom they found in his room, chewing the stub of a cold cigar +and looking over a stock journal. He did not appear amiable, nor did +his face change much as the news was cautiously conveyed to him. When +Van Horn announced he would ride out with Stone to examine the road +hole, Doubleday, whose expression had grown colder and colder, broke in: +</P> + +<P> +"Needn't waste any time on that," he said with a snap of his jaw. +</P> + +<P> +Stone snorted: "Maybe <I>you</I> think he wasn't hit." +</P> + +<P> +"Hit!" exclaimed Barb. "Hit!" he repeated, raising a long forefinger +with deep-drawn disgust. "He's sittin' in that room across the hall +right now——" +</P> + +<P> +"What's he doin'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Playin' poker," muttered the old cattleman grimly, "with Doc. Carpy +and Harry Tenison." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +KATE RIDES +</H3> + +<P> +In strict point of fact, Laramie had left the room across the hall and +at that particular moment was sitting down for a late supper at Belle +Shockley's whither Sawdy and Lefever had dragged him from the hotel. +Carpy had come with them. +</P> + +<P> +At the table—after Laramie had told part of his story—the talk, +genial to cheerfulness, was largely professional criticism of the shot +across the Crazy Woman. The technical disadvantages of shooting +uphill, the tendency to over-elevate for such shots, the difficulty of +catching the pace and speed of a horse, all supplied judicial +observations for Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie—so nearly the +victim—leaving the topic to these Sleepy Cat gun pundits, conferred +with Carpy about the care of gunshot wounds; and protested against Flat +Nose George and the Museum of Horrors in the Doctor's office. +</P> + +<P> +"But I want to tell you, boys," remarked the doctor, when the talk +turned on the discomfiture of the enemy group, "what Barb asked me +tonight—this is on the dead." The doctor looked around to include +Belle—who was standing with folded arms, her back against the +sideboard and listening to the conversation—in his injunction of +secrecy. "He came to me at the hotel. 'Doc,' says Barb, 'I want to +ask you a question. There's stories circulating around about Laramie's +getting shot this morning, on his way into town. Has Laramie been to +you to get fixed up, at all?' +</P> + +<P> +"'Well, Barb,' I says, 'that's not really a fair question for me to +answer—you know that. But since you spoke about it, Jim was in awhile +ago——' +</P> + +<P> +"'Was in, eh?' +</P> + +<P> +"'For a few minutes——' +</P> + +<P> +"'Hit?' +</P> + +<P> +"'That I couldn't say. What he asked for, Barb, was a bottle of Perry +Davis' painkiller—said the rheumatiz was getting him to beat the +band.'" +</P> + +<P> +Carpy paused: "'Rheumatiz!' says Barb. He didn't stop to swear—he +just bit his old cigar right square in two in the middle, dropped one +end on the floor and stamped on it." The Doctor leaned forward and +spoke to Laramie: "How's longhorn, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie looked troubled: "If it wasn't for dragging you into it, I'd +ask you to go out and see him." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim, a doctor's place is where he's needed." +</P> + +<P> +"I left a twenty dollar gold piece in your medicine chest for the stuff +I took." +</P> + +<P> +"You go to hell!" The Doctor pulled a handful of money from his pocket +and threw a double eagle at Laramie. "There's your gold piece." +</P> + +<P> +"Belle, look at them fellows," exclaimed Sawdy moodily, "pockets +loaded. I never had more than twenty dollars at one time in my life. +My mother told me to take care of the pennies and the dollars would +take care of themselves. The blamed dollars wouldn't do it. I took +care of the pennies. I've got 'em yet—that's all I have got. Jim, +I'll match you for that gold piece." +</P> + +<P> +"Gamblers never have a cent," commented Belle darkly. +</P> + +<P> +"That gold piece," explained Laramie, "is not my money, Harry. It's +Carpy's money and he'll keep it if I have to make him swallow it." +</P> + +<P> +"That's not the question," declared Carpy. "Did you get what you +wanted?" Laramie told him he did. "And by the great Jehosaphat," +added the doctor, "you bumped into Kate Doubleday!" +</P> + +<P> +"What else did you expect?" retorted Laramie, not pleased at the +recollection. +</P> + +<P> +Carpy, throwing back his head, laughed well: "After Kate Doubleday told +me she was going for the dressings herself, I says to myself, 'There'll +be two people in my house tonight—a man and a woman—I hope to God +they don't meet.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Jim," intervened Belle, "you ought to get Abe Hawk to a hospital." +</P> + +<P> +"He's got to get him to one," affirmed Lefever. "I've seen that man," +he added emphatically, "I know." +</P> + +<P> +"How's he going to do it," inquired Carpy, "without starting the fight +all over again?" +</P> + +<P> +Lefever stuck to his ground: "Get him down to Sleepy Cat in the night," +he insisted. +</P> + +<P> +"Can he ride?" asked Sawdy. +</P> + +<P> +"He may have to have help," said Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a moon right now. They'd pick you off like rabbits," objected +Sawdy, "and they've got that whole trail patroled to the Crazy Woman. +They're watching this town like cats. You'll have to waste a lot of +ammunition to get Abe to a hospital." +</P> + +<P> +"From all I hear," observed Carpy, "if Abe gets any more lead in him +you won't need to take him to the hospital. He'll be ready to head +straight for the undertaker's." +</P> + +<P> +"We've got to wait either for a late moon or a rainy night; then we'll +get busy," suggested Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"He might die while you're waiting," interposed Carpy. +</P> + +<P> +Lefever could not be subdued: "Not as quick as he'd die if Van Horn's +bunch caught sight of him on the road," he said sententiously. "We'll +get him down and he won't die, either." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, pay for your supper, boys, and let's get away," said Carpy. "I +want some sleep." +</P> + +<P> +But for Lefever and Sawdy there was little sleep that night. The +echoes of the "fatal" shot—almost fatal, as it proved, to the prestige +of the enemy—were being discussed pretty much everywhere in Sleepy Cat +and wherever men that night assembled in public places, Sawdy and +Lefever swaggered in and out at least once. The pair looked wise, +spoke obscurely, looked the crowd, large or small, over critically, +played an occasional restrained and brief finger-tattoo on the butts of +their bolstered guns and listened condescendingly to everyone that had +a theory to advance, a reminiscence to offer, or a propitiating drink +to suggest. +</P> + +<P> +Wherever they could induce him to go, they dragged Laramie—at once as +an exhibit and a defi; but Laramie objected to the thoroughness with +which his companions essayed to cover the territory, and unfeelingly +withdrew from the party to go to bed. Sawdy and Company, undismayed by +the defection, continued to haunt the high places until the last +sympathizer with Van Horn and Company had been challenged and bullied +or silenced. +</P> + +<P> +But the differing sympathies on the situation in Sleepy Cat were not to +be adjusted in a single night, either by force or persuasion. The +whole town took sides and the cattlemen found the most defenders. What +might be designated, but with modesty, as "big business" in Sleepy Cat +stood stubbornly, despite the violence of their methods, with Van Horn, +Doubleday and their friends; the interest of such business lay with the +men that bought the most supplies. The banks and the merchants were +thus pretty much aligned on one side. The surgeon of the town +professed neutrality—at least as regarded operations—for he was +needed to administer to both factions. Harry Tenison, as dealer of the +big game in town and owner of the big hotel, was of necessity neutral; +though men like himself and Carpy were rightly suspected of leaning +toward Laramie, if not even as far as toward Abe Hawk. The open +sympathizers of the Falling Wall men were among trainmen, liverymen, +the clerks, the barbers and bartenders, and those who could be usually +counted as "agin the government." +</P> + +<P> +Meantime, the element of mystery in the still unclosed tragedy of the +upper country concerned the disappearance of Hawk; and this naturally +centered about Laramie. None but he knew to a certainty the fate of +the redoubtable old cowboy, so long a range favorite. And whenever +Laramie appeared in town, speculation at once revived every feature of +the situation, and Kate Doubleday when she came to Sleepy Cat, whether +she would or not, could not escape the talk concerning the Falling Wall +feud. +</P> + +<P> +Loyalty to her own and the intense partizanship of her nature, combined +to urge her to sympathize with the fight of the range owners against +the Falling Wall men. But in this attitude, Belle Shockley was a trial +to Kate. Belle would not drag in the subject of the fight but she +never avoided it; and Kate, even against her inclination, seemed +impelled to speak of the subject with Belle. She instinctively felt +that Belle's sympathies were with the other side; and felt just as +strongly in her impulsiveness, that Belle should be set right about +rustlers and their friends—meaning always, by the latter, Jim Laramie. +Belle, stubborn but more contained, clung to her own views. Though she +rarely talked back, the attempt to assassinate Laramie had intensified +everyone's feelings, and for days only a spark on that subject was +needed to fire more than one Sleepy Cat powder magazine. One afternoon +rain caught Kate in at Belle's and kept her until almost dark from +starting for home, and one magazine did explode. +</P> + +<P> +The two women were sitting on the porch watching the shower. McAlpin +on his way uptown from the barn, had stopped at Belle's a moment for +shelter. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you, Kate," said Belle, after listening as patiently as she +could to what Kate had to say about the Falling Wall fight and its +consequences, "I like you. I can't help liking you. But the only +reason you talk the way you do is because you haven't lived in this +country long. You don't know this country—you don't know the people." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin nodded strongly: "That's so, that's true." +</P> + +<P> +"I, at least, know common honesty, I hope." +</P> + +<P> +"But you don't know anything at all of what you are talking about," +insisted Belle, "and if you think I'm ever going to agree with you that +it was right for Van Horn and your father and their friends to take a +bunch of Texas men up into the Falling Wall and shoot and burn men +because they're rustlers, you're very much mistaken. And I can tell +you the people of this country won't agree with you either, no matter +what some folks in this town may say to tickle your ears." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say you stand up for thieves, too?" asked Kate, hotly. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin looked apprehensively out at the clouds. Belle twitched her +shoulders: "You needn't be so high and mighty about it," she retorted. +"No, I don't. And I don't stand up for burning men alive because they +brand mavericks. You talk very fierce—like everybody up your way. +But if Abe Hawk or Jim Laramie walked in here this minute, you wouldn't +agree to have them shot down. And don't you forget it, Jim Laramie +doesn't claim a hoof of anybody's cattle but his own." +</P> + +<P> +Kate would not back down: "Why do they call him king of the rustlers?" +she demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"King of the rustlers, nothing," echoed Belle in disgust. "That's +barroom talk. No decent man ever accused him of branding so much as a +horse hair that didn't belong to him." +</P> + +<P> +"And his reputation is, he's not very slow when it comes to shooting, +either," declared Kate. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin thought it a time for oil on the waters! "You've got to make +allowances," he urged with dignity. "Ten years ago—less'n that, +even—they was all pretty quick on the trigger in this country. Jim +was a kid 'n' he had to travel with the bunch." +</P> + +<P> +"And he was quicker 'n any of them," interposed Belle, defiantly, +"wasn't he, Mac?" +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin was for moderation and better feeling: +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he admitted gravely, "full as quick, I guess." +</P> + +<P> +"It seems to me," observed Kate, still resentful, "as if men here are +pretty quick yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no," interposed McAlpin at once; "oh, no, not special now'days. +More talk'n there used to be—heap more." +</P> + +<P> +"Bring over my pony, Mr. McAlpin, will you?" asked Kate, very much +irritated. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin looked surprised: "You wouldn't be ridin' home tonight?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," replied Kate, sharply, "I would." +</P> + +<P> +As McAlpin started on his way she turned on Belle: "And you mustn't +forget, Belle, that vigilantes, no matter whether they do make mistakes +or go too far, have built this country up and made it safe to live in." +</P> + +<P> +Belle's face took on a weariness: "Oh, no—not always safe to live +in—sometimes safe to make money in. There's nothing I'm so sick of +hearing as this vigilante stuff. The vigilante crowd are mostly big +thieves—the rustlers, little thieves—that's about all the difference +I can see." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, is there any difference between being a rustler, and protecting +and being the friend of one?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle's restraint broke: "You'd better set your own house in order +before you criticize me or Jim Laramie. He's never yet tried to +assassinate anybody." +</P> + +<P> +"Neither has my father, nor the men that raided the Falling Wall." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you know," demanded Belle, indignantly, "that the men who raided +the Falling Wall are the men that tried to murder Laramie?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe it," said Kate, flatly. "Father doesn't believe +<I>any</I>body tried to murder him." +</P> + +<P> +Belle's wrath bubbled over: "Your father's as deep in it as anybody." +</P> + +<P> +She could have bitten her tongue off the instant she uttered the angry +words. But they were out. +</P> + +<P> +Kate sprang to her feet. Even Belle, used to shocks and encounters, +was silenced by the look that met her. For a moment the angry girl did +not utter a word, but if her eyes were daggers, Belle would have been +transfixed. Kate's breast rose sharply and she spoke low and fast: +"How dare you accuse my father of such a thing?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle, though cowed, was defiant: "I dare say just what I believe to be +true." +</P> + +<P> +"What proof have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't need proof for what everyone knows." +</P> + +<P> +"You say what is absolutely false." Kate's tranquil eyes were aflame; +she stood child, indeed, of her old father. Belle had more than once +doubted whether Kate <I>could</I> be the daughter of such a man—she never +doubted it after that scene on the day of the rain. Barb himself would +have waited on his daughter's words. "You're glad to listen to the +stories of our enemies," she almost panted, "because they're your +friends; you're welcome to them. But my father's enemies are my +enemies and I know now where to place you." +</P> + +<P> +White with anger as she was herself, Belle, older and more controlled, +tried to allay the storm she had raised: "I didn't meant to hurt you, +Kate," she protested, "you drove me too far." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad I did," returned Kate, wickedly, as she stepped back into the +living-room, pinned on her hat and made ready as fast as possible to +go. "I know you in your true colors." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, whether I'm right or wrong, you'll find my colors don't fade and +don't change." +</P> + +<P> +A boy stood at the gate with Kate's pony. +</P> + +<P> +The two women were again on the porch. Belle looked at the sky. The +rain had abated but the mountains were black. "Now, Kate, what are you +going to do?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate had walked out and was indignantly throwing the lines over her +horse's neck. "I'm going home," she answered, as sharply as the words +could be spoken. +</P> + +<P> +Belle crossed the sidewalk to her side: "This is a poor time of day for +a long ride. We've quarreled, I know, but don't try a mountain trail a +night like this. The rain isn't over yet." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be home before it starts again," returned Kate, springing into +the saddle. "I'm sick of this town and everybody in it." +</P> + +<P> +So saying, she struck her horse with the lines and headed for the +mountains. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT AND A HEADER +</H3> + +<P> +For John Lefever the rainy night promised to be a busy one; darkness +and the storm would, he felt, give Laramie a chance to get Hawk safely +into town; but to do this successfully would call for precaution. +</P> + +<P> +The rain had hardly begun to fall that afternoon—to the discomfiture +of Kate and her undoing with Belle—before Lefever began to cheer up in +speculating on what might be done. He found Laramie at the hotel and +set out to round up Sawdy. The rendezvous was set at Kitchen's barn +and half an hour later the three men were shut up in the old harness +room back of the office to talk the venture over. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie made no effort to discourage John concerning the project; it +had become a pet one with the big fellow; but he did not give the idea +strong endorsement. "You're too blamed pessimistic, Jim," growled +Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"No, John," protested Laramie evenly, "I'm only trying to see things as +they stand. Don't figure we are going to pull this thing without +trouble. Harry Van Horn's got a good guess that Dave is pretty well +shot up; and that he's hiding out. He knows a man can't hide out +without friends." +</P> + +<P> +"I grant you that," interrupted John. "But if you can get him across +the Crazy Woman, Jim, it's a cinch to run him into town." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't figure that every mile of that road isn't watched, for it is. I +ride it oftener than you and I see plenty of sign. And Harry knows +what a rainy night means just as well as we do. He'll be on the job +with his men—that's all I'm saying. Now, go ahead. You want Abe +brought in—that's your business. I'm here to bring him in—that's my +business. Shoot." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie and Lefever arranged things. Number Seventy-eight, the through +fast freight, would be due to leave Sleepy Cat for Medicine Bend at +4:32 in the morning. The crew were friendly. Could Laramie make it +with Abe, starting by midnight? He could. It was impossible to meet +Laramie outside town because no one could tell which trail he might +have to choose to come in on. But Sawdy and Lefever could look for him +out on the plateau at the head of Fort Street. Henry Sawdy, his heavy +mustaches sweeping his thick lips, and his bloodshot eyes moving from +one to the other of the two faces before him only stared and listened. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you say something, Henry?" demanded Lefever, exasperated. +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy turned a reproachful look on his lively partner: "When you're +talking, John, there ain't no chance to say anything. When Jim's +talking, I don't want to say anything." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie ordered his horse, got into oilskins, and riding out the back +way of the stable started for the Falling Wall. The day was spent and +the rain had turned soft and misty. He rode fast and with a little +watchfulness, exercised before reaching the Crazy Woman, satisfied +himself that he had not been followed out of town. +</P> + +<P> +What had actually happened was that he rode north not long after Kate +herself started for home. But Laramie followed old trails out of +town—even at the price of rounding fences and at times dodging through +wire gates for short cuts. Night was upon him when he reached the +bluffs of the creek. Between showers the sky had lightened, but the +north was overcast, and Laramie knew what to look forward to. When he +had got up the long hill, and reached the northern bluffs, it was +raining steadily again, and night had spread over mountain and valley. +</P> + +<P> +Abating something of his usual precaution in riding to reach Hawk's +hiding place, Laramie went slowly into the bad lands by a route less +dangerous than that he usually followed. As the night deepened, the +wind rising brought a heavier rain. The trail became increasingly +difficult to follow; rough at best, it was now almost impassable. +Sheets of water trickled over stretches of rock causing the horse to +slip and flounder. In other places rivulets shooting out of crevices +cut the loose earth from under the horse's feet. Leg-tired, the horse +finally resented being headed into the driving rain and went forward +slipping, hesitating and groping like a man on hands and knees. +</P> + +<P> +When Laramie got him to the old bridge, the pony was all in. Laramie +found shelter for him under a ledge and rifle in hand clambered along +the side of the canyon toward the abutment. Close to the entrance he +set his rifle against the rock, listened carefully, as always, felt +down at his feet for the few chips of rock he had so placed that they +would be disturbed if trodden by an enemy, listened again carefully, +and with his revolver cocked in his right hand, and the muzzle lying +across his left forearm, Laramie slowly zigzagged his way to the +inside. Once there, he stood perfectly still in the darkness and +called a greeting to Hawk. He failed to receive the usual gruff +answer. This never before had happened, and without trying for a +light, Laramie moved slowly and with much caution over to the recess +within which Hawk lay. There he could hear the cowboy's labored, but +regular breathing as he slept. The storm, waking the water crevices of +the mountains into a noisy chorus, had lulled the hunted man into an +untroubled sleep. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie shook his oilskins in a heap on the floor, cautiously lighted a +candle and set it on the board that served as a table. In spite of his +slickers he was wet through. He hung his hat on the end of a broken +timber and laid his revolver beside the candle. Bethinking himself, +however, of his rifle, he picked up the six-shooter again, stepped +outside the entrance, brought in his rifle, wiped it, stood it in a +convenient corner and turned toward Hawk. +</P> + +<P> +The candle, burning at moments steadily and at moments flickering, +threw its uncertain rays into the recess where the wounded rustler lay. +They lighted the sallow pallor of the sleeping man's face, fell across +his sunken eyes and drew the black of his long beard out of the gloom +below it. Laramie seated himself on a projecting ledge and looked +thoughtfully at his charge. He was failing; of that there could be no +doubt. Steel-willed and hard-sinewed though he was, the wounds that +would long ago have put an ordinary man out of action, were undermining +his great vitality and Laramie, in a study, felt it. +</P> + +<P> +Yet such was the younger man's natural stubbornness that left to his +own devices he would have fought out the battle against death right +where the failing man lay; only the judgment of Lefever and Carpy +swayed him in the circumstances. +</P> + +<P> +Believing sleep was the best preparative for the ordeal of the ride to +town, Laramie hesitated about waking Hawk—yet the hours were precious, +for the trip would be long and slow. Fortunately he had not long to +wait before Hawk woke. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie was sitting a few feet away and silently looking at him when +Hawk opened his eyes. They wandered from one object to another in the +dim candle gloom, until they rested on Laramie's face; there they +stopped. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's features relaxed into as near a smile as he permitted himself +on duty: "How you coming, Abe?" +</P> + +<P> +Hawk eyed him steadily: "What are you doing here tonight?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie answered with a question: "How about trying the gauntlet?" +</P> + +<P> +"That what you want?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's what Lefever and Carpy want." +</P> + +<P> +"They running things?" +</P> + +<P> +"They think you'd get well full as quick at a hospital." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you would." +</P> + +<P> +"Tired taking care of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet, Abe." +</P> + +<P> +"Raining?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hell bent." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the other noise?" +</P> + +<P> +"Thunder; and the river's up." +</P> + +<P> +The roar of the waters was not new to the ears of the two men who +listened, however much it might have disturbed others unused to their +tearing fury. +</P> + +<P> +Hawk listened thoughtfully: "Why didn't you pick a wet night?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"We had to pick a dark one, Abe." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's the horses?" +</P> + +<P> +"Over at my place—what's that?" +</P> + +<P> +The last words broke from Laramie's lips like the crack of a pistol. +He sprang to his feet. Hawk's hand shot out for his gun. Only +practised ears could have detected under the steady downpour of rain, +the deep roar of the canyon and the reverberation of the thunder, the +hoof beats of a stumbling horse. The next instant, they heard the +horse directly over their heads. Laramie, whipping out his revolver, +looked up. As he did so, a deafening crash blotted out the roar of the +storm—the roof overhead gave way and amid an avalanche of rock and +timbers, a horse plunged headlong into the refuge. +</P> + +<P> +In the narrow quarters so amazingly invaded, darkness added to an +instant of frantic confusion. Laramie was knocked flat. In the midst +of the fallen timbers, the horse, mad with terror, struggled to get to +his feet. A suppressed groan betrayed the rider under him. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, where he lay, gun in hand, and Hawk, had but one thought: +their retreat had been discovered and attacked. It was no part of +their defense to reveal their presence by wild shooting. The enemy who +had plunged in on top of them was at their mercy, even though unseen. +He was caught under the horse, and to clap a revolver to his head and +blow the top off was simple; it could be done at any moment. Of much +greater import it was, carefully to await his companions when they rode +up, above, and pick them off as chance offered. Escape, if the raiding +party were properly organized, both men knew was for them +impossible—and they knew that Harry Van Horn organized well. The +alternative was to sell their lives as dearly as possible. +</P> + +<P> +This was by no means a terrifying conclusion to men inured to affray. +And for the moment, at feast, the situation was in their hands, not in +the enemies'. +</P> + +<P> +A deluge of wind and rain swept through the broken roof. Laramie, +stretching one arm through the debris, felt the shoulder of the rider, +flung in the violence of the fall close to him. +</P> + +<P> +The prostrate horse renewed his struggles to get to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, exposed to the pouring rain, covered with mud, bruised by +broken rock still rolling down the open crater, and caught among rotten +timbers, struggled to right himself before his enemy should do so. He +raised himself by a violent effort to his elbow, freed his pistol arm +and reaching over, pushed his cocked revolver into the side of the +fallen horseman. +</P> + +<P> +A bolt of lightning shot across the crater, leaving behind it an inky +blackness of rain and wind. The sudden onslaught from overhead might +well have confused his senses; but he had seen the lightning sweep +across a white, drawn face turned toward the angry sky—and in the +flash he had caught the features of Kate Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +Stunned though he was by the revelation, he knew his senses had not +tricked him. There was in his memory but one such riding cap as that +which shaded her closed eyes; for him, but one such coil of woman's +hair as that falling now in disarray on her neck. Completely unnerved, +he carefully drew away his revolver, averted the muzzle and spoke +angrily through the dark: "Who's here with you?" +</P> + +<P> +There was no answer. He asked the question sternly again, listening +keenly the while for sounds of other riders above. Had she discovered +the retreat and led to it his enemies? Could it be possible that even +they would allow her with them on such an errand and on such a night? +</P> + +<P> +He called her name. The roar of the canyon answered above the storm; +there was no sound else. Once more he stretched out his arm. His hand +rested on her breast and he was doubly sure his senses had not tricked +him. But she might be dying or dead. The fear struck home that she +was dead. Then her bosom rose in a hardly perceptible respiration. +</P> + +<P> +A storm of emotion swept Laramie. He squirmed under the debris that +pinned him and got nearer to her. He listened still for sounds of an +enemy, of those who must be with her—where could they be? The +delicate breathing under his heavy hand came more regularly. Then a +moan of pain checked and, again, released it. +</P> + +<P> +Feeling slowly in the stormy dark for obstructions that might have +caught her, Laramie freed one of her feet caught in the stirrup and by +pushing and lifting at the shoulder of the horse succeeded after much +exertion in freeing her other foot, caught under it. He felt his way +back to Kate's head and getting on his feet placed his hands under her +shoulders to draw her toward him. +</P> + +<P> +As he did so, a sharp question of fear and confusion was flung at him: +"Where am I? Who are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you?" echoed Laramie, pulling her away from the horse which +had begun to struggle again. "Who's here with you?" he demanded. +There was no answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's here with you?" he repeated sternly. "Tell me the truth." +</P> + +<P> +"I've lost my way. Where am I? Who are you?" +</P> + +<P> +The truth in her manner was plain. Incredible as it seemed that she +could have strayed so far, all apprehension of an attack vanished with +her questions. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a long way from home," he said, shortly. +</P> + +<P> +She made no reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Your horse took a header. You fainted. I suppose"—he hardly +hesitated in his words—"you know who is talking to you?" +</P> + +<P> +In her silence he heard his answer. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A GUEST FOR AN HOUR +</H3> + +<P> +"Can you stand on your feet?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Supporting her as she made the trial he felt his way from where the +horse had plunged through to where he found a partial seat for her. +"Are you much hurt?" he asked again. +</P> + +<P> +She could not, if she would, have told in how many places she was +broken and bruised. All she was sharply conscious of was a pain in one +foot so intense as to deaden all other pain. It was the foot that had +been caught under the horse. "I think I'm all right," she murmured, in +a constrained tone and, in her manner, briefly. "How did you find me +here?" she asked, almost resentfully. "Where am I?" +</P> + +<P> +He knew from her words she had neither headed nor followed any +expedition against him but he did not answer her question: "I'll see +whether I can get the horse up." +</P> + +<P> +While he worked with the horse—and once during the long, hard effort +she heard between thunder claps a sharp expletive—Kate tried to +collect in some degree her scattered and reeling senses. What quieted +her most was that her long and fear-stricken groping for hours in the +storm and darkness seemed done now. Without realizing it she was +willingly turning her fears and troubles over to another—and to one +who, though she stubbornly refused to regard him as a friend, she well +knew was able to shoulder them. She heard the kicking and pawing of +the horse, then with new dismay, the low voices of two men; and next in +the terrifying darkness, more kicking, more suppressed expletives, more +heaving and pulling, and between lightning flashes, quieting words to +the horse. The two men had gotten the frightened beast to his feet. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie groped back to Kate. He had to touch her with his hand to be +sure he had found her: "I'm taking you at your word," he said, above +the confusion of the storm. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"That you're alone and don't know where you are." +</P> + +<P> +"I am alone. I wish I might know where I am." +</P> + +<P> +Both spoke under constraint: "It's more important to know how to get +home," he replied, ignoring the request in her words. "Your horse is +here for the night—that's pretty certain," he declared, as a sheet of +rain swept over the crater. "I've got a horse near by and we'll start +for where we can get more horses." +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing Kate could say or do. She already had made up her +mind to submit in silence to what Laramie might suggest or impose. One +thing only she was resolved on; that whatever happened there should be +no appeal on her part. +</P> + +<P> +His first thought was to get her out of the pit by the way she had +plunged in. A moment's reflection convinced him that such a precaution +was unnecessary. When he asked her to follow him he held her wet +gloved hand in his hand. "Look out for your footing till we get to the +horse," was his warning. "The way we're going, we should never make +but one slip. Take your time," he added, as she stepped cautiously +after him out into the drive of wind and rain. "It's only about twenty +steps." +</P> + +<P> +In obeying orders she gave him nothing to complain of, but there was +little relaxing of the tension between the two. Every step she took on +her injured foot was torture, made keener by the uncertain footing. +More than once, even despite the dangers of her situation, she thought +she must cry out or faint in agony. The twenty steps along the steep +face of the canyon, pelted by rain, were like two hundred. Kate made +them without a whimper. Thence she followed him slowly between rocky +walls guarding the nearly level floor of the widening ledge, till they +reached the horse. She stumbled at times with pain; but if it were to +kill her she would not speak. +</P> + +<P> +Hawk had followed the two from the abutment. He joined them now. Kate +was only aware that a second man had come up and was moving silently +near them. Laramie spoke to him—she could not catch what he +said—then helped her into the saddle. "I'm going to the house again," +he said, "this man will stay with you. I'll be back in a moment." +</P> + +<P> +Little as she liked being left with another, she could not object. The +rocky wall saved her partly from the storm and as to the other man she +was only vaguely conscious at intervals of a shapeless form outlined +beside the horse. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie was gone more than a moment but under Kate's shelter nothing +happened. The horse, subdued by storm and weariness, stood like a +statue. Uneasy with pain, Kate was very nervous. New sounds were +borne on the wind from the darkness; then she heard Laramie's voice; +and then a rough question from another voice: "How the hell did you get +him out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Walked him out," was the response. Laramie had brought back her own +horse. "Get on him," added Laramie, speaking to the other man. "I'll +lead my horse—he's sure-footed for her. You know the way down." +</P> + +<P> +Kate made only one effort as the man she knew must be Laramie came to +the head of the horse she was on, patted his wet neck and took hold of +the bridle. She leaned forward in the saddle: "I'll try again to get +home if you'll help me get out of here." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm helping you get out," was the reply. "If you knew where you were, +you wouldn't talk yet about trying for home." He stepped closer to the +saddle, tested the cinches and spoke to Kate: "It's a hard ride. You +can make it by letting the horse strictly alone. I'll lead him but he +won't stand two bosses in this kind of a mess, over the only trail that +leads from here. How you ever got in, God only knows, and He won't +tell—leastways, not tonight. Sit tight. Don't get scared no matter +what happens. If the horse should break a leg all we can do is to +shoot him and you can try your own horse; but your horse is all in now." +</P> + +<P> +To ride at night a mile in the chilling blackness of a mountain storm +is to ride five. To face a buffeting wind and a sweep of heavy rain +mile after mile and keep a saddle while a horse pauses, halts, starts +and staggers, rights himself, gropes painfully for an uncertain +foothold among rocks where a bighorn must pick his way, is to test the +endurance even of a man. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, moving unseen and almost unheard in the inky blackness, +piloted the nervous beast with an uncanny instinct, past the dangers on +every hand. He guided himself with his feet and by his hands, halting +on the edge of crevices and heading them with the horse at his +shoulder, feeling his way around slopes of fallen rock and clambering +across them when they could not be escaped, holding the lines at their +length ahead of the horse and speaking low and reassuringly to urge him +on: waiting sometimes for a considerable period for a flash of +lightning to give him his bearings anew. +</P> + +<P> +Kate could see in each of these blinding intervals his figure. Each +flash outlined it sharply on her retina—always the same—patient, +resourceful, silent and unwearied. The man who had been directed to +ride her own horse she never caught sight of. When they reached open +country and better going her guide did not break the silence. He spoke +only when at last he stopped the horse and stood in the darkness close +to her knee: +</P> + +<P> +"This brings us to the end of our trail—for awhile. We're in front of +my cabin. Of course, it's small. And I've been thinking what I ought +to say to you about things as you'll find them here. The man that rode +behind us and passed us on your horse is Abe Hawk. You know what they +call him over at your place; you know what they call me for taking his +part—you know what you called me." +</P> + +<P> +She repressed an exclamation. When she tried to speak, he spoke on, +ignoring her. "Never mind," he said, in the same low, even tone that +silenced her protest, "I'm not starting any argument but it's time for +plain speaking and I'm going to tell you just what has happened +tonight, so, for once, anyway, we'll understand each other—I'm going +to show my cards.", +</P> + +<P> +The chilling sheets of rain that swept their faces did not hasten his +utterance: "When you get home and tell your story, your men will know +it was Abe Hawk you ran into whether you knew it or not. They'll ask +you all about his hiding place and you'll tell them all you know—which +won't be much. I don't complain of all that—it's war; and part of the +game. All I'll ask you not to say is, that I brought Abe Hawk with you +to my cabin. Abe won't be here when they come—it isn't that. We can +take care of ourselves. I'm speaking only because I don't want my +place burned. It isn't much but I think a good deal of it. Burning it +won't help get rid of me. It will only make things in this country +worse than they are now—and they're bad enough. I wouldn't have +brought you here if there'd been any other place to take you. There +wasn't; and for awhile you'll have to make partners with the two men +your father and his friends are trying to get killed." +</P> + +<P> +She almost cried out a protest: "How can you say such a thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just the plain fact, that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it fair because you are enemies to accuse my father in such a way?" +</P> + +<P> +"Have it as you want it but get my view of it with the one you get over +at your place. And if you'll climb down we'll go under cover." +</P> + +<P> +"Now may I say something?" +</P> + +<P> +"No more than fair you should." +</P> + +<P> +She spoke low but fast and distinctly; nor was there any note of fear +or apology in her words: "You must put a low estimate on a woman if you +would expect her to go home with tales from the camp of an enemy that +had put her again on her road. It may be that is the kind of woman you +know best——" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie tried to interrupt. +</P> + +<P> +"I've not done," she protested instantly. "You said I might say +something: It may be that is the kind of woman you understand best. +But I won't be classed with such—not even by you. If you've saved me +from great danger it doesn't give you the right to insult me by telling +me you expect me to be a tale-bearer. It isn't manly or fair to treat +me in that way." +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't expect too much from a thief." +</P> + +<P> +"You shame yourself, not me, when you use a word I never in my life, +not even in anger, ever used of you." +</P> + +<P> +"You shame your friends when you call me or think of me as anything +else. I'm no match for you——" +</P> + +<P> +"I've not done——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm no match for you, I know, in fine words—or in any other kind of a +game—don't think I don't know that; but by——" he checked himself +just in time, "thief or no thief, you've had a square deal from me +every turn of the road." +</P> + +<P> +Bitter with anger, he blurted out the words with vehemence. If he +looked for a quick retort, none came. Kate for an instant waited: +"Should you wish me," she asked, "to look for anything else at your +hands?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we're not holding up this rain any by talking," he returned +gruffly. "Get down and we'll get inside. You can stay here till +morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just put me on the road for home and let me be going." +</P> + +<P> +"This is my cabin. I told you that." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't <I>stay</I> here." +</P> + +<P> +"This is my cabin. I'm responsible for the safety of everyone that +steps under my roof." +</P> + +<P> +"I know, but I must go home. They have most likely been searching the +trails for me. Father would telephone"—she was desperate for +excuses—"to Belle and learn I'd started home—and the storm——" +</P> + +<P> +He did not hesitate to cut her off: "Afraid of me, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +The contempt and resentment in his words stirred her. Without +answering she sprang as well as she could in her wet habit from the +saddle and faced him, close enough almost to see into his eyes in the +darkness. From the fireplace inside a gleam of light, from the blaze +that Hawk had started, piercing the tiny window sash shot across her +face: "Does this look like it?" she demanded, her eyes seeking his. He +was stubborn. "Answer me!" she exclaimed in a tone of a dictator. +</P> + +<P> +"Then why don't you do what I ask you to do instead of giving me a +story about Barb Doubleday telephoning?" he demanded. She winced at +her mistake in urging an impossible thing. She felt when she made it, +Laramie would not credit so wild an assertion. Her father would not +take the trouble to telephone to save even a bunch of his steers from a +storm, much less his daughter. "But there may be others over there," +Laramie added grimly, "that would." +</P> + +<P> +The reference to the man he hated—Van Horn—was too plain to be passed +over. "Now," she returned, as if to close—and standing her ground as +she spoke, "have you said all the mean things you can think of?" +</P> + +<P> +He evaded her thrust. "The wires are down a night like this, anyway," +he objected. "If you'd be as honest with me as I am with you we'd get +along without saying mean things." +</P> + +<P> +"I am honest with you. Can't you see that a woman can't always be as +open in what she says as a man?" +</P> + +<P> +"What do I know about a woman?" +</P> + +<P> +"But since you make everything hard for me I shall be open with you." +</P> + +<P> +"Come inside then and say it." +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't be any wetter than I am and if I've got to say this to one +man I won't say it to two: You ask me to stay all night in your cabin +as it I were a small boy—instead of what I am." +</P> + +<P> +"You could take all the shooting irons on the place into your own room +with you." +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't need to. But what would people say of me when they heard +of it? That I had stayed here all night! You know what they can do to +a woman's reputation in this country—you know how some evil tongues +talk about Belle. I would like to keep at least my reputation out of +this bitter war that is going on—can't you, won't you, understand?" +</P> + +<P> +He was silent a moment. "Come in to the fire, then," he said at +length, "and we'll see what we can do. You've been on the wrong road +all night. There's no need of any secrets now on anybody's part, I +guess. But I'd rather turn you over to ten thousand devils than to the +man you're going back to tonight." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely," she gasped, "you don't mean my own father?" +</P> + +<P> +"You know the man I mean," was all he answered. Then he threw open the +cabin door and stood waiting for her to pass within. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CRAZY WOMAN WINS +</H3> + +<P> +It would have been idle for Laramie to deny to himself, as she stepped +without hesitation under his roof, that he loved her; or that he could +step in after her and close his door for her and for him—even for an +hour—against the storm and the world, without a thrill deeper than he +had ever felt. +</P> + +<P> +He leaned his rifle against the cabin wall; a blanket had been hung +completely over the window and he let down two heavy bars across the +door. Kate, in front of the fire, followed him with her eyes. "Don't +mind this," he said, noticing her look. "The place is watched a good +deal. I couldn't afford too much of a surprise any time." +</P> + +<P> +While he was searching for a lamp, her eyes ran quickly over the dark +interior, lighted fitfully as the driftwood, snapping on the stone +hearth, flared at times into a blaze. Kate herself, despite the doubts +and fears of her situation, was conscious of a strange feeling in being +under Laramie's roof—at one with him in so far as he could make her +feel so. Like a roll of fleeting film, strange pictures flashed across +her mind and she could not help thinking more and more about the man +and his stubborn isolation. +</P> + +<P> +He had taken off his coat and was trying to light the lamp. She looked +narrowly at the face illumined by the spluttering flare of the wick as +he stood over it, looking down and adjusting the flame; he seemed, she +was thinking—for her at least—so easy to get along with—for everyone +else, so hard. +</P> + +<P> +A pounding at the door gave her a start. Hawk was returning from the +barn where he had taken the horses. Laramie showed no surprise and +walked over to lift the double bar only after he had got the lamp to +burn to suit him. She felt startled again when Laramie in the simplest +way made the formidable outlaw, who now walked in, known to her. The +picture of him as he swung roughly inside from the wild night was +unforgettable. Erect and with his piercing eyes hollowed by illness, +his impassive features made slender by suffering and framed by the +striking beard, Hawk seemed to Kate to confirm in his appearance every +fantastic story she had ever heard of him. +</P> + +<P> +Not till after Laramie had urged him and Kate herself had joined in the +plea, would he come near her or near to the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"A wet night and a blind trail do pretty well at mixing things up," +observed Laramie. "However, we needn't make any further secrets. Abe, +here, has got it in his mind to head for a hospital tonight. You," he +looked at Kate, "are heading for home. I don't like either scheme very +much but I'm an innocent bystander. We'll ride three together till the +trails fork. Then," he spoke again to Kate, "we'll put you on a sure +trail for the ranch, and the two of us will head into town. It isn't +the way I planned, but it's one way out." +</P> + +<P> +"The sooner we get started the better," said Hawk, curtly. The two men +discussed for a moment the trip; then Laramie and Hawk left the house +for the barn and corral to get up horses. Before leaving, Laramie +showed Kate how to drop the bars and cautioned her not to neglect to +secure the door. "Some of this bunch Van Horn has got out wouldn't be +very agreeable company." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely they wouldn't harm me!" +</P> + +<P> +"It would mean a nasty fight for us when we bring up the horses." +</P> + +<P> +Kate secured the door. Wet and uncomfortable but undismayed by the +various turns of her predicament she sat down to study the fire. Her +eyes wandered through the gloom to the dark corners of the rough room +and over the crude furnishings. +</P> + +<P> +The long, slender snowshoes on the wall, the big beaded moccasins with +them, the coiled lariats hung on the pegs in company with old spurs; +the bunk in the corner strewn with Indian blankets from the far-off +Spanish country, and overflowing with the skin of a grizzly—all +brought to mind and reflected an active life. The firelight glinted +the bright, bluish barrels of the rifles on the rack, to Kate, almost +sinisterly, for some of them must suggest a side of Laramie's life she +disliked to dwell on—yet she allowed herself to wonder which rifle he +took when he armed not for elk or grizzlies but for men. And then at +the side of the fireplace she saw fastened on the rough wall a faded +card photograph of a young woman—almost a girl. It was simply +framed—Kate wondered whether it might be his mother. Over the crude +wooden frame was hung an old rosary, the crucifix depending from the +picture. The beads were black and worn by use as if they had slipped +many times through girlish fingers. +</P> + +<P> +She had a long time to let her thoughts run. The two men were not soon +back and she was beginning to wonder what might have happened, when, +standing at the door to listen, she heard noises outside and Laramie's +voice. She let him in at once. "You didn't have the door barred," he +said, suspiciously. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, but I heard you speak." +</P> + +<P> +He was alone. "We're ready," he said. "No dry clothes for you, but we +can't help it." +</P> + +<P> +She protested she did not mind the wet. Hawk in the saddle was waiting +with their horses. Rain was still falling and with the persistent +certainty of a mountain storm. Kate, mounting with Laramie's help, got +her lines into her hands. "It's pretty dark," he said, standing at her +stirrup. "We'll have to ride slow. I go first, Hawk next, then you; +if our horses can make the trail yours likely can. I don't think we'll +meet anybody, but if we do it's better to know now what to do. If you +hear any talk that sounds like trouble, push out of the line as quick +as you can and throw yourself flat on the ground. Stay there till you +don't hear any more shooting, but hang on to your lines so you don't +lose your horse. +</P> + +<P> +"The only other trouble might be your getting lost from us." He spoke +slowly as if thinking. "That must depend a good deal on you. Keep as +close as you can. Can you whistle?" Kate thought she could. "If you +can't make us hear," he continued, "shoot—have you got a pistol?" She +had none. He brought her a double action revolver from the cabin and +showed her how it worked. "Don't use it unless you have to. It might +be heard by more than us." +</P> + +<P> +Kate stuck the revolver under her wet belt. "Why couldn't I ride with +you?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"There's more danger riding ahead." +</P> + +<P> +"No more for me than for you." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't say that. But if you want to try it, all right. Keep +close. Don't be afraid of bumping me—and Hawk can follow us." +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing in the night to encourage heading into it. That men +could find their way with every possibility of landmark and sight +blotted out and nothing of sound above the downpour except the +tumultuous roar of the Turkey which they were following, was to Kate a +mystery of mysteries. Even the lightning soon deserted them. Their +pace was halted by washouts, obstructed by debris in the trail. In +places, the creek running bank-full, backed up over their path. +</P> + +<P> +At times, Laramie halting his companions, rode slowly ahead, sounding +out the overflows and choosing the footing. Where streamlets poured +over rock outcroppings the horses slipped. Frequently to get his +bearings, Laramie felt his way forward by reaching for trees and +scraped his knees against them as he pushed his horse close. And in +spite of everything to confuse, intimidate and hold them back, they +slipped and floundered on their way, until quite suddenly a new roar +from out of the impenetrable dark struck their ears. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie halted their party, and the three in silence, listened. +"That," said Laramie, after a moment, to Hawk, "sounds like the Crazy +Woman." +</P> + +<P> +He went ahead to investigate. He was gone a long time, yet he groped +half a mile down the road and made his way back to his companions +without a signal. He was on foot. "We're all right," was the report +he brought, "it's a little dryer ahead. While I'm down," he said to +Kate, "I'll try your cinches. It's a mean night." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you ever see such a night?" she echoed, shuddering. +</P> + +<P> +"Plenty of 'em," returned Laramie. "Once we cross the creek the going +will be better." +</P> + +<P> +Of the going between them and the creek, Laramie prudently said +nothing. It was the worst of the journey. Two stretches were filled +with backwater. Across these they cautiously waded and swam the +horses. When they gained high ground adjoining the creek, Kate +breathed more freely. There was a halt for reconnaissance. For this, +Laramie and Hawk, after placing Kate where she would be safe whether +they should come back or not, went forward together. +</P> + +<P> +The splashing and floundering of their horses as the two left her side, +was gradually lost in the roar of the night and she was alone in the +darkness. They were gone a good while but Kate had enough of confused +and conflicting thought to occupy her reflections. After a long +interval the report of a Colt's struck her anxious ear. She swallowed +in sudden fear to listen more keenly. If there were a fight it would +be followed by another report and more. With her heart beating fast +she listened, but there was no successor to the single shot and, +calming somewhat, she speculated on just what it might mean. Again she +waited with such patience as she could until the measured splash of a +horse's feet nearing her through the shallow water announced someone's +approach. Laramie was back and alone. +</P> + +<P> +Almost anybody in the world would have been welcome at such a juncture. +He called and she answered quickly, but he brought unwelcome news—the +little bridge that spanned the creek at this point was out. +</P> + +<P> +"We can't get across, can we?" she exclaimed in disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +"We can swim the creek if you're game for it." +</P> + +<P> +"Could we possibly get across?" +</P> + +<P> +"If I didn't expect to get across I'd sure never try it. It'll be a +wet crossing." +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't be wetter." +</P> + +<P> +"Hawk asked if you could swim." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't." +</P> + +<P> +"I told him I didn't suppose you could." +</P> + +<P> +"Are we all to go together?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's over now. He signaled a minute ago. I told him I'd get you +across if he'd get you out. It's close to daybreak. Better take off +your coat." +</P> + +<P> +While he strapped her coat to the saddle, she lightened and freed +herself as much as possible, disengaged, as he directed, her feet from +the stirrups, and they started for the creek. At the point he had +chosen for the plunge, he gave her a few admonitions, chiefly to the +effect of doing nothing except to cling to her seat in getting into the +flood and getting out. Just as her horse poised beside Laramie's a +wave of dread swept over her. It was very literally a plunge into the +dark. "Are you afraid?" he asked, divining her feeling. +</P> + +<P> +Pride dictated her answer: "No," she said stoutly. "Though, of +course," she added with an attempt at lightness, "I'd prefer to cross +on a bridge." +</P> + +<P> +"All in getting used to it, I suppose. I guess I've crossed here a +hundred times before there was any bridge. Don't get scared if your +head goes under water when your horse jumps in. The bank here is a +little high, but it's clean jumping. Say when you're ready." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm ready." +</P> + +<P> +"Go!" +</P> + +<P> +With his hand on her bridle, he spoke loudly and sharply, kicked her +horse with one foot and punched his own horse with the other at the +same time. The next instant, gripped by an overpowering fear, and +breathless, Kate felt herself jerked into the air, then she plunged +headlong forward and sank into the boiling flood. Down, down she went, +her ears swooning with water, mouth and eyes tight shut, and moving she +knew not where or how until her head rose out of the flood and a voice +yelled above the tumult: "You're all right! Horse's doing fine. Hang +on!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she was conscious of a hand clutching her upper arm, a hand so +strong her flesh winced within its grip. And she could feel the +powerful strokes of her horse as he panted and swam under her. +</P> + +<P> +Above the terrifying swirl of the waters, carrying in the hardly +distinguishable light of the breaking day, a mass of debris that swept +about the two riders, the only sound was the hard breathing of the +horses and a shout repeated by Laramie, until at last it was answered +by Hawk somewhere in the darkness ahead. +</P> + +<P> +Urging the horses to their task, Laramie guided them to where Kate +could make out portions of the creek bank. She could realize how fast +they were being carried down stream by the wild sweep of the current. +Trees flashed past her like phantoms, as if the bank were mad instead +of the creek. It seemed impossible she could ever make the bank, now +very near, and get up out of the water; only Laramie's hand locked firm +now in her horse's mane, his strong voice as he urged the horses or +called to Hawk, gave her the slightest hope of coming out alive. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie cried to her to duck as a cottonwood leaning over the water +almost tore her cap and hair from her head. The next instant the +cottonwood was gone and, looking ahead, she saw a horseman on a slope +in the bank, his own horse half submerged. They had reached one of +several old fords. Here the two men had purposed to get Kate ashore. +But she did not know that this was the last of the ford crossings for a +mile—the only shelving bank—nor why Laramie made such superhuman +efforts to head her horse toward Hawk, to get to where the horse could +ground his feet. Hawk, in an effort to catch Kate's bridle, spurred +down to them till his own horse was afloat. Kate's horse struggled +desperately, lost headway and was swept below the ford opening. The +two men with shouts, curses and entreaties, guiding their own horses, +urged the hapless beast to greater effort; it was evident he could not +reach the ford. +</P> + +<P> +"The roan can't make it," shouted Hawk. "Crowd him up to the ledge +where I can get hold of her." +</P> + +<P> +Hawk, reining his horse hastily about, got him back up the shelving +ford, spurred down the bank to where Kate, despite Laramie's efforts, +was being driven by the sweep of the water and sprang from his horse. +Where Kate's horse struggled at that moment the creek bank rose +vertically above the peak of the flood. Deep water gave the horse no +chance for a foothold and it swam helplessly. Hawk, running along the +ledge, awaited his chance. It came at a moment that Laramie succeeded +in crowding the roan to the bank. Hawk saw the opportunity and held +his hand out to Kate: +</P> + +<P> +"Reach up!" he shouted. +</P> + +<P> +"Give him both hands!" cried Laramie, punching and pushing her horse +against the bank. As Kate swept along, her hands upstretched, Hawk +caught her wrists and, bracing himself in the slipping earth, dragged +her up and out of the saddle. The roan, with Laramie's hand on his +bridle, swept on downstream. The clay bank, under the strain of the +double load, gave under Hawk's feet. But without releasing Kate's +hands he threw himself flat and, matching his dead weight against the +chance of being dragged in, caught her with one arm and flung the other +backward into the dark. A clump of willow shoots clutched in his +sinewy fingers gave him a stay and, putting forth all his strength, he +drew Kate slowly up. She scrambled across his prostrate body to safety. +</P> + +<P> +The force of the gnawing current had already undercut the soft clay. +The next instant the whole bank began to sink. Hawk shouted to Kate to +run. She saw him struggling in the crumbling earth. Crying out in her +excitement she stretched her hands toward him. He waved her back. As +he did so, a great section of the bank on which he was struggling +broke, and in the big, soft splash, Hawk went into the creek. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +KATE DEFIES +</H3> + +<P> +The instant he saw Kate in Hawk's keeping, Laramie rode down with the +flood, looking sharply for a chance to get out the two horses; when +finally he did get them ashore he was spent. Leading Kate's horse, he +made his way up-creek through the willows to where she should be with +Hawk. +</P> + +<P> +Hawk's horse he found browsing in the heavy wet grass at the old ford. +Neither Kate nor Hawk were in sight. Laramie walked down to the +water's edge where Hawk had pulled her out. Familiar with the meander +of the bank below the ford, he saw what had happened. The bank, +under-cut, had been swallowed by the flood. Laramie ran down stream +and came suddenly on Kate standing alone on a rock jutting out above +the torrent. +</P> + +<P> +In the uncertain light of the gray morning he saw her anxious face. +She explained what had happened. Laramie showed no alarm. "I guess +Abe will handle himself," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't we do anything to help him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll put you on your trail, then I'll ride down the creek and look for +him. He'll make it if his strength doesn't give out." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie took Kate up the creek and, riding through the hills, brought +her, unexpectedly, out on a trail within sight of her father's +ranch-house hardly three miles away. He pointed to a break heading +from the creek. "You can follow that draw almost to the house," he +explained. Then, reining about, he wheeled his horse to take the back +trail. "Are you going to run away without giving me a chance to thank +you?" she exclaimed, with a feminine touch of surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a gate near the head of the draw where you can get through the +wire," he rejoined stubbornly. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't see how I can ever repay you for what you've done tonight," +she persisted. +</P> + +<P> +He was coldly uncompromising. "You needn't bother about any pay, if +that's what you call it." +</P> + +<P> +Skilfully she drew her horse a step closer to him. "What shall I call +it?" she asked innocently, "debt, obligation? I owe you a lot, ever so +much to me—my life." +</P> + +<P> +"I've done no more for you than I've done for less than a human being," +he returned impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure that's so. But human beings," she added, with a touch of +gentle good-nature, "are supposed to have more feeling than cows or +steers, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I never had a cow or a steer call me names," he retorted rudely. +</P> + +<P> +"If you weren't a human being you wouldn't mind being called names; you +wouldn't be so angry with me, either." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not angry," he said resentfully. His very helplessness in her +hands pricked her conscience at the moment that it restored her +supremacy. His strength might menace others—she at least had nothing +to fear from it. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know," she exclaimed, shaking off for the moment all restraint, +"what I'd like to do?" +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her surprised. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to ride back this minute with you and help find Abe Hawk. I +know I mustn't," she went on as he listened. "But I'd like to," she +persisted hurriedly. And then, afraid of herself more than of him, she +repressed a quick "good-by" and, without giving him time to answer, +galloped away. +</P> + +<P> +She reached the ranch-house without further difficulty. No one was +stirring. She stopped at the corral and turned in her horse and, +walking awkwardly on her swollen ankle to the kitchen, built a fire, +warmed herself as best she could and went to her room. By the time her +father was stirring, Kate, under her coverlets, quite exhausted, was +fast asleep. +</P> + +<P> +It was broad day when she woke. Through an open window, she saw sullen +gray clouds still rolling down from the northwest, but between them the +sun shot out at ragged intervals—the storm had broken. Walking +gingerly from her room, on her lame foot, she found the house empty. +Her father, Kelly told her, had gone out early, and she sat down to a +late breakfast glad to be undisturbed in her thoughts. Her mind was +still in a confusion of opinions; some, long-cherished being crowded, +so to say, to the wall; others, more than once rejected, growing +bolder. It was in this mental condition that her seclusion was invaded +by Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +He swept off his hat with a show of spirits. "Just heard you'd got +home." He sat down with her at the table. "Everybody thought you +stayed in town last night. Got lost, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate raised her coffee cup non-committally. "For awhile," she murmured +between sips. +</P> + +<P> +"What time did you get here?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was so glad to get to bed I never looked at my watch." Again she +regarded him, quite innocently, over the rim of her cup. "Did anybody +lose any stock?" +</P> + +<P> +He did not abandon his inquisition willingly, but each time he asked a +question, Kate parried and asked one in turn. He gave up without +having gained any information she meant to withhold. +</P> + +<P> +It was not hard to keep him in good humor; indeed, it was rather too +easy. He pushed back his chair, crossed his legs, talked of a strong +cattle market for the fall and spoke of Hawk and the hunt he was +keeping up for him. "They had a story around—or some of the boys had +the idea—that his friends would pick a wet night like last night to +take him into town." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he still in the country?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure he is. Say, Kate," he changed his attitude as lightly as he did +his subject—uncrossed his legs, squared himself in his chair and threw +his elbows on the table. +</P> + +<P> +She met the new disposition with a tone of prudent reserve: "What is +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"When are you going to do something for a lonesome old scout?" he asked +bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +With as little concern as possible, she put down her knife and fork, +and, with her hands seeking her napkin, looked at him. "What do you +mean?" she returned collectedly, "by 'doing something'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Marry me." +</P> + +<P> +"Never." +</P> + +<P> +The passage was disconcertingly quick. Van Horn, thrown quite aback, +remonstrated. His discomfiture was so undisguised that Kate was +embarrassed. The next moment he was very angry. "If that's the case," +he blurted out, "what's the use o' my sticking around here fighting +your battles?" +</P> + +<P> +"You're not fighting my battles." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe you don't call 'em your father's, either," he exclaimed +scornfully. +</P> + +<P> +"They're your own battles," declared Kate. "You know that as well as I +do." +</P> + +<P> +"All the same, your father gets the benefit of them," he continued +hotly. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish to heaven he had kept out of them." +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn eyed her sharply. His face reflected his sarcasm. "Of +course, you needn't worry," he grinned, with implication. "They +wouldn't steal your horse even if you do always leave it in Kitchen's +barn; the Falling Wall bunch think too much of you for that." +</P> + +<P> +Surprised as she was at this outbreak, Kate kept her head. "There are +some of the rustlers I'd trust as far as I would some of the raiders," +she rejoined coolly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you say Jim Laramie," he exclaimed harshly. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim Laramie," she returned defiantly, "is not the only one." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll be the 'only one' after our next clean-up in the Falling Wall. +And he won't be 'one' if he doesn't change his tune." +</P> + +<P> +Kate's eyes were snapping fire. "Take care that next time the Falling +Wall doesn't clean you up," she said bitingly. +</P> + +<P> +He snorted. "I mean it," she exclaimed. "Next time you'll need to +look out for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +He bolted from his chair. "That's the first time I ever heard anybody +on this ranch take sides with the men that's robbing it—or carry a +threat to this ranchhouse for rustlers." +</P> + +<P> +"Call it whatever you please, you won't change my opinion of you. But, +of course, I'm only a woman and don't know anything." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm thinking you know a whole lot more than you let on," he declared. +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway, I wish you'd leave this ranch out of the rest of it. If you +keep on 'cleaning up,' as you call it, you'll go farther and fare +worse." +</P> + +<P> +He brought down his fist. "Not until I've cleaned out two more pups, +anyway! Now, look here, Kate," he went on, "you may be fooling about +this marrying, but you can bet I'm not." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you can bet <I>I'm</I> not," she returned, echoing his pert slang +sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's the man?" He flung the question at her point-blank. +</P> + +<P> +If she flushed the least bit it was with anger at his rudeness. "There +isn't any man, and there isn't going to be any—so please never talk +again about my marrying you or anybody else." +</P> + +<P> +She rose and left the table. He jumped to intercept her and tried to +catch her hands. She let him see she was not in the least afraid and +as he confronted her, she faced him without a tremor. "Let me pass!" +She fairly snapped out the words. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn, without moving, broke into a boisterous laugh. Kelly walked +in just then from the kitchen and Van Horn, losing none of his +malevolence, did stand aside. +</P> + +<P> +"All right," he said, "—this time." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap28"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A DIFFICULT RESOLVE +</H3> + +<P> +For two days Kate burned in feverish reaction from her exposure, +wretched in mind and body. Her only effort in that time was to get +down to the corral and see that Bradley, acting as barn boy, should do +something for her cut and bruised pony. +</P> + +<P> +Her father was still in Medicine Bend, and Van Horn, much to her +relief, had disappeared. When she left her bed she spent the morning +trying to rehabilitate her riding suit. The task called for all her +ingenuity and she was still in the kitchen working on it late in the +afternoon when Bradley came in. +</P> + +<P> +He had no sooner sat down by the door to report to Kate at his ease, +than Kelly interrupted him with a call for wood. Even after he had +filled the box, Kelly warned him he would have to split more next +morning to get a supply ahead. +</P> + +<P> +"Easy, Kelly," remonstrated Bradley, in his deeply tremulous voice. +"Easy. I can't split no wood t'morrow mornin', not for nobody." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Got to go to town." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" +</P> + +<P> +Bradley declined to answer, but Kelly, persistent, bored into his +evasiveness until Kate tired at the discussion: "Tell him what you're +going for and be done with it," she said tartly. The reaction of three +days had not left her own nerves unaffected; she admitted to herself +she was cross. +</P> + +<P> +Bradley, taken aback by this unexpected assault, still tried to +temporize. Kate refused to countenance it. When he saw he was in for +it, he appealed to her generosity: "It'd be most 's much 's my job's +worth if they knew here what I'm goin' to town tomorrow f'r." +</P> + +<P> +"If that's all," said Kate, to reassure the old man, "I'll stand +between you and losing your job." +</P> + +<P> +Bradley drew his stubby chin and shabby beard in and threw his voice +down into his throat: "D' y' mean that? Then don't say nothin', you +and Kelly. Least said, soonest mended. I'm goin' t' town t'morrow t' +see the biggest funeral ever pulled off in Sleepy Cat," he announced +with bleary dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean—whose funeral?" demanded Kate, looking at him +suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"Abe Hawk's. It's goin' t' be t'morrow er next day." +</P> + +<P> +If the old man had meant to stupefy his questioner, he could not better +have succeeded. Kate turned deathly white. She bent over the table +and busied herself with her ironing. Bradley, pleased with his +confidence safely made, talked on. He found a pride in talking to +Kate, with Kelly in and out of the room, and launched into unrestrained +eulogies of the famed rustler, always the friend of the poor man, once +king of the great north range itself. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a pity," murmured Kate, when she felt she must say something, +"that he ever went wrong." +</P> + +<P> +Bradley had a point to offer even on that. "It's a pity they ever +blacklisted him; that was Stone's get-up. And Stone, when I was +sheriff, was the biggest thief in the county an' the county was four +times as big then as it is now—that's 'tween you 'n' me." +</P> + +<P> +"Were you ever sheriff, Bill?" +</P> + +<P> +"You won't believe it, but it's so—dash me 'n' dash drunkards one and +all." +</P> + +<P> +"I hear, though," returned Kate, only because in her distress of mind +she could think of nothing else to say, "that Tom Stone has stopped +drinking." +</P> + +<P> +"That man," was Bradley's retort, and he kept his tremulous voice still +far down in his throat, "is mean enough to do any d—d thing." +</P> + +<P> +"You used to be sheriff?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. And when I was sheriff, Kate, I found out it was better to trust +an honest man turned thief than a thief turned honest man." +</P> + +<P> +Kate, listening to his halting maunderings, hardly heeded them. She +heard in her troubled ears the rush of mad waters; phantom voices +cracked again in pistoled oaths at the horses, the fear of sudden death +clutched at her heart, and in the dreadful dark a powerful arm caught +her again and drew her, helpless, out of an engulfing flood. +</P> + +<P> +She got out of doors. The sunshine, clear and calm, belied the +possibility of a night such as Bradley's words had summoned. "Dead," +she kept saying to herself. Laramie had been sure he would get out of +the creek. What could it mean? +</P> + +<P> +She went back to the kitchen where Bradley, eating supper, had switched +from his long-winded topic. Kate had to question him: "What was the +matter with Abe? When did he die?" she asked, as unconcernedly as she +could. +</P> + +<P> +There was little satisfaction in Bradley's slow, formal answer: "Some's +got it one way and some's got it another, Kate. I can't rightly say +what ailded him or when he died 'n' I guess nobody else can, f'r sure. +Some says he got shot; some says he was drownded 'a' las' Tuesday night +in the Crazy Woman; some says they's been a fight nobody's heard of +yit, 't' all. The only man that knows for sure—if he does know—is +the man that brought him into Sleepy Cat 'n' if he knows he won't +tell." He held out his big enameled cup. "Kelly, gi' me jus' a squirt +o' coffee, will y'?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate, on nettles, waited to hear who had brought Hawk in. Bradley +would not volunteer the name. Some deference was due him as the +purveyor of the big news, and he meant that anyone curious of detail +should do the asking. Kate, realizing this, framed with reluctance the +question he was waiting for: "Who brought Abe in?" +</P> + +<P> +Even so, she knew there would be but one answer. Bradley gulped +another mouthful of scalding coffee and set down his cup. "Jim +Laramie," he answered laconically. +</P> + +<P> +She said to herself that Hawk had never got out of the creek; that he +had drowned miserably in the flood. She tortured herself with +conjecture as to exactly what had happened. And night brought no +relief. Sleepless, she tossed, marveling at how close his death had +come home to her. Every scrap of the meager news added to what she +already knew—pointed to what she most feared. +</P> + +<P> +She lay propped up on her pillows and looked through the open window +out on the glittering stars. Strange constellations passed in +brilliant procession before her eyes. And while she lay thus +reflecting and revolving in her mind the loneliness and unhappiness of +her surroundings, a startling suggestion far removed from these doubts +offered itself to her mind. Repelled at first, it came back as if +demanding acceptance. And not until after she had promised herself she +would consider it, did her thoughts give her any peace. She fell into +an uneasy slumber and woke with day barely breaking; but without an +instant's delay she dressed and slipped from her room out to the barn. +</P> + +<P> +Forehanded as she had been in getting an early start, Bradley was +already stirring. Pail in hand, the old man, standing in front of the +feed bin, stared at Kate speechless as she walked in on him. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's sick?" he demanded after a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody, Bill. I'm going to town with you, that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"With <I>me</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +She half laughed at herself and at his surprise. "I mean, I'm for town +early. Get up a pony for me—Spider Legs will do." +</P> + +<P> +Born of long-forgotten experience in waiting for women, Bill Bradley, +as Kate walked away, put in a caveat: "I'm headin' out jus' soon's I +c'n get breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"I, too, Bill. I'll be across the divide before you are." +</P> + +<P> +Curiosity would not down: "What y' goin' t' town f'r?" he called. +</P> + +<P> +Turning half around, Kate, with a little shrug, paused. She would not +be ungracious: "To pick up a few things," she answered unconcernedly. +</P> + +<P> +Bill, not satisfied, felt obliged to desist. "Startin' airly," was his +only grumble. Had he known what possibilities for that day had lodged +themselves in Kate's mind, he would not have been able to slip Spider +Legs' bridle over his ears. But his business being only to get up the +horse, he discharged it with shaky fidelity and for himself started +with high expectations for town. Had he been given to speculating on +the variableness of woman, he might have found a text in Spider Legs' +standing for hours after he was made ready. And in the end his +mistress unsaddled him and turned him back into the corral. +</P> + +<P> +The truth was, Kate had been seized with cruel fits of doubt and for a +long time could not decide whether she ought to go to town or not. But +as often as she gave up the idea of going, a heart-strong impulse +pleaded against her uneasy restraint. She felt she <I>must</I> go. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap29"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HORSEHEAD PASS +</H3> + +<P> +Bradley had not been able to tell her just when the funeral was set +for. But it surged in Kate's heart that after what Abe Hawk had done +for her, to let the poor, bullet-torn, neglected body be put into the +ground without some effort to pay a tribute of gratitude to the man +that had once animated it, would be on her part fearfully cold. +</P> + +<P> +The difficulties of the situation were many. She feared the anger of +her father, and owed his feelings something as well. But every time +she decided she ought to stay at home, the pricking at her heart grew +keener. In the end, her feelings overrode her restraint. She resolved +at least to go to town. The funeral might have already taken place—it +would be a relief even to learn more about his death. +</P> + +<P> +Late in the afternoon, she got Spider Legs up again, saddled him and, +telling Kelly she might not be back that night, rode away. +</P> + +<P> +It was dark by the time she reached town and leaving her horse with +McAlpin she crossed the street from the barn and walked hurriedly +around the corner to Belle's. The front door stood open and the +red-shaded lamp burned low on the dining-room table. +</P> + +<P> +Tapping on the screen door, Kate, without waiting for Belle to answer, +opened it and went in. There was no light in the living-room and the +portières were drawn. She walked down the hall to the dining-room, +where she laid down her gloves and took off her coat and hat. +Smoothing her hair, she knocked on the door of Belle's room, but got no +answer. Conjecturing that she had gone out on an errand, Kate sat down +in a rocking chair and, taking a newspaper from the table, tried to +read. +</P> + +<P> +Her thoughts soon blurred the print. She read on only to think of what +had brought her so irresistibly to town and to wonder what she should +hear now that she had come. +</P> + +<P> +After some struggle to concentrate, she tossed the paper aside to ask +herself why Belle did not return, and, being tense, began without +realizing it, to rock softly. Her eyes naturally turned to the +familiar lamp. Its somber paper shade threw the light in a circle on +the table, leaving the room in the heavy shadows of its figured +pattern. Kate became all at once conscious of the utter silence, and +impatient for Belle's return, got up and walked through the dark hall +toward the front door. +</P> + +<P> +Passing the living-room portières, she pushed open the screen door and +stepped out on the porch. There she stood for a moment at the top of +the steps looking at the stars. Lights here and there burned in +neighboring cottage windows. No wind stirred. The street and the town +were as still as the night. After some minutes, Kate descended the +steps, opened the gate, leaving it to close with a click behind her, +and walked to the corner of Main Street. It looked dark. The stores +were closed. From the saloon windows spotty lights shot at intervals +across the upper street, but these only made the darkened store fronts +blacker and revealed the nakedness and desertion of the street itself. +Not a man, much less a woman, could she see anywhere moving. +</P> + +<P> +Either the silence, or the night, or her long wait changed her +impatience into a feeling of loneliness. She turned back toward the +cottage gate. She had not noticed before how very dark the side street +was. Reaching the gate she hesitated, pushed it open and then stopped, +conscious of a curious repugnance to entering the house. +</P> + +<P> +Her feeling refused to explain itself. Through the screen she could +see the lamp still burning on the dining-room table. Things appeared +just as she had left them, yet she did not want to go in. But, +dismissing the qualm, she walked up the steps, crossed the narrow +porch, opened the screen door and, stepping inside, closed it after her. +</P> + +<P> +This time that she passed the living-room she noticed the portières +were partly open. Both times she had passed before, she felt sure, +they had been closed. +</P> + +<P> +Kate sat down in the dining-room and looked suspiciously back at the +portières. She was already sorry she had come into the house, for the +silence and her aloneness added to the conviction fast stealing over +her that someone must be in the dark living-room. +</P> + +<P> +Once entertained, the suspicion became insupportable. Her ears were +pitched to a painful intensity of listening and her eyes were fastened +immovably on the motionless curtains. +</P> + +<P> +She carried a ranchwoman's revolver and, putting her hand on it, she +rose, stepped close to the door of Belle's room—into which she could +retreat—and, with one hand on the knob, called sharply toward the +living-room: "Who's there?" +</P> + +<P> +Not a sound answered her. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is in the living-room?" she demanded again. This time, after a +moment's delay, she heard something move in the darkness, then a man's +step and Laramie stood out between the portières. +</P> + +<P> +Except for a fatigued look as he rested one hand on the portière and +the other on his hip, he appeared quite as she had last seen him. "Are +you calling me?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she responded tartly. "Why didn't you answer?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't know who you were speaking to at first. I've been here all +the evening. I didn't know you were in town till I saw your hat on the +table a few minutes ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Belle?" asked Kate, still on edge. +</P> + +<P> +"She went over to Mrs. Kitchen's." +</P> + +<P> +"When will she be back?" +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to take no offense at her peremptory tone. "She said she +wouldn't be gone a great while. But," he added, with his customary +deliberation, "all the same, I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed over +pretty late—or even all night." +</P> + +<P> +This was not just what Kate wanted to hear. "Why didn't you say +something when I first came in?" she asked, her suspicion reflected in +her voice. +</P> + +<P> +He did not seem nonplused but he answered slowly: "I heard someone come +in. I didn't pay much attention, that's about the truth." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you doing in there in the dark?" +</P> + +<P> +He was provokingly deliberate in answering. "You probably haven't +heard about Abe Hawk?" +</P> + +<P> +Her manner changed instantly and her voice sank. "Is it true that he +is dead?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't drown that morning, did he?" she asked eagerly anxious. +"You thought he could get out—what happened?" +</P> + +<P> +"He got out of the creek. But he strained his wounds—they opened. I +wasn't much of a surgeon. I got him to the hospital—he died there. I +had no place to take him then. I wouldn't leave him there alone. +Belle said I might bring him here. I'm spending my last night with +him." +</P> + +<P> +"You're not trying to spare me, are you?" she asked, unsteadily. "He +really did get out of the creek?" +</P> + +<P> +"He did get out." +</P> + +<P> +She spoke again brokenly: "He saved my life." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," remarked Laramie, meditating, "he wouldn't ask anything much +for that. Do you mind if I smoke?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not a bit." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm kind of nervous tonight," he confessed simply. Then he crossed +the room, rested his elbow on the mantelpiece and made ready a +cigarette. "I wonder," he said, "if I could ask you a question?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"You always act kind of queer with me. Why is it? You've never been +the way you were the first day we met. Haven't I always been square +with you?" +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated but she answered honestly: "You always have." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why are you so different?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've made that confession once. I was acting a part that day." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I can't figure it in that way. That day you were acting natural. +Why can't you be like that again." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Mr. Laramie——" +</P> + +<P> +"No—Jim." +</P> + +<P> +"But——" +</P> + +<P> +"Every time you call me Mr. Laramie I'm looking around for a gentleman. +Why can't you be the way you were the first time?" +</P> + +<P> +She realized his eyes were on her, demanding the truth—and his eyes +were uncomfortably steady as she had reason to know. "If I spoke I +should hurt your feelings," she urged, summoning all her courage. "You +know as well as I do that the first time I met you I didn't know who +you were." +</P> + +<P> +He did not seem much disconcerted, except that he tossed away the +unlighted cigarette. "You don't know now," was his only comment. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help knowing what is said about you—you and your friends." +</P> + +<P> +He made an impatient gesture. "That gives you no clue to me." +</P> + +<P> +"What are people to believe when such stories are public property?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only what they know to be true." +</P> + +<P> +"How are they to find out what is true?" +</P> + +<P> +"By going straight to the person most concerned in the stories." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you honestly expect a young woman to go to work and investigate +all the charges against men she hears in Sleepy Cat?" +</P> + +<P> +"We are talking now about the charges against one man—against me. I +want to give you an instance: +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose there's been a good many hard words over your way about my +keeping Abe Hawk out of the hands of your people. Because I did +shelter him—you know how—they've blackened my name here at Sleepy Cat +and down at Medicine Bend. A man doesn't have to approve all another +man does, to befriend him when he's down and a bunch of men—not as +good as he—set out to finish him. I haven't got any apologies to make +to anybody for protecting Abe when he was wounded—and if he wasn't +wounded, no man would talk any kind of protection to him. But you've +been fed up with stories about it—I know that—so," he added grimly, +"I'm going to tell you one story more. +</P> + +<P> +"I grew up in this country when the mining fever was on—everybody +plumb crazy in the rush for the Horsehead Camp in the Falling Wall +country. One winter five hundred men in tents were hanging around +Sleepy Cat waiting for the first thaw, to get up to the camp. That's +when I got acquainted with Abe Hawk. Abe was carrying the mails to the +mines. He hadn't a red cent in the world. My father had just died; I +was a green kid with a pocketful of money. Abe didn't teach me any bad +habits—I didn't need any teacher. One night we were sitting next to +each other, with Harry Tenison dealing faro. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard Abe was going up over the pass to Horsehead with the Christmas +bag. The few miners that got in the fall before had hung up a fat +purse for their Christmas mail and Abe needed the money. He was the +only man with the crazy nerve to try such a thing. And there were +twenty men, with all kinds of money, crowding him to take them along: +to beat the bunch in might mean a million dollar strike to any +tenderfoot in Sleepy Cat. +</P> + +<P> +"Abe wouldn't hear a word of it, not from anybody—and he could talk +back awful rough. He was sure he could make the trip alone. He was +the strongest man in the mountains. I never saw the day I could handle +Abe Hawk. But the pass in December was not a job for any ordinary +mountain man—let alone a bunch of greenhorns. Just the same, I made +my play to go with him. He cursed me as hard as he did anybody and +turned me down. +</P> + +<P> +"One night, after that, I was at Tenison's again. I was losing money. +Hawk was near me. He saw it. I waited for him to come out. I knew +he'd be starting soon and I was desperate. I tackled him pretty +strong. He swore if I talked again about going with him he'd kill me. +Old Bill Bradley ran the livery. My horse was in the same barn with +Abe's and Bill promised to tip me off when Abe was ready to start. He +waited for a blizzard. When it passed he was ready. But I got ahead +of him, out of town, and trailed him—I knew how. Only it snowed +again, as if all hell was against me; I had to close up on Abe or lose +him, but he never saw me till we got so far I couldn't get back; though +he could have dropped me out of the saddle with a bullet, and had the +right to do it. +</P> + +<P> +"When I rode up he only looked at me. If I had been as small as I +felt, he'd never seen me. He ought to have abused me; but he didn't. +He ought to have shot me; but he didn't; or turned me back and that +would have been worse than shooting. But if he'd been my own father he +couldn't have acted different. He just told me to come along." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie paused. He was speaking under a strain: "I didn't understand +it then; but he knew it was too late to quarrel. He knew there was +about one chance in a hundred for him to get through; for me, there was +about one in a hundred thousand—in fact, he knew I <I>couldn't</I> get +through, so he didn't abuse me. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know what the winter snow on the pass is. When it got too +bad for us, he put his horse ahead to break the trail, but he let me +ride mine as far as I could—he knew what was coming. When my horse +quit, he told me to tramp along behind him. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you know about how long a boy's wind would last ten thousand +feet up in the air. I wasn't used to it. I quit." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie drew from his pocket a handkerchief and knotted it nervously in +his fingers: "He told me to get up," he went on. "I did my level best +a way farther. It was no use. I quit again. He was easy with me. +But I couldn't get up and I told him to go on. +</P> + +<P> +"Abe wouldn't go. I couldn't walk another step in that wind and snow +to save my soul from perdition. I just couldn't. And when I tell you +next what I asked of him, then you'll understand how mean a common +tramp like me can be. But I've got past pretty much caring what you +think of me—only I want you to know what <I>I</I> think, and thought, of +Abe Hawk. I did the meanest thing then I ever did in my life—I asked +him to let me ride his horse. It was useless. I offered him all the +money I had. He refused. He didn't just look at me and move on, the +way most men would to save their own skins and leave me to what I +deserved. He stopped and explained that if his horse gave out we were +done—we could never break a trail to the top without the horse. +</P> + +<P> +"It was blowing. He stripped his horse. The mail went into the snow. +I tried again to walk. I didn't get a hundred feet. When I fell down +that time he saw it was my finish. +</P> + +<P> +"He stood a minute in front of me, looking all around before he spoke. +His horse was breathing pretty heavy; the snow blowing pretty bad. +After a while he loosened the quirt from his saddle and looked at me: +'Damn you,' he said, 'you were bound to come. All hell couldn't keep +you back, could it? Now it's come in earnest for you. You're goin' +over the pass with me. Get up out of that snow.' +</P> + +<P> +"I could hear him, but I couldn't move hand or foot. And I never +dreamed what was going to happen till he laid the quirt across my face +like a knife. +</P> + +<P> +"All I ever hoped for was to get up so I could live long enough to kill +him. He gave me that quirt till I was insane with rage; long afterward +he told me my eyes turned green. I cursed him. He asked me whether +I'd get up. I knew, if I didn't, I'd have to take more. I dragged +myself out of the snow again and pitched and struggled after him—to +the top of the pass. +</P> + +<P> +"Then he put me on his pony—we got the wind worse up there. Abe had a +little shack a way down the pass, rigged up for storm trouble. But the +pony quit before we got to the shack, and when the pony fell down, my +hands and feet were no use. Abe carried and dragged and rolled me down +into the shack. I was asleep. There was always a fire left laid in +the stove. Abe had a hard time to light it. But he got it lighted and +when he fell down he laid both hands on the stove—so when they began +to burn it would wake him up; if the fire didn't burn he didn't want to +wake up. The marks of that fire are on his hands right in that room +there now, tonight. He saved my hands and feet. He stayed with me +while I was crazy and got me safe to Horsehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you suppose I could ever live long enough to turn that man, +wounded, over to an enemy? He didn't ask me for any shelter after Van +Horn's raid. All he ever asked me for was cartridges—and he got 'em. +He'd get anything I had, and all I had, as long as there was a breath +left in my body, and he asked within reason. And Abe Hawk wouldn't ask +anything more." +</P> + +<P> +Kate rose from her chair: "I've a great deal to learn about people and +things in this country," she said slowly. "Not all pleasant things," +she added. "I suppose some unpleasant things have to be. Anyway, I'll +ride home tonight better satisfied for coming in." +</P> + +<P> +"You going home?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +She was moving toward the door: "I only hope," she exclaimed, "this +fighting is over." +</P> + +<P> +"That doesn't rest in my hands. It's no fun for me. You say you're +going to ride home?" +</P> + +<P> +"There's a moon. I shan't get lost again." +</P> + +<P> +He was loath to let her get away. At the door he asked if he couldn't +ride a way with her. "I'll get Lefever or Sawdy to stay here while I'm +gone," he urged. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't that they don't want to," he explained. "But the boys felt +kind of bad and went down to the Mountain House. Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +She regarded him gravely: "One reason is, I'd never get rid of you till +I got home." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll cross my heart." +</P> + +<P> +"We might meet somebody. I don't want any more explosions. Let's talk +about something else." +</P> + +<P> +He asked to go with her to the barn to get her horse. The simplicity +of his urging was hard to resist. "I must tell you something," she +said at last. "If you go with me to the barn we should be seen +together." +</P> + +<P> +"And you're ashamed of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I said I must tell you something," she repeated with emphasis. "Will +you give me a chance?" +</P> + +<P> +"Go to it." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him frankly: "I don't always have the easiest time in the +world at home. And there is always somebody around a big ranch to +bring stories to father about whom I'm seen with. Everybody in town +talks—except Belle. I must just do the best I can till things get +better." +</P> + +<P> +"Here's hoping that'll be soon." +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by!" +</P> + +<P> +"Safe journey." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap30"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FUNERAL—AND AFTER +</H3> + +<P> +The funeral had been set for the following afternoon, but preparations +were going forward all morning. In spite of the brief notice that had +got abroad of Hawk's death, men from many directions were riding into +town that morning to help bury him. A reaction of sentiment concerning +the Falling Wall raid was making itself felt; its brutal ferocity was +being more openly criticized and less covertly denounced. Hawk's +personal popularity had never suffered among the cowboys and the cowboy +following. He had been known far and wide for open-handed generosity +and blunt truthfulness—and these were traits to silence or to soften +reprobation of his fitful and reckless disregard for the property +rights of the big companies. He was a freebooter with most of the +virtues and vices of his kind. But the crowd that morning in Sleepy +Cat was assembling to pay tribute to the man—however far gone wrong. +His virtues they were, no doubt, willing to bury with him; the memory +of his vices would serve some of them when they might need a lawless +precedent. +</P> + +<P> +Up to the funeral hour the numerous bars of Sleepy Cat were points of +interest for the drinking men. In front of these, reminiscences of the +dead man held heated sway. Some stories pulled themselves together +through the stimulus of deep drinking, others gradually went to pieces +under its bewildering effects, but as long as a man could remember that +he was talking about Abe Hawk or the Falling Wall, his anecdotes were +tolerated. +</P> + +<P> +Nor were all the men that had come to town to say good-by to Abe, lined +up at the bars. Because Tenison had insisted that it should, Hawk's +body lay during the morning at the Mountain House in the first big +sample room opening off the hotel office. All that the red-faced +undertaker could do to make it presentable in its surroundings had been +done at Harry Tenison's charge. Laramie's protests were ignored: +"You're a poor man, Jim," declared Tenison, "and you can't pay any +bills now for Abe. He thought more of you than he did of any man in +the world. But most of his money he left here with me, upstairs and +down. Abe was stiff-necked as hell, whether it was cards or cattle, +you know that. And it's only some of his money—not mine—I'm turning +back to him. That Dutchman," he added, referring with a contemptuous +oath to the unpopular undertaker of Sleepy Cat, "is a robber, anyhow. +The only way I'll ever get even with him is that he'll drink most of it +up again. I played pinochle with that bar-sinister chap," continued +Tenison, referring to the enemy by the short and ugly word, "all one +night, and couldn't get ten cents out of him—and he half-drunk at +that. What do you know about that? +</P> + +<P> +"Jim," Tenison changed his tone and his rambling talk suddenly ceased, +"you've not told me rightly yet about Abe." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie looked up: "Why, Harry," he said quietly, "I told you where I +found him that night—he got out of the creek at Pride's Crossing." +</P> + +<P> +Tenison shook his head: "But what I want to know is what went on before +he got to Pride's Crossing." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I started with him that night for town." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what you said before," objected Tenison with an impatient +gesture. "What you didn't say is what I want to hear." +</P> + +<P> +"Harry, I won't try to give you a long line of talk. I can't tell it +all—and I don't want to try to fool you. There's another name in the +story that I don't feel I've got a right to bring in—that's all. Some +day you'll hear it." +</P> + +<P> +Neither Lefever nor Sawdy could get any more out of Laramie. He showed +the strain of sleeplessness and anxiety. Sawdy kept the crowd away by +answering all questions himself—mostly with an air of reserve, backed +by intimations calculated to lead a man to believe he was really +hearing something, and counter-questions skilfully dropped into the +gravity of the occasion. Those who could not be put off by Sawdy were +turned over to Lefever, who could hypnotize a man by asking questions, +and send him away satisfied, but vacantly speculative as to whether he +was crazy or Lefever was. +</P> + +<P> +To Lefever also were referred the men arranging the details of the +funeral. Not till two o'clock was the word given for the procession to +move from the Mountain House, but for two hours before that, +horsemen—peers of any in the world—dashed up and down Main Street +before keen-eyed spectators, on business if possible, but always on +display. +</P> + +<P> +Stage drivers and barnmen from Calabasas and Thief River mingled with +cowboys from the Deep Creek country—for Hawk himself had, years +before, driven on the Spanish Sinks line. From the barn at Sleepy Cat +these men brought out and drafted the old Wells-Fargo stage coach that +Abe had driven on the first trip to the Thief River mines. Six of the +best horses in the barn were to pull it in the procession. These +horses were driven by the oldest man in service on the Calabasas run, +mounted on the near wheel horse with the driver's seat on the box empty +and covered with wreaths of flowers. Old-time Indians from the +Reservation who had known Hawk when he first went into the Falling Wall +country, were down to see him buried; they rode behind the cowboys. +</P> + +<P> +At two o'clock the roundhouse whistle blew a long blast. It was taken +up by the engines in the yard and those of an overland train pulling +out; and the procession, long and picturesque, moved from the hotel. +Laramie, Tenison, Lefever and Sawdy rode abreast, behind the hearse, +and as the procession moved down Main Street, the cowboys chanted the +songs of the bunkhouse and the campfire, the range and the round-up. +</P> + +<P> +"My God!" exclaimed Carpy when it was all over, "if Sleepy Cat could do +that much for a thief, what would it do for an honest man?" With Sawdy +and Lefever, the doctor sat at a table in the billiard room of the +Mountain House. Tenison and Laramie sat near them. +</P> + +<P> +"Not what they did for Abe," averred John Lefever promptly, "and don't +you forget it. But I don't call Abe Hawk a thief—never. Abe was a +freebooter born out of time and place. He called himself a thief—he +wasn't one. He hadn't the first instincts of one—no secrecy, no dark +night stuff, no lying. He never denied a raid if he made one. And +never did worse when the big cattlemen protested, than to tell them to +go to hell. He had a bunch of old Barb's calves branded along with his +own one year: 'Well, you're the coolest rustler in the Falling Wall,' I +says to him. 'They're my share of Barb's spring drop,' was all he +said. You know he lent Barb all his savings one year—that was when he +used to save money, before his wife died. He never got a red cent of +it back, never even asked for it. But when he wanted money he'd drive +off some of Barb's steers. Yes, Abe stole cattle, I admit; yet I don't +call him a thief—not today, anyway," said John, raising his glass. +"Why, if Abe Hawk owed a man a hundred dollars he'd pay him if he had +to steal every cow in the Falling Wall to do it. But take a hoof from +a poor man!" he went on, freshened, "The poor men all used to run to +Abe when Dutch Henry or Stormy Gorman branded their calves. They'd +yell fire and murder. And Abe would make the blamed thieves drive +their calves back! You know that, Jim." Lefever between breaths threw +the appeal for confirmation across at Laramie who sat moodily listening +and trying without success to interest himself in a drink that stood +untouched before him. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie made no response. "Have it your own way, John," nodded Carpy +tolerantly, "have it your own way. But whatever they say against old +Barb, the man ain't livin' that can say a word against his girl—not +while I'm in hearing. And I'll tell you, you could have knocked me +over with a feather when I seen her this afternoon and she bound to +ride in that procession behind Abe Hawk." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" asked Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean riding to the graveyard," insisted Carpy. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you talking about?" demanded Lefever, to bring out the story. +"You never saw it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you what I saw." Only those who knew Laramie well could +have told how keenly he was listening. "I drove down Hill Street," +said the doctor, "just after the funeral started, and sat there, quiet, +to one side, waiting for it to pass; a doctor's got no business around +funerals. Right then, Kate Doubleday pulled up close to me on +horseback. She was just from the trail, that was sure; her horse +showed the pace and the girl was excited—I seen that when she spoke to +me. 'Doctor'—then she hesitated. 'Is that Abe Hawk's funeral?' 'It +is,' I says. She looked at it and kept looking at it. The tail-end of +the procession was passing Hill Street. I noticed the girl bite her +lip; she was as restless as her horse. 'Doctor,' she says, hesitating +just the same way the second time, 'do you think people would think it +awfully strange if I—rode to the cemetery with them?' +</P> + +<P> +"I never was more dashed in my life. 'Well,' I says, 'I expect they +would, Kate.' 'I feel as if I ought to do it,' she says. 'Don't do it +for the fun of the thing, Kate. The boys wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,' +she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for +doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't +think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she +says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,' +says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never +went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? I +can't ride alone; all the rest are men.' 'Dog gone it! Come over to +the barn,' says I, 'till I get a horse.' +</P> + +<P> +"That's the way it happened. +</P> + +<P> +"When we got to the graveyard we kept back to one side. All the same, +she saw the whole thing. But just the minute the boys turned from the +grave, away we went down the hill lickety-cut. We took the back +streets till we struck the divide road, and she turned for home. When +we stopped there, she says: 'Doctor, tell me the truth: Did Abe Hawk +drown?' 'No,' I says, 'he didn't drown. I reckon he strained himself. +Anyway, one of his wounds opened up. The old man bled to death." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Laramie felt no inclination that night to go home. In his depression, +he could think only of Kate Doubleday and reflect that the years were +passing while he faced the future without an aim, and life without an +outlook. +</P> + +<P> +It was not the first time this conviction had forced itself on him. +And it was getting harder and harder, he realized, to shake it off. +But tonight, talk served in some degree as an anodyne, and he sat with +the idlers late. The one bit of news that did stir him in his torpor +was that Kate Doubleday had had at least the feeling to appear at the +funeral of the man who, though rightly regarded as her father's enemy, +had, Laramie knew, let go his own life, without a thought, to save hers. +</P> + +<P> +This was the last reflection on his mind before he went to sleep that +night. It was the first when he woke. Late in the morning he was +sitting in Belle Shockley's at breakfast when McAlpin walked in. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim," exclaimed the excitable barn boss, "I got a word this morning +from the Falling Wall." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie regarded him evenly, but did not speak till McAlpin looked +inquiringly toward Belle: "No secrets here, Mac," he said briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"Probably couldn't keep 'em from a woman if you tried," returned +McAlpin, grinning. He pointed calmly toward the kitchen: "If we're all +alone here——" +</P> + +<P> +"Go ahead," intervened Belle impatiently, "we are." +</P> + +<P> +"Punk Budd brought the stage from the Reservation this morning. Coming +down the Turkey he met Van Horn. They had a bunch of Barb's boys with +them driving in some cattle." +</P> + +<P> +"Whose cattle?" +</P> + +<P> +"Punk says when he run into 'em they was roundin' up yours." +</P> + +<P> +"Was Punk sober?" asked Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"He sure was," replied McAlpin. +</P> + +<P> +Belle, with folded arms, stood in the archway immovable as a statue; +McAlpin sat in silence; Laramie, continuing his breakfast, looked only +at his plate. The silence grew heavy, but two of the three had no +reason to break it and the third did not choose to. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, at length, took up his coffee, and, drinking slowly, finished +the cup. Setting this down, he wiped his lips and looked at McAlpin. +</P> + +<P> +"Much obliged, Mac," he said, laying down his napkin. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin regarded him inquiringly: "What you going to do about it, Jim?" +he demanded, when he saw Laramie would say no word. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie pushed back his chair: "What would you do?" +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin spoke seriously: "I'm askin' you." +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell better after I know more about it, Mac." +</P> + +<P> +The barn boss evidently thought Laramie was taking the news too +quietly. He was for violent measures but Laramie calmed him. "If +they've got any of my cattle, they won't run away," said he, "and they +won't blow up. They'll keep, and I'll get them back—every hoof. I'm +riding home this morning, anyway, so I'll be over after my horse in a +minute." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin went away somewhat disappointed. Laramie only laughed when he +talked it over with Belle: "So long as they don't burn my place, I can +stand it," he said, philosophically. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, he felt disturbed at McAlpin's news—not for its +substance so much as for what it might note in renewed warfare. +Getting his horse, he followed the railroad right of way out of town +and struck out upon open country toward the north. He had no intention +of taking the direct road home; that had long become dangerous, and he +rode along abandoned cattle trails. At times he struck, swiftly and +straight, across open country, at times disappeared completely in +favoring canyons, and emerging again, headed winding draws up to the +divide—any ground that carried him in his general direction was good +ground. +</P> + +<P> +He tried always to be thinking just what the other fellow must be +thinking as to favorable points to pick a man off—the fellow patiently +waiting with a rifle day after day in ambush for him. And not having +gone home of late twice by the same route, he meant to keep the other +fellow continually guessing. Today, he was somewhat handicapped, in +that he was riding in broad daylight instead of in the dawn or in the +twilight when the uncertain light made it more difficult with the fine +sights of a Winchester or Savage to cover a distant man. +</P> + +<P> +This hazard, however, called only for a little more precaution, which +Laramie did not begrudge to the pride of disappointing an enemy. At +points in his route where the main road could not well be avoided, he +rode faster and with quickened circumspection. The Double-draw bridge +he could not avoid without a long and difficult detour. Moreover, +there, or beyond, he might expect to intercept the raiding party, and +this was his business. +</P> + +<P> +He did, however, approach the Double-draw bridge with an uncertainty +and a caution not reflected in the pace which he rode toward it; but +his horse was under close control and his rifle carefully in hand. +</P> + +<P> +Despite his misgivings, no enemy was sighted. Only a flight of bank +swallows, disturbed by the footfalls of his horse, darted noisily from +their nests under the south bridge abutment and scattered twenty ways +in the sunshine. Spurring freely, as they flew away, Laramie galloped +briskly across the bottoms and up the hill. Skirting the long trail +toward home, he rode on without meeting a living soul or hearing the +unwelcome singing of a bullet. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, things were too quiet; the silence and the absence of any sort +of life as he approached his ranch were a surprise. The few head of +cattle and horses he usually met, when riding home along the creek, +were nowhere to be seen. Evidently the raid had been made. To survey +the whole scene without exposing himself, Laramie rode out of the +tangle along the creek bottom and took the first draw that would bring +him out among the southern hills. As he emerged from the narrow gorge, +his eyes turned in the direction of the house. But where the house +should be he saw above the green field, only a black spot with little +patches of white smoke drifting lazily up from it into the still +sunshine. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap31"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AN ENCOUNTER +</H3> + +<P> +Kate awoke the morning after Hawk's funeral with a confused sense of +having consorted with her father's enemies; and of trying to justify +herself for having done what she had felt compelled to do to answer her +sense of self-respect. +</P> + +<P> +And all this before anyone had accused her. But being extremely +dubious as to how her father would take her conduct, she was not only +ill at ease until she should meet him, but glad he had been away. And +it was something of a shock to her that morning to find his bedroom +door closed; it meant that during the night he had unexpectedly come +home. +</P> + +<P> +After her breakfast she walked down to the corral to talk to Bradley +about the saddle horses. Not that she had anything to suggest, but +because she was nervous. Laramie was intruding more and more into her +mind; every time she banished him he returned, frequently bringing +someone else with him. Between the perplexities and the men that beset +her, Kate was not happy. And when, after a ramble along the creek, she +returned to the house, she was not surprised to find that her father, +coming from the breakfast table, hardly responded to her greeting. He +was much engrossed in cutting off the end of a cigar as he passed her +and in walking to the fireplace to find a match. +</P> + +<P> +But the matches were not on the mantelpiece, where they belonged, and +this annoyed him. If he said nothing, it did not deceive Kate as to +his feelings. She hastened to hand him the matchbox from the table. +He took it without saying a word, but he slammed it back to its +accustomed place with a silent and ominous emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +She knew it was coming. What surprised her was that she felt no +further inclination to shrink from the moment of reckoning she dreaded. +Doubleday, his cigar lighted, seated himself in his heavy chair beside +the fireplace. +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of a trip had you, father?" Kate, as she asked, made a +pretense of arranging the papers and magazines on the table. +</P> + +<P> +There was little promise of amiability in her father's answer; "What +d'y' mean," he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you get your notes extended?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." His heavy jaw and teeth, after the word, snapped like a steel +trap. "Did you go to Abe Hawk's funeral?" He flung the question at +her like a hammer. +</P> + +<P> +"Were you told I did?" Kate asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Rode to the graveyard with him, didn't you?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate saw there was no use softening her words: "Father," she said +instantly and firmly, "the night I came out from town in the storm I +got lost. I got on the wrong side of the creek. My horse gave out; I +was dead with the cold." +</P> + +<P> +Her father flung his cigar into the fire: "What's that got to do with +it?" he broke in harshly. +</P> + +<P> +"Just wait a moment." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any long-winded story." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't tell any." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't listen to you," he shouted. "Answer my question." +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes kindled: "You may call it whatever you like, but you will +listen to my answer in the way I make it. When I'd given up hope of +saving my life, and my horse was drifting, he fell into a dugout. And +in the dugout were two men—Abe Hawk and Jim Laramie. They thought +there was a party of men with me. They seized me. They got ready to +fight. I was at their mercy." +</P> + +<P> +"What dugout?" demanded Doubleday. His husky tone seemed to indicate +he was cooling a little; the question took her off her guard. +</P> + +<P> +"At the old mine bridge." +</P> + +<P> +A flash of cunning lighted her father's eyes. The curtain fell +instantly, but not before Kate had seen. "When they questioned me," +she hurried on, "I told them what had happened. They believed me. +They rode with me back to the creek. We swam our horses across. Mine +couldn't make the bank. Abe Hawk pulled me out and Laramie saved my +horse. But the bank caved in with Hawk when he pulled me out of the +creek and the next thing I heard, he was dead. I didn't go to his +funeral except to ride to the cemetery in the procession. Father, +could I do any less?" she demanded, wrought up. +</P> + +<P> +Barb's harsh, red features never looked less uncompromising: "D' you +expect me to believe that stuff?" he asked, regarding her coldly. She +only eyed him as he eyed her: "D' you expect anybody to believe it?" he +continued, to drive in his contempt. +</P> + +<P> +Kate turned white. When she spoke, her words were measured: "Oh, no," +she said quietly. "I don't expect you any more to believe anything I +say. Those other men would believe me when they had me at their +mercy—when they might have choked or shot me or thrown me into the +Falling Wall canyon—they only believed me. But my own father—he +couldn't believe me——" +</P> + +<P> +Neither appeal nor reproach moved her father; his mind was fixed. Van +Horn had been sarcastic over Kate's escapade; Barb's own men were +laughing at him. He interrupted Kate: "Pack up your things," he said +ruthlessly. +</P> + +<P> +She faced her father without flinching: "What do you mean?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He tossed his head with as little concern as if he were discharging a +cowboy: "Don't want you around here any longer," he snapped. "Pack up. +Get out." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him in silence. Perhaps, as she turned defiantly away +and walked to her room, she thought of the man that had deserted her +mother when she herself was a baby in her mother's arms. At any rate, +anger fortified her against the shock. Her preparations were soon +made. A trunk held all she wished to take. She asked Bradley to get +up her pony. Bradley was hitched up for a trip to Sleepy Cat and, +putting her trunk in the wagon, was on the road ahead of Kate. She +spent a little time in straightening up her room and shortly afterwards +rode down the trail for town. +</P> + +<P> +Absorbed in thoughts tinged with bitterness and anger, she rode toward +the creek as if casting things up again and again in her mind, but +reaching no conclusion. When her horse struck the Sleepy Cat road he +turned into it because he was used to doing so, not because she guided +him. In this haphazard way she was jogging on, her eyes fixed on +nothing more encouraging than the storm-worn ruts along her way when a +shout startled her. Looking up, she saw she was nearing the lower gate +of the alfalfa patch and across the road a party of horsemen had +stopped Bradley with the wagon. She recognized Harry Van Horn—his +smart hat, erect figure and scarlet neckcloth would have identified him +before she could distinguish his features; and he always rode the best +horse. Stone and three of the Texas men were with him. With the +exception of Van Horn, they had dismounted, and with their drooping +horses close at hand were stacking their rifles against the gate and +yelling at Bradley. +</P> + +<P> +Swinging his hat, Van Horn dashed toward Kate just as she looked up +and, whipping out his revolver, pulled his horse to its haunches +directly in front of her: "You're held up!" he cried. +</P> + +<P> +The shock on her reverie was sudden and Kate was too confused and +frightened to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't get by without giving up your tobacco, girlie," Van Horn ran +on in sing-song raillery. "Shell out!" He held out his left hand for +the spoil and poised his gun high—a picture of life and dash. "You +see what's happening to Bradley." The cowboys, in great feather, were +dragging the old man with mock violence from the wagon. +</P> + +<P> +Kate recovered her breath: "What's it all about?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn put away his gun. He was in very good humor as he glanced +over at the boys crowding around Bradley: "They want tobacco," he +laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh." +</P> + +<P> +"You know what I want." +</P> + +<P> +Kate regarded his expectancy unmoved: "How should I know?" she asked, +chilling her question with indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"Because," he exclaimed, sweeping back with a flourish the brim of his +hat, "I want you." +</P> + +<P> +She eyed him without a tremor and responded without hesitation: "Well, +I can say you will never get me if that's all you want." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed again: "Talk it over with me, Kate; talk it over." +</P> + +<P> +His eyes, always bright and liquid, were a little inflamed. Still +laughing, he glanced toward the wagon. The boys were boisterous. Kate +could hear Bradley's voice in shrill protest: "What'd I be goin' to +town f'r, if I had a bottle?" he was demanding angrily. But, while she +looked and listened, Van Horn slipped quickly from his saddle and +caught her bridle rein: "Come on," he said, at her horse's head, "let's +walk down to the creek, girlie, and talk it all over." +</P> + +<P> +Kate was indignant: "I won't walk anywhere——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll carry you." +</P> + +<P> +She suppressed an angry word: "I'm on my way to town," she exclaimed. +"Let go my bridle!" She struck her horse. The beast jumped ahead. +Van Horn, laughing, held on. But the shock jerked him almost from his +feet. As he staggered forward, clinging to the rearing animal, the +half-muffled report of a revolver was heard. Almost like a +thunderbolt, it changed the situation. One of the Texas men had fired +in the air, but no one had seen him fire and the other Texans jumped +like longhorns. Stone, clapping his hand to his holster, whirled from +the wagon wheel. Kate, frightened more than ever, struck her horse +again; the bridle was jerked from Van Horn's hand and he turned +sharply. Quickest to grasp what he saw as his eye swept the road, he +yelled: "Look out, boys! There's Laramie!" +</P> + +<P> +The words were not out of his mouth when Kate caught sight of a man +down the road leaping from a horse. As the rider touched the ground he +slapped his pony's shoulder and the beast dropped flat. The man, rifle +in hand, threw himself behind the prostrate animal and Kate heard his +brusque yell to Van Horn and the Texans: "Pitch up!" +</P> + +<P> +It would have been hard to say who was most astonished. Laramie +evidently was not expecting an encounter. To dash on horseback into +any five men on foot, of the enemy's camp, was the last thing he would +be likely to attempt. If he did attempt it, he would never choose Van +Horn or Stone to be of the party. The ground about the scene was flat, +or only slightly rolling, with the branch road and its old ruts running +across it. Caught squarely in the open and without a sagebrush for +cover, he had been forced to drop behind his horse for shelter. Lying +flat and covering Van Horn and the men with his rifle, he awaited the +unpleasant odds against him. +</P> + +<P> +The situation of the five men in front was even worse. Their rifles +were stacked against the gate hardly a dozen feet away. But to run a +gauntlet of a dozen feet against Laramie's rifle fire was a feat none +had stomach for, nor were they ready at a hundred yards to pit +revolvers against it. One of them might get him but they knew it would +be after some of the others had practically ceased to be interested in +the result. +</P> + +<P> +The minds of the Texas men were perfectly clear; their hands shot up +like rockets. Stone had taken one big step toward the gate post—he +changed his mind, halted and his hands went up at the very instant +Laramie changed <I>his</I> mind, and did not press the trigger against the +burly outline darkening the field of his sights. Van Horn, caught, +stood helpless and enraged—humiliated in circumstances he least +relished for humiliation. Everybody's hands were up. His one chance, +Van Horn realized, was to use his Colt's against the Winchester behind +the prostrate horse—it was not a living chance and no one knew it +better than he; his hands moved grudgingly up to his shoulders and he +sang out savagely: "What the blazes do you want?" +</P> + +<P> +There was no answer from Laramie. To add to a difficult situation, +Kate's horse, nervous from the shouting and catching its mistress's own +fright, jumped and bucked till she was halfway down the road toward +Laramie before she could check him. To add to her confusion, words +came from ahead just loud enough for her to hear: "Pull the blamed +brute to one side, will you?" It was Laramie speaking, she knew. "If +he gets between me and that bunch," she heard him say, "I'm a goner." +She jerked her horse violently out of the road; Laramie had raised his +voice and kept right on talking: "Turn your back, Van Horn—you, too, +Stone. Shoot up your hands, you Texas—higher!" he called to one of +the Texans. And with the words not out of his mouth, he leaped as if +on springs to his feet. It seemed as if his rifle covered his enemies +all the time, even while he was doing it. +</P> + +<P> +With his head forward, his elbows high and the Winchester laid against +his cheek; stepping like a cat, and swiftly and with his eyes fixed on +the men ahead, Laramie walked toward the wagon. In doing so he +approached Kate, whose horse had subsided. Laramie took no note of +her. She only heard his words as he passed: "You'd better get out of +this." Approaching his prisoners in such a way they could not reach +either the gate or the wagon without crossing his fire, Laramie +compelled Bradley, really nothing loath, to disarm the three cowboys in +turn and drop their guns into the wagonbox. Stone, sullen, was +gingerly approached by Bradley, under strict orders to keep out of +reach of his arms. But the old man knew all the tricks of the play +being staged, even though he was not able to turn them. And when +Stone, cursing, was ordered to lower his right arm and hand his +revolver to Bradley at arm's length, the old man's feet were planted at +least six feet from the foreman for a jump-away in case Stone tried to +clinch him and shoot at Laramie from behind Bradley's cover. +</P> + +<P> +But after he was disarmed, Laramie was not through with Stone. Sullen +and obdurate, he was ordered to face away, while Bradley from behind +searched his pockets. And the crown of his abasement was reached when +Bradley drew from a hip pocket a full flask of whisky. The material +advantage of the find was not great, but the tactical advantage was +enormous. Behind Stone, Bradley silently but jeeringly held it up as +an exhibit for the thirsty Texas men; and to show it was full, uncorked +and with gusto sampled it. Stone was ordered back to his horse. +</P> + +<P> +"How long is this joke, Laramie?" sang out Van Horn, his humor oozing. +"Can't you frisk a few cowboys in less than all day?" +</P> + +<P> +"When I frisk a pair of cut-throats with them, it's different." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, don't waste your valuable time on me. This is your +innings—I'll wait for mine." +</P> + +<P> +"Drop your gun to the ground," returned Laramie. "Pick that up, Bill," +he added to Bradley as Van Horn threw his revolver contemptuously from +its holster. He was searched with the same scrupulous care by old +Bradley, his morale greatly strengthened by Stone's flask: "I don't +give a d—n whether you get me or not," he retorted at Van Horn, in +answer to a low threat from his victim. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie having told Van Horn to mount, turned to the Texas men: "Which +one of you boys wants to carry the rifles over to that big cottonwood +for me?" he asked, pointing toward the creek. +</P> + +<P> +"I do," responded the nearest man, promptly. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you do it, Tex," called out Stone. +</P> + +<P> +The Texan eyed his foreman: "Why not?" he demanded. "Ain't I been +ridin' this country all day with a man squealin' for a drink as loud as +I was, an' had his pocket full of it all the time? I'm through with my +job." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie broke in without losing the precious moment: "Who set my house +on fire, Tex?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +The Texan nodded in Stone's direction: "Ask him." +</P> + +<P> +"He'd lie, Tex; I'm askin' you." +</P> + +<P> +The rawboned horseman hesitated: "I'll talk that over with you when I'm +rested," he drawled. +</P> + +<P> +"Go get your Colt's out of the wagon, Tex." Laramie pointed the way. +"Pick out the guns of the other two boys and tote them over to that +tree with you. The boys'll ride over there after you. Tell Barb I'll +give him twenty-four hours to get every hoof, round or split, that +belongs to me back to the Falling Wall—failing which I'll be over to +talk to him privately. Will you do that, Tex?" +</P> + +<P> +"I sure will." +</P> + +<P> +"These rustlers here," he looked toward Stone and Van Horn, "won't be +able to carry messages for awhile. They're ridin' to town with me. +Bill," he added, turning to Bradley, "dump their rifles into the wagon +and follow on along." +</P> + +<P> +"What's this?" snapped Van Horn with an oath. "Going to town with you! +Not on your life." +</P> + +<P> +"You're headed for jail tonight, Harry; that's all. You boys," he +spoke to the Texans and gave no heed to the oaths and abuse from Van +Horn, "ride down to the cottonwood and get your guns from Tex. There's +two good trails from here to town and plenty of room on both. Today +I'm riding the Double-draw bridge. If any of you are going to town, +take the other trail. Lead off now, you two." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke to Van Horn and Stone, both mounted, and with the two headed +for town, and the Texans started up the road, Laramie climbed into his +own saddle. Not until then did he look around for Kate. She had +disappeared. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap32"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A MESSAGE FROM TENISON +</H3> + +<P> +Speeding in a panic from what she feared might happen behind her at any +moment; soon out of sight of the scene, but with ears pitched for the +sound of a shot, and a volley of shots; her head swimming with +excitement and her heart beating a roll in her breast, Kate urged her +horse down the road. +</P> + +<P> +And Belle's silence, her enigmatic face as she listened later to the +story only convinced Kate that her own apprehensions of trouble were +well founded. "It's coming," was all she could get Belle to mutter, as +Belle hobbled on a lame foot at meal time between the table and the +stove, "but nobody can say when or where." Both the women could tell +even earlier than this, from McAlpin's intimations, from watching +groups of men in the street and from the way in which those who could +have no direct interest in the affairs of the Falling Wall country were +hurrying to and fro, that Laramie had reached town with his prisoners +and was busy getting them jailed. +</P> + +<P> +Kate, stunned by her father's utter coldness in casting her out, did +not want to talk about it. She had left home resolved to tell Belle +everything, despite the humiliating shame of the recital. But the +excitement of the ride and the stir in the town were excuses enough to +put off explaining. It was possible that her father might become as +ashamed of himself as she was of him—in which event, nothing said +would be best. +</P> + +<P> +But when Bradley stopped the ranch wagon before Belle's cottage door +with Kate's suitcase and trunk, something was needed to satisfy Belle. +Kate's intimation that she should spend a few days in town, and might +be called East was somewhat disjointed, but at the moment, enough. +Bradley, however, after unloading the trunk and while Belle stood +wondering, reappeared at the door with two rifles. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord A'mighty, man!" cried Belle, already stirred, "what're you doing +with them rifles?" +</P> + +<P> +Bradley tried to placate his nervous questioner: "I'm just leavin' 'em +here, Belle, while I go down 'n' get a load o' feed," he explained with +dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you believe you're leavin' any rifles here, Bill Bradley. This +is nobody's arsenal, I want you to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Belle, they belong t' the ranch," remonstrated Bradley. +</P> + +<P> +"What's that got to do with it?" she exclaimed, turning from the door +and shutting it vigorously in Bradley's face as he stood discomfited. +"I wonder if everybody's going crazy in this country." +</P> + +<P> +On this point Kate entertained convictions that she did not express. +She was only glad that Belle's curiosity, usually robust enough +concerning ranch happenings, was now under more engrossing pressure. +</P> + +<P> +Concerning what was setting the town ablaze that day, only confused +echoes reached the secluded women; and chiefly through the butcher, +between whom and Belle a tacit armistice was soon in effect. Chops +were slashed ruthlessly as he revealed details of what was going on, +and the patent block shook under the savage blows of the cleaver while +the butcher hinted at things more momentous to come. From him, Belle +learned that Van Horn and Stone had been held somewhere up at Tenison's +incommunicado, by Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie, opposed by the +cattlemen's lawyer, was demanding from Justice Druel warrants for his +prisoners; and that after they had reluctantly been issued, Sheriff +Druel had pigeon-holed them until Tenison, backing Laramie, had told +Druel after a big row, he would run him out of town if he didn't take +his prisoners to jail. +</P> + +<P> +It was five o'clock when the butcher, instead of sending over the boy, +brought the meat for supper himself: "They're locked up," he said in a +terse undertone, as he handed his package to Belle. "There was a big +bunch up there when they was put in. Some of 'em talked pretty loud +about a jail delivery. Laramie stood right there to see they went into +their cells and they went." +</P> + +<P> +"Were you there?" demanded Belle. +</P> + +<P> +"I was." +</P> + +<P> +"What did Laramie say?" +</P> + +<P> +"All he said to Druel was: 'If you don't keep 'em locked up, Druel, I +take no responsibility for what happens.' I come all the way from the +jail with Laramie myself," recited the butcher; "walked right alongside +him and Harry Tenison down t' the hotel." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if you walked so far with him, is he coming here for supper?" +</P> + +<P> +The butcher was taken aback: "How in thunder should I know?" he blurted +out. +</P> + +<P> +"There you go, slamming away with your blasphemy again. Couldn't you +ask him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, Belle, I reckon I could. Maybe I can. Say!" he returned +after starting down the steps, to point to the package in her hand, +"there's a mess o' sweetbreads in there for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Shucks! I can't use sweetbreads tonight, Heinie." +</P> + +<P> +"Throw 'em away then. A present, ain't they? Nobody in town eats 'em +but you." +</P> + +<P> +Kate unfortunately suggested braizing the sweetbreads for Sawdy and +Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" exclaimed Belle. "Men don't eat sweetbreads, don't you know +that? You've got to give 'em steak—round steak and the tougher the +better—tough as cowhide and fried to tears. They'd be insulted. +Lefever and Sawdy won't be here tonight, anyway. They're in Medicine +Bend on an Indian case. All I'm wondering is, whether Jim's coming." +</P> + +<P> +But Laramie did not come—greatly to Kate's relief. He spent the night +at the hotel and left town early. Next morning when Belle heard the +news of the street she was thankful he had gone, for it was said that +Van Horn and Stone were out of jail. Barb had been summoned in the +night by the lawyers, and next day the prisoners were out on bail. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie had made no secret of his riding north, except that, in the +circumstances, he preferred to ride the night trail rather than the day +trail. He wanted to look up his cattle and see Simeral and he thought +he knew Barb well enough to be sure the stock would be sent back very +promptly in as bad condition as possible. +</P> + +<P> +He got to his ranch in good time. There were no signs of life +anywhere. Riding about noon over to Simeral's he found his shack +empty. But he hunted up food and cooked himself a breakfast. +</P> + +<P> +While he was eating peacefully at Simeral's, Van Horn was with Stone +and Doubleday, the three breakfasting in the back room of a Main Street +saloon. Just what took place at that breakfast was not figured out for +a long time afterward, if it really ever was. But the street heard +that Van Horn and Doubleday had had a quarrel at breakfast and that +Doubleday in a rage had turned the prisoners over to the sheriff and +asked to be released from his bail bond. +</P> + +<P> +No news more exciting could have reached Belle Shockley. She heard the +story up street and ran halfway home to tell Kate, who remained in +seclusion. Kate herself was not less excited; the news meant so much +if it were true, and the butcher confirmed it beyond a doubt. By +nightfall everybody knew that Van Horn and Stone were locked up again. +</P> + +<P> +One man in town was not altogether at ease over the day's developments. +Tenison spent much time that afternoon in the hotel billiard room, it +being the best clearing house for the street gossip. +</P> + +<P> +He tried more than once during the afternoon to get hold of Kitchen or +Carpy—neither was in town—and with the day drawing to a close, +Tenison's restlessness increased. He was standing late in the evening +near a favorite corner at the upper end of the bar and above the +billiard tables, when among the crowd drifting in and out of the room +he caught sight of Ben Simeral. Tenison lost no time. Without moving, +he asked the nearest bartender to take a message to the old rancher. +And when Simeral passed through the door leading into the hotel, +Tenison was behind him. He followed Simeral into the office and back +past the wash room, through the hallway leading to the sample rooms. +Opening the door of the first of these, Tenison pressed a light button, +and motioning Simeral to enter, followed him into the room, closed the +door, locked it, and sat down facing the rancher: "I want to get a +message to Jim Laramie, Ben," he began at once. "You know what's been +going on here today?" +</P> + +<P> +The old rancher nodded silently. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you ride to the Falling Wall for me right away with a word for +Laramie?" +</P> + +<P> +Simeral said nothing, but his heavy eyes closed as he nodded again. +</P> + +<P> +"Laramie's gone home. He thinks Van Horn is in jail. The story is," +continued Tenison, "that Van Horn and old Barb quarreled, that they +came to blows and that Barb turned Stone and him over to Druel again to +lock up." Tenison spoke slowly and impressively: "Tell Laramie," he +said, "I copper all that stuff—every bit of it. Tell him to look out. +I don't know what them fellows have got in their heads; but it's +something. Van Horn won't be in jail long." +</P> + +<P> +"He's out again now." +</P> + +<P> +Tenison eyed his messenger steadily: "What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"I just come from Hinchcliffe's saloon. They've been out an hour." +</P> + +<P> +Hard as the blow struck home, Tenison did not bat a lash: "We may be +too late," he said. "It's worth trying. Warn Jim if you can." +</P> + +<P> +"I can." +</P> + +<P> +"There'll be a good horse for you at Kitchen's. Ask McAlpin for it. +Tell him I couldn't get hold of a man any quicker. Will Jim sleep at +your place tonight?" +</P> + +<P> +Simeral shook his head: "No tellin'." +</P> + +<P> +Tenison rose. Drawing from a trousers pocket a roll of bills, he +slipped off several and passed them to Simeral. +</P> + +<P> +"What's this f'r?" asked Simeral, looking at the money as it lay across +his hand and then at Tenison. +</P> + +<P> +The gambler regarded him evenly: "You're getting old, Ben." +</P> + +<P> +"Not when it comes to doin' a turn f'r Jim." +</P> + +<P> +Tenison literally swore the money on him. "Ride hard," he said. "An +hour may make the difference." +</P> + +<P> +Simeral listened to the injunction but he was putting the money away as +slowly and carefully as if he never expected to see money again. This +done, he hitched his trousers, shifted his quid, pushed his hat and +followed Tenison across the room. He was so slow that Tenison was +forced inwardly to smile at his own exasperation: "Never get nervous, +do you, Ben?" he asked imperturbably. +</P> + +<P> +"Nervous?" +</P> + +<P> +Tenison, unlocking the street door of the long room, only stood by with +his hand outstretched to speed his laggard messenger. The old man +stepped out into the night. Tenison, looking after him, shook his head +doubtfully. But he was doing what he could and he knew that though the +old fellow walked slow, once in a saddle, he could ride fast; and that +for Laramie, he would do it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap33"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CANYON OF THE FALLING WALL +</H3> + +<P> +Laramie, after disposing of his prisoners, had ridden north with less +of a hunted feeling experienced every time he mentally inventoried the +rocks commanding the trail, the boulders looming ahead of him, and the +cottonwoods through which he wound his way along the creek bottoms. +And when at length he looked across Turkey creek, he was not surprised +to see his cows straying down the hills toward their own range. +</P> + +<P> +Even the bitter sight of the ruins of his cabin bore upon him less now +that he had put Van Horn actually in jail for the trick. "You can't +keep him there long," Tenison had cynically warned him. +</P> + +<P> +"I've put the mark on him, if he's only there overnight," had been +Laramie's reply. "He'll be a long time explaining. And I want you to +notice, Harry, with all the fighting they've put me to, they've never +got me locked up yet—not for a second. I guess for that," he added, +reflecting, "I ought to thank my friends." +</P> + +<P> +Never so much as that day had he realized how every aspect of his +situation, as he viewed it, was colored by the thought of Kate +Doubleday. If he were determined that despite any intrigue worked +against him, he would never be locked up alive on a trumped-up charge, +it was chiefly because of the disgrace of such a thing in her eyes. If +he avoided opportunities now of finishing with Van Horn, he knew it was +chiefly because of her. She would probably never see that finish, but +she would hear the story of it from his enemies. Laramie was not at +any time thinking merely of being justified in the last resort, nor of +the justification of his friends, which would in any case be his. But +what would Kate think? +</P> + +<P> +Yet he knew what was ahead of him; he knew what lay at the end of the +trail he and Van Horn were traveling. Lawing, as Sleepy Cat +contemptuously termed it, was the least of it all and the most +futile—yet in thinking of the other, her judgment was what he dreaded. +This bore on him and perplexed him. It had, more than all else, put +two little vertical furrows between his eyebrows; they were there often +of late. Suppression of the feeling that had always and irresistibly +drawn him toward her, had only intensified this worry. His pride had +suffered at her hands; yet he made excuses for her—he had no high +opinion of himself, of his general reputation—and had built dreams on +the fanciful imagining that she should, despite everything, some day +like him. He wearied his brain in recalling a chance expression of her +eyes that could not have been unfriendly; an inflection of her voice +that might have carried a hope, if only their paths had been less +crossed: and his pride, despite rebuffs, sought her as a moth seeks a +flame. It drew him to her and kept him from her, for he lacked for the +first time in his life the boldness to stake everything on the turn of +a card, and ask Kate to marry him. +</P> + +<P> +Simeral had told him that John Frying Pan saw the cabin burning, and +Laramie rode up to his place on the Reservation to talk with him. +Failing to find him at home, Laramie left word with his wife and turned +south. It was then late. The trail had taken him high up in the +mountains and he made up his mind to ride over to the old bridge, stay +for the night, pick up the few things he had left there and take them +over to Simeral's in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +Night had fallen when riding in easy fashion he reached the rim of the +canyon and made his way from foothold to foothold until he came to an +open ledge with grass and water for his horse, near the abutment. +Leaving him in this spot, Laramie, carrying his rifle, climbed by a +zig-zag footpath up a hundred feet to the shelter and rolled himself in +a blanket for the night. +</P> + +<P> +He woke at what he believed to be near midnight. The night was cold +and he began to think about something to eat. With the aid of a candle +he found bacon cached under a crevice in a baking-powder can near his +bunk, and found some splinters of wood. These he laid for an early +breakfast fire and wrapped himself again in his blanket. He had closed +his eyes for another nap when a sound arrested his attention; it was +the rumbling of a small piece of rock tumbling into the canyon. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing was more common than for fragments, great and small, of the +splintered canyon walls to loosen and start in the silence of the +night. As mountain trees withstand the winter winds only to fall in +summer calms, so it seemed as if the masses of rock that hung poised on +the canyon rim through countless storms, chose the stillest hour of the +stillest night to ride like avalanches the headlong slopes, plunge over +dizzy cliffs and crash and sprawl in dying thunders from ledge to ledge +into the river below. All these noises, big and little, were familiar +to Laramie's ears. He could hear them in his sleep without losing the +thread of a dream; but the echo of a single footstep would bring him up +sitting. +</P> + +<P> +The sound that now caught his attention had a still different effect. +Listening, he lay motionless in his blanket with every faculty keyed; +had a man at that moment stood before him reading his death warrant, he +could not have been more awake. The noise was slight; only a small +fragment of rock had fallen and the echoes of its journey were lost +almost at once; it was the beginning of the sound that he was thinking +of—the noise had not started right. He thought of the four-footed +prowlers of the night and as a cause eliminated them one after another. +He thought of his horse below—it was not where such a sound could +start. But always slow to imagine a mystery when a reason could be +assigned, Laramie, lying prone, was brought back every time to his +first instinctive inference. Numberless times when tramping the canyon +walls, his foot slipping before he recovered his balance had dislodged +a bit of loose rock. He knew that sound too well and it was such a +sound he had just heard. Behind the sound he suspected there was a man. +</P> + +<P> +He tried long to reason himself out of the conviction. For an hour he +lay perfectly still, waiting for some further alarm. There was none +and the night was never stiller. Nor was there any haste, even if it +should prove the worst, about meeting the situation. He was caught not +like a rat in a trap but like a man in a blind canyon, with ample means +of defense and none of escape except through a gauntlet. No enemy +could molest him where he lay, but he could not lie there indefinitely. +And with little ammunition and scarcely any food or water, he had no +mind to stand a siege. +</P> + +<P> +If his enemies had actually discovered his retreat and put a watch on +him, he must in any event wait for the first peep of daylight. The one +chance of escape lay down and not up, and the descent of the canyon was +not to be made in complete darkness. A moon would have been a godsend. +It would have made things easy, if such a word could be used of the +situation; but there was no moon. Acting on his premonition as if it +had been an assurance, Laramie, at the end of a long and silent vigil, +rolled out of his blanket to save his life if he could. He lighted his +breakfast fire and fried his bacon unconcernedly. He could neither be +rushed nor potted and if there was a touch of insolent bravado in his +seeming carelessness he was well aware that while the appetizing odors +of a good breakfast would not tantalize an enemy believing himself +master of the situation, it would make him believe he had taken the +quarry unawares. +</P> + +<P> +Below, he felt that all was safe—no one without passing him could +possibly reach his horse. +</P> + +<P> +By the time the eastern sky warned him of the coming dawn he had +crawled to the edge of the abutment to look down and estimate his +chances for dropping to the narrow ledge on which it stood footed. +Then he crawled noiselessly toward the overhead break through which +Kate had plunged. The sky was alive with stars. Worming himself close +to the opening, he lay for a time patiently scrutinizing the rocks +commanding the abutment from above. One of these long vigils +disclosed, he fancied, against the sky the outline of a man's hat. +</P> + +<P> +To satisfy himself if it were one, Laramie picked up a chip of rock and +flung it down the canyon wall. The suspicious object moved. Laramie +slowly took up his rifle and leaning forward raised it to his shoulder. +Against the eastern sky the man's head made a perfect target. It was +close range. Laramie covered the hat low. The bullet should penetrate +the brim just where it covered the forehead. His finger moved to press +the trigger before he thought further. Then he hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed on reflection like murder, nothing less. He did not know the +man, though he was no doubt an enemy who had come either to kill him or +to help kill him. And to his natural repugnance to blowing off the top +of an unknown man's head even in constructive self-defense, there was +the thought of another's view of it. This might, after all, be merely +a Texan acting as a lookout. It was even possible, though improbable, +that it might be Barb himself. And if the man were not alone less +would be gained by killing him. +</P> + +<P> +The rifle came down from Laramie's shoulder as slowly as it had gone +up. He made immediate disposition for his escape. Retreating +noiselessly from the opening, he found his blanket, cut from it four +strips, knotted these into a rope and creeping to the face of the +abutment, lowered his rifle, ammunition belt and revolver down to the +footing some twenty feet below, where they hung in darkness. For +himself there was nothing but to drop after his accoutrements. At one +point the horizontal footing ledge below jutted out in a blunt tongue +something like six feet; this tongue was where he must land; elsewhere +the ledge narrowed to only a foothold for a sober man already on it. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie found an old mackinaw of Hawk's, put it on over his coat, and +padding his back under it with the pieces into which he tore a quilt, +strapped the mackinaw tight and returned to look over the ledge. He +thought he knew precisely where the tongue lay, but wanted a little +daylight to dispel any misgiving about letting go at a point where he +might drop two hundred feet instead of twenty. +</P> + +<P> +From the abutment the depths of the canyon looked in the half light +pretty black, but its recesses hid no terrors of sentiment for Laramie. +Fairly serene and stuffed in his baggy mackinaw, he lay for a few +minutes flat on his stomach peering over the edge. Far below he could +hear the rush of the river. Day was racing toward the mountain tops +and diffusing its reflected light into their recesses. The rock tongue +below outlined itself faintly in an almost impenetrable gloom. Waiting +no longer, Laramie, with a careful hand-hold, let himself down over the +face of the abutment and hung for an instant suspended. Loosing one +hand he swung sidewise and threw back his head. The fingers of the +other hand, straightened by his weight, let go. +</P> + +<P> +Falling like a plummet, one of his heels smashed into the rocky gravel +and he struck the ledge on his back. With such instinct as the swift +drop left him he threw himself toward the canyon wall when he landed +and, shocked though he was, tried to rise. +</P> + +<P> +He could not get a breath, much less move. His mind remained perfectly +clear, but the fall left him momentarily paralyzed. His efforts to +regain his breath, to make himself breathe, were astonishingly futile, +and he lay annoyed at his helplessness. It seemed as if minute after +minute passed. Listening, he heard sounds above. Daylight was coming +fast and every ray of it meant a slenderer chance of escape. +</P> + +<P> +To his relief, his lungs filled a little. Soon they were doing more. +He found he could move. He turned to his side, and, beginning life +over again, crawled on hands and knees to where his belt, revolver and +rifle hung suspended. He stood up, got out of the mackinaw, adjusted +his belt and revolver, and with his rifle resting across his forearm +looked around. He was battered and had a stinging ankle, but stood +with legs and arms at least usable. Listening, he tiptoed as fast as +he could to the narrow footpath leading into the canyon, and turning a +corner of the rock wall hastened down to where he had picketed his +horse. This trail was not exposed from above. But when he reached his +horse and got stiffly into the saddle his problem was less simple. +</P> + +<P> +To get out of the tremendous fissure in which he was trapped from +above, Laramie had one trail to follow. This led for a hundred feet in +an extremely sharp descent across the face of a nearly vertical canyon +wall that flanked the recess where the horse had been left. This first +hundred feet of his way down to the river, so steep that it was known +as the Ladder, was all that caused Laramie any uneasiness; it was +commanded every foot of the way from the abutment above. +</P> + +<P> +Making all possible haste, Laramie headed his horse stealthily for the +Ladder. He knew he had lost the most precious juncture of the dawn in +lying paralyzed for some unexpected moments after his drop. It was a +chance of war and he made no complaint. Indeed, as he reached the +beginning of his trail and peered downward he realized that he needed +daylight for the perilous ride. To take it slowly would be child's +play for him but would leave him an easy target from above. To ride it +fast was to invite a header for his horse and himself; one misstep +would send the horse and rider bolting into space. How far it was to +the river through this space Laramie felt little curiosity in figuring; +but it could hardly have been less than two hundred and fifty feet. +</P> + +<P> +There was no time for much thinking; the trail must be ridden and the +sooner and faster the better. He struck his horse lightly. The horse +jumped, but not very far ahead. Again Laramie used his heels and again +the frightened beast sprung as little as he could ahead. A stinging +lash was the only reward for his caution. If horses think, Laramie's +horse must have imagined himself backed by a madman, and under the +goading of his rider, the beast, quivering with fear, peered at the +broken rocks below and sprang down among them. Concealment was no +longer possible. +</P> + +<P> +Like a man heading into a hailstorm, Laramie crouched to the horse, +dropped the reins low on the beast's neck, and, clinging close, made +himself as nearly as he could a part of the animal itself. The trail +was five to six feet wide, but the descent was almost headlong, and +down it the horse, urged by his rider, sprang in dizzy leaps; where the +footing was worst Laramie tried to ease his frantic plunges. Stricken +with terror, the beast caught his breath in convulsive starts and +breathed in grunting snorts. Halting and bucking in jerky recoveries; +leaping from foothold to foothold as if every jump were his last, and +taking on a momentum far beyond his own or his rider's control, the +frightened pony dashed recklessly ahead. It was as if a great weight, +bounding on living springs, were heading to bolt at length against the +sheer rock wall across the canyon. +</P> + +<P> +Half the distance of the mad flight, and the worst half, was covered +when a rifle cracked from the top of the abutment. Laramie felt a +violent blow on his shoulder. There was no possible answer; there +could be no more speed—no possible defense; the race lay between the +rifle sights covering him and the four slender hoofs of the horse under +him. Ten yards more were covered and a second rifle shot cracked +crisply down the canyon walls. Laramie thought it from a second rifle; +the bullet spat the wall above his head into splinters. They were +shooting high, he told himself, and only hoped they might keep trying +to pick him off the horse and let the horse's legs alone. None knew +better than he exactly what was taking place above; the quick alarm, +the fast-moving target in the gloomy canyon; the haste to get the feet +set, the rifle to the shoulder, the sights lined, the moving target +followed, the trigger pressed. +</P> + +<P> +It was a madman's flight. As one or other of the rifles cracked at +him, Laramie threw himself back in the saddle. With his hat in his +hand, his arm shot straight up, and pointing toward the abutment he +yelled a defiant laugh at his enemies. In an instant the hat was +knocked from his fingers by a bullet; but the springing legs under him +were left untouched. The trick for the rider now was, even should he +escape the bullets, to check the flight of the horse before both shot +over the foot of the Ladder into the depths. Laramie threw his weight +low on the horse's side next the canyon wall and spoke soothingly into +his ear as his arms circled the heaving neck. +</P> + +<P> +And on the rim of the precipice, high above, two active men, bending +every nerve and muscle to their effort, stood with repeating rifles +laid against their cheeks, pumping and firing at the figure plunging +into the depths below. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap34"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +KATE GETS A SHOCK +</H3> + +<P> +Late that afternoon a stable boy from Kitchen's barn appeared at +Belle's, making inquiries for Doctor Carpy. Kate heard Belle at the +door answering and asking questions, but the messenger was not able to +answer any questions; his business was to ask only. When Kitchen +himself came over a little later there was more talk at the door, this +time in low tones that left Kate in ignorance of its purport. But the +moment Kitchen went away, Belle, never equal to hiding an emotion, +passed with compressed lips and set face through the room in which Kate +sat sewing. Kate looked up as Belle walked toward the kitchen and +noticed the tense expression—fortunately she asked no questions. +After some vigorous moments in the kitchen, evidenced by the sound of a +creaking bread-board, sharp blows at the stove lids and an unabashed +slamming of the stewpans, Belle passed again through the room carrying +a plate covered with a napkin, and evidently going somewhere. +</P> + +<P> +Kate felt compelled to take notice: "Where you bound for, Belle?" she +asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not far. But if I don't get back, don't wait supper," was the only +answer. The manner rather than the matter of it puzzled Kate as she +bent over her work. But the next moment she was alone and thinking +about her own troubles. +</P> + +<P> +Half an hour passed rapidly on her sewing—for Kate's fingers were +quick—and Belle returned more perturbed than when she left. She gave +Kate hardly a chance to question her. +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you eat your supper?" she demanded. +</P> + +<P> +Kate answered unconcernedly: "I wasn't hungry—it isn't late, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +Without answering the question Belle asked another. "Kate," she said, +unpinning her hat as she spoke, "how long you going to stay here?" +</P> + +<P> +A less sensitive person than Kate could hardly have mistaken the import +of the question. She flushed as she looked up. "Why, surely no longer +than you want me, Belle," she answered, as evenly as she could; but her +voice showed her surprise. Belle stood before her, a statue of +implacability and Kate, in growing astonishment, rose to her feet: +"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, then as her wits worked +fast: "Doesn't my father wish you to keep me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not thinking about what your father wants. Things are getting too +thick here for me." Kate made no effort to interrupt. "I don't say I +don't like you, Kate—I've always treated you right, or tried to," +continued Belle, laboring under evident excitement. "But it's no use +shutting our eyes any longer to facts. You're Barb Doubleday's +daughter and Barb Doubleday is making war all the time on my friends +and hiring men to assassinate them, and it doesn't seem right to me and +it won't to other people, me sheltering Barb Doubleday's daughter with +such things going on——" +</P> + +<P> +"But, Belle——" +</P> + +<P> +Belle raised her voice one key higher: "You needn't tell me, I know. +Now they're trying to murder Jim Laramie and they've close to done it, +this day——" +</P> + +<P> +Belle had received and accepted strict injunctions of secrecy on the +next point she disclosed, but her feelings were not to be denied. And +she was not prepared for the question that Kate, stung by the +accusation, flung at her: "What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean he's lying near here bleeding to death this minute and Doctor +Carpy in Medicine Bend." +</P> + +<P> +In tones broken with anger and excitement, Belle told the disconnected +story as it had come to her in jerks and nods and oaths from McAlpin at +the barn, and in the little she had pulled out of Laramie himself when +she took food to him. Then came in terribly heated words the brunt of +her anger at Kate. "You knew," she said, pointing her finger at Kate, +standing stupefied. "You knew where Jim Laramie hid Hawk. Nobody else +did know—not even Lefever or Sawdy knew—I didn't know till you told +me. Now, after they've burned his cabin, they set a death watch there +at the bridge on Laramie. How did they know there was such a place if +you didn't tell 'em?" +</P> + +<P> +Stunned by the fire of Belle's wrath, Kate, breathless, tried to +collect her senses. It was only her anger at the final implication +that cleared them. But even as her words of indignant denial reached +her lips, her utterance was paralyzed by the recollection that +unwittingly she had told her father of the night she was thrown into +Laramie's retreat. Yet even this did not check her resentment. +</P> + +<P> +"Who accuses me of telling them?" she demanded. "Who says I conspired +to murder anyone—did Mr. Laramie say so?" +</P> + +<P> +She shot the question at Belle in a furious tone. Her eyes flashed in +a way that confounded her accuser. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm asking you how they found out," retorted Belle, but in spite of +herself on the defensive. +</P> + +<P> +Kate's face was set and her eyes were on fire. All the anger that a +woman could feel centered in her words and manner. "Answer my question +before you say another word." She confronted Belle without yielding. +"Did Jim Laramie accuse me in any way of anything?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you needn't be so high and mighty," flustered Belle. "I'll answer +your question; no. Now you answer mine, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"How can <I>I</I> answer how they found out? I will not say another word +until I see Mr. Laramie—where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"You can't see him—nobody knows he is here—he won't talk to you." +</P> + +<P> +Kate paid no attention to her words: "He'll have to tell me that +himself," she returned. "If he is near here—he must be at Kitchen's." +</P> + +<P> +Belle could say nothing to check or swerve her. Taking up her hat and +ignoring all warnings, Kate walked straight over to the barn. She +found McAlpin at the stable door: "I want you to take a message for me +to Mr. Laramie," she said, speaking low and collectedly. "Ask him if +he will see Kate Doubleday for just two minutes." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin, in all his devious career, had never passed through more or +quicker stages of astonishment, confusion, poise and evasion than he +did in listening to those words. But at pulling his wits together, +McAlpin was a wonder. By the time Kate had finished, his innocent +question was ready: "Where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"He is here. I must see him at once." +</P> + +<P> +"But I ain't seen him myself for a week. He's not here. Who told you +he's here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Belle," persisted Kate calmly, "told me he <I>is</I> here. I must see him. +Don't deceive me, McAlpin—do just as I ask you, no more, no less." +</P> + +<P> +"No more, no less, sure," grumbled the Scotchman. "You gives me one +kind of orders—the boss gives me another kind. I can't do no more, I +can't do no less. I can't do nothin'—I've got a family to support and +all this damned rowing going on, a man's job is no safer nowadays in +this country than his head!" +</P> + +<P> +But words were not to save him. Kate persisted. She would not be put +off. McAlpin, swearing and protesting, could in the end only offer to +go see whether he could by any chance find Laramie. After a long trip +through the winding alleys of the big barn—for Kate watched the +baseball cap and crazy vizor as long as she could follow it—then +complete disappearance for a time, McAlpin came back to Kate, immovable +at the office door, his face wreathed with a surprised smile. +</P> + +<P> +He spoke, but his eyes were opened wide and his words were delivered in +a whisper; mystery hung upon his manner: "Come along," he nodded, +indicating the interior. "Only say nothing to nobody. He's +hit—there's all there is to it. Here's all I know, but I don't know +all: About three hours ago Ben Simeral was riding up the Crazy Woman +when he seen a man half dropping off his horse, hat gone, riding head +down, slow, with his rifle slung on his arm. Simmie seen who it +was—Jim Laramie. He looked at horse 'n' man 'n' says: 'Where the hell +you bin?' 'Where the hell 'a' you been,' Laramie says, pretty short. +'Ridin' all over this'—excuse my rough language, Kate—'blamed +country, lookin' f'r to tell you Van Horn and Stone's out o' jail!' +</P> + +<P> +"Laramie seen then from the ol' man's horse how he'd been ridin' 'n' +softened down a bit. 'So I heard, Simmie,' he says. 'Who'd you hear +it from?' says Simmie. 'Direct, Simmie,' he says. 'Did they pot y', +Jim?' 'Nicked my shoulder, I guess.' 'Where you goin'?' 'To town.' +'Man,' says Simmie, 'you've lost a lot o' blood.' 'Got a little left, +Simmie.' +</P> + +<P> +"Then John Fryin' Pan c'm along. Simmie tried to ride to town with +Laramie—f'r fear he'd fall off his horse. Laramie wouldn't let +neither of 'em do a thing. 'This is my fight,' he says. But Simmie +and John Fryin' Pan scouted along behind and Simmie rode in ahead near +town to tell me Laramie was comin'. God! He was a sight when he rode +into this barn. He tumbled off his horse right there"—McAlpin pointed +to a spot where fresh straw had been sprinkled—"just like a dead man. +I helped carry him upstairs," he whispered. "I'll take y' to him. But +y' bet your life"—the grizzled old man stopped and turned sharply on +his companion—"y' bet your life some o' them niggers bit the dust +some'eres this morning. This way." +</P> + +<P> +Kate, pacing McAlpin's rapid step breathlessly, hung on his +half-muttered words: "He's bleedin' to death," continued McAlpin; +"that's the short of it, and that blamed doctor down at Medicine Bend. +I don't think much o' that man. Can't none of us stop it. Where's +this goin' to end?" +</P> + +<P> +He led her by roundabout passages, up one alley and down another, and +at last opened the door of an old harness room, waited for Kate to +follow him inside and, closing the door behind her, spoke: "I didn't +want you to have to climb a barn ladder," he said, explaining. +"There's the stairs." He pointed in the semi-darkness and led her +toward the flight along the opposite wall. At the top of this flight +light fell from a square opening in the hay-mow. +</P> + +<P> +"Walk up them stairs—I lifted the trap-door f'r ye. He's right up +there at the head of the steps. When y' come down, open <I>this</I> door at +the foot, here. It's a blind door; don't show on the other side. See, +it's bolted. It takes you right into the office. We keep it bolted +from the inside, so no trouble can't come, see?" He unbolted and +opened the door a crack to show her, closed and rebolted it. Then +starting her up the stairs, McAlpin jerked the crazy vizor on his +forehead into a fashion once more simulating child-like frankness and +disappeared by the way he had come. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap35"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AT KITCHEN'S BARN +</H3> + +<P> +To be so summarily left alone and in such a place was disconcerting. +Kate, in the semi-darkness and silence, put her foot on the first tread +of the steps and, placing her hand against the wall, looked upward. +Not a sound; above her a partial light through a trap-door and a +wounded man. She stood completely unnerved. The thought of Laramie +wounded, perhaps dying, the man that had rescued her, protected her, in +truth saved her life on that fearful night—this man, now lying above +her stricken, perhaps murdered, by her own father's friends! How could +she face him? Only the thought that he should not lie wounded unto +death without knowing at least that she was not ungrateful, that she +had not wittingly betrayed him, gave her strength to start up the +narrow steps. +</P> + +<P> +When her head rose above the trap opening the light in the large loft +seemed less than it had promised from below. There were no windows, +but through a gable door, partly ajar, shot a narrow slit of daylight +from the afterglow of the sunset. Kate caught glimpses of a maze of +rafters, struts and beams and under them huge piles of loose hay. +Reaching the top step she paused, trying to look about in the dim +light, when Laramie, close at hand, startled her: "McAlpin told me you +wanted to see me," he said. She could distinguish nothing for a +moment. But the low words reassured her. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm lying on the hay," he continued, in the same tone. "If you'll +open the door a little more you can see better." +</P> + +<P> +Picking her way carefully over to it, Kate pushed the door open +somewhat wider and turned toward Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +He lay not far from the stairs. The yellow light of the evening glow +falling on his face reflected a greenish pallor. Kate caught her +breath, for it seemed as if she were looking into the face of death +until she perceived, as he turned his head, the unusual brightness of +his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +In her confusion what she had meant to say fled: +</P> + +<P> +"Are you very much hurt?" she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"Far from it." He spoke slowly. If it cost him an effort none was +discernible. "Coming into the barn tonight," he went on, very +haltingly, "I had a kind of dizzy spell." He paused again. "I've been +eating too much meat lately, anyway. They say—I fell off my horse; +leastways I bumped my head. I'll be all right tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Belle told me there had been a fight up at the canyon bridge," Kate +stammered, already at a loss to begin. +</P> + +<P> +A sickly yellow smile pointed the silence. "I wouldn't call it exactly +a fight," he said, dwelling somewhat on the last word. "Far from it," +he repeated, with a touch of grimness. "There was some shooting. And +some running." She could see how he paused between sentences. "But if +the other fellows ran it must have been after me. I didn't pay much +attention to who was behind. I had to make a tolerable steep grade +down the Falling Wall Ladder to the river. I was on horseback and +didn't have much leisure to pick my trail." +</P> + +<P> +"And they shooting at you from the rim!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they must have been shooting at something in my general +direction. I guess they hit me once. I didn't mind getting hit +myself, but I didn't want them to hit my horse. I was heading for the +bottom as fast as the law would allow. If they'd hit the horse, I +wouldn't have had much more than one jump from the rim to the river. +Can't ask you to sit down," he added, "unless you'll sit here on the +hay." +</P> + +<P> +Without the least hesitation Kate placed herself beside him. Without +giving her a chance to speak and in the same monotone, he added: "Who +told you I was a gambler?" +</P> + +<P> +Less than so blunt and unexpected a question would have sufficed to +take her aback. And she was conscious in the fading light of his +strangely bright eyes fixed steadily on her. "I don't remember anybody +ever did. I——" +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody did. You told Belle once." +</P> + +<P> +"It must have been long ago——" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that the reason you never acted natural with me?" +</P> + +<P> +She flushed with impatience. But if she tried to get away he brought +her back to the subject. Cornered, she grew resentful: "I can't tell +who told me," she pleaded, after ineffectual sparring. "I've +forgotten. Are you a gambler?" she demanded, turning inquisitor +herself. +</P> + +<P> +He did not move and it was an instant before he replied: "What do you +mean," he asked, "by gambler?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate's tone was hard: "Just what anybody means." +</P> + +<P> +"If you mean a man that makes his living by gambling—or hangs around a +gambling house all the time, or plays regularly—then I couldn't fairly +and squarely be called a gambler. If you mean a man that plays cards +<I>sometimes</I>, or <I>has</I> once in a while bet on a game in a gambling +house, then, I suppose"—he was so evidently squirming that Kate meanly +enjoyed his discomfort—"you might call me that. It would all depend +on whether the one telling it liked me or didn't like me. I haven't +been in Tenison's rooms for months, nor played but one game of poker." +</P> + +<P> +"I despise gambling." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should I?" +</P> + +<P> +"In one sense everybody's a gambler. Everybody I know of is playing +for something. Take your father and me: He's playing for my life; I'm +playing for you. He's playing for a small stake; I'm playing for a big +one." +</P> + +<P> +She could not protest quick enough: "You talk wildly." +</P> + +<P> +"No," he persisted evenly, "I only look at it just as it is." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't ask me to believe all the cruel things said of my father any +more than you want me to believe the things said of you. I am terribly +sorry to see you wounded. And now"—her words caught in her +throat—"Belle blames me even for that." +</P> + +<P> +"How on earth does she blame you for that?" +</P> + +<P> +Despite her efforts to control herself, Kate, as she approached the +unpleasant subject, began to tremble inwardly with the fear that it +must after all be as Belle had rudely asserted—that her father was +behind these efforts against Laramie's life. For nothing had shaken +her tottering faith in her father more than the blunt words Laramie +himself had just now indifferently spoken. +</P> + +<P> +"If I am in any way to blame, it is innocently," she hurried on. "I +will tell you everything; you shall judge. My father was bitterly +angry when he learned I had been seen at Abe Hawk's funeral. I told +him about my getting lost, about falling into the place at the +bridge—how you did everything you could and how Abe Hawk had done all +he could. He was so angry he would listen to nothing——" she stopped, +collected herself, tried to go on, could not. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I hate this country!" she exclaimed. "I hate the people and +everything in it! And I'm going away from it—as far as I can get. +But I wouldn't go," she said determinedly, "without seeing you and +telling you this much." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie spoke quietly but with confidence: "You are not going away from +this country." +</P> + +<P> +Kate had picked up a stem of hay and looking down at it was breaking it +nervously between her fingers. "You will have to hurry up and get well +if I stay," she said abruptly. "I'm beginning to think you are the +only friend I have here. And," she added, so quickly as to cut off any +words from him, "I've told you everything. I only hope my speaking +about the hiding place at the bridge when father was angry with me—and +only to defend myself—was not the cause of <I>this</I>." +</P> + +<P> +She was close beside him. "Can it be," she asked, "that this was how +it happened?" He heard her voice break with the question. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he blurted out instantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," she cried, "I'm so thankful!" +</P> + +<P> +Listening to her effort to speak the words, he was not sorry for what +he had said. "If you're going to lie," Hawk had once said to him, +cynically, "don't stumble, don't beat about the bush—do a job!" The +moment Kate told her story, Laramie knew exactly how he had been +trapped. But why blame her? "It's the first time I ever lied to her," +he thought ruefully to himself. "It's the first time she ever believed +me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Does Belle know you quarreled with your father?" he asked, to get away +from the subject. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she answered, steadying herself. +</P> + +<P> +"She said you'd been acting sort of queer." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't tell people my troubles." +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"You might die and blame me." +</P> + +<P> +"Who says I'm going to die?" +</P> + +<P> +"They were afraid you might." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't like to disappoint anybody, but dying is a thing a man +is entitled to take his time about." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't I do something till the doctor comes?" +</P> + +<P> +He turned very slowly on his side. Kate made an attempt to examine his +shoulder. She was not used to the sight of blood. The clotted and +matted clothing awed and sickened her. Even the hay was blood-soaked, +but she stuck to her efforts. Supplementing the rude efforts of +McAlpin and Kitchen to give him first aid, she cut away, with Laramie's +knife, the bullet-torn coat and shirt and tried to get the wound ready +for cleansing. "I'm so afraid of doing the wrong thing," she murmured, +fearfully. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care what you do—do something," he said. "Your hands feel +awful good." +</P> + +<P> +"I've nothing here to work with." +</P> + +<P> +"All right, we'll go to the drug store and get something." After +stubborn efforts he got on his feet and insisted on going down the +stairs. Nothing that Kate could say would dissuade him. "I've been +here long enough, anyway," was his decision. "I'm feeling better every +minute; only awfully thirsty." +</P> + +<P> +Kate steadied him down the dark stairs, fearful he might fall over her +as she went ahead. Secrecy of movement seemed to have no significance +for him. If his friends were disturbed, Laramie was not. He evidently +knew the harness room, for he opened the blind door with hardly any +hesitation and stepped into the office. The office was empty but the +street door of the stable was open. McAlpin stood in the gang-way +talking to some man who evidently caught a glimpse of Laramie, for he +said rudely and loud enough for Kate to hear: "Hell, McAlpin! There +comes your dead man now!" +</P> + +<P> +Kate recognized the heavy voice of Carpy and shrank back. The doctor, +McAlpin behind him dumbly staring, confronted Laramie at the door: +"What are you doin' here, Jim?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"What would I be doing anywhere?" retorted Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"Go back to your den. This man says you're dying." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not getting much encouragement at it—I've been waiting for +you three hours to help things along. I'm done with the hay." +</P> + +<P> +"Looking for a feather bed to die in. Some men are blamed particular." +As he spoke Carpy caught his first glimpse of Kate. "Hello! There's +the pretty little girl from the great big ranch. No wonder the man's +up and coming—what did you send for me for, McAlpin? Where you +heading, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +With his hands on the door jambs, Carpy effectually barred the exit. +Knowing his stubborn patient well, he humored him, to the verge of +letting him have his own way, but with much raillery denied him the +drug store trip. A compromise was effected. Laramie consented to go +to Belle's to get something to eat. In this way, refusing help, the +obdurate patient was got to walk to the cottage. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't let him fall on y'," McAlpin cautioned Kate, as the two followed +close behind. "I helped carry him upstairs. He's a ton o' brick." +</P> + +<P> +But Laramie, either incensed by his condition—the idea of any escort +being vastly unpleasant to him—or animated by the stiff hypodermics of +profanity that Carpy injected into the talk as they crossed the street, +did not even stumble; he held his way unaided, met Belle's amazement +unresponsively and, sitting down, called for something to eat. +</P> + +<P> +"How does he do it, Doc?" whispered McAlpin, craning forward from the +background. +</P> + +<P> +"Pure, damned nerve," muttered Carpy. "But he does it." +</P> + +<P> +They got him into bed. While the doctor was excavating the channel +ripped through his shoulder, Laramie said nothing. When, however, he +discovered that Kate was missing, he crustily short-circuited Belle's +excuses. Words passed. It became clear that Laramie would start out +and search the town if Kate were not produced. +</P> + +<P> +"She wanted to see <I>me</I>," he insisted, doggedly. "Now I want to see +<I>her</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Carpy found he must again intervene. He despatched McAlpin as a +diplomatic envoy over to his own house whither he had taken Kate as his +guest when she peremptorily declined to return to Belle's. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap36"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MCALPIN AT BAY +</H3> + +<P> +However others may have felt that night about Laramie's affairs, one +man, McAlpin, was proud of his ride, desperately wounded, all the way +to town. Laramie had made a confidant of no one but Kate. His +experience in being trapped was not so pleasant that he liked to talk +about it and neither McAlpin's shrewd questioning nor Carpy's +restrained curiosity was gratified that night. +</P> + +<P> +In the circumstances, McAlpin's fancy had full play; and distrustful of +his imagination unaided, he repaired early to the Mountain House bar to +stimulate it. Thus it gradually transpired along the bar, either from +the stimulant or its reaction or from McAlpin's excitement, that a big +fight had taken place that morning in the Falling Wall from which only +Laramie had returned alive. It was known that he had come back and +inference as to who the dead men might be could center only on his two +active enemies, Tom Stone and Harry Van Horn. The pawky barn boss, who +possessed perfectly the art of tantalizing innuendo, thus stirred the +bar-room pool to the depths. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin chose the rustler's end of the bar—as Abe Hawk's old stand was +called—and held the interest of the room against all comers. As the +place filled for the evening, his cap, its vizor more than ordinarily +awry, was a conspicuous object and it became a favor on his part to +accept the courtesies of the bar at any man's hands. +</P> + +<P> +"I knowed how it had to end," he would repeat when he had rambled again +around all aspects of the mysterious encounter. "I knowed if they kept +after Jim how it <I>had</I> to end. Why, hell, gentlemen," he would aver, +planting a hob-nailed barn boot on the foot-rail, while swinging on one +elbow from the polished face of the mahogany, "I've <I>seen</I> the boy stop +a coyote on the go, at 900 yards—what could you expect? No, no, not +again. What? Well, go ahead; just a dash o' bitters in mine, Luke. +Thank you. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, boys, accordin' to my notion, there's two men never would be +missed in this country, anyway, if nobody ever seen 'em again. 'N' if +my count is anywhere near right, nobody ever will see 'em again. They +chased Laramie one foot too far—just one foot—'n' it looks as if they +got what was comin' to 'em. I won't name 'em—they won't bother no +more in this country." +</P> + +<P> +He had become so absorbed in his recital that the entrance into the +bar-room from the barber shop of a booted and spurred man escaped him. +The man, advancing deliberately, heard the last of McAlpin's words. He +got fairly close to the unsuspecting barn boss unobserved. A few in +the listening circle, noting the approach of the new arrival, stepped +back a little—for, of all men that might be expected, after McAlpin's +dark intimations, to appear, then and there, alive and aggressive, was +Tom Stone. +</P> + +<P> +Freshly barbered, head forward, keen eyes peering from under staring, +sandy brows; thumbs stuck in his belt and his face framing a confident +leer. Stone sauntering forward, listened to McAlpin. So intent was +McAlpin on impressing his hearers that the foreman elbowed his way, +before McAlpin saw him, directly to the front. +</P> + +<P> +"So you won't name 'em?" grinned Stone, confronting the startled +speaker. McAlpin caught his breath. The wiry Scotchman was not a +coward, but he knew the merciless cruelty of Stone. Armed, McAlpin +would have been no man to affront his deadly skill; he now faced him +unarmed. +</P> + +<P> +Stone, leaving his right hand hooked by the thumb in his belt, rested +his left elbow on the bar. The bartender, Luke, just back of him, +leaning forward, mopped the bar more slowly and, listening, moved a +little farther down the bar until his fingers rested on an electric +button underneath connecting with Tenison's office in the hotel. +</P> + +<P> +"Name the two men, McAlpin," said Stone, ominously, "while you're able +to talk." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin exhausted his ingenuity in his efforts to evade his danger, but +Stone drew the noose about him tighter and tighter. He played the +unlucky man with all the malice of an executioner. He baited him and +toyed with him. McAlpin, white, stood his ground. His fighting blood +was all there and he broke at length into a torrent of abuse of the man +that he realized was bent on murdering him. +</P> + +<P> +Made eloquent by desperation, McAlpin never rose to greater heights of +profane candor. It was as if he were making his last will and +testament of hatred and contempt for his murderer, and when he had +showered on his enemy every epithet stored in a retentive memory he +struck his empty glass on the bar and shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Now, you hellcat, shoot!" +</P> + +<P> +It might have been thought Stone would check such a public castigation. +He did not. Impervious to abuse, because master of the situation, he +seemed to enjoy his victim's fury. "I'm finishing up with your gang +around here, McAlpin," he snarled, never losing his grin. "You've run +a rustler's barn in Sleepy Cat long enough. I've warned you and I've +warned Kitchen. It didn't do no good. Fill up your glass, McAlpin." +</P> + +<P> +"Stone, I'd never fill up a glass with you if I was in hell 'n' you +could pull me out." +</P> + +<P> +Stone's grin deepened: "Fill up your glass, McAlpin." +</P> + +<P> +Onlookers, knowing what a refusal would mean, held their breaths. But +McAlpin, white and stubborn, with another oath, again refused. +</P> + +<P> +"Fill it, McAlpin," urged a quiet voice behind the bar. Looking +quickly, like a hunted animal, around, McAlpin saw Harry Tenison, +white-faced and cold, pushing the bottle in friendly fashion toward +him. Every man, save one, watching, hoped he would humor at least that +much his expectant murderer. But the barn-boss had reached a state of +fear and anger that inflamed every stubborn drop in his blood. He +swore he would not fill his glass. +</P> + +<P> +Tenison spoke grimly: "Will you drink it if I fill it, you mule?" he +demanded, picking up the bottle and pouring into both glasses in front +of him. +</P> + +<P> +In the dead silence McAlpin's brain was in a storm. He collected a few +of his wildly flying thoughts. Perhaps he remembered the wife and +Loretta and the babies; at all events he stared at the liquor, gulped +to see whether he could swallow, and, reaching forward, picked up the +glass. Stone lifted his own. The two men, their glasses poised, eyed +each other. +</P> + +<P> +Stone barbed a taunt for his victim: "Goin' to drink, air you?" he +sneered, wreathing his eyes in leering wrinkles. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said a man, unnoticed until then by any except Tenison and Luke, +and speaking as he pushed forward through the crowd to face both Stone +and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-320"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-320.jpg" ALT=""No," said a man, . . . as he pushed forward to face both Stone and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="402" HEIGHT="634"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 402px"> +"No," said a man, . . . as he pushed forward to face both Stone and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Stone's glass was half-way up to his lips; he looked across it and saw +himself face to face with Jim Laramie. Laramie who, unseen, had heard +enough of the quarrel, stood with his coat slung over his right +shoulder; one arm he carried in a sling, but as far as this concerned +Stone, it was the wrong arm. Daring neither to raise the whisky to his +lips nor to set the glass down, lest Laramie, suspecting he meant to +draw, should shoot, Stone stood rooted. "McAlpin's not going to drink, +Stone," repeated Laramie. "What are you going to do about it?" +</P> + +<P> +The mere sight of Laramie would have been a vastly unpleasant surprise. +But to find himself faced by him in fighting trim after what had taken +place in the morning was an upset. +</P> + +<P> +"What am I going to do about it?" echoed Stone, lifting his eyebrows +and grinning anew. "What are you going to do about it, Jim?" he +demanded. "You and me used to bunk together, didn't we?" +</P> + +<P> +"I bunked with a rattlesnake once. I didn't know it," responded +Laramie dryly. "Next morning the rattlesnake didn't know it." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim, I'll drink you just once for old times." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't drink with you, Stone. No man would drink with you if he +wasn't afraid of you. And after tonight nobody's going to be afraid of +you. You're a thief among thieves, Tom Stone: a bully, a coward, a +skulker. You shoot from cover. When Barb made you foreman, you and +Van Horn stole his cattle, and Dutch Henry sold 'em for you and divvied +with you. Then, for fear Barb would get wise, you and Van Horn got up +the raid and killed Dutch Henry, so he couldn't talk. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you're going to quit this stuff. No more thieving, no more +man-killing, no bullyragging, no nothing. Tenison will clear this +room. Hold your glass right where it is, till the last man gets out. +When he gets out set down your glass; you'll have time enough allowed +you. After that, draw where you stand. You're not entitled to a +chance. God, Stone, I'd <I>rather</I> bunk with a rattlesnake than with +you. I'd rather kill one than kill a thing like you. Your head ought +to be pounded with a rock. You're entitled to nothing. But you can +have your chance. Get the boys out of here, Harry." +</P> + +<P> +Not for one instant did he take his eye off Stone's eye, or raise his +tone above a speaking voice, and Laramie's voice was naturally low. To +catch his syllables, listeners crowded in and craned their necks. Few +men withdrew but everyone courteously and sedulously got out of the +prospective line of fire. +</P> + +<P> +What it cost Laramie even to stand on his feet and talk, Tenison could +most shrewdly estimate. From behind the bar he coldly regarded the +wounded man. He knew that Laramie must have escaped Carpy and escaped +Belle, to look for the men that had tried that morning to kill him. +Having found Stone he meant then and there to fight. +</P> + +<P> +Tenison likewise realized that he was in no condition to do it, and +promptly intervened: "Don't look at me, Jim," he said. "But I'm +talking. There's no man in Sleepy Cat can clear this room now. Most +of this crowd are your friends. They want to see this hell-hound +cleaned up. But you know what it means to some of 'em if two guns cut +loose." +</P> + +<P> +Stone saw the gate open. He welcomed a chance to dodge. Eyeing +Laramie, he swallowed his drink, set his glass on the bar. With a +voice dried and cracked, he cried: "Keep your hands off, Tenison. I'll +give Jim Laramie all the fight he wants, here or anywhere." +</P> + +<P> +Tenison was willing to bridge the crisis with abuse. "Shut up, you +coyote," he remarked, with complete indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll throw a man down no matter how much of your whisky he drinks, +won't you, Tenison?" cried Stone. +</P> + +<P> +Tenison, both hands judicially spread on the bar, seemed to fail to +hear. "McAlpin," he said contemptuously, "walk around behind Laramie +and lift Stone's gun." +</P> + +<P> +Stone started violently. "Look out, Tenison! I lift my gun when +there's men to stand by and see fair play!" +</P> + +<P> +A roar of laughter went up. "I don't lift it for no frame-up," he +shouted, turning angrily toward the unsympathetic crowd. "Get out!" +cried one voice far enough back to be safe. "Send for Barb," shouted a +second. "Page Van Horn," piped a barber, as Stone moved toward the +door. +</P> + +<P> +The baited foreman turned only for a parting shot at Laramie: "I'll see +<I>you</I> later." +</P> + +<P> +"If I was your friend," retorted Laramie, unmoved, "I'd advise you not +to. If you ride my trail don't expect anything more from me. And I +make this town," he hammered home the point with his right forefinger +indicating the floor, "and the Falling Wall range <I>my</I> trail." +</P> + +<P> +"Stone ought to have tried it tonight," observed Tenison at the cash +register. He was speaking to his bartender long after Stone had +disappeared, Laramie had been put to bed again and the billiard hall +had been deserted. "He'll never get a chance again at Laramie half +shot to pieces." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap37"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +KATE BURNS THE STEAK +</H3> + +<P> +Laramie, held for a week in bed, learned from the Doctor of Belle's +outburst at Kate, and, acting through him and with him, arranged peace. +</P> + +<P> +Complaining of a cold, with her other troubles, Belle took to bed when +Laramie was moved to the hotel and Kate turned in to nurse her. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't starve while she stays, Belle," declared Carpy, leaving Kate +in possession at the cottage, "and while I think of it," he added, +turning to Kate, "Laramie says he wants to see you. You call him up on +the telephone, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"What for, doctor?" +</P> + +<P> +"To oblige me, girl. I want to hold that fellow in his room a few days +more and keep his arm in a sling. He's no easier to handle than a +wildcat." +</P> + +<P> +Kate looked perplexed: "What shall I say to him?" +</P> + +<P> +Carpy stood at the door with his hand on the knob: "Jolly him +along—you know how. He says he's coming down here for dinner tonight. +Tell him Belle's sick." +</P> + +<P> +Belle listened. The more Kate considered the mandate, the more +confusing it seemed. But she rang up the hotel, called for Laramie and +heard presently a man's voice in answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Is this Mr. Laramie?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not," was the answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't he there?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Can you tell me when he will be in?" +</P> + +<P> +"He won't be in." +</P> + +<P> +She sighed with impatience: "I want to speak to him. And I think this +is he speaking. You know very well who I am," she persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"I do." +</P> + +<P> +"And I know very well who you are." +</P> + +<P> +"In that you may be mistaken." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely I'm not mistaken in believing Mr. Laramie a gentleman." +</P> + +<P> +"But you are mistaken in believing any person by that name here." +</P> + +<P> +"There is a person there who loves to persecute me, isn't there?" +</P> + +<P> +"There is not." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there one there that likes to have his own way?" +</P> + +<P> +"No more than you like to have your own way." +</P> + +<P> +"Is there a man named Jim there?" +</P> + +<P> +"Speaking, Kate." +</P> + +<P> +"I've a message from Belle." +</P> + +<P> +"What is the message?" +</P> + +<P> +"She is in bed with a cold and fever and wants you not to come tonight. +As soon as she is up she will let you know." +</P> + +<P> +Belle held her peace till Kate left the telephone. "I can't make +Doctor Carpy out," she grumbled. "If he didn't want Jim Laramie to +come down here what did he ask <I>you</I> to call him up for? If he doesn't +know any more than that about doctoring," she added, contemptuously, +"I'd hate to take his medicine." +</P> + +<P> +She waited for Kate's comment but Kate possessed the great art of +saying nothing. "I guess," continued Belle, at length, "it's time to +take that pill he left, but I guess I won't take it. What do you think +about it?" she asked, referring again to Carpy. +</P> + +<P> +Kate was not to be drawn out: "I found out a long time ago that Doctor +Carpy doesn't tell all he knows," she observed dryly. "But I do know +he wants Mr. Laramie to stay in his room. He says his shoulder will +never heal if he doesn't keep still." +</P> + +<P> +Belle made no response, but when Laramie knocked at the door in the +evening she knew who it was. Kate received him. +</P> + +<P> +Talking in leisurely fashion to her, he walked to the door of Belle's +room, looked in, wanted to know whom she had been fighting with and +asked if she would get up and get supper for him. +</P> + +<P> +He carried his right arm at his side with the thumb hooked into his +belt: "Where's your sling?" demanded Belle, tartly. Laramie pulled it +out of his pocket: "I put it on when Carpy comes around," he explained. +</P> + +<P> +"You keep fooling around the streets this way and they'll get you +sometime," said Belle, tartly. +</P> + +<P> +He turned the remark: "That idea doesn't seem to worry me as much as it +used to. Have I got to cook my own supper?" +</P> + +<P> +This venture after discussion was assumed by Kate. She put on her hat +to go across the street to get a steak. Laramie insisted on going with +her. She asked him not to. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Kate was keyed up with apprehension: "Why take chances all the time?" +she asked in turn. "Someone might shoot from the dark." +</P> + +<P> +Belle answered for him: "Nobody in this country would shoot a man when +a woman's with him," she said. "Go along." +</P> + +<P> +The butcher stumping in from the back room to wait on them showed no +surprise at the two from hostile camps asking for one steak, but he +tried so hard to watch the pair and to hear what they were saying that +he nearly ruined one quarter of beef before he got what Kate wanted. +What he finally cut off and trimmed looked more like a roast than a +steak but neither customer seemed disturbed by this. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie paid, over indignant protests, and placing the package in the +loop of his left arm, opened the shop door for his companion. He +passed out behind her in excellent spirits. The butcher, looking after +them, took his surreptitious pipe from his pocket, watched the shop +door close, shook his head and ramming the burnt tobacco down hard with +the finger that lacked the first joint, stumped back to his lonely +stove. +</P> + +<P> +The kitchen was farthest removed from Belle's room. Laramie started +the fire with kerosene. When he lighted it there was a flare-back that +alarmed Belle in her bed, but she could hear nothing of what was going +on in the kitchen. While the supper was being cooked, Laramie stood on +the other side of the stove from his enemy's daughter, watching every +move. If Kate walked over to the cupboard, his eyes followed her +step—she walked with such decision and planted her heels so fast and +firm. If she turned from the stove to the table, his eyes devoured her +slenderness in amazement that one so delicately proportioned could so +crowd everything else out of his head. It seemed as if nothing before +had ever been shaped like her ankles—there was so little of them to +bear uncomplainingly even so slight a figure—and Kate was by no means +diminutive. +</P> + +<P> +As the supper progressed, Laramie watched almost in awe the short-arm +jabs she gave the meat on the broiler. The cuffs of her shirtwaist, +half back to her elbows, revealed white arms tapering to wrists molded +like the ankles, and hands that his eyes fed on as a miser's feed on +gold. The blazing coals flushed her cheeks and when she looked up at +him to answer some foolish question her own eyes, flushed and softened +by the heat, took on an expression that stole all the strength he had +left. When she asked him how he liked it, he exclaimed, "Fine," and +Kate had to ask him whether he liked the steak well done or rare. +</P> + +<P> +"Any way you like it," he stammered, "but lots of gravy." +</P> + +<P> +As he watched her laugh at his efforts to help her by picking up the +hot platter, a sense of his own clumsiness and size and general +roughness overcame him. She was too far removed, he told himself, from +his kind to make it possible for her ever to like him. +</P> + +<P> +The closer he got to her daintiness and spirit and laughter, the more +hopeless his wild dreams seemed. Whenever she asked if the steak were +cooked enough, he suggested—to prolong the pleasure of watching her +hands—that she give it one more turn. Every moment he saw something +new to admire. While she was attending to the meat he could look at +her hair and see where the sun had browned her pink throat and neck. +As the broiling drew near an end, almost a panic gripped Laramie. The +happiest moments of his life had been spent there at the stove. They +were slipping away. She was lifting the steak the last time from the +fire. He asked her to turn it once more. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, look at it," she exclaimed, "it's burnt up now; hold the platter +closer." +</P> + +<P> +It brought him closer in spirit than he had ever been to heaven, to +feel her elbow brush against his own, as she deftly landed the smoking +steak on the platter while Laramie held it. +</P> + +<P> +A great melancholy overcame him: "What do you want me to do?" he said +suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +Kate's eyebrows rose. She looked at him: "Why, set it on the table," +she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I mean what do you want me to do—myself." +</P> + +<P> +She could not wholly misunderstand his look, though little did he +realize how she feared it; or what a dread respect she secretly had for +the grave eyes so closely bent on her own. She laughed really to +gather courage, and it was easy to laugh a little because he did look +so odd as he stood before her, with the platter in both hands, but +terribly in earnest. "Set the platter on the table before you burn +yourself," she pleaded. +</P> + +<P> +"You must want me to do something," he persisted, "get off the earth or +stay on it—now, don't you? Say what you want me to do, and, by——" +He checked himself. "And I'll do it." +</P> + +<P> +She could restrain him but she could not turn him. He did put the +platter on the table without getting any answer but now that his mind +was set, it reverted stubbornly to the one subject and when supper was +over and they sat opposite each other in the little dining-room +talking, she said she knew he had burned his hands. "I wouldn't mind +if I had," he remarked frankly. "Almost every time I've talked with +you I've held the hot end of a poker; I'm getting to look for it." He +drew a deep breath. "You never liked me, did you, Kate?" +</P> + +<P> +"That isn't so." +</P> + +<P> +"You always kind of held off." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I was a little afraid of you." +</P> + +<P> +"You're not afraid of me now—are you—with one arm out of commission? +Are you?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him in a troubled sort of way: "Why, no—not very," she +returned, half laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"You were never half as much afraid of me as I was of you," he murmured. +</P> + +<P> +His eyes across the table were growing very importunate. She could not +realize how flushed and soft and tantalizing her own eyes were, framed +by the warm color high in her cheeks. She rose with a hurried +exclamation and looked dismayed at him, her hands tilted on the table, +her brows high and her burning eyes still laughing: "We've left the +light on by the stove all this time," she whispered. "Belle will be +furious!" +</P> + +<P> +She slipped hurriedly out into the kitchen and turned off the light. +Her face was hot. She was thirsty and stepping to the water faucet she +picked up a glass. The mountain water tasted so cold and good; in some +way it made her think of great peaks and the crisp, clear air of his +home far up among them. She had not realized how heated she was. "Do +you want a drink?" she called back to the dining room. +</P> + +<P> +He was standing directly behind her. She turned only to stumble +against him and before she knew what had happened he was raining kisses +on her resisting cheeks. Then his lips found hers and, faint with the +moment, she resisted no more. +</P> + +<P> +After a long time she got one hand around his neck and laid the other +across his mouth: "Don't make so much noise," she whispered wildly. +"Belle will hear us!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap38"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE UNEXPECTED CALL +</H3> + +<P> +The hush that followed the brain storm in the kitchen put Belle, quite +unsuspecting, to sleep. Laramie, with a tread creditable to a cat—and +a stealth natural to most carnivorous animals—closed the door without +breaking her heavy breathing. The shades, always drawn at nightfall, +called for no attention. In the living-room, there was preliminary +tiptoeing, and there were futile efforts on Kate's part to cool her +rebellious cheeks by applying her open hands to them—when she could +get possession of either one to do so. The small couch which served as +sofa was drawn out of range of even the protected windows, and the +floodgates were opened to the first unrestrained confidences together. +</P> + +<P> +When they could talk of more serious things, Kate could not possibly +see how she could marry him; but this, in the circumstances, seemed to +cause Laramie no alarm. She admitted she had tried not to like him and +confessed how she had failed. "Every time I met you," she murmured, +"you seemed to understand me so well—you knew how a woman would like +to be treated—that's what I kept thinking about." +</P> + +<P> +"You used to talk and laugh with Van Horn," he complained, jealously. +"When I came around, I couldn't drag a smile out of you with a lariat." +</P> + +<P> +"You're getting a smile now that he isn't getting, aren't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Somehow you never acted natural with me." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim!" It was the word he most wanted to hear, even if the reproach +implied the quintessence of stupidity. "Don't you understand, I wasn't +afraid of him, and I was of you!" +</P> + +<P> +"And I only trying to get a chance to eat out of your hand!" +</P> + +<P> +"How could I tell—after all I used to hear—but that you'd begin by +eating out of my hand and finish by eating me?" +</P> + +<P> +He had to be told every word of her troubles at home, but her +uneasiness turned to the dangers threatening him. These, she +protested, he belittled too much. Ever since he had come in wounded +she had been the prey of fears for him. "It's a mystery how you +escaped." He had to tell every detail of his flight down the canyon. +"By rights," he said in conclusion, "they ought to have got me. No man +should have got out of that scrape as well as I did. Van Horn didn't +get into action quick enough. And it seemed to me as if Stone himself +was a little slow." The way he spoke the things strengthened her +confidence. And his arm held her so close! +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell you, Kate," he added. "You can easy enough hire a fellow to +kill a man. But you can't really hire one to hate a man. And if he +doesn't really hate him, he won't be as keen on your job as you'd be +yourself. These hired men will booze once in awhile—or go to sleep, +maybe. It's work for a clear head and takes patience to hide in the +rocks day after day and wait for one certain man to ride by so you can +shoot him. If you doze off, your man may pass while you snore. And +the kind of man you can hire isn't as keen on getting a man as the man +himself is on not getting 'got'—that's where the chance is, sometimes, +to pull out better than even." +</P> + +<P> +Because his aim was to reassure, to relieve her anxiety, he did not +tell her that all the unfavorable conditions he had named, while never +before arrayed against him at one time, were now pretty much all +present together. Kate herself, he knew, stood more than ever between +him and Van Horn. Stone had been twice publicly disgraced by Laramie +at Tenison's—he would never forgive that. He had the patience of the +assassin and when hatred swayed him he did not sleep—these were still, +Laramie knew in his heart, bridges to be crossed. +</P> + +<P> +But why spoil an hour's happiness with the thought of them now? +Laramie drew his hand across his heated forehead as if to clear his +eyes and look again down into the face close to his and assure himself +he was not really dreaming. "What do I care about them all, Kate," he +would say, "now that I've got you? No, now that you've given yourself +to me—that's what I'll say—what do I care what they do?" +</P> + +<P> +But she would look up, sudden with apprehension: "But don't you think +<I>I</I> care? Jim, let's leave this country soon, soon." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie laughed indulgently: "Somebody'll have to leave it pretty +soon—that's certain." +</P> + +<P> +A rude knock at the door broke into his words. Kate threw her hands +against his breast. She stared at him thunderstruck, and sprang from +the sofa like a deer, looking still at him with wide-open eyes and then +glancing apprehensively toward the door. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie sat laughing silently at her get-away as he called it, yet he +was not undisturbed. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing, in the circumstances, could have been less welcome than any +sort of an intrusion. But a knock at the door, almost violent, and +coming three times, stirred even Laramie's temper. +</P> + +<P> +The door was not locked. Laramie rose, his fingers resting on the butt +of his revolver, and stepping lightly into the dining-room, turned down +the lamp. He stood in the shadow and beckoned Kate to him. His face +indicated no alarm. +</P> + +<P> +"This may be something, or it may be nothing. You step into the +kitchen. I'll go to the door." +</P> + +<P> +She clung to him, really terror-stricken, begging him not to go. As he +tried to quiet her fears the heavy knock shook the flimsy door the +second time. Kate, declaring she would go, would not be denied. +Laramie told her exactly what to do. +</P> + +<P> +She reached the door on tiptoe and stood to the right of it. The key +was in the lock. Kate, reaching out one hand, turned the key. With +the door thus locked and standing close against the wall she called out +to know who was there. Laramie had followed behind her. He stepped to +where he could look from behind the window shade out on the porch. He +turned to Kate just as an answer came from outside, and signed to her +to open. Standing where she was, Kate turned the key swiftly back in +the lock and threw the door wide open. +</P> + +<P> +Stooping slightly forward to bring his hat under the opening, and +looking carefully about him, her father walked heavily into the room. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie had disappeared. Kate, dumb, stood still. Barb closed the +door behind him, walked to the table, put down his hat and turned to +Kate. "Well?" he began, snapping the word in his usual manner, his +stupefied daughter struggling with her astonishment. "You don't act +terrible glad to see me." +</P> + +<P> +Kate caught her breath. "I was so surprised," she stammered. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you staying in town so long for?" demanded Barb. His voice +had lost nothing of its husky heaviness. +</P> + +<P> +She answered with a question: "Where else have I to stay, father? I've +been waiting for money to get East with and it hasn't come yet." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want to go East for?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've nowhere else to go." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you come home?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because you told me to leave." +</P> + +<P> +He sat slowly down on a chair near the table and with the care of a +burdened man. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said, "you mustn't take things too quick from me nowadays." +She made no answer. "I've had a good deal of money trouble lately," he +went on, "everything going against me." He spoke moodily and his huge +frame lost in the bulk of his big storm coat overran almost +pathetically the slender chair in which he tried to sit. His spirit +seemed broken. "I reckon," he added, taking his hat from the table and +fingering it slowly, "you'd better come along back." +</P> + +<P> +She was sorry for him. She told him how much she wished he would give +up trying to carry his big load, and she urged him to take a small +ranch and keep out of debt. He laid his hat down again. He told her +he didn't see how he could let it go, but they would talk it over when +she got home. +</P> + +<P> +This was the point of his errand that she dreaded to meet and putting +it as inoffensively as possible she tried to parry: "I think," she +ventured, "now that I've got some clothes ready and got started, I'd +better go East for awhile anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"No." His ponderous teeth clicked. "You'd better wait till fall. I +might go along. Tonight I'll take you out home. Put on your things +and we'll get started." +</P> + +<P> +She did not want to refuse. She knew she could not consent. She knew +that Laramie in the shadow, as well as her father in the light, was +waiting for her answer: "Father," she said at once, "I can't go +tonight." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" was the husky demand. +</P> + +<P> +"Belle is sick in bed," pleaded Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that the only reason?" +</P> + +<P> +She saw he was bound to wring more from her. "No," she answered, "it +isn't, father." +</P> + +<P> +"What else?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid——" she hesitated, and then spoke out: "I can't come +back—not just as I was, anyway." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's too late, father." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"When I come back from the East," she spoke slowly but collectedly, "I +expect to go into a new home." +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the Falling Wall." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he did not speak, only looked at her fixedly: "What I've +heard's so, then?" he said, after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +"What have you heard?" +</P> + +<P> +"The story is you're going to marry Jim Laramie." +</P> + +<P> +Kate, in turn, stood silently regarding her father, and as if she knew +she must face it out. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that so?" he demanded harshly. +</P> + +<P> +She burst into tears, but through her tears the two men heard her +answer: "Yes, father." +</P> + +<P> +Barb picked up his hat without wincing: "I guess that ends things +'tween you and me." He started uncertainly for the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" Kate protested, taking a quick step after him as he passed +out. "You don't do him justice. You don't know him." +</P> + +<P> +But slamming the door shut behind him, he cut off her words. If they +reached his ears he gave them no heed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap39"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXXIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BARB MAKES A SURPRISING ALLIANCE +</H3> + +<P> +By a happy chance, on the night of Laramie's great hour, Sawdy and +Lefever returned from Medicine Bend. It was late when they +arrived—into the early morning hours, in fact, and at the Mountain +House the bar was not only closed but securely closed—barricaded +against just such marauders. Even the night clerk had gone to bed. +But this was less of an embarrassment, for the two adventurers, turning +on the lights, took his pass keys from the drawer and, opening the +doors of one room after another in the face of a variety of protests, +kept on till they found satisfactory quarters that "seemed" +unoccupied—quarters in which at least the beds were unoccupied. +</P> + +<P> +The hardy scouts slept late. They breakfasted late, in what Sawdy +called the hotel "ornery," and while they were reducing the visible +supply of ham and eggs, Tenison walked in on them to ask about +complaints made at the office by indignant guests whose privacy had +been invaded during the night. Rebuffed on this subject, all knowledge +being disclaimed, Tenison was called on for the story of events since +the two had been away, and of these Laramie's escape from the canyon +came first. Tenison reported further, in confidence, Laramie's success +with Kate. Had the news provided every man in the Falling Wall with a +brand-new wife, it could not have been more to the humor of Sawdy and +Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy rose and stretched himself from the waist down to make sure his +legs touched the floor: "I've got to have a good cigar on that," he +declared. "Take away, Mabel." He nodded courteously to the waitress. +"Harry, we had the dustiest trip I ever seen in my life," he added, as +with his companions he left the table. "The old Ogallala trail wasn't +a marker to it. Why, the dust was a mile deep. My tonsils are plumb +full of it yet." +</P> + +<P> +Not everyone in Sleepy Cat was so quick to credit the news that Kate +Doubleday was going to marry Jim Laramie. The cattlemen sympathizers +looked grumpy, when approached on the subject. They preferred not to +talk, but if taunted would retort with an intimating oath: "That show +ain't over yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim Laramie acts as if it was, anyway," grumbled Belle, when the +butcher told her what they were saying. In fact, all of Laramie's +intimates were out of patience with him when he announced he was going +to rebuild the cabin on his Falling Wall ranch and live there. +</P> + +<P> +"Wait till this cattle fight is over," they would urge. +</P> + +<P> +"It is over," he would retort. And heedless of their protests, he +spent his time getting his building materials together. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want me to do?" he demanded, stirred at length by Belle's +remonstrances against going back to the Falling Wall. "I've got to +live somewhere. Danger? Why, yes—maybe. But I can't keep dying +every day on that account. Here in town a man was run over just the +other day by a railroad train." +</P> + +<P> +Kate said little either way. She heard all that Belle could urge and +held in her heart all the men said. But when Jim asked her what <I>she</I> +wanted to do she told him, simply, whatever <I>he</I> wanted to do. Then +Belle would call her a ninny, and Laramie would kiss her, and Belle in +disgust would disappear. +</P> + +<P> +There came one morning the crowning sensation in the suspense of the +situation. Barb Doubleday drove into town in the buckboard, headed his +team into Kitchen's barn to put up and gave McAlpin a cigar. +</P> + +<P> +An earthquake, where one had never been known, could not have stirred +the town more. When McAlpin ran up street to the Mountain House to be +first with his news, he was reviled as a vender of stories calculated +to start a shooting. +</P> + +<P> +But McAlpin, with a cigar in his mouth—where no cigar, except a free +cigar, was ever seen—his face bursting red with import, stuck to his +guns. He walked straight to the billiard room bar, and attracted +attention by brusquely ordering his own drink. This, it was known, +always meant something serious. +</P> + +<P> +When Sawdy saw the commotion about the barn boss, he walked in and +after listening began a stern cross-examination. +</P> + +<P> +"Explain?" McAlpin echoed scornfully. "I don't explain. No, he wasn't +drinking! Nor he wasn't crazy!" McAlpin took the burning cigar from +his mouth. "That's the cigar he give me, right there—and a bum one. +Barb never smoked a good one in his life—you know that, Henry? I +don't explain—I drink. Hold on!" he exclaimed, as he emptied his +glass with a single gulp. He was looking across the street and +pointing. "Who's that over there comin' out of the lumber yard with +Barb Doubleday right now—blanked if it ain't! It's Jim Laramie, +that's who it is." +</P> + +<P> +Doubleday had in fact run into Laramie in the lumber yard. With +nothing more than a greeting, he opened his mind: "I want a talk with +you, Jim," he said bluntly. "Where's Kate?" +</P> + +<P> +Not even the freedom of the bar fully established could hold McAlpin +after he had seen Laramie and Doubleday walk out of the lumber yard and +start down Main Street together. McAlpin had the reputation of having +missed no important shooting in Sleepy Cat for years. He had been +witness in more than one inquest and did not mean to imperil his +importance by slacking now. As he hastened out to trail the long-day +bitter enemies, he was framing in his mind the preliminary answers for +the coroner. He would be compelled to testify, he felt, that the dead +man had showed no sign of intoxication or excitement when he drove his +team into the barn—for in the circumstances, the barn boss already +figured Barb as the inevitable victim. +</P> + +<P> +Thus ruminating, he trailed the unsuspecting pair as far as Belle's. +At Belle's without sign of heated argument, they knocked and entered +the cottage together. This left McAlpin across the street with nobody +but the butcher to talk to, while he listened intently for the first +shot. +</P> + +<P> +Lefever was bolder. He followed the two men unceremoniously to Belle's +porch and bluffed Belle herself into admitting him to the living room. +Laramie had gone into the back part of the house to hunt up Kate; Barb, +alone, sat in the rocking chair, chewing an unlighted cigar. +</P> + +<P> +Lefever greeted the big cattleman effusively; Barb's response was cold. +He looked Lefever over critically: "What'you doing?" he asked, without +warm interest in any possible answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Buying a relinquishment now and again, Barb." +</P> + +<P> +"Railroad man, eh?" muttered Barb, irrelevantly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no. I've quit that game; I've got a claim up near you. I'm going +to try to live the life of a small but dishonest rancher, Barb." +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to do well at that, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes and no. But I'm thinking, if I can't figure out the game, +some of my neighbors can help me catch on—what?" +</P> + +<P> +Barb's retort—if he had one—to Lefever's continued laugh, was cut off +by Laramie's entrance with Kate. John saw that he was <I>de trop</I>, that +it was a family conference, and only extracting from Laramie a promise +to see him—about nothing whatever—before leaving town he made what he +termed a graceful getaway. Kate and Laramie faced her father. Belle, +too, was for going out. Doubleday stopped her: "No secrets, Belle; +stay if you want to." +</P> + +<P> +All sat down. Kate was for a chair, but Laramie domineering, made her +sit with him on the sofa. Barb spoke first: "This Falling Wall fight +is off," he began briefly. "Anyway, I quit on it. I've got to, Jim. +The settlers there are in to stay," declared Barb philosophically. +"They've got to be reco'nized." The settlers, in this instance, meant +Jim Laramie, since practically everyone else had been driven or +frightened out. But all understood what was intended; for if the +fighting ceased the park would fill up. +</P> + +<P> +"Since yesterday," Doubleday went on, "I've found out something else." +He was speaking directly to Laramie. "That man Stone," he exclaimed, +"has been robbing me." +</P> + +<P> +The old man paused. No one made any comment. Abe Hawk had long ago +told Laramie as much. "He's been misbranding on me—him and that +rascally Van Horn have been selling my steers to the railroad camps on +the Reservation. I've got the evidence from some Indians that came +over yesterday with the hides. Last night," continued the victim +coolly, "I fired Stone. He went right over to Van Horn's. I told him +that's where he belongs. I'm through with 'em both." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you have 'em arrested?" demanded Belle. +</P> + +<P> +"I might, yet," muttered Barb vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie held his peace; but even Kate realized <I>that</I> would never do. +"Jim and me has had our differences," added Barb, "but they're ended. +If you two get married——" +</P> + +<P> +"There ain't goin' to be any 'if,' Barb," interposed Laramie, "there's +just going to be 'married,' and married right off." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's for you and the girl to say; but when you say it, you've +got to have a house to live in. I met Jim," added her father, speaking +now to Kate, "over in the lumber yard this morning. When you get your +house up, turn the bill in to me." +</P> + +<P> +Kate's kisses confused and stopped her father. Belle made ready a good +dinner. The four ate together. Belle was excited, Kate happy and +Laramie content. But for the old man it was somehow hard to fit in. +Having had his say, he relapsed into grim silence and taciturn +responses. Even his presence would have repressed Belle but for Kate's +happy laugh. She looked at her father, talked to him, thought of him, +studied him, and throwing off lingering doubts—for she never felt she +quite knew her father—enjoyed him, eating as he was in peace with her +husband-to-be. +</P> + +<P> +When Laramie's cigars were lighted after the dinner, Barb seemed to +feel more at his ease. He told stories of his old railroad days and +laughed when Kate and Belle and Laramie laughed. Later, his daughter +and his new son-in-law walked up street with him. They went with him +on his errands and then to the barn. McAlpin, personally, hitched up +the ponies, both in compliment to a new customer and to hear every word +that passed in the talk. +</P> + +<P> +"Damme," he muttered to the hostler in the harness room, "y' can't get +around old Barb. Look at him. What do I mean? Don't he fight Laramie +five years 'n' get licked? Now he turns him into his son-in-law and +gets the Falling Wall range anyway—can y' beat it? Coming right +along, sir!" he shouted, as Barb in the gangway bellowed for more +speed. And with a flutter of activity, real and feigned, McAlpin and +his helper fastened the traces. +</P> + +<P> +When ready, the wiry team and the long narrow buckboard looked small +for Barb, who cautiously clambered into the seat and gingerly +distributed his bulk upon it. Laramie had taken the reins from +McAlpin; he passed them to Barb who, as he squared himself so as not to +fall off his slender perch, was huskily demanding when Laramie and Kate +would be out. At the last minute, Kate insisted on and was given, a +good-by kiss. She and Jim promised to go out next day. Barb spoke to +the horses. They jumped half-way out of the barn. Kate, with Laramie +following, hurried forward to see her father drive away. +</P> + +<P> +The broad back, topped by the powerful shoulders and neck, and the big +hat bobbing up and down with the spring of the buckboard, the little +team plunging at their bits, and her father heedless of their +antics—all this was a familiar sight, but never had it been so +pleasing. The setting sun touched with gold the thin cloud of dust +that rose from the wheels. It was the close of a beautiful day and it +had been next to the happiest in her life, Kate thought, while she +stood, watching and thinking. The ponies reaching a turn in the road +dashed ahead and her father disappeared. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap40"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XL +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BRADLEY RIDES HARD +</H3> + +<P> +The evening was spent at Belle's. Lefever came in late with +congratulations. He told them about his trip and the wonders. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll bet you're glad to get back to Sleepy Cat," objected Belle. +</P> + +<P> +Lefever pointed a serious, almost accusing finger at her: "Thank you +for saying it, Belle; and that's never hinting the Panhandle's not a +good country—not a bit of it. But, just the same, I'm glad to get +back to my own. There's no place like hell, Jim, is there?—especially +if you've got friends there—you know that." +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to be ashamed, John Lefever, to say such things," exclaimed +Belle, indignantly. But nothing could check Lefever's spirits. His +laugh was contagious: "I am, Belle, I am. I want you to feel that I +am." +</P> + +<P> +"And you came back across the Sinks?" interposed Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"We did," responded John, starting all over again, "and I want to tell +you the Sinks are picking up. There's a better class of people going +in. I was laid up at Thief River—something I ate. I felt pretty bad." +</P> + +<P> +"How do you feel now?" Laramie asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, not very good to tell the truth. I had a kind of a sleepy night. +You wouldn't believe it, Jim, but there's quite a town at Thief River. +And the Sisters here at Sleepy Cat have got a little hospital going. +They treated me fine. Everybody, in fact, seemed to take an interest +in getting me on my feet. There's an awful nice undertaker there. I +forget his name; but he knew Henry de Spain well; said he'd done a good +deal of business for Henry, off and on—when he could get the coffins. +He sent some flowers over to me at the hospital with his card. I sent +back my own card—wrote: 'Not yet.' When we were leaving I went over +to thank him and tell him I was sorry I hadn't been able to throw him a +job. Even then, I didn't feel I could logically say good-by to an +undertaker—I just said '<I>Au revoir</I>.'" +</P> + +<P> +The two men afterward joined Sawdy at the Mountain House. In the +morning, breakfasting together early, Sawdy and Lefever with Laramie +walked in the bright sunshine down to Kitchen's barn to saddle up and +ride across the river to look at some horses. Laramie stopped at +Belle's to see whether he could get Kate to go over with them; and +while Sawdy went on to the barn, Lefever waited at Belle's gate to find +out whether Kate was going. +</P> + +<P> +When Laramie came to the door after a few moments to say that Kate +would go, Lefever stood outside the gate looking intently into the +north. +</P> + +<P> +"Somebody from the Crazy Woman," he observed as Laramie joined him, +"must have an urgent call in town this morning." +</P> + +<P> +He was watching what appeared to be little more than a speck on the +northern horizon, but even at that distance it was moving fast. +Lefever walked over to Kitchen's to order the fourth horse. Rejoining +Laramie he found him still at the gate. And when Kate, fresh as the +morning, appeared, the two men though talking of indifferent things, +had their eyes fixed on a horseman galloping at breakneck speed down +the long slope of the northern divide. He was now less than a mile +away and the dust thrown from his horse's hoofs rose evenly behind him +in the stillness of the sunshine. He must pass the barn to reach town. +Kate asked a question. +</P> + +<P> +"It may be one of your father's horses," mused Lefever aloud, "and it +rides something like old Bill Bradley." +</P> + +<P> +Still pushing his speed to the limit and cutting in reckless fashion +the turns of the open road, the rider drew rapidly nearer. They could +see he was hatless and coatless and urging his horse. "It's Bradley," +declared Lefever decisively. Laramie said nothing. Kate instinctively +drew closer to him. The horseman disappeared at that moment behind the +railroad icing plant. The next, he whirled with a sharp clatter of +hoofs into Main Street, and, dashing past Carpy's, pulled his foaming +horse to its haunches in front of Kitchen's barn. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin and Sawdy were leading the four saddle ponies to the stable +door. The group at Belle's gate could not hear what Bradley shouted; +but they saw McAlpin start. Sawdy, too, spoke quick, and pointed, with +his words, across the way. Bradley jerked his panting horse around and +spurred toward Belle's gate. +</P> + +<P> +The old man, his thin hair flying and his blood-shot eyes bulging, +reined up before Laramie with his arm out, to speak. But the ride and +the excitement had been too much. His features worked convulsively but +he could not utter a word. +</P> + +<P> +"For God's sake, Bill," cried Lefever, catching his arm and jerking +him. "What's up?" +</P> + +<P> +Bradley, his eyes glued on Laramie, got back his voice: "It's Barb, +Jim!" he shouted wildly. "Tom Stone shot him this morning!" +</P> + +<P> +Kate's sharp cry rang in Laramie's ears. He caught her in his arm. +Belle ran out, only adding to the confusion with her scream. Lefever, +joined now by Sawdy and McAlpin, who had hurried over, got Bradley off +his horse, into a chair on the porch, refreshed him with water and +steadied his whisky-wrecked nerves with whisky. +</P> + +<P> +Stone and Van Horn came over from Van Horn's early, Bradley told his +hearers brokenly. They asked for Barb and he was down at the creek. +Barb had sent Bradley about a mile below the house to repair a small +break in the irrigation ditch and had ridden down to show him what he +wanted done. After giving instructions, he had started back for the +house. Before he got far, Stone and Van Horn met him. Bradley heard +voices up the creek but paid no special attention to them, and busied +himself with his job. Some minutes later he heard the voices again, +loud and angry. As they were close by, Bradley, shovel in hand, walked +along the ditch bank to where he could see what was up. +</P> + +<P> +"They'd all got off their horses," continued Bradley, "and was standin' +not fur apart. I was close to the willows along the ditch. 'Fore you +could say Jack Robinson, Stone and Van Horn snapped out their guns and +begun to shoot. The old man was game, boys, but he didn't have no +show. He managed to get his gun out, both men a-shootin' at him." +</P> + +<P> +"Both!" echoed Laramie, bitterly. Sawdy swore a withering oath. +</P> + +<P> +"Is my father dead?" cried Kate in agony. +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet," replied Bradley disconcertingly. +</P> + +<P> +"We must get Carpy up there quick. Hunt him up, will you, John?" said +Laramie to Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on," interposed Bradley. "Carpy's there afore this. I met him +drivin' north and he put right out for the ranch." +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't you do something while they were trying to murder Father?" +sobbed Kate, wringing her hands as she appealed to Bradley. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what could <I>I</I> do?" stared Bradley. "<I>I</I> didn't have no gun. +Kelly and me got the wagon down and picked Barb up 'n' got him to the +house. He told me to put out for town and get you and Jim Laramie; +he's out of his head, you see." +</P> + +<P> +"Did they see you, Bradley?" interrupted Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"Never seen me, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +"Did Barb hit either of them?" asked Laramie. +</P> + +<P> +"'Tain't likely. He only got in one shot. When they seen him +wrigglin' on the ground, all doubled up—you know, Jim—they jumped +their horses and put across the creek." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Kate's suppressed sobs broke the silence. Laramie held +her in his arm. He promised her he would get her right out to her +father as soon as he could take measures for pursuit. When the other +men questioned Bradley, Laramie listened. He urged Kate to go inside +with Belle, but she begged to stay: "I won't cry, Jim," she pleaded in +a whisper. "I must stay. Let me stay." +</P> + +<P> +He placed her in a chair. Belle, schooled in silence during such +moments, stood beside her. Laramie placing himself near Kate, half sat +on the edge of the porch floor, one foot resting on the ground and the +other curled under. Lefever facing him, sat on the end of the porch +steps while Sawdy stood with the horses. McAlpin had hurried over to +the barn to get Kitchen and telephone Tenison to come down. +</P> + +<P> +"There's two ways they can get out," said Laramie, casting up the +situation with his companions. "One is across the Falling Wall and +over the Reservation. If they've gone that way they've got a start; +but they're easy to trail. The other way would be to strike east or +west for the railroad. That's the big gamble—it's the easiest to play +and the worst if they lose. They may separate." +</P> + +<P> +"My Godfrey, Jim, don't let 'em get away," exclaimed Belle, fearfully. +</P> + +<P> +"And there's one more angle," remarked Laramie. "They may show up +right here and try to bluff it out." +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy shook his head against that idea. Lefever supported him. +Laramie did not urge the view. "Van Horn plays cards different from +everybody else," was all he said. +</P> + +<P> +Kitchen drove up and Tenison was in the buggy with him. +</P> + +<P> +What help might be had from the sheriff's office was put in Tenison's +hands to manage. The railroad men were warned across the division. +Outgoing train crews were notified and the enginemen told what to do, +if stopped. Sawdy and Lefever were directed to strike for the Falling +Wall and watch the Reservation trails, while Laramie, with Kate, was to +ride straight to the ranch and pick up the trail across the creek. +</P> + +<P> +The news of the shooting of Barb Doubleday filled the corners of Main +Street with little knots of men eager to hear all that was known and to +be first to catch what might come. Women sometimes stopped to listen +and men making ready to ride the northern trails supplied clattering in +the streets for every moment and added to the tense scene. The chances +for the escape of Van Horn and Stone were canvassed among critics and +listeners, and with almost as much insight as they had been cast up in +the war council at Belle's. The men that might be expected to give +battle if they encountered the fugitives were watched for and every +time they rode past, the maneuvering and fighting abilities of each +were speculated on with surprising accuracy; records were recalled and +inferences drawn as to the possibilities now ahead. +</P> + +<P> +The picture of the busy street, constantly renewed and dissolved, +changed fast. Lefever and Sawdy, together, were the first to clear for +their long ride. Kitchen, strapping on, for the first time in years, a +well cared-for Colt's revolver, got fresh ammunition, and throwing +himself on a good horse, rode for where he had sworn he would never +appear again, the Doubleday ranch—to get the cowboys started at poking +out the hiding places along the creek. +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin, with much ado, enlisted every man with any sort of a claim to +being a tracker—and this included pretty much every loafer interested +in a drink or a fight. He assembled a noisy crew at the barn and +despatched them singly with orders to scatter and watch the trail +points outlying the town. But birds of this feather were hard to keep +scattered. Urged both by prudential and social reasons, they tended +continuously to flock together. They kept the barn boss busy by riding +back furiously in bunches to report nobody seen, to ask for further +orders and to get a drink before reestablishing a patrol. +</P> + +<P> +Knowing the value of every moment in a long chase, and working with all +possible haste, Laramie had to throw out his dragnet carefully before +he could get away himself. He had told Kate to prepare at Belle's for +a hard ride and he would get her to the ranch. +</P> + +<P> +With every minute lingering like an hour, both women, nervously +expectant, waited, talked, and watched for Laramie's return. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap41"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XLI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS +</H3> + +<P> +Divide lands north of Sleepy Cat lie high and over their broad spread, +trails open fan-like, north, northeast and northwest. Each of the +trails penetrates at a negotiable point the broken country running up +to the mountains that battle with the northern sky. +</P> + +<P> +The first highways of the country followed the easiest travel lines. +Without fences or boundaries, their travelers, to escape washouts or +dust, were free to broaden them as they fancied. In this way older +ruts were gradually abandoned and new ones formed. And with heavy +travel these trails grew into sprawling avenues. +</P> + +<P> +As settlers took up lands and fenced their claims, such pioneer roads +were blocked at intervals. To meet this difficulty new trails were +made around the gradually increasing obstacles and in the end roads +along section lines were laid out, with grading and bridging. But the +wagon and cattle trails of the early days, rut-cut, storm-washed, and +polished by sun and wind and sand to a shining smoothness, still +stretch across country, truncate and deserted. Under their +weather-beaten silence lies the story of other days and other men and +women. +</P> + +<P> +Along one of the earliest and broadest of these trails running into the +north country, Laramie, an hour after Bradley's arrival, was galloping +with Kate Doubleday. +</P> + +<P> +But for the shadow of her father's condition there was everything in +the ride to make for Kate's happiness. The sweep of the matchless sky, +the glory of the sunshine, the wine of the morning air, the eager feet +and spreading nostrils of the horses, and at her side—her lover! The +trust a woman gives to a man, the security of his protection, the daily +growth of her confidence in her choice and her surrender—these could +temper, if they could not extinguish, her confused grief. +</P> + +<P> +For Laramie the shadow meant less; sympathy drew him closer to Kate; +there was even happiness in knowing that she turned in her distress to +him for consolation and guidance. +</P> + +<P> +Timidly, she tried to tell him, as they rode, of some of the better +traits of her father, traits that might extenuate his cold, hard +brutality—as if to build him up a little in the eyes of one she wished +not to think of him too harshly. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't worry over what I'm going to think about him," said Laramie. +"If I worried over what a lot of people think about me, where should I +be? There's some good in most every man; but it doesn't always get a +chance to work." +</P> + +<P> +Kate's anxiety was reflected in her manner. "If only," she exclaimed, +"they haven't killed him today." +</P> + +<P> +The two had crossed the first divide. Below them lay the Crazy Woman, +spanned by the Double-draw bridge. +</P> + +<P> +"His friends were his worst enemies," continued Laramie. "But they've +got to get out of this country now. And the worst men are out of the +Falling Wall. Still if you don't like it there, we won't live there," +he added, sitting half sidewise toward Kate in his saddle to feast his +eyes on her freshness and youth. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall like it anywhere you are, Jim," she said, looking at him +simply. +</P> + +<P> +The picture was too much for his restraint. He reined eagerly toward +her. +</P> + +<P> +With a laugh she shied away, struck her horse and dashed ahead. +Laramie spurred after her. But they were on the level creek bottom and +riding swiftly. She gave him a long run—more than he had looked for. +</P> + +<P> +He realized, as they raced toward the bridge, that he had for one +moment forgotten everything but his complete happiness. He called to +Kate to stop. In her zest she spurred the harder. He knew she must +not reach the bridge ahead of him. Yet he realized the difficulty he +faced; she would not understand; and at every cost he must stop her. +Animated by this sudden instinct of danger he crowded his horse, forged +abreast the flying girl, caught her bridle, and to her astonishment +dragged her horse and his own rudely to their haunches. They were +almost at the bridge itself. +</P> + +<P> +"Back up!" he exclaimed. "Back up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Jim!" she cried, "<I>please</I> don't throw me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't speak—back!!" he said low and sharply. Something in the tone +and manner of the command admitted of no parley. +</P> + +<P> +With her horse cavorting, half strangled, as he was jerked and backed, +Kate, looking amazed at Laramie, saw in his face a man new to her—a +man she never had seen before. Not her questioning look, nor the +frantic struggles of the rearing horses touched him; nothing in the +confusion of the sudden moment drew his eye for an instant from the +bridge before him and his drawn revolver was already poised in his +hand. Kate knew her part without another protest. She tore her +horse's mouth cruelly with the curb. Where the danger was, or what, +she did not know, but she could obey orders. Her eyes tried to follow +Laramie's, bent ahead. The bottoms spread level in every direction. +The approach to the little bridge and beyond was as open as the day. +Not a living creature was anywhere in sight, nothing with life had +anywhere stirred, nothing of sound broke the silence of the morning, +except—when Laramie allowed them to stop—the startled breathing of +the horses. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim!" exclaimed Kate in awed restraint. "What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +His eyes were riveted straight ahead, but he answered in a most +matter-of-fact tone: "There's somebody under that bridge." +</P> + +<P> +She strained her eyes to see something he must have seen that she could +not see. The dazzling sunshine, the dusty road, the rough-built, short +wooden bridge before them, were all plain enough. And Kate realized +for the first time that Laramie, who had been riding on her right was +now on her left and presently that his revolver was sheathed and his +rifle, which had hung in its scabbard at the horse's shoulder, was +slung across the hollow of his right arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Kate," he said, speaking without looking at her, "will you ride back +about a mile and wait for me?" +</P> + +<P> +She turned to him: "What are you going to do, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"Smoke that fellow out." +</P> + +<P> +She spoke almost in a whisper: "Is it Van Horn, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe he'd hide there. It's more like Stone." +</P> + +<P> +"Jim! Stone's a deadly shot!" +</P> + +<P> +Looking into the distance he only replied: "From cover. This may be a +long-winded affair, Kate." He added, pausing, "you'd better ride as +far as the hills." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him bravely restrained but with all her love in her eyes: +"I don't want to leave you, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +"It's poor business for you to be in," he returned firmly. "There's no +way to make it pleasant." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't drive me away!" +</P> + +<P> +He hesitated again: "You might do this: Ride back fast about eighty +rods. Leave the road there, bear to the west and circle around the +little knoll you'll see. There's a clump of willows below the west +side of that knoll." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know every clump of willows in this country, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +He answered unmoved: "I know that one for I've crawled up there more +than once to take observations under that bridge myself. Get around +behind those willows and you can see the creek bottom all the way to +the bridge. I'm going up the creek about five hundred yards. I'll +work down. Whoever's under the bridge can't get away except down the +creek. If you see a man trying that, just fire two shots—in the air, +close together—I'll understand. If you get into any kind of +trouble—which you're kind of trying to do—fire two shots a few +seconds apart. I won't be far off." +</P> + +<P> +With a plea to him to be careful—behind which all her agony of +apprehension was repressed and mastered—Kate wheeled her horse and +galloped back. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, skirting a depression, rode into a break leading to the creek +bed. The creek was practically dry; just a thread of water here and +there among the rocks marked the course of flood time. Dismounting, +Laramie shook himself out of the saddle and laying his rifle across his +arm, walked carefully down-stream along the bed of the creek. +</P> + +<P> +He knew if he were seen first, the fight would be over before he got +into it; of chances to kill from cover, the criminal he felt sure he +was hunting, would need but one. No man from the Falling Wall country +was Stone's superior in the craft of hiding; but none was Laramie's +equal in the art of surprise; and Laramie meant, for once, to make an +antagonist formidable from cover, show in the open. +</P> + +<P> +With this alone in purpose, he stalked with the patience of an Indian +from point to point and cover to cover down toward the bridge; +crouching, halting and peering; slipping from the shoulder of a rock to +the shelter of a boulder; flattening on his stomach to worm his way +under a projecting ledge and sliding noiselessly on his back down the +face of a water-worn glacis—but drawing closer all the time to the +bridge. +</P> + +<P> +He knew every inch of the ground. He knew how well his quarry had +concealed himself to render surprise impossible. But Stone's very +safety in this respect made his retreat more difficult. A man lying in +wait under the Double-draw, staked practically everything on one +chance: that the man he sought to kill should cross the bridge. It +were then easy to pick him off from behind. But if the intended +victim, suspicious, should get unseen into the creek bed, the skulker +could hardly avoid a fight. +</P> + +<P> +Three hundred yards above the bridge, the creek walls open in an +ellipse, narrowing abruptly where the bridge spans them. This open +space has been scoured by floods until the bedrock lies like a polished +floor and it was now dry except where the piers of the bridge stood in +stagnant pools. Once within this amphitheater whose vertical walls +rise twenty to thirty feet, no fighting cover is available. +</P> + +<P> +Behind a rocky point that guarded the upper entrance of the opening, +stood Laramie. He was watching the shadow cast by a shrub that sprang, +shallow-rooted, from a crevice in the bedrock. For an interminable +time he waited, only noting the slow swing of the narrow shadow as the +morning sun, flooding the rock-basin, rose in majestic course. +Gradually the deflection of the slender indicator, moving like a finger +on the rock dial, marked the turn of the sun well past the shoulder of +the point at which Laramie must emerge. When that moment came he +looked sharply out, sprang from behind the point and ran sidewise into +the narrow shadow thrown from the curving wall. +</P> + +<P> +Stone, uneasy and alert, stood under the bridge, his rifle across his +arm. The two men saw each other almost at the same instant. For +Stone, it was the climax of a hatred long nursed because of a supremacy +long challenged. And for him it was an open field with weapons in +which his skill was as matchless as Laramie's was held to be, at close +quarters, with a Colt's revolver. +</P> + +<P> +Nor had Laramie underestimated the chances of an encounter under such +circumstances. He counted only on the slight advantage of a +surprise—knowing from disagreeable experiences how a surprise jars the +poise; and there persisted in his mind, what he had never until then +hinted to another, that Stone, shooting as an assassin from cover and +Stone himself facing death, might shoot differently. On these slender +hopes he covered Stone, as the ex-rustler jumped his rifle to his +check, and cried to him to pitch up. +</P> + +<P> +Stone's answer was a bullet. His shot echoed Laramie's, and as Laramie +whipped the hat from his enemy's head, his bullet tore through the +right side of Laramie's belt. Bare-headed, and thirsty to close on his +antagonist, Stone, jumping from Laramie's second bullet, ran forward, +hugging the creek wall, dropped on one knee, fired, and ran in again. +Laramie refused to be tempted from the shadow in which he stood, until +Stone, rounding the wall again as he came on, firing, threatened to +find partial cover should Laramie stand still. It was a contest of +deadly fencing, of steady heads and cool wit, a struggle in instant +strategy. And if Stone meant to force Laramie into the sunshine, he +now succeeded—but at a fearful cost. Laramie jumped not only into the +sunshine but into the blinding sun itself, and when Stone ran in again, +Laramie tore open his hip with a bullet. It knocked the foreman over +as if it had been a mallet. But he was swiftly up and firing +persistently almost outlined with bullets Laramie's figure against the +rock wall. He splintered the grip of Laramie's revolver in its +holster, he cut the sleeve from his wrist, and tore hair from the right +side of his head; but he could not stop him. Enraged, and realizing +too late how every possibility in the fight had been figured out by his +enemy before he stepped into sight, Stone, crippled, yet forced to +circle, dropped once more on his knee to smash in a final shot. +</P> + +<P> +He was covered the instant he knelt. A bullet from Laramie's rifle +shook him like a leaf. His head, jerking, sunk to his breast. With a +superhuman effort he rallied. He looked at Laramie—narrowly +watching—shook the hair from before his eyes and fumbling at the +firing lever tried to elevate his rifle to pump. But he swayed on his +bent knee; the rifle slipped from his grasp. He sank to the rock +floor, clutching with his big hands at the gravel, while Laramie +running to him turned him over, snatched his revolver from its holster +and throwing it out of reach, lifted his enemy's head. +</P> + +<P> +When Kate, in an agony of suspense, made her way to the creek bed she +found Laramie scooping water up in his hands for Stone. She could not +go near the wounded man. Only by word from where she stood, piteously, +and by dumb sign, she drew Laramie to her to learn whether <I>he</I> was +hurt. When he declared he was not, she would not believe him till she +had felt his arm where one bullet had cut his sleeve, and where the +deadliest had raised a sullen red welt along his temple. +</P> + +<P> +Ben Simeral was first to come along on his way to town, in his wagon. +John Frying Pan was with him. With their help, Laramie got Stone up to +the bridge and into the wagon to take to town. He had shut his eyes +and refused to talk. Kate made Laramie tell her every detail of the +fight and breathed anew the terrors of each moment. +</P> + +<P> +"I stole toward the bridge the minute I heard the firing," she +confessed, unsteadily. "Oh, yes, I know! I might have been killed. +But if you were, I wanted to be. How could you tell, when you stopped +me so, Jim, there was a man under the bridge?" +</P> + +<P> +"A bunch of bank swallows nests under that bridge right where Stone was +hiding," he said, reflecting. "Those swallows always fly out when I +ride up to it. If they don't fly out, I don't cross. Today they +didn't fly out." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap42"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XLII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WARNING +</H3> + +<P> +By nightfall Kate had the hope that her father might live. Doctor +Carpy, indeed, promised as much, though he confessed to Laramie that he +was partly bluffing. It was, he explained, a question of constitution +and nerve and he thought Barb had both. For better care he had him +brought to town, and within the same hospital walls that sheltered +Doubleday, lay Stone, in even more serious condition. The sole promise +Carpy would make concerning him was that he would fit him up either for +trial, or for his museum—or, as Lefever suggested, for both. +</P> + +<P> +The excitement of the town lay in the pursuit of Van Horn. Laramie +during the first uncertain days of her father's condition stayed within +Kate's call. +</P> + +<P> +"While Van Horn's loose, Jim," said Tenison one day, "you're the man +that's in danger; don't forget that." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to forget it," he returned. "But I guess it wouldn't be just +exactly safe to. Barb warned me yesterday to look out for a +surprise—Van Horn's good at them. Then again he may have left the +country—there's no word of him from anybody yet. +</P> + +<P> +"Things up at Barb's ranch have got to have some attention," he +continued. "Barb will be laid up a long time; and if I don't see after +things the banks will. I'm going to take McAlpin up there tomorrow." +</P> + +<P> +The two men were sitting before a large window in the hotel office. As +McAlpin's name was mentioned they saw the man himself stepping +sailor-fashion at a lively pace up Main Street. He made for the hotel, +burst through the office door and headed straight for Laramie: +</P> + +<P> +"Kitchen's just rode into the barn, Jim, with word from Lefever and +Sawdy—they've got track of Van Horn. He come to Pettigrew's ranch +yesterday for food and a fresh horse. One of John Frying Pan's boys +seen him. Lefever says they've got him located near the head waters of +the Crazy Woman. You know that rough country east of Pettigrew's? +Lefever says if you'll get right up there and watch the creek, he can't +get away. The boys at Pettigrew's say he's got lots of ammunition; +Lefever and Sawdy stayed at Pettigrew's last night." +</P> + +<P> +At the barn, Kitchen, who had ridden in from the Doubleday ranch, had +few details to add. But the Indian runner that brought the word from +Lefever and Sawdy had made it clear to Kitchen the two were depending +on Laramie to help them bottle Van Horn up. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie laid the news before Kate at the hospital. He called her from +her father's room and they talked at the end of the corridor. +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him wistfully: "I don't want you to go, Jim," she +whispered. +</P> + +<P> +Her hands lay on his free arm. "I don't want to go, Kate," he said. +"But the boys have sent to me for help—what can I do? He's a hundred +times more my enemy than theirs. The only interest they've got in +rounding him up is friendship for me and you. Suppose they close with +him and get killed?" +</P> + +<P> +Kate could only look up into his eyes: "Suppose you get killed, Jim?" +</P> + +<P> +He hesitated. Then he looked down into her own eyes: "You'd know I did +what I ought to do, Kate." +</P> + +<P> +She withdrew herself from his embrace and looked at him: "I know you're +going, Jim; only, don't ask me to say 'go.' I couldn't bear to think +<I>I</I> sent you." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin had armed himself and was determined, despite Laramie's +protests, to ride with him. The plucky boss was saddling the ponies +and stood momentarily expecting Laramie at the barn when the telephone +rang. +</P> + +<P> +Too occupied with his watch for Laramie to give it any heed, McAlpin +let it ring. And the barn men let it ring. It rang, seemingly, more +and more sharply until McAlpin, with an impatient exclamation, ordered +a hostler to answer. "It's you, McAlpin," bawled the hostler from the +office, "and they want you quick." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin hurried to the instrument and glued his ear to the receiver. +Tenison was on the wire. He spoke low and fast: "Is Laramie there?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't tell you, Harry, I'm lookin' for him every minute." +</P> + +<P> +"Drop everything. Find him quick or you'll be too late. Van Horn's in +town." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin gasped and swallowed: "What d' y' mean, Harry?" +</P> + +<P> +"Damnation!" thundered Tenison. "You heard me, didn't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"Do as you're told." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap43"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XLIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LAST CALL +</H3> + +<P> +The canny Scot knew well what the message meant. With little +ostentation and much celerity he hurried up street. Belle, at her, +door with Kate, drawn-faced, could only say that Laramie had promised +to come there before starting. "Warn him," was McAlpin's excited word. +"You know Van Horn, Belle." +</P> + +<P> +Red-faced and heated, McAlpin ambled rapidly in and out of every place +where he could imagine Laramie might be. Deathly afraid of running +into Van Horn—who bore him, he well knew, no love—but doggedly bent +on his errand, McAlpin asked fast questions and spread the rapid-fire +news as he traveled. More than once he had word of Laramie, yet +nowhere could he, in his exasperation, set eyes on him. How nearly he +succeeded in his mission he never knew till he had failed. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie had completed his dispositions and was free, after a brief +round of errands, to start north, when Carpy encountered him in the +harness shop next to the drug store. Laramie was in haste. But Carpy +insisted he must speak with him and, against protest, took him by way +of the back door of the shop over to the back door of the drug store +and into the little room behind the prescription case. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor sat down and motioned Laramie, despite his impatience, to a +chair: "It won't take long to tell you what I've got to tell you," said +Carpy, firmly, "but you'll be a long time forgetting it. And the time +you ought to know it is now. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim!" Carpy, facing him four feet away, looked squarely into +Laramie's eyes. "I know you pretty well, don't I? All right! I'm +going to talk pretty plain. You're going to marry Kate Doubleday. +Whatever her father's faults—and they've been a-plenty—they'd best be +let lie now. That's what Kate would want, I'm thinkin'—that's what +her husband would want—anyway, her children would want it. Barb, +after he deserted Kate's mother, went out into the Black Hills. He got +into trouble there—a partnership scrape. I don't know how much or how +little he was to blame; but his partner got the best of him and Barb +shot him. +</P> + +<P> +"The partner's friends had the pull. Barb was sentenced for +manslaughter. He broke away the night he was sentenced. He came out +into this country, took his own name again, got into railroad building, +made money, lost it, and went into cattle. +</P> + +<P> +"Two men here know this story. I'm one; the other is Harry Van Horn. +He lived in the Hills when this happened. He wouldn't tell because he +wanted Kate. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim, if Van Horn comes in alive, he'll be tried for this job on Barb. +He'll plead self-defense and spring the Black Hills story. Van Horn +has done his best to kill you and hired Stone to do it. You and Kate +ought to know why. It's up to you whether he comes in alive and +blackens her father's name to get even with both of you. Now start +along, Jim—that's all." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie did not rise. +</P> + +<P> +For himself he cared nothing. But he cared for Kate. And though she +had little reason to care for her father, and the tragedy of a record +such as his was not a pleasant memory for any daughter; how much more +would she suffer if his record were exposed by one whose interest it +would be to blacken it? +</P> + +<P> +"I said that was all," continued Carpy; "it ain't quite all, either. +Van Horn will swear everything in this Falling Wall raid on old Barb to +make feeling against him—it'll be a mess." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie's eyes were fixed on the floor. When he raised them he spoke +thoughtfully: "I see what you mean, Doctor. I'll talk plain, too—as +you'd want me to, I know. No one can tell till it's over how a man +hunt is going to work out. But whatever my feelings are, there's +something else I've got to think about. You're leaving it out. No +matter what stories have been told about me, my record up to this, is +clear. I've never in my life shot down a man except in self-defense. +I couldn't begin by doing it now. You know what I've stood from these +cattlemen in the last year——" +</P> + +<P> +"Why," demanded Carpy, "did you do it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why did Kate Doubleday shun me like a man with the smallpox? Because +they put it up to her I was a man-killer. When they couldn't make me +out a rustler, they made me out a gambler. When they couldn't make me +out a thief, they made me out a gunman. I had a fine reputation to +live down; and all of it from her own father and his friends—what +could you expect a girl to do? +</P> + +<P> +"I won out against the bunch. I couldn't have done it without playing +straight. It's too late for me to switch my game now. I'd hate to see +more grief heaped on Kate. And Van Horn doesn't deserve any show. But +if his hands go up—though I never expect to see Harry Van Horn's hands +over his head—I can't do it, Doctor, that's all there is to it—he'll +come in alive as far as anything I have to do with it." +</P> + +<P> +Carpy laughed cynically: "Jim," he exclaimed with an affectionate +string of abuse, "you're the biggest fool in all creation. It's all +right." The doctor opened the door of the little room as Laramie rose. +"Go 'long," he said roughly, "but bring back your legs on their own +power." +</P> + +<P> +Laramie passed around from behind the prescription case where the clerk +was filling an order, and, busily thinking, walked rapidly toward the +open front door. A little girl waiting at the rear counter piped at +him. "How d' do, Mr. Laramie!" It was Mamie McAlpin. He stopped to +pinch her cheek. "I don't know you any more, Mamie. You're getting +such a big girl." Passing her, he stepped into the afternoon sunshine +that flooded the open doorway. +</P> + +<P> +The threshold of the door was elevated, country-store fashion, six or +seven inches above the sidewalk. Laramie glanced up street and +down—as he habitually did—and started to step down to the walk. It +was only when he looked directly across to the opposite side of the +street, lying in the afternoon shadow, that he saw, standing in a +narrow open space between two one-story wooden store buildings, a man +covering him with a revolver. +</P> + +<P> +At the very instant that Laramie saw him, the man fired. Laramie was +stepping down when the bullet struck him. Whirled by the blow, he +staggered against the drugstore window. Instinctively he reached for +his revolver. It hung at his left hip. But struggling to right +himself he found that his left arm refused to obey. When he tried to +get his hand to the grip of his revolver he could not, and the man, +seeing him helpless, darted from his hiding place out on the sidewalk +and throwing his gun into balance, fired again. +</P> + +<P> +It was Van Horn. Before the second shot echoed along the street a +dozen men were out. Not one of them could see at that moment a chance +for Laramie's life; they only knew he was a man to die hard, and +dying—dangerous. In catching him at the moment he was stepping down, +Van Horn's bullet, meant for his heart, had smashed the collar bone +above it and Laramie's gun arm hung useless. +</P> + +<P> +Realizing his desperate plight, he flung his smashed shoulder toward +his enemy. As the second bullet ripped through the loose collar of his +shirt, he swung his right arm with incredible dexterity behind him, +snatched his revolver from its holster, and started straight across the +street at Van Horn. +</P> + +<P> +It looked like certain death. Main Street, irregular, is at that point +barely sixty feet wide. Perfectly collected, Van Horn trying to fell +his reckless antagonist, fired again. But Laramie with deadly purpose +ran straight at him. By the time Van Horn could swing again, Laramie +had reached the middle of the street and stood within the coveted +shadow that protected Van Horn. In that instant, halting, he whipped +his revolver suddenly up in his right hand, covered his enemy and fired +a single shot. +</P> + +<P> +Van Horn's head jerked back convulsively. He almost sprang into the +air. His arms shot out. His revolver flew from his hand. He reeled, +and falling heavily across the board walk, turned, shuddering, on his +face. The bullet striking him between the eyes had killed him +instantly. +</P> + +<P> +Twenty men were running up. They left a careful lane between the man +now standing motionless in the middle of the street and his prone +antagonist. But Laramie knew too well the marks of an agony such as +that—the clenching, the loosing of the hands, the last turn, the +relaxing quiver. He had seen too many stricken animals die. +</P> + +<P> +Limp and bleeding, overcome with the horror of what he had not been +able to avert, he walked back to his starting point and sat down on the +edge of the sidewalk. His revolver had been tucked mechanically into +the waistband of his trousers. Men swarming into the street crowded +about. Carpy, agitated, tore open his bloody shirt. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie put up his right hand: "I'm not damaged much, doctor," he said +slowly and looking across the street. "See if you can do anything for +him." +</P> + +<P> +While he spoke, the tremor of a woman's voice rang in his half-dazed +ears—a woman trying to reach him. "Oh! where is he?" +</P> + +<P> +Men at the back of the crowd cried to make way. The half circle before +Laramie parted. He sprang to his feet, held out his right arm, and +Kate with an inarticulate cry, threw herself sobbing on his breast. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap44"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XLIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST +</H3> + +<P> +"I'm telling you, Sawdy," expostulated McAlpin, in the manner of an +ultimatum, "I'm a patient man. But you've got to get out of that room." +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy stood a statue of dignity and defiance: "And I'm telling you, Hop +Scotch, I'll get out of that room when I get good and ready." +</P> + +<P> +"A big piece of ceiling came down last night," thundered McAlpin. +</P> + +<P> +Belle was listening; these sparks were flying at her gate: "Whatever +you do," she interjected contemptuously, "don't get a quarrel going +over that room." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin, inextinguishable, turned to Belle: "Look at this: Henry Sawdy +gets into that bathtub. He turns on the water. He goes to sleep. +Every few weeks the ceiling falls on my new pool tables. First and +last, I've had a ton of mortar on 'em. If there was any pressure, I'd +be ruined." +</P> + +<P> +"If there was any pressure," interposed Sawdy, "I wouldn't go to sleep. +Do you know how long it takes to fill your blamed tub?" +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin in violent protest, scratched the gravel with his hobnailed +shoes: "I'll ask you: Am I responsible for the pressure, or the water +company?" Sawdy undisturbed, continued to stroke his heavy mustache. +"The water it takes to cover you, Henry," sputtered McAlpin, "would run +a locomotive from here to Medicine Bend." +</P> + +<P> +"I have to wait till everybody in town goes to bed before I can get a +dew started on the faucet," averred Sawdy. "Sometimes I have to set up +all night to take a bath. Look at the unreasonableness of it, Belle," +he went on indignantly. "I'm paying this Shylock a dollar and a half a +week for my room—and most of the time, no water." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin ground his teeth: "No water!" was all he could echo, doggedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know what this row is about, Belle?" demanded Sawdy. "He's +trying to screw me up to a dollar seventy-five for the room. And +everybody on the second floor using my bathtub," continued Sawdy, +calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Your</I> bathtub," gasped McAlpin. "Well, if you could get title to it +by sleeping in it, it surely would be your tub, Sawdy." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want your blamed room any longer, anyway," declared Sawdy. +"I'm going to get married." +</P> + +<P> +McAlpin started: "Henry, don't make a blamed fool o' yoursel'." +</P> + +<P> +"I said it," retorted Sawdy, waving him away. "Move on." +</P> + +<P> +"I've had no notice," announced McAlpin, raising his hand. "You'll pay +me my rent to the first of the year. You rented for the full year, +Henry, remember that!" With this indignant warning, McAlpin started +for the barn. +</P> + +<P> +Sawdy followed Belle into the house. He threw his hat on the +living-room table: "Sit down, Belle," he said recklessly. "I want to +talk." +</P> + +<P> +Belle was suspicious. "What about?" she demanded. "You can't room +here, I'll tell you that." +</P> + +<P> +"Now hold your horses a minute—just a minute. Sit down. I know when +a thing needs sugar, don't I? You know when it needs salt, don't you? +Why pay rent in two places? That's what I want to know. Let's hitch +up." +</P> + +<P> +"Stop your foolishness." +</P> + +<P> +"My foolishness has got me stopped." +</P> + +<P> +"If you expect to eat supper here tonight, stop your noise." +</P> + +<P> +"Honor bright!" persisted Sawdy, "what do you say?" +</P> + +<P> +Belle took it up with Kate: "With him and John Lefever both nagging at +me what can I do?" she demanded, greatly vexed. "I've got to marry a +fat man anyway I fix it." +</P> + +<P> +When Lefever learned Belle's choice had fallen on his running mate he +was naturally incensed: "I've been jobbed all 'round," he declared at +Tenison's. "First, Jim sends me up to the Reservation on a wild-goose +chase after his two birds and bags 'em both himself within gunshot of +town. Then my own partner beats me home by a day and cops off Belle. +Blast a widower, anyway. He'll beat out an honest man, every time. +Anyway, boys, this town is dead. Everything's getting settled up +around here. I'm sending my resignation in to Farrell Kennedy today +and I'm going to strike out for new country." +</P> + +<P> +"Not till I get married, John," said Laramie, when John repeated the +dire threat. "And Kate wants a new foreman up at the ranch. You know +her father's turned everything over to her." +</P> + +<P> +"What'll she pay?" +</P> + +<P> +"More than you're worth, John. Don't worry about that!" +</P> + +<P> +Some diplomacy was needed to restore general good feeling, but all was +managed. From the men, John got no sympathy. The women were more +considerate; and when Kate and Belle threatened there would be no +double wedding unless John stood up with the party, he bade them go +ahead with the "fixings." +</P> + +<P> +The breakfast at the Mountain House, Harry Tenison's personal +compliment to the wedding party, restored John Lefever quite to his +bubbling humor. It was a brave company that sat down. And a +democratic one, for despite feminine protests it numbered at the +different tables pretty much every friend of Laramie's, in the high +country, including John Frying Pan—only the blanket men from the +Reservation were excluded. Lefever acted as toastmaster. +</P> + +<P> +"Jim," he demanded, addressing Laramie in genial tones, when everything +was moving well, "just what in your eventful career do you most pride +yourself on?" +</P> + +<P> +Laramie answered in like humor. "Keeping out of jail," he retorted +laconically. +</P> + +<P> +"Been some job, I imagine," suggested Lefever cheerily. +</P> + +<P> +"At times, a man's job." +</P> + +<P> +"But you're not dead yet," persisted Lefever. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm married—that's just as good." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Jim!" protested his bride with spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean," explained Laramie, looking unabashed at Kate, "I'm looking to +you now to keep me out." +</P> + +<P> +The boisterous features of similar Sleepy Cat celebrations were omitted +in deference to Kate's feelings and the too recent tragedies: her +father still lay in the hospital. +</P> + +<P> +But her guests were agreed that she looked very happy over her new +husband. The tell-tale glow not wholly to be suppressed in her frank +eyes; the unmanageable pink that rose even to her temples and played +defiantly under her brown hair curling over them; the self-conscious +restraint of her voice and the sense of guilt bubbling up, every time +she laughed—these were all "sign," plain as print to married men, like +McAlpin and Carpy, and grounds for suspicion even to confirmed +bachelors like John Lefever and the old priest that came down from the +Reservation to perform the ceremony; and in everyone of them the +observing read the trails that led to Kate's heart. +</P> + +<P> +Laramie, on the other hand, disgusted those that expected a stern and +heroic showing. Towards the close of the breakfast he was laughing +deliriously at every remark, and looking dazed when an intelligent +question was put at him; Harry Tenison pronounced it disedifying. +</P> + +<P> +But when the young couple swung into their saddles for the wedding +trip—their destination, naturally, a secret—criticism ceased. +Laramie again looked his part; and those who had heard him pledge his +life to cherish and protect Kate, felt sure, as the two melted away +into the glow of the sunset, that his word was good. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 23242-h.txt or 23242-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23242</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/23242-h/images/img-054.jpg b/23242-h/images/img-054.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1b6ace --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-h/images/img-054.jpg diff --git a/23242-h/images/img-196.jpg b/23242-h/images/img-196.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d64c967 --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-h/images/img-196.jpg diff --git a/23242-h/images/img-320.jpg b/23242-h/images/img-320.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eda349c --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-h/images/img-320.jpg diff --git a/23242-h/images/img-front.jpg b/23242-h/images/img-front.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2184d8d --- /dev/null +++ b/23242-h/images/img-front.jpg diff --git a/23242.txt b/23242.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f97b781 --- /dev/null +++ b/23242.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12593 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Laramie Holds the Range, by Frank H. +Spearman, Illustrated by James Reynolds + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Laramie Holds the Range + + +Author: Frank H. Spearman + + + +Release Date: October 29, 2007 [eBook #23242] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 23242-h.htm or 23242-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242/23242-h/23242-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242/23242-h.zip) + + + + + +LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE + +by + +FRANK H. SPEARMAN + +Illustrated by James Reynolds + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . +"You'll hear what I've got to say"] + + + +New York +Charles Scribner's Sons +1921 + +Copyright, 1921, by +Charles Scribner's Sons + +Published August, 1921 +Reprinted September, 1921 + +Copyright, 1921, by Frank H. Spearman + + + + +TO MY SON + +FRANK HAMILTON SPEARMAN, JR. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I SLEEPY CAT + II THE CRAZY WOMAN + III DOUBLEDAY'S + IV AT THE EATING HOUSE + V CROSS PURPOSES + VI WHICH WINS? + VII THE CLOSE OF THE DAY + VIII THE HOME OF LARAMIE + IX AT THE BAR + X LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE + XI A DUEL WITH KATE + XII THE BARBECUE + XIII AGAINST HIS RECORD + XIV LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS + XV THE RAID OF THE FALLING WALL + XVI THE GO-DEVIL + XVII VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK + XVIII HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE + XIX LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS + XX THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE + XXI THE HIDING PLACE + XXII STONE TRIES HIS HAND + XXIII KATE RIDES + XXIV NIGHT AND A HEADER + XXV A GUEST FOR AN HOUR + XXVI THE CRAZY WOMAN WINS + XXVII KATE DEFIES + XXVIII A DIFFICULT RESOLVE + XXIX HORSEHEAD PASS + XXX THE FUNERAL AND AFTER + XXXI AN ENCOUNTER + XXXII A MESSAGE FROM TENISON + XXXIII THE CANYON OF THE FALLING WALL + XXXIV KATE GETS A SHOCK + XXXV AT KITCHEN'S BARN + XXXVI MCALPIN AT BAY + XXXVII KATE BURNS THE STEAK + XXXVIII THE UNEXPECTED CALL + XXXIX BARB MAKES A SURPRISING ALLIANCE + XL BRADLEY RIDES HARD + XLI THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS + XLII WARNING + XLIII THE LAST CALL + XLIV TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, . . . "You'll + hear what I've got to say" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country" + +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie + drooped over his pommel + +"No," said a man . . . as he pushed forward . . . "He's not + going to drink!" + + + + +LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE + + +CHAPTER I + +SLEEPY CAT + +All day the heavy train of sleepers had been climbing the long rise +from the river--a monotonous stretch of treeless, short-grass plains +reaching from the Missouri to the mountains. And now the train stopped +again, almost noiselessly. + +Kate, with the impatience of girlish spirits tried by a long and +tedious car journey, left her Pullman window and its continuous, +one-tone picture, and walking forward was glad to find the vestibule +open. The porter, meditating alone, stood below, at the car step, +looking ahead; Kate joined him. + +The stop had been made at a lonely tank, for water. No human +habitation was anywhere in sight. The sun had set. For miles in every +direction the seemingly level and open country spread around her. She +looked back to the darkening east that she was leaving behind. It +suggested nothing of interest beyond the vanishing perspective of a +long track tangent. Then to the north, whence blew a cool and gentle +wind, but the landscape offered nothing attractive to her eyes; its +receding horizon told no new story. Then she looked into the west. + +They had told her she should not see the Rockies until morning. But +the dying light in the west brought a moving surprise. In the dreamy +afterglow of the evening sky there rose, far beyond the dusky plain, +the faint but certain outline of distant mountain peaks. + +Bathed in a soft unearthly light, like the purple of another world; +touched here and there by a fairy gold; silent as dreams, majestic as +visions, overwhelming as reality itself, Kate gazed on them with +beating heart. + +Something clutched at her breath: "Are those the Rocky Mountains?" she +suddenly asked, appealing to the stolid porter. She told Belle long +afterward, she knew her voice must have quivered. + +"Ah'm sure, Ah c'dn't say, Miss. Ah s'pecs dey ah. Dis my first trip +out here." + +"So it is mine!" + +"Mah reg'lar run," continued the porter, insensible to the glories of +the distant sky, "is f'm Chicago to Council Bluffs." + +A flagman hurried past. Kate courageously pointed: "Are those the +Rocky Mountains, please?" He halted only to look at her in +astonishment. "Yes'm." But she was bound he should not escape: "How +far are they?" she shot after him. He looked back startled: "'Bout a +hundred miles," he snapped. Plainly there was no enthusiasm among the +train crew over mountains. + +When she was forced, reluctant, back into the sleeper, she announced +joyfully to her berth neighbors that the Rocky Mountains were in sight. +One regarded her stupidly, another coldly. Across the aisle the old +lady playing solitaire did not even look up. Kate subsided; but dull +apathy could not rob her of that first wonderful vision of the strange, +far-off region, perhaps to be her home. + +Next day, from the car window it was all mountains--at least, +everywhere on the horizon. But the train seemed to thread an +illimitable desert--a poor exchange for the boundless plains, Kate +thought. But she grew to love the very dust of the desert. + +The train was due at Sleepy Cat in the late afternoon. It met with +delays and night had fallen when Kate, after giving the porter too much +money, left her car, and suitcase in hand struggled, American fashion, +up the long, dark platform toward the dimly lighted station. Men and +women hastened here and there about her. The changing crews moved +briskly to and from the train. There was abundance of activity, but +none of it concerned Kate and her comfort. And there was no one, she +feared, to meet her. + +Reaching the station, she set down her suitcase without a tremor, and +though she had never been more alone, she never felt less lonely. The +eating-house gong beat violently for supper. A woman dragging a little +boy almost fell over Kate's suitcase but did not pause to receive or +tender apology. Men looking almost solemn under broad, +straight-brimmed hats moved in and out of the station, but none of +these saw Kate. Only one man striding past looked at her. He glared. +And as he had but one eye, Kate deemed him, from his expression, a +woman-hater. + +Then a fat man under an immense hat, and wearing a very large ring on +one hand, walked with a dapper step out of the telegraph office. He +did see Kate. He checked his pace, coughed slightly and changed his +course, as if to hold himself open to inquiry. Kate without hesitation +turned to him and explained she was for Doubleday's ranch. She asked +whether he knew the men from there and whether anyone was down. + +John Lefever, for it was he whom she addressed, knew the men but he had +seen no one; could he do anything? + +"I want very much to get out there tonight," said Kate. + +"Jingo," exclaimed Lefever, "not tonight!" + +"Tonight," returned Kate, looking out of dark eyes in pink and white +appeal, "if I can possibly make it." + +Lefever caught up her suitcase and set it down beside the waiting-room +door: "Stay right here a minute," he said. + +He walked toward the baggage-room and before he reached it, stopped a +second large, heavy man, Henry Sawdy. Him he held in confab; Sawdy +looking meantime quite unabashed toward the distant Kate. In the light +streaming from the station windows her slender and slightly shrinking +figure suggested young womanhood and her delicately fashioned features, +half-hidden under her hat, pleasingly confirmed his impression of it. +Kate, conscious of inspection, could only pretend not to see him. And +the sole impression she could snatch in the light and shadow of the +redoubtable Sawdy, was narrowed to a pair of sweeping mustaches and a +stern-looking hat. Lefever returned, his companion sauntering along +after. Kate explained that she had telegraphed. + +At that moment an odd-looking man, with a rapid, rolling, right and +left gait, ambled by and caught Kate's eye. Instead of the formidable +Stetson hat mostly in evidence, this man wore a baseball cap--of the +sort usually given away with popular brands of flour--its peak cocked +to its own apparent surprise over one ear. The man had sharp eyes and +a long nose for news and proved it by halting within earshot of the +conversation carried on between Kate and the two men. He looked so +queer, Kate wanted to laugh, but she was too far from home to dare. He +presently put his head conveniently in between Sawdy and Lefever and +offered some news of his own: "There's been a big electric storm in the +up country, Sawdy; the telephones are on the bum." + +"How's she going to get to Doubleday's tonight, McAlpin?" asked Sawdy +abruptly of the newcomer. McAlpin never, under any pressure, answered +a question directly. Hence everything had to be explained to him all +over again, he looking meantime more or less furtively at Kate. But he +found out, despite his seeming stupidity, a lot that it would have +taken the big men hours to learn. + +"If you don't want to take a rig and driver," announced McAlpin, after +all had been canvassed, "there's the stage for the fort; they had to +wait for the mail. Bill Bradley is on tonight. I'm thinkin' he'll set +y' over from the ford--it's only a matter o' two or three miles." + +"Are there any other passengers?" asked Kate doubtfully. + +"Belle Shockley for the Reservation," answered McAlpin, promptly, +"if--she ain't changed her mind, it bein' so late." + +Sawdy put a brusque end to this uncertainty: "She's down there at the +Mountain House waitin'--seen her myself not ten minutes ago." + +Scurrying away, McAlpin came back in a jiffy with the driver, Bradley. +Thin, bent and grizzled though he was, Kate thought she saw under the +broad but shabby hat and behind the curtain of scraggly beard and deep +wrinkles dependable eyes and felt reassured. + +"How far is it to the ranch?" she asked of the queer-looking Bradley. + +"Long ways, the way you go, ain't it, Bill?" McAlpin turned to the old +driver for confirmation. + +"'Bout fourteen mile," answered Bradley, "to the ford." + +"What time should I get there?" asked Kate again. + +Bradley stood pat. + +"What time'll she get there, Bill?" demanded Lefever. + +"Twelve o'clock," hazarded Bradley tersely. "Or," he added, "I'll stop +when I pass the ranch 'n' tell 'em to send a rig down in the mornin'." + +"That would take you out of your way," Kate objected. + +"Not a great ways." + +A man that would go to this trouble in the middle of the night for +someone he had never seen before, Kate deemed safe to trust. "No," she +said, "I'll go with you, if I may." + +The way in which she spoke, the sweetness and simplicity of her words, +moved Sawdy and Lefever, the first a widower and the second a bachelor, +and even stirred McAlpin, a married man. But they had no particular +effect on Bradley. The blandishments of young womanhood were past his +time of day. + +With Lefever carrying the suitcase and nearly everybody talking at +once, the party walked around to the rear door of the baggage-room. + +The stage had been backed up, a hostler in the driver's seat, and the +mail and express were being loaded. Sawdy volunteered to save time by +fetching Belle Shockley from the hotel, and while McAlpin and Lefever +inspected and discussed the horses--for the condition of which McAlpin, +as foreman of Kitchen's barn, was responsible--Kate stood, listener and +onlooker. Everything was new and interesting. Four horses champed +impatiently under the arc-light swinging in the street, and looked +quite fit. But the stage itself was a shock to her idea of a Western +stage. Instead of the old-fashioned swinging coach body, such as she +had wondered at in circus spectacles, she saw a very substantial, +shabby-looking democrat wagon with a top, and with side curtains. The +curtains were rolled up. But the oddest thing to Kate was that +wherever a particle could lodge, the whole stage was covered with a +ghostly, grayish-white dust. While the loading went on, Sawdy arrived +with the second passenger, Belle Shockley. She had, fortunately for +Kate's apprehensions, _not_ changed her mind. + +Belle herself was something of an added shock. She wore a long rubber +coat, in which the rubber was not in the least disguised. Her hair was +frizzed about her face, and a small, brimless hat perched high, almost +startled, on her head. She was tall and angular, her features were +large and her eyes questioning. Had she had Bradley's beard, she would +have passed with Kate for the stage driver. She was formidable, but +yet a woman; and she scrutinized the slender whip of a girl before her +with feminine suspicion. Nor did she give Kate a chance to break the +ice of acquaintance before starting. + +Under Lefever's chaperonage and with his gallant help, Kate took her +seat where directed, just behind the driver, and her new companion +presently got up beside her. + +The mail bags disposed of, Bradley climbed into place, gathered his +lines, the hostler let go the leads and the stage was off. The horses, +restive after their long wait, dashed down the main street of the town, +whirling Kate, all eyes and ears, past the glaring saloons and darkened +stores to the extreme west end of Sleepy Cat. There, striking +northward, the stage headed smartly for the divide. + +The night was clear, with the stars burning in the sky. From the rigid +silence of the driver and his two passengers, it might have been +thought that no one of them ever spoke. To Kate, who as an Eastern +girl had never, it might be said, breathed pure air, the clear, high +atmosphere of the mountain night was like sparkling wine. Her senses +tingled with the strange stimulant. + +To Belle, there was no novelty in any of this, and the strain of +silence was correspondingly greater. It was she who gave in first: + +"You from Medicine Bend?" she asked, as the four horses walked up a +long hill. + +"Pittsburgh," answered Kate. + +"Pittsburgh!" echoed Belle, startled. "Gee! some trip you've had." + +Belle, encouraged, then confessed that a cyclone had given her her own +first start West. She had been blown two blocks in one and had all of +her hair pulled out of her head. + +"They said I'd have no chance to get married without any hair," she +continued, "so I got a wig--never _could_ find my own hair--and come +West for a chance. And they're here; if you're looking for a husband +you've come to the right place." + +"I haven't the least idea of getting married," protested Kate. + +"They'll be after you," declared Belle sententiously. + +"Are you married?" ventured Kate. + +"Not yet. But they're coming. I'm in no hurry." + +She talked freely about her own affairs. She had worked for Doubleday, +for whose ranch Kate was bound. Doubleday had had a chain of eating +houses on the line, as Belle termed the transcontinental railroad. +They had all been taken over except the one where she worked--at Sleepy +Cat Junction--and this would be taken soon, Belle thought. + +"That's the trouble with Barb Doubleday," she went on. "He's got too +many irons in the fire--head over heels in debt. There's no money +now-a-days in cattle, anyway. What are you going up to Doubleday's +for?" + +"He's my father." + +"Your father? Well! I never open my mouth without I put my foot in +it, anyway." + +"I've never seen him," continued Kate. + +Belle was all interest. She confided to Kate that she was now on her +way, for a visit, to the Reservation where her cousin was teaching in +an Indian school, and divided her time for the next hour between +getting all she could of Kate's story and telling all of her own. + +On Kate's part there was no end of questions to ask, about country and +customs and people. When Belle could not answer, she appealed to +Bradley, who, if taciturn, was at least patient. Every time the +conversation lulled and Kate looked out into the night, it seemed as if +they were drawing closer and closer to the stars, the dark desert still +spreading in every direction and the black mountain ridges continually +receding. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CRAZY WOMAN + +They had traveled a long time it seemed to Kate, and having climbed all +the hills in the country, were going down a moderate grade with the +hind wheels sputtering unamiably at the brakes, when Belle broke a long +silence: "Where are we, Bill?" she demanded, familiarly. + +"The Crazy Woman," Bradley answered briefly. Kate did not understand, +but by this time she had learned in such circumstances to hold her +tongue. + +"He means the creek," explained Belle. "It's way down there ahead of +us." + +Strain her eyes as she would, Kate could see only the blackness of the +darkness ahead. + +"'N' b' jing!" muttered Bradley, as Kate peered into nothingness, +"she's whinin' t'night f'r fair." + +Again for an instant Kate did not comprehend. Then the leads were +swung sharply by Bradley to the left. The stage rounded what Kate +afterward frequently recognized as an overhanging shoulder of rock on +the road down to the creek, and a vague, dull roar swept up from below. + +Bradley halted the horses, climbed down, and taking the lantern went +forward on foot to investigate. + +"Must have been a cloudburst in the mountains," remarked Belle, +listening; and Kate was to learn that a cloudless sky gives no +assurance whatever for the passage of a mountain stream. + +The lantern disappeared, to come into sight again farther down the +trail, and while both women talked, the faint light swung at intervals +in and out of their vision as Bradley reconnoitered. Kate was a little +worried, but her companion sat quite unmoved, even when Bradley +returned and reported the creek "roarin'." + +"That bein' the case," he muttered, "I'm thinkin' the Double-draw +bridge has took up its timbers and walked likewise." + +The Double-draw bridge! How well Kate was to know that name; but that +night it seemed, like everything else, only very queer. + +"Bradley," protested Belle, now very much disturbed, "that can't be." + +"We'll see," retorted Bradley, gathering his reins and releasing his +brake as he spoke to the horses. "I don't guess myself there's much +left o' that bridge." Only the expletive he placed before the last +word revealed his own genuine annoyance and Kate prudently asked no +further questions. Some instinct convinced her she was already a +nuisance on the silent Bradley's hands. The ford--off the main +road--was where he had purposed setting Kate over, as he expressed it, +to the ranch. Double-draw bridge--on the road to the fort and +Reservation--was two miles above. + +The horses climbed the long hill again and started on the road for the +bridge. + +"If the Double-draw is out," sighed Belle resignedly, "I reckon we're +trapped." + +For the first time now they could hear the hoofs of the two teams +sinking into and pulling out of mud. It grew deeper as they descended +the long grade toward the bridge and clouds obscured the light of the +stars. + +With the horses stumbling on, the women watched for something to meet +either sight or hearing, but there was nothing until they again neared +the creek. Then the same vague roar rose on the night and as they +rimmed the bench above the creek a faint, ghastly light on the eastern +horizon betokened a rising moon. Down the trail they stopped in +darkness and Bradley again clambered down from his box with the lantern +to investigate. + +"'Z fur 'z I c'n see," he reported when he came back, "th' bridge is +all right, but mos'ly under water." + +"Can we get across?" Belle Shockley asked querulously. + +Bradley answered with hesitation: "Why--yes----" + +"Oh, good!" + +"And no." + +"What does that mean?" snapped Belle. + +"We can't get across tonight--we might in the mornin'." + +Kate kept silence, but Belle was persistent. "What are we going to +do?" she demanded; "go 'way back to Sleepy Cat?" + +"Not in a milyun years," returned Bradley, calmly. "We're goin' to +pull out t' one side 'n' camp right here till daylight. Ef I didn't +have you wimmen on my hands, I might take a chanst with the mail," he +went on, drawing his horses carefully around to where he meant to camp. +"Me and the horses could make it, even 'f we lost the wagon. But I +w'dn't like the job of huntin' for you folks in the Crazy Woman with a +lantern--not tonight. She's surely a-rip-roarin'. Well; t'hell with +her 'n' all creeks like her, say I," he wound up, chirruping kindly to +his uncomplaining beasts. + +"You don't like creeks," suggested Belle. + +"Dry creeks--yes. Wouldn't care if I never seen another wet creek from +now till kingdom come--Whoa, Nellie!" he called to the off lead mare +who was feeling the way for her companions back to a safe spot for a +halt. "This is good, right here." + +Belle showed her fellow-traveler how to lie down with some comfort on +the leather seat, and as they had one for each she gave Kate her +choice. Kate, to put Belle between her and any man in front, took the +back seat. The side curtains were let down and with a mail sack +supplied by Bradley for a pillow, Kate, drawing her big coat over her, +curled up for a rest. + +The excitement of the journey had worn away. The delay she was +disposed to accept philosophically. It took some time for Bradley to +unhitch and dispose of the horses to his satisfaction, and theirs, and +his mumblings and the sound of their moving about and champing their +bits fell a long time on Kate's drowsy ears. Belle went to sleep at +once, and though sleep was the last thing Kate expected to achieve, she +did fall asleep--with the Crazy Woman singing wildly in her ears. + +She had hardly lost herself, it seemed, when Bradley roused his +passengers. The storm waters were creeping up over the bench where +they had camped and with much impatient sputtering, Bradley hitched the +pole team to the stage and, in his pet, retreated into the hills for +assured safety. Even the noise of the flood failed to follow them +there and they disposed themselves once more to rest. + +How long she slept this time, Kate did not know, but she was awakened +by voices. + +The night had grown very cold and death itself could not have been more +silent. Yet at intervals Kate heard the low converse of two voices; +they were not far away and both were men's. + +A panic seized her. Her heart beat like the roll of a drum and then +nearly stopped. What might happen now? she asked herself. And what +could she fear but the worst? In the dead of night--marooned in a wild +country, with only a queer woman and two strange men. Could it be a +plot? she asked herself. In the fear that gripped her she could hardly +breathe, and to think was only to invite added agonies of apprehension. +She sat quickly up, breathing hurriedly now and her heart racing. Then +she heard the even breathing of her companion on the seat ahead. To +make sure it was she, Kate put her hand over and touched Belle's +shoulder. Reassured a little, but ready to push aside the curtain and +spring from the stage at the least alarm, Kate listened painfully; the +voices reached her ears again. + +One was Bradley's--of that she felt sure; the other, deeper, more full, +and with a curiously even carrying quality through the silent night, +she knew she had never heard before; but the darkness, the solitude, +the shock of strange surroundings, if nothing else, made it terrifying +to her. Kate had never been reckoned a timid girl, but she listened +dumb with fear. Bradley did most of the talking. He was recounting, +with occasional profanity, the mishaps of his trip, beginning with the +late train. + +"Any passengers?" Kate heard the stranger ask. + +"Two women--c'n y' beat it? One of 'em a girl for Doubleday's." + +"What can a girl be wanting at Doubleday's?" + +"D'no. Came off the train tonight." + +"The Double-draw is out." + +"Jing!" exclaimed Bradley, "it was there an hour ago." + +"The ford is your only chance to get her over." + +"Can I make it?" + +"You've got good horses; you ought to make it by daylight." + +"Hear they got a new foreman over at Doubleday's," Bradley said. + +There was no comment, unless the silence could be so construed. + +"Tom Stone," added Bradley, as if bound to finish. + +There was an instant and angry exclamation, none the less ferocious +because of the restrained feeling in its sudden utterance. + +"Doubleday sets a good deal by what Van Horn says; I reckon he put him +in there," suggested Bradley. + +There was a further silence. Then she heard the stranger dryly say: "I +expect so." It seemed as if behind everything he did say there was so +much left unsaid. + +"I never got rightly, Jim," Bradley went on, "how you 'n' Van Horn's +related." + +"I hope you never will," returned the man saluted as "Jim," in the same +low, cold tone. "We're not related. He was my partner--once." + +"Stone will change things at the ranch." + +"He can't hurt them much." + +"I guess they're full bad," said Bradley, and then, lowering his voice: +"The gal's asleep there in the stage. How'd the land contest they made +on y' at Medicine Bend come off?" + +"The cattlemen own that Land Office. I'll beat the bunch at +Washington." + +"Doubleday wanted me to go down to swear. I wouldn't do it--wasn't +even at the trial----" + +"No honest man was, from Doubleday's." + +"Was it Stone cut your wire, Jim?" + +"You know as much about it as I do." + +"Got it up again?" + +"All I could find." + +"Meaner 'n' hell over there, ain't they?" + +There was no comment. + +"How long you goin' to stand it, Jim?" persisted Bradley. And after +the odd pause, the slow answer: "Till I get tired." + +"That'll be about the time they rip it off again." + +"About that time, Bill." + +"Well," hazarded the old driver, meditatively, "the boys are waitin'. +They say you're slow to start anything, Jim; but they look f'r hell t' +pay when y' do." + +To the stranger--it seemed to Kate--words must be worth their weight in +gold, he parted with them so sparingly. + +"What's this talk 'bout Farrell Kennedy makin' a depity marshal, Jim?" + +"Mostly talk, Bill. Good night." + +"Farrel offered it to y', didn't he?"' + +"So Lefever says." + +"Where y' headin' f'r now?" persisted Bradley, as Kate heard the +shuffle of a horse's feet. + +"Home." + +"They ain't burned your shack?" Bradley asked with a half chuckle. + +Kate just heard the man's reply: "Not yet." + +The hoofbeats drew away. Kate cautiously pushed back her curtain. + +The late moon was shining in an old and ghostly light. Distant heights +rose like black walls against the sky. At intervals a peak broke +sharply above the battlements, or a rift in a closer sierra opened to +show the stars. + +Kate could hear but could not for some time see the galloping horseman. +Then of a sudden he reached the brow of a low hill and rode swiftly out +into the spectral light. There he halted. Horse and rider stood for a +moment silhouetted against the sky. The horse chafed at his bit. He +stretched his head restively into the north, his rider sitting +motionless, a somber flat hat crowning his spare figure. For barely a +moment the man sat thus immovable. Then he turned slightly in the +saddle and the horse struck off into the night. + +Drowsiness had deserted the tired girl that watched him. While her +companions slept she sat in the solitude waiting for day. Bradley, as +good as an alarm dock, was stirring with the first streak and feeding +his horses. He told his passengers that the bridges were all out and +he was going back to the ford. + +Belle, incredulous, when first told by Kate of a visitor in the night, +had no scruples in asking questions: + +"Who was here last night, Bill?" + +"Wha'd' y' mean?" he countered, gathering up his lines. + +"What man was it, you were talking to?" she demanded. + +"I guess if I was talkin' to any man," he grumbled, "I was talkin' in +my sleep. You must 'a' been 'a' dreamin'." + +"Oh, come now, 'fess up, Bill." Belle nodded toward Kate. "She was +awake." + +Bradley started the horses, shifted on the box and looked not too well +pleased: "I wasn't talkin' to nobody last night----" + +"Bill, what a whopper." + +"If you mean this mornin'----" he went on, doggedly. + +"Well--who was here?" + +"Jim Laramie." + +"Jim Laramie!" echoed Belle, catching her breath and poking Kate with +her elbow. "Wonder he didn't hold us up." + +Bradley scowled but said nothing. + +"Bradley doesn't like that," murmured Belle to Kate, as soon as the +creaking of the wheels gave her a chance to speak without his hearing. +"He's a friend of Jim's." + +"Where did he come from?" continued Belle, raising her voice toward +Bradley. + +Bradley took his time to answer: "Claimed he was goin' home," he said +laconically. + +"How could he get across the creek with the bridges out?" persisted +Belle. + +Bradley's eyes were on his horses. He was weary of question: "High +water wouldn't bother him much." + +"Well, I want to know! I should think it would bother anybody the way +it was sweeping down last night." + +"Hell!" ejaculated Bradley, parting with his manners and his patience +together: "Jim could swim the Crazy Woman with his horse's feet tied." + +"Who _is_ 'Jim'?" Kate demanded of her companion in an undertone. + +"Jim Laramie? He lives in the Falling Wall." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DOUBLEDAY'S + +When they got back to the ford it was daylight and the Crazy Woman was +hurrying on as peacefully as if a frown had never ruffled its repose. +Gnarled trees springing out of gashes along its tortuous channel +showed, in the debris lodged against their flood-bared roots and +mud-swept branches, the fury of the night, and the creek banks, scoured +by many floods, revealed new and savage gaps in the morning sun; but +Bradley made his crossing with the stage almost as uneventfully as if a +cloud-burst had never ruffled the mountains. + +Kate was eager to meet her father, eager to see what might be her new +home. The moment the horses got up out of the bottom, Bradley pointed +with his whip to the ranch-house. Kate saw ahead of her a long, +one-story log house crowning, with its group of out-buildings, a level +bench that stretched toward the foothills. The landscape was bare of +trees and, to Kate, brown and barren-looking, save for a patch of green +near the creek where an alfalfa field lay vividly pretty in the sun. +The ranch-house, built of substantial logs, was ample in its +proportions and not uninviting, even to her Eastern eyes. + +Bradley, with a flourish, swept past the stable, around the corral and +drew up before the door with a clatter. In front of the bunk-house on +the right, a cowboy rolling a cigarette, was watching the arrival, and +just as Bradley plumped Kate, on his arms, to the ground, her father, +Barb Doubleday himself, opened the ranch-house door. + +Kate had never seen her father. And until Bradley spoke, she had not +the slightest idea that this could be he. She saw only a rough-looking +man of great stature, slightly stooped, and with large features burnt +to a deep brown. + +"Hello, Barb," said Bradley, without much enthusiasm. + +His salutation met with as little: "What's up?" demanded Doubleday. +Kate noticed the huskiness in the strong, cold tone. + +"Brought y' a passenger." + +From the talk of the night she recognized her father's nickname. It +was a little shock to realize that this must, indeed, be he. And the +unmoved expression of his face as he surveyed her without a smite or +greeting, was not reassuring. + +But she hastened forward: "Father?" there was a note of girlish appeal +in her greeting: "I'm Kate--your daughter. You don't remember me, of +course," she added with an effort to extort a welcome. "You got my +letter, did you?" + +He looked at her uncertainly for a moment and nodded slowly. "Was it +all right," she asked, now almost panic-stricken, "to come to see you?" + +Confused or preoccupied, he stumbled out some words of welcome, spoke +to Belle on the stage, took the suitcase out of Bradley's hand and led +Kate into the house. In the large room that she entered stood a long +table and a big fireplace opened at the back. On the left, two +bedrooms opened off the big room, and on the right, the kitchen. + +The chill of the strange greeting embarrassed Kate the more because she +felt Belle could hardly fail to notice it, and her own resentment of it +did not easily wear off. But hoping for better things she freshened up +a little, in her father's bedroom, and by that time a man cook was +bringing breakfast into the big room, which served as living-room and +dining-room. Bradley, Belle, Kate and her father sat down--the men had +already breakfasted. + +Kate, her head in a whirl with novelty and excitement, was overcome +with interest in everything, but especially in her father. Sitting at +the head of the table--at one end of which fresh places had been +set--he maintained her first impression of his stature. His spreading +frame was covered with loose corduroy clothes--which could hardly be +said to fit--and his whole appearance conveyed the impression of +unusual physical strength. It had been said of Barb Doubleday, as a +railroad builder, that he could handle an iron rail alone. His +powerful jaw and large mouth--now fitted, or rather, supplied--with +artificial teeth of proportionate size--all supported Kate's awe of his +bigness. His long nose, once smashed in a railroad fight, was not +seriously scarred; and originally well-shaped, it was still the best +feature of a terrifically weather-beaten face that had evidently seen +milder days. The good looks were gone, but not the strength. His +mouth was almost shapeless but unmistakably hard, and his grayish-blue +eyes were cold--very cold; try as she would, Kate could discern little +love or sympathy in them. This was the man who almost twenty years +earlier had deserted her mother and wee Kate, the baby, and long +disappeared from Eastern view--until by accident the fact that he was +alive and in the far West had become known to his wife and daughter. +Kate thought she understood something of the tragedy in her mother's +life when the first sight of her father's eyes struck a chill into her +own heart. + +But he was her father--and her mother had tried, in spite of all, to +hide or condone his faults; and more than once before she died, had +made Kate promise to hunt him up and go to him. What the timid girl +dreaded most was finding another woman installed in his household--in +which case she meant to make her stay in the West very short. But +every hour lessened these fears and as he himself gradually thawed a +little, Kate took courage. + +The breakfast went fast. Platters were passed without ceremony or +delay. Her father and Bradley ate as Kate had never seen men eat; only +her amazement could keep pace with their quiet but unremitting efforts +to clean up everything in sight. There was little mastication but much +knife and fork work, with free libation of coffee; and Belle, Kate +noticed, while somewhat left behind by the men, paid strict attention +to the business in hand. + +Conversation naturally lagged; but what took place had its surprise for +Kate. Doubleday asked a few questions of Belle--everybody seemed to +know everybody else--and learning she was headed for the Reservation, +possibly to teach school, hired her on the spot away from the job, to +go back to his eating-house at Sleepy Cat Junction. No sooner was this +arranged, and Bradley told to take her luggage off the stage, than a +diversion occurred. + +A horseman dashed up outside and presently strode into the room. He +was tall and well put together; not quite as straight as an arrow, but +straight, and not ungraceful in his height. This was Harry Van Horn, a +neighboring cattleman, and he wore the ranchman's rig, including the +broad hat and the revolver slung at his hip. But everything about the +rig was fresh and natty, in the sunshine. He looked alert. His step +was clean and springy as he crossed the room, and his voice not +unpleasant as he briskly greeted Doubleday and looked keenly at his +guests--last and longest at Kate sitting at her father's right hand. + +Doubleday introduced him to his daughter. Van Horn nodded, without +much deference, to Belle and to Bradley, neither of whom responded more +warmly. He sat down near Kate and with a look of raillery scrutinized +the remnant of meat left on the general platter: "How is it, Barb?" he +asked. + +"What?" + +"The antelope." + +"All right, I guess." + +Van Horn with a laugh turned to Kate: "Excited over it, isn't he? I +got an antelope yesterday, so I sent half of it over to your father." +Then he lowered his voice in pretended disgust. "_He_ doesn't know +what he's eating--it might as well be salt pork. And you're a stranger +here? I never knew your father had a daughter. He's very +communicative. How do you like antelope?" + +Without paying attention to anyone else, he set out for a moment to +entertain Kate. When he talked his face lighted with energy. Every +expression of his brown eyes snapped with life, and his big Roman nose, +though not making for beauty, one soon got used to. + +Barb broke abruptly in on the conversation: "What did Stone find out?" +he asked. + +Van Horn answered a question of Kate's and turned then, and not until +then, to her father: "That's what I came over to tell you. Dutch Henry +and another fellow--described like Stormy Gorman--sold ten head of +steers to the railroad camp last week--that's where our cattle are +going right along now. And Abe Hawk," he exclaimed, pointing his +finger at Doubleday and poking it forward to emphasize each point, +"sold ten head of your long yearlings to a contracting outfit north of +the Falling Wall and never changed the brands!" + +Doubleday stared at the speaker. Van Horn, speaking to Kate, went +right on: "There's a bunch of rustlers over in the Falling Wall, +snitching steers on us right and left," he explained in a lower and +very deferential tone, but a warm one. + +While Van Horn talked and Doubleday muttered husky and bitter +questions, Bradley and Belle paid continuous attention to their coffee +and griddle cakes. + +Doubleday by this time had forgotten all about Kate. Completely +absorbed by the reports brought in he rose from the table and followed +Van Horn to the open door where Van Horn turned and paused as he kept +on talking so that with his eyes he could still take in Kate at the +table. The two men were now joined at the door by a third. This man +looked in to see who was at the table. Bradley glanced up at him only +long enough to recognize Tom Stone, the new foreman; no greeting +passed. Kate looked longer, though when she saw the eyes of the +new-comer were on her she gave her attention to Belle. + +Belle had told her that a woman at the ranch would be a great curiosity +and Kate every day resigned herself to inspection. When she got better +acquainted with the men, and while there were good and bad among them, +she liked them all, except Stone. His face did not seem kindly. At +times agreeable enough, he was only tolerable at best and when even +slightly in liquor he was irritable. His low forehead, over which he +plastered his hair, and his straight yellow eyebrows and hard blue eyes +were not confidence inspiring; even his big mustache was harsh and +lacked a generous curve--his normal outlook seemed one of reticence and +suspicion. Kate refused to like him; his smile was not good. + +On this morning he showed the signs of a hard journey. He had brought +the news from the Falling Wall and was just in after a troublesome +ride. Bradley and Belle left the table together and Kate followed to +the door. Bradley tried to edge past the three men without speaking, +but Stone not only stopped him with a cold grin but followed the driver +toward the stage: "Wouldn't that kill you"--Kate heard him say to +Bradley, and she saw his attempt at an ingratiating grin: "Abe Hawk +rustling?" + +Bradley gave him scant sympathy: "What did Doubleday discharge him +for?" he demanded. "What did the cattlemen blacklist him for? He's +the best foreman this ranch ever had--or ever will have," added +Bradley, summoning his scant courage to rub it in. "He fired him +because he took up a little piece of land agin the Falling Wall and got +together a few cows of his own. That's a crime, ain't it? Like ----. +These cattlemen will learn a thing or two when they get old." + +Stone flared back at him: "What are you over here eating their bacon +for?" + +"Not f'r any likin' I've got f'r 'em," retorted Bradley, "n'r f'r any +o' their pets." + +The old driver got away without a fight, but he had little to spare. +Van Horn rode off presently with Stone, and Doubleday returned to the +house, where Kate was sitting with Belle. He told Belle he would send +her over to the Junction in the afternoon, and after dinner told Kate +she had better go over and stay at the Junction with Belle till they +could get a room "fixed up" at the ranch. + +There were really no accommodations at the ranchhouse for Kate until +some could be prepared. A room had to be made ready and there was no +bed or furniture. And Belle told her that her father spent most of his +time at the Junction, anyway, where he had a cottage. She explained +about the railroad branching off the main line at the Junction. Her +father had built this to coal mines on the Falling Wall river. He was +supposed to own this branch line and the mines, but she hinted strongly +that his creditors had got everything there was of the railroad but the +rust, and would sometime get that. + +Kate wished her new acquaintance had been less candid. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AT THE EATING HOUSE + +Doubleday drove the two women down from the ranch. At the Junction +there were, besides the railroad eating house, a few houses and a few +stores, and almost as many saloons as at Sleepy Cat itself--the place +being, Belle said, a shipping point both for cattle and for miners. + +Kate was relieved to find her father's cottage, on a hill across the +railroad track, quite livable-looking. It was, like all the other +houses, one story and square, being divided into kitchen, dining-room +and two bedrooms. The interior, its shiny furniture covered with dust, +was dreary enough, but Kate knew she could make the place presentable, +and after the first few days in her new surroundings, began to recover +her high spirits. Her father had not yet said she was to stay; but she +thought he liked her--Belle told her as much--and she set about making +her woman's hand felt. Her father took his meals at the eating-house, +and the cottage had been indifferently cared for by old Henry, the +eating-house porter. Kate, as a housekeeper, was a marked improvement, +one that even so absorbed a man as her father could not but notice. + +She naturally spent much time at the eating-house herself, because +Belle, her sole acquaintance at the Junction, was there. + +"How you going to like it out here?" demanded Belle, scrutinizing Kate +critically, after she had known her a few months. + +"I love it," was the prompt answer. + +Belle seemed dismayed: "How about the alkali?" she asked, as if to +convict Kate of deceit. + +Kate only nodded: "It's all right." + +"And the sagebrush?" + +"I like it." + +"And the greasewood?" + +"Why not?" + +Belle had begun to like Kate's laugh: "Not going to get lonesome out in +this country?" Belle flung at her, as a gloomy clincher. + +"Lonesome!" At this idea Kate laughed outright. "Do I look it?" she +cried. + +"Guess you like to horseback pretty well," muttered Belle, casting +about for a solution of so surprising an attitude and unable to find +any other fault with her protegee. + +"I'd rather ride than eat," declared Kate, youthfully exuberant. + +"What about swimming?" inquired Belle, determined to fasten discontent +on her. + +"I hate swimming." + +"Well," grumbled her companion, defeated at every point, "Barb's got +plenty of horses." Kate did not like to hear her father called Barb, +but Belle would not call him anything else. + +Back of the cottage, Doubleday had a small barn, where Henry--an +ex-cowboy--looked after Doubleday's driving horses. And the very first +pledge from her father that she was to be tolerated in the strange +household she had invaded in this far-away country, came to Kate when +he sent down for her use two saddle ponies. The fleeting suspicion of +loneliness that she would not confess even to herself, all vanished +when the ponies came: She could then ride to and from the ranch. And +when Henry failed to appear, Kate took care of her pets herself. After +her father told her they were really hers, she would hardly let Henry +himself lay a hand on them. + +When the evenings grew tedious she would go down for supper with Belle +and sit with her in the small alcove off the office, where the two +could see and hear without being seen; and Belle's stories had no end. + +The only feature of her situation that would not improve was her +father's aloofness. He seemed to try at times to thaw out but he +persistently congealed again. One evening he got in late from the +ranch, cold and wet, complaining of rheumatism. The driver went on +with the team to Sleepy Cat and Doubleday told Kate he would stay all +night. She had a good fire in the grate and made her father a toddy. + +He sat with her before the fire late and talked for the first time +about his affairs, which seemed mostly money troubles. + +Next morning he could hardly get out of bed, but he was set on going to +the ranch and Kate helped him to dress and got him a good breakfast, +with a cup of strong coffee. He softened enough to let her go up to +the ranch with him. She had already coaxed from him the furniture for +the spare room so she might spend the night there occasionally. Van +Horn had promised to teach her sometime how to use a rifle and to take +her out after antelope and Kate was keen for going. The next day her +father brought her the rifle from Sleepy Cat. + +They drove out in the evening, but the minute they reached the +ranch-house, Kate perceived something was up. Van Horn greeted her +with a good deal of freedom, Kate thought--but apologized for hurrying +away after she had shown him her new rifle--with the hint that they had +bigger game in sight just then, and after a long talk with her father +and much preparation he and Stone rode off, two of the men from the +bunk-house with them. Her father plainly let Kate see that he himself +had no intention of entertaining her. He was outside most of the time +and Kelly, the cook, being the only man to talk to, Kate in +self-defense went to bed. + +During the night she was awakened by voices. Van Horn and Stone were +back and they were talking to her father in the living-room. Kate +thought at first some accident had happened. Van Horn, eager, pleased +and rapid in utterance, did much of the talking, Stone breaking in now +and again with a few words in harsh nasal tones--harsher tonight than +usual. Her father seemed only to ask a question once in a while. Kate +tried not to eavesdrop, but she could not occasionally help hearing +words about wire, which Van Horn was sure somebody would never find. +The men had apparently been somewhere and done something. The clink of +glasses indicated drinking, and there was much cursing of something or +somebody. Then the talk got loud and her father hushed it up and the +party went to bed. + +There seemed something furtive and secret about the incident that Kate +could not fathom. Why should honest men get together in the dead of +night to exult and curse and drink? She composed herself to sleep +again; these were simply things she did not understand. She thought +she did not want to understand them, but even after she got back to the +Junction she wondered why her father should be mixed up in them. + +Meantime she spent a week of delight at the ranch, mostly on horseback, +learning the Western horse and Western riding. + +After her outing, Doubleday took Kate down to the Junction. He went on +to Sleepy Cat, but that night he came back ill. In the morning he was +not able to get up. + +Kate telephoned, as he directed, to Sleepy Cat, for Doctor Carpy. + +The doctor, when he came, looked Kate over with interest. He was a +smooth-faced, powerfully-built man, rough-looking and rough in speech, +but he knew his business. It was an acute attack of rheumatism, he +said, and he told Kate to keep her father in bed and to keep him quiet +and nurse him. + +"He's so active," said Kate regretfully. "He seems to be on the go all +the time." + +"Damn him!" exclaimed Carpy with blunt emphasis. "He's nervous all the +time--that's what's the matter. He's got too many irons in the fire." + +Kate swallowed her astonishment at so extraordinary a medical outburst. +She reminded herself she was really out West. + +Belle, when Kate saw her the following morning at the eating-house, +said much the same thing and added in her coldly philosophic way, "I +reckon the banks have got him. And say, Kate, here's a telegram just +come for your father." + +Kate took the despatch up to the cottage. It was from Van Horn at +Medicine Bend, and it so upset her father that she was sorry she had +had to deliver it. After an interval, unpleasant both for the disabled +man and his nurse, Kate ventured to ask whether there was not something +she could do. There was not. Litigation against him, long dormant--he +explained between twinges--had been revived, papers issued and a United +States deputy marshal was on the way to serve him. "I thought," he +growled, "the thing was dead. But nothing against me ever dies. If +it'd gone past today it would 'a' been outlawed. You'll have to send +some telegrams for me." + +He gave her the substance of them and of a letter he wanted +written--all of which she carefully took down. Then putting on her +hat, she hastened to the eating-house to send the telegrams. + +It was well past noon. At the lunch-counter desk Kate copied the +messages on telegraph blanks, took them up to the operator and came +downstairs to write the letter for her father. + +While she was doing this, the two o'clock Medicine Bend train pulled +in. It was the big through train of the day, the train that Belle had +said must bring the dreaded summons server from Medicine Bend, if he +came that day at all. But Kate, absorbed in her letter writing, had +forgotten all about this unpleasantness when something--she was never +able to say just what--recalled her to herself. She became all at once +conscious that she was writing a letter, and at the same time conscious +that she was no longer alone in the little room. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CROSS PURPOSES + +The only thing Kate could have noticed was a slight darkening of the +room; something momentarily obscured the sunlight streaming through the +platform doorway; someone sauntered into the room itself, but Kate was +signing the letter and gave the entrance no thought. Still she could +not shake off the consciousness of somebody walking up close to the +desk where she stood and sitting down on one of the counter stools. +She refused to look up, even though she felt that eyes were on her. + +A natural impulse of defiance at the uninvited scrutiny possessed her. +And being resolved she would not admit she was conscious of it, she +turned from the desk and looking straight toward the glass door +connecting with the dining-room, and behind the end of the counter, she +walked briskly past the intruding presence. + +As she did so, Kate somehow felt with every step that she could not get +out of the room unchallenged. But even then she was riding to a rude +surprise for she had reached the door without incident when she heard +two words: "Slow, Kate." She had already laid her hand on the knob and +she turned it with indignation. The wretched door refused to open! It +was Belle's afternoon off and she had locked the door. + +Even then a collected girl would not have surrendered to the situation. +But Kate never could be collected at just the right time. She was +usually quite collected when it made no difference whether she was +collected or not. All she now did was to look blankly around. A man +sat at the counter, a man she had never seen before. He was +deliberately lifting a broad horseman's hat from a rather round, high +forehead and disclosing a head of inoffensive-looking sandy hair, very +much sun-and-wind bleached. His smooth face, his ears and neck and +open throat, were colored by a strictly uniform pigment--tinctured by +many mountain winds into a reddish brown and burnt by many mountain +suns into a seemingly immutable bronze. The face was long with an +ample nose, a peaceful-looking mouth and unruffled gray eyes. The man +was very like and yet unlike many of the mountain men she had seen. +She remembered afterward that this was her first impression: at that +moment she was not analyzing it: "Where are you going?" he asked, as +she stood looking at him. + +Her resentment at the rudeness rose. Could a prophetic spirit have +warned Kate that this was to be only the first of more than one serious +encounter with the eyes steadily regarding her, her astonishment and +indignation might have been restrained. As it was, forgetting her own +position and descending to Western brusqueness, she retorted icily: "I +can't see how that can possibly interest you." + +If she hoped that a frigid tone and utterance might abash her intruding +questioner, they failed. He spoke again with surprisingly even +impertinence--quite as if she were as friendly as he. "You're wrong," +he said. "I'm mightily interested. I want some coffee and you don't +act to me as if you meant to come back." + +It was undignified and improper for her to bandy words with a heckler, +but Kate had already breathed too much of the freedom of the mountains +to resist a second retort, and said, almost without thinking--and +certainly in a very positive manner: "I am not coming back." + +"Give me a cup of coffee before you go." + +"There is no service here this afternoon." + +"Beg your pardon. There will be one service here this afternoon. You +will serve me." His emphasis was slight, but unmistakable. She was so +fussed she turned to the door and grasped the knob the second time. +Her persecutor raised his left hand firmly. "You can't get out there," +he said. + +"Why can't I?" demanded Kate indignantly. + +"Because you can't open the door." She stood mute at his assurance. +"Come," he continued, "give me some coffee, like a good girl." + +What should she do? She did not speak the question, but weighed it +pretty rapidly in her mind. What manner of man had she to deal with? +If not actually threatening he was extremely domineering. While she +hesitated he regarded her calmly. + +But there was one way to do as he demanded and to punish him as well. +Of the two coffee urns kept filled in readiness for the rush in serving +a trainload of passengers, only one was now heated. Kate stepped to +the urns, murmuring as if to herself: "I know nothing about these." + +"I don't either," he said. From the nearer urn Kate drew a cup of +coffee; it was very cold--but she pushed it with a jug of cream and a +bowl of sugar, toward him. + +"A teaspoon, please?" Kate's excitement had already heightened her +color. She looked very much alive as she added, impatiently, a spoon +to the equipment--expecting then to be able to get out of the room. It +seemed as if this ought to big easy; it was not. Her tormentor +professed to have had no dinner and wanted a sandwich. The sandwiches +were rebelliously hunted up--a plateful was supplied. If he was +surprised at the prodigality he made no comment, but at intervals some +tantalizing word from him entangled her in another exchange; and at +each encounter of wits, just enough fear tempered her resentment to +make her irresolute. + +She was malicious enough to observe in silence the unobtrusive +pantomime by which the enemy tried to coax a semblance of warmth into +his cold coffee. He had begun by pouring cream into it, but the cream +refused to assimilate and only made the mixture look less inviting. + +"I'm glad I met you today," he said, while she was getting her breath. +"Looks lonesome around here. Not much doing at the mines, is there?" + +"Not a great deal," she answered coldly. + +"How about Barb Doubleday--is he up at the mines, or here?" + +He was indifferently lifting matches from the stand at his hand, +striking them and burning them patiently against the side of his cup of +coffee. Like a flash came to Kate with his question, the thought that +this disagreeable person must be the court officer. He looked up at +her now as if waiting for an answer: "Why do you ask?" she countered. + +"Mostly because I'd like to hear you say something." + +"Anything, I suppose," she suggested ironically. + +"That's not far from it," was the reply. "Also, I want to see Barb." + +"What about?" she asked, borrowing his own assurance. It was time, she +thought, for defensive strategy. + +"Just a little business matter." It was long, very long afterward that +Kate learned, and fully realized, the significance of the indifferently +spoken words; when she did, she wondered that a man's manner could so +completely mask all that lay behind them. + +"He isn't hiring any men," she ventured, adapting a set phrase she had +often heard Belle use. + +"And in spite of my looks," he returned, "I'm not hunting a job--for a +wonder." + +But now that Kate wanted to hear more he took his turn at reticence. +"Where are you from?" she asked as unconcernedly as she could. + +"Medicine Bend." + +"From the marshal's office?" It was foolish of her to ask. She fairly +blurted out the words. He looked at her for the first time keenly--and +just the change in his expression, undefinable but unmistakable, almost +frightened her to death. + +"I was in the marshal's office yesterday," he answered, picking up a +sandwich evasively. Kate was no longer doubtful. This was the man to +serve the dreaded, summons. An instant of panic seized her. +Fortunately her persecutor was regarding his stubborn coffee as he +stirred it. Her heart, which had stopped, started with a thump. Her +thoughts cleared. Instinct, self-preservation, asserted itself. She +thought hard and fast. The first step was to temporize. + +He looked up in time to see the blood sweeping back into her cheeks; +and almost spoiled the first really good breath she was drawing. In +his lean, bronzed hands he clasped his cup of coffee as if trying to +put a degree of heat into it: "What would be the extra charge for a +shot at that hot tank?" he asked, directing his glance first at the +other tank, then at Kate's burning face. + +With all his confidence, he must have been surprised at the revulsion +of manner that greeted him. Kate recovered her poise--her coldness +vanished, a smile broke through her reserve and her confused regret was +promptly expressed: "Did I give you coffee out of the cold tank? How +stupid!" + +"And never in my life," said her queer customer, as if continuing her +words, "did I do anything mean to you." + +"Oh, yes, you did," objected Kate, coupling nervous haste with the +declaration as she tried to take the cold cup from between his hands. +The ease with which she assumed the role of a lunch-counter waitress +astonished her. + +"What did I do?" he drawled, resisting her attempt to make amends. + +"You said I couldn't go out that door," she answered, refusing to be +denied the cup. + +"I was hoping if you stayed a few minutes, you wouldn't want to." A +moment earlier she would have been indignant. Now she reconciled +herself to necessity. She was, indeed, wildly hoping she might be able +to coax him not to serve any paper. And she had to repress an absurd +laugh at the thought as she set a fresh and steaming cup before him. + +While he made ready to drink it she leaned with assured indifference +against the buffet shelf behind her. She spread her left arm and hand +innocently along its edge as she had seen waitresses do--and with her +right hand, toyed with the loose collar of her crepe blouse--chatting +the while like a perfectly good waitress with her suspect. The funny +part seemed to her that he took it all with entire seriousness, hardly +laughing; only a suspicion of a smile, playing at times around his +eyes, relieved the somberness of his lean face. His parted lips showed +regular teeth when he spoke, and gave a not unpleasant expression to +his mouth. His eyes were as inoffensive as a mountain lake. + +But there remained something stubborn in his dry manner and at times +her heart misgave her as to the hope of dissuading him from his +purpose. Trying to form some idea of how to act, she studied him with +anxiety. All she could actually reach as a conclusion was that he +might be troublesome to dissuade. + +Yet with every moment she was the more determined to keep him from +carrying out his mission and the more resolved to make him pay for his +Western manners. All this was running through her head while the +coffee was being sipped. Unhappily, her father was where she could not +possibly reach him with a warning until Belle should reappear on the +scene. She tendered her now tractable guest a second cup of coffee. +It was accepted; he talked on, asking many questions, which were +answered more or less to his satisfaction. Not that his inquiries were +impertinent; they were chiefly silly, Kate thought. He seemed most +intent on establishing a friendly footing with a lunch-counter +attendant. + +When his third cup had been drunk and payment tendered for it, and for +five or six sandwiches, Kate decided her time to escape had arrived. +She refused to accept his money: "No," she persisted, "I will not take +a thing for your lunch. Positively not. Oh, you may leave your dollar +on the counter, if you like--it will never go into the register." + +"Why not?" + +"I've told you." + +"Say it again." + +"You were very patient over my blunder in giving you cold coffee." + +"To tell you the truth," he remarked with candor, "it didn't look to me +altogether like a blunder." + +"Oh, it was," she insisted shamelessly; but she did not feel at all +sure he believed her. "And I won't take your money. I want you--" her +eyes fell the least bit with her repentant words--"to have a better +impression of this counter than cold coffee would give you. We're +trying so hard to build up a business." + +"Golly!" observed her calm guest. "I thought a few minutes ago you +were trying to wreck one." + +"You Medicine Bend men always make fun of this valley," Kate complained. + +"I don't really belong in Medicine Bend," was his return. + +"Where do you belong?" + +"In the Falling Wall." + +"Oh! that awful place?" + +"Why knock the Falling Wall?" + +"I never heard any good of it. No matter anyway; you may put up your +money. And some time when I am up in your country," she added +jestingly, "you can give _me_ a cup of cold coffee." + +"We'll say nothing more about the coffee," he declared in blunt +fashion. "Just you come!" He yielded so honestly to deceit that Kate +was half ashamed at imposing on him. + +"Tell me," he went on, spinning his silver dollar in leisurely fashion +on the smooth counter, "how am I going to get up to the mines today +after I look around here for Barb--where can I get a horse?" + +Kate reflected a moment. "I can get you _some_ kind of a horse," she +said slowly. "But it would take you forever to get there on +horseback--the trail runs around by the river. The train will get you +there first. It goes up at four o'clock." + +She knew she said it all blandly, though conscious of her duplicity. +It was not exactly falsehood that she spoke--but it was meant to +mislead. The man was regarding her steadily with eyes that seemed to +Kate not in the least double-dealing. + +"What am I going to do till four o'clock?" he asked, making without +discussion her subtle suggestion his own. + +She lifted her eyebrows disclaimingly--even shrugged her shoulders: +"What are you going to do?" he persisted. She was ready. She looked +longingly out of the window. The sun blazed over the desert in a riot +of gold. + +"It's my day off," she observed, adding just a suspicion of discontent +and uncertainty to her words. She fingered her tie, too; then dropped +her eyes; and added, "I thought I might take a ride." + +He started: "Couldn't get two horses, could you?" + +"Two?" echoed Kate, looking surprised. + +He rose: "I'll turn up two if I have to steal 'em," he declared, +reaching for his hat. + +"That would be too much trouble for one little ride," Kate said +ironically. "I'll see what I can do, first. But," she added, basely, +"if you want to be sure of catching the train, I should advise you to +stay right here. It backs down and doesn't stay but a minute--just +long enough to hook on to the empties." + +Her warning had no effect. It was not meant to have any. She knew if +he got to the mines and learned that her father was at the Junction he +would return in no time to serve him. He was decently restrained now, +but he swallowed her bait, hook and all: "Where do you think you can +find horses?" he asked. + +"Where I work." + +"Where do you work?" + +"Sometimes here and sometimes up at Mr. Doubleday's cottage. The +barn-boy gets up a horse for me any time." + +He raised an unexpected difficulty: "I wouldn't feel just right, today, +riding a horse of Barb Doubleday's," he said doubtfully. + +The words only confirmed her suspicions. Her fears rose but her wits +did not desert her: "Ride mine," she suggested. "I've got my own +horse, of course." + +He drew a breath: "All I can say is, if you ever come over my way, I'll +show you as good a time as I know how to." + +She put up her hand: "Wait till you see how you like _my_ good time." + +He was quick to come back. "I'll agree right now to like anything you +offer--and I don't care a hang what it is, either." + +Looking straight at him she asked a question. Its emphasis lay in her +quiet tone: "Will you stand to that?" He looked at her until she felt +his eyes were going right through her: "I've got enemies," he said +slowly, and there was now more than a touch of hardness in his voice; +"most men have. But the worst of 'em never claimed my word isn't good." + +"Then," exclaimed Kate, hastening to escape the serious tone, "you tend +counter while I go and see about the horses." + +"No," he objected, "that's a man's job. You tell me where to go and +_I'll_ get the horses." + +Kate was most firm: "If you're going to ride with _me_," she said, "you +must do my way. Take a woman's job for a few minutes and see how you +like it." + +He regarded her with the simplicity of a child, but replied like a +case-hardened cowboy: "I don't like a woman's job, of course. But I'm +ready to do any blamed thing you say." + +"Do you suppose," Kate demanded with an air, "they would turn two +horses over to _you_ up at Doubleday's?" + +She had put her foot in it: "I tell you," he protested, "I don't want +to ride a horse of Doubleday's. I'm up here to talk to Barb Doubleday. +And nobody can say just how it's coming out. At the ranch they swore +he was at Sleepy Cat. I rode down there and they told me he was at the +Junction, so I took the train over here. Now you tell me he's at the +mines--that's where I'll say what I've got to say. But I don't want to +take any advantage. And I don't want to impose on his property rights +so much as a single hair. That's exactly what's between us." + +Kate, established in treacherous ambush, felt qualms at his stern, +clear code. + +She tried to shut him off, but he was wrought up: "Barb swore to me +once he had nothing to do with it," he persisted obstinately. "All I +can say is, if a man fools me once it's his fault; if he fools me +twice, it's mine." + +"What about a woman?" asked Kate, trying hard to say one thing and +think another. + +He opened his eyes: "I never thought much about that. A man can't +fight a woman," he returned reflectively. "And I've yet to see one I +could fool." + +"What should you do," she asked, turning her back while she +straightened her hat in the buffet mirror, "if you ever met one that +fooled you?" + +"No woman would ever take the trouble." + +She laughed a little: "You never can tell." + +"If a woman ever fooled me, she'd have to fool herself first--so she'd +be the loser." + +"What a philosopher!" + +"First and last, I've been called a good many names--some full +hard--but never a philosopher before." + +Kate started for the front door: "Hold on a minute," he objected, +"what's to do here while you're gone?" + +"Serve coffee and sandwiches if anybody comes in. This time of day +there's never anybody comes in." + +He turned on his stool: "How soon'll you be back?" + +"In a few minutes." + +"Get a good horse for yourself." + +Kate gave him a parting shot: "Of course you think I can't ride." + +It did not take her long to get up the hill. Breathless, she +encountered old Henry in the garden, asked him for the ponies and +almost ran into the house. Her father was asleep. There was no reason +to stir him up over a situation that she was resolved to handle and +felt she could handle. She got into her riding clothes in a trice, all +the time wondering whether she could hold her wild man in leash long +enough to defeat him. Had he been more like anybody she had ever met +and known, the problem would have been less confusing. But she +determined to shut her eyes and win the fight if she could, and to this +end draft every resource. So she thought, at least, as she caught up +her little revolver and, dropping it into the scabbard she had belted +about her waist, set forth. + +She rode back one of her own ponies and led the other. Her enemy had +good ears for when she was half way to the eating-house he walked out +on the platform and silently surveyed her approach. Kate watched him +narrowly and drew up before him to estimate the effect. She was +disappointed, she had to confess, at his cool indifference, for she +thought her riding rig unusually pretty. It had seemingly failed to +impress her queer Westerner. His eyes were all for the horses. "Clean +ponies," he observed, taking the bridle rein from her hand as he looked +the two over. + +"I forgot to ask what kind of a saddle you like," she observed +indifferently. He was scanning the horses and his eyes not being on +her she got her first real good look at her antagonist--whether he was +to be her victim she was in somewhat anxious doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHICH WINS? + +He was long of limb, rather loose-jointed; but not ungraceful, except as +his simple manner and unassuming rig--neither soiled nor fresh--made him +seem so; at all events what he might look like was apparently of slight +moment to him. He had a good walk--Kate noticed that when he crossed the +platform; not the choppy, high-heeled gait of a man that never does +anything but ride, but an easy step that matched the expressions of his +eyes. His quick movements seemed, as usual with bronzed Western men, +younger than his face; and his twenty-eight years would, as a first +impression, have passed for well above thirty, with Kate. She had +struggled too long with charcoal and lead pencils not to perceive that +his frame was clean and his shoulders good; and his head was well set on +them, if the man would carry it where it belonged. But he was plainly +not vain; and since we usually accept at sight whatever draft men and +women themselves draw on our impressions, Kate would have regarded him +ordinarily with no more than he demanded--indifference. + +"Any kind of saddle will do me," he answered in response to an inquiry; +and he repeated his compliment to the horses. He looked well at his own: +"This is a good pony." Kate assumed a little: "All our ponies are good." + +"I wish you'd show them to me sometime," was his unassuming request. The +remark should have been enough to warn Kate that her deception rested on +very thin ice; that it was more than probable he had already penetrated +much of it. But, a beginner in deception, she was intent only on her own +part and took his good-natured acquiescence at its face value. The +moment he saw her ponies he knew they were Doubleday's: yet he seemed +willing to forego his scruple rather than to lose the ride. + +Kate, too, was disposed to be amiable: "I will show them to you +sometime," she said promptly. + +But whenever she thawed for an instant she felt directly the necessity of +freezing up again. Her remarks were divided as evenly as a mountain +April day--one moment spring, the next winter. Happily for her purposes, +the day itself was spring. She had mounted her horse but as she spoke, +she slipped from her saddle, threw her lines and, walking hurriedly into +the dining room, returned with a handful of wrapped sandwiches. She +looked at him as she held the package out: "How can we carry them?" + +He disposed of the store in a capacious pocket and then hesitated: "I +wonder if you'd mind waiting five minutes while I go up to Doubleday's +house." + +"What for?" she asked, professing surprise. + +"To see what I can find out about where he is." + +"I've told you all you can find out by going to the house," she returned +deprecatingly. He looked at her as if undecided. "When you ask to go +riding with me and I get the horses--I come first, don't I?" she asked +cavalierly; and before he could help her she was back again in the saddle. + +He hesitated no longer: "You come first any time," he said, "and +anywhere," he added, swinging up on his own pony. + +She looked sidewise at him as they trotted up the street: "You don't mind +rather rough riding?" + +"Anything the ponies can stand," was all he said. + +Kate had given him her dun pony. Spirit-free all the time the trim beast +either through instinct knew his rider or meant to cast off care in a +long fling. He took the stage the moment his rider touched the saddle. +Kate rode Dick, her lighter but faster gray pony. He danced attendance +for a time, but the dun kept the spotlight and gave Kate a chance to +regard the man just from Medicine Bend critically. She had meant to put +him on exhibition--perhaps cherished a hope he might ride only +indifferently well--yet in a country where everybody rode, this was much +to hope for. At all events, the result, with an added surprise, was a +disappointment. + +If there be a latent awkwardness in a man, the saddle mirrors it; and if +there lie in him anywhere dormant an unsuspected alertness, it wakes in +the saddle to action. Her companion had hardly found his stirrups before +Kate perceived a change. His body sprung molded from the cantle, his +careless shoulders came to attention, and as the pony curvetted +riotously, the rider's head, rising like a monitor straight from his +slender neck, invited his horse to show its paces. + +"You take the trail," said Kate's guest tersely, as they swung out on the +desert. + +"No," she returned, "you." + +"We'll take it together," was his reply. + +But despite her disclaiming, Kate did the guiding and her object was to +get a good way from town. Her companion's frequently repeated effort was +to slow down for a talk; hers was to tantalize him by speeding away from +one. But she couldn't speed all of the time, and he eyed either her +riding, or her habit, pretty closely for a good while without comment. +Then a chance offered itself and he put a question: "Where did you learn +to ride?" + +"All mountain girls ride, don't they?" she suggested. + +"You're not a mountain girl." + +"It was a mountain girl that taught me to ride,--away back in the +Alleghanies--long before I ever saw this country." + +"Your mountain girl's pupils don't all ride like that, I'll gamble." + +"I wasn't very bright." Kate spurred ahead. The dun pony kept after her. + +"Compliments don't set very well on you, do they?" was the shot from her +left a moment later. + +She turned a full face on her companion: "I hate them," she declared with +energy. + +In luring this man away from his errand, she had yielded to a really wild +impulse and now the spirit of recklessness that ruled her mood seemed to +revenge itself by counseling added dangers. She invited riding-hazards, +that her victim disdained to comment on, until they must have appeared +silly to him. A long way from home they were crossing a high bench above +the Falling Wall river, a bench cut by frequent lateral washes--some wide +and all very deep. These breaks they jumped one after another without +taking serious trouble to head them, though Kate's companion, riding on +the river side, gave her every chance to do so. + +"I suppose," he suggested at length, "you're pushing into rough country +because you like it." + +She looked at him: "Yes," she said, icily, "I do like it. But," she +added, "if it's too rough for you, we'll go back." In that much of a +challenge she felt safe. + +"I'm riding with you," he returned, a little dryly. "I like anything you +like." + +And at this juncture Kate's luck deserted her; it always seemed to when +she most needed it. Ahead, there lay a stretch of smooth bench and she +took a run to cross it. But below a slight rise on the near side an ugly +break suddenly faced her. Decision was forced. Recklessness said: "Take +it." She spurred. The gray hesitated--almost as if to give his wanton +mistress a chance to reconsider; but he got the quirt for his pains. + +The wiry beast was almost on the brink--he had hardly a moment to coil, +but he shot across the gulf with a convulsive leap that carried his rider +over, with nothing--absolutely nothing--to spare. He made the farther +side with three feet--the left hind foot slumped on the edge of the bank +and down went the leg! + +Kate never forgot that moment. It was thirty feet, sheer, to the rocks +below. And it would have been poor Dick on top of his foolish mistress. +Kate really expected nothing better until with a terrific snort the pony +scrambled to safety. What a horse will do for thankless man! + +The frightened girl hardly dared look around even after she recovered her +breath--which she thought would never come back. On the sudden spurt, +her companion had been a little behind her. She presumed that the dun +with commendable sense had refused the jump for when she glanced half way +around--she was afraid her white face would betray her little panic--his +rider was galloping him back in an easy circle and heading him the second +time for the formidable break. This time, too, the rider was letting his +reluctant beast understand who was master; and with enough of authority +to force him and enough consideration to give him confidence, he jumped +him over the gap as Kate should have jumped Dick--with room and to spare. + +Her cheeks were burning again: "You did it much better," she said coolly, +as he joined her. "Dick is getting slow." + +"That wasn't Dick's fault," he remarked, for he appeared a trifle upset +himself by the misadventure. "It was yours," he added bluntly. + +Her only answer was to push ahead. She could at least keep the man +busy--though she felt somewhat diffident about offering him further +lessons in horsemanship. + +The trail led up a commanding ridge and her companion scanned the valley +lying to the north beyond. Through it they could trace a slender water +course. "This should be not far from Falling Wall Canyon," he suggested. +"And that creek must be a branch of the Sinking Water." + +"Oh, I've heard about that wonderful canyon," she exclaimed. "Tell me +about it." + +"It breaks through that near range," he said, pointing. "There are elk +in the park across the next divide. There isn't a great deal to tell +about the canyon--it's just there, that's about all." + +"How deep is it?" + +"Three to six hundred feet." + +"Straight up and down, they say." + +"As near as the Lord could make it." + +"Is there any way of getting to the bottom of it?" + +"The easiest way would be to jump from the rim." + +"Oh, could we see it?" + +"Not tonight unless you want to camp out; and we're not exactly fixed for +that. Up close to the old mine bridge there's a trail into the canyon. +It's pretty stiff. A sailor would warp his way down with a rope." + +The horses had halted by consent and their riders were contemplating the +mountains and valleys surrounding them. Her companion took advantage of +the pause to dismount and inspect the legs of the ponies--and while he +examined those of his own horse for politeness' sake--he looked more +closely at Dick's. + +"He must have got a wrench in that jump," confessed Kate, watching. "We +were riding pretty fast, weren't we?" + +"For that kind of country, yes. I thought for a while," added her +companion, in a dry way, "you must be showing me how to ride. Then I +figured out you must be showing me how _you_ could ride." + +Kate stared straight ahead: "How absurd!" she exclaimed with cold +contempt for his conclusions, yet feeble in her sarcasm against his +penetration. + +"All I want to say is," he continued, remounting, "that I see you can +ride. You don't have to cover much country to prove that. You ride like +a Western girl--and talk like an Eastern girl. Which are you?" + +She unfeelingly closed all inquiries: "Both," she answered indifferently. +"Let's head for the bottoms; about two miles from here there's a +spring--good water." + +He looked skeptical: "If you can show me good water near here, I'll be +learning something. I didn't know there was a water hole within ten +miles--but I don't know this lower country as well as my own." + +"What is your own?" + +He pointed to the Northeast to where a range of snow-capped peaks rose +above from the desert: "Those are the Lodge Pole mountains. That's where +the Falling Wall river begins--where you see that snow. It circles clear +around the range, crosses the Reservation to the West and opens South +into a high basin--that's my country--the Falling Wall. Then the river +cuts out of there through the canyon we're talking about and gets away to +the West again." Coming a step nearer to her he pointed again: "Now look +close to the left of that strip of timber. You can just see a break +above it--that's the high point of the canyon. A long time ago there was +a mining camp in those mountains--Horsehead--they started to build a +railroad up there--did a lot of grading and put in the abutments for a +bridge across the canyon. Before they got the road built the camp played +out; they never finished it. All that country below there is the Falling +Wall." + +"Are they all thieves and outlaws over there?" + +He started a little in spite of himself and took his time to reply: "It +must have been a thief or an outlaw that put that idea in your head," he +observed finally. + +"Oh, no, it was Tom Stone." + +His expression changed into contempt: "I didn't need but one guess." + +Kate asked him to explain, but he did not and she was not in a position +to object. She found the trail to the spring. Van Horn had taken her +there once. Dismounting at a little distance, the two made their way +down to it. "Score one for the rough rider," said her companion after he +had drunk. "And I thought I knew every drop of water in this country." + +[Illustration: "And I thought I knew every drop of water in this +country."] + +He produced the sandwiches and they sat down. Kate could judge the hour +of the day only from the sun and dared not mention "time." Her companion +asked as many questions as he could think of, and she managed her answers +with a minimum of information. And she asked herself one question that +did not occur to him: "Why was she not frightened to death?" It must +have been the duel she felt she was fighting with this man to keep him +away from her father that banished her fears. In the saddle, events +moved too rapidly to admit of extended misgivings, and she had purposely +assigned to him the slower horse. + +It was only when they were taking the almost enforced moment of rest +together at the water hole--which might as well have been a thousand +miles from help as ten--that little chills did run up and down her back. +As for her companion, it was useless to try to read him from his face or +manner; if she were playing one game, he might well be playing another as +far as anything she could gather from his features was concerned. But +she had to confess there was never a look in his eyes--when she did look +into them--that frightened her. + +And as she cautiously regarded him munching a sandwich and keeping his +own eyes rather away from than on her own, she asked herself whether she +had undertaken too much, and whether this sphinx-like face might hide +danger for her. She at least knew it was far from being possible to tell +by looking at the outside of a man's head what might be going on inside. +Only the plight of her father's affairs had seemed to justify her; even +this did not seem to now, but it was too late to wish herself out of it. +Besides--for most extraordinary notions will come into foolish girls' +minds--was she not in the company of a great Federal court; and shouldn't +she feel safe on that score? + +He certainly ate slowly. His appetite was astonishing. He invited Kate +more than once to continue eating with him, but her first hasty sandwich +and her latent uneasiness had more than satisfied her. + +"It must be very exciting, to be a deputy marshal," she remarked once, +when she could think of no other earthly thing to say, and was still +afraid they might get back in time for the train. + +"It must be sometimes." + +"How does it feel to be chasing men all the time?" + +"I've had more experience myself in getting chased." + +She attempted to laugh: "Do they ever chase deputy marshals?" + +He took up, gravely, the last sandwich: "I expect they do once in a +while." + +"You ought to know, I should think." + +He offered her the sandwich and on her refusal bit into it: "No," he +returned simply, "for I'm not a deputy marshal." + +Kate was stunned: "Why, you said you were! What do you mean?" she +demanded when she could speak. He ate so deliberately! She thought he +never would finish his mouthful and answer: "I mean--not regularly. Once +or twice I've been deputized to serve papers--when the job went begging. +Farrell Kennedy, the marshal at Medicine Bend, is a friend of +mine--that's the nearest I come to working for him." + +"But if you're not a deputy marshal, what are you?" demanded Kate, +uneasily. + +His face reflected the suspicion of a smile: "I guess the answer to that +would depend a good deal on who told the story." + +"I could hardly imagine anyone chasing you," she continued, not knowing +in her confusion what to say. + +"You ought to see me run sometime," he returned. + +"Oh, there's a prairie dog!" she exclaimed. She was looking to the +farther side of the water hole. "See? Over there by that bush! I +wonder if I could hit it?" She put her hand to her scabbard: "I've lost +my revolver!" She looked at him blankly. "Had it when you started, +didn't you?" inquired her companion, undisturbed. Her hand rested on the +empty scabbard in dismay: "I must have lost it on the way." + +He plunged his left hand into a capacious side pocket and drew out her +revolver. But instead of handing it to her he began to examine it as if +he might return it or might not. She was on pins in an instant. Now she +_was_ at his mercy. "Is that mine?" she asked, frightened. + +"It is." + +"Where did you get it?" she demanded. Was she to get it back? He made +no move to let her know; just fingered the toy curiously. "Where you +dropped it--before you made your leap for life." And looking up at her, +he added: "We ought to've eaten our sandwiches first and drank afterward." + +"I don't understand--what did I do?" Kate knew her voice quivered a bit +though she was bound she would not show fear. "And while we are +talking"--she pointed--"the prairie dog is gone." + +"He'll be back," predicted her companion with slow confidence. "The gun +bounced from your scabbard when you were running your horse along the +bench. So I picked it up for you." He presented it on the palm of his +hand. + +"How odd!" she exclaimed, trying to take it without appearing in a hurry. +"How stupid of me!" She knew her face, in spite of herself, flushed +under his gaze. + +"You were going a pretty good clip," he continued. + +"But a man would never do such a thing as to drop a revolver--you never +would." + +"It might be a whole lot worse for me to do it than it would for +you--though if I carried a nice little gun like that it maybe wouldn't +make so very much difference. There's your prairie dog again," he added, +looking across the hole. + +"Of course a man would have to make fun of a pistol like this," she +answered, the revolver lying in her hand. "Let me see yours." Thus far +she had seen no sign of any scabbard or holster. "And shoot that prairie +dog for me," she added. + +"Mine would be pretty heavy for a prairie dog. You try him." + +"Oh, my poor little pistol is in disgrace," she returned, putting it up. +"Sec what you can do." + +He slipped his left hand under the right lapel of his coat and drew from +a breast harness a Colt's revolver. Had she realized it was carried that +day in this very unobtrusive manner in anticipation of an unpleasant +interview with her father, Kate would have been speechless with fear. As +it was, no gun, though she had seen many since coming to the mountains, +ever looked so big or formidable. The setting of the scene and her +situation may have magnified its impressiveness. + +"Why smash the prairie dog?" he asked quietly. "Look at his whiskers--he +may be the father of a family." + +"You might miss him." + +"If I should it would be time for me to quit this country." + +"Shoot at something else." + +"Why shoot at all?" + +"I want to see you." + +"We might get a shot at something on the way home." + +"You're not obliging." She held out her hand for his revolver. "Let me +see." + +"It makes me feel kind of foolish," he said defensively, "kind of like an +old-fashioned cowboy, to be shooting right and left." On his right hand +he held the heavy gun toward Kate. + +"How do you get practise?" she asked. + +He lifted his eyebrows the least bit: "To tell the truth I haven't had +much lately." + +"How can you tell then whether you could hit anything if you did shoot at +it?" + +"That wouldn't be hard. If I didn't hit it, it would most likely hit me." + +"How could I practise to learn to shoot the way you do?" + +He looked at her inquiringly; "What do you know about the way I shoot?" + +"Nothing, of course. I mean the way that men who carry guns like this +shoot." + +He thought a moment. "Get down into a dark cellar with just one window. +Block out all the light from that window except one small circle. Shoot, +off-hand, till you can put five bullets through the circle without +mussing up the general surroundings." + +"That sounds like hard work." + +"It's certainly----" He just hesitated and then continued: "hard on the +ammunition." + +She found by this time she could tolerate the dry smile that lighted his +face now and again, and the drawl of words that went with the expression. +At times he seemed simple, yet there was shrewdness behind his humor. + +"I didn't see you stop back there on the bench to pick anything up," she +remarked abruptly, thinking of her own pistol again. + +"I circled back to get it." + +"Without dismounting?'" + +"You wouldn't hardly want to get off to pick up anything as light as +that." + +"I wish I'd seen you do it." + +"If you'd been looking I might've been trying to get hold of it yet." + +She examined the Colt's gun curiously. She asked him how to handle it. +He obligingly broke it, emptied the cylinders and explained how it was +fired. But she was not equal to handling the big thing, and told him so. + +"Though if I should want to kill you now it would be easy, wouldn't it?" +she reflected, after he had reloaded the gun and laid it in her hand, the +muzzle pointing toward himself and her finger resting on the trigger. + +"Not without cocking the gun." + +"No, but I mean suppose I really _should_ want to kill you----" + +"I'll show you." He cocked the revolver and placed it again in her hand +and it lay once more with her finger on the trigger. + +"Now," he explained, "I'm covered." + +"And to kill you all I have to do is to pull the trigger." + +"Pulling the trigger, the way things are now, would certainly be a big +start in that direction. But"--the dry suspicion of a laugh crossed his +eyes--"to point a gun at a man and pull the trigger doesn't always kill +him--not, anyways, in this country. If it did, the population would fall +off pretty strong in some of these northern counties. And you might be +surprised if I told you you couldn't pull the trigger right now, anyway." + +"How do you know that?" + +"Try it." + +"But I might kill you!" + +"That's the point." + +"Nevertheless," she persisted, "I could if I _wanted_ to." + +"No matter how you put it, it's all the same--you can't want to." + +"No, but suppose I were bound to keep you from doing something--like +serving papers, for instance." + +His legs were crossed under him and he was tossing bits of the gravel +under his hand: "You'd have a better show to do that if you went at it in +another way." + +"What way?" + +"Well--by asking me not to serve them, for instance." + +"Do you mean to say if I asked you not to serve papers you wouldn't do +it?" She eyed him with simulated indignation. + +He returned her gaze unafraid: "Try it," was his answer. + +She took a deep breath. Then she tossed her head: "I probably shouldn't +care enough about it for that. Why don't you carry two revolvers?" + +"Too much like baggage." + +"Wouldn't it be a lot safer?" + +He smiled: "If one gun refused to go off promptly, two wouldn't help a +lot." + +Her eyes and her thoughts returned to the gun in her hand. For a moment +she had forgotten it. Suppose her finger, while she was talking, had +mechanically closed on the trigger. She blanched. "Take it," she said, +holding the gun out in both hands and looking away. + +"Shall we let the dog go this time?" she heard him ask as he lowered the +hammer. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CLOSE OF THE DAY + +They rode straight home. On the way Dick went lame and both dismounted +to examine him. "This will make you miss your train," she suggested, +hypocritically. + +He had Dick's foot up. His comment on the remark was very like the +rest of his comments. "Not this," he said--and without looking up. + +"Do you mean to say you've missed it anyway?" asked Kate. + +"What does the sun say?" + +She bit her lip: "Too bad," she exclaimed, looking across the distance +that still lay between them and the Junction. + +"I don't see anything wrong with his foot," he announced, completing +his inspection. "I think he wrenched himself." + +He said no more till they started again. And then resumed in his odd +way just where they had left off talking: "I've been trying to figure +out why you wanted me to miss the train." She looked at him in +surprise. "I think you did want me to," he continued. "But I can't +figure out why." + +She protested, but not with too many words. She felt sure he was not +easily to be deceived. In any case, however, he was unflinchingly +amiable. + +After they got back to the Junction the totally unexpected happened. +They dismounted and she went into the lunch room. Her victim pursued +an examination of Dick's leg. An early supper was being served in the +dining-room to a freight train crew. Two of the Doubleday cowboys from +the ranch came into the lunch-room from the front door. Kate, at the +desk, was making ready to manage her own escape from the scene. The +smaller cowboy, walking in last, looked back curiously at her riding +companion as he stood with Dick's hoof on his knee. The man slouched +up to the counter: "Wouldn't that kill you?" muttered the smaller man +to his partner. + +"What do you mean?" demanded the other. + +The first speaker hitched his thumb guardedly over his shoulder: "Know +who that is out there?" + +"No, I don't--who is he?" + +Kate's ears were wide open: "None other," continued the man, pulling a +face, "than the well-known Jim Laramie himself." His partner checked +him and the two, talking in low tones, walked into the dining-room. + +Kate could not at first believe her ears; then she felt that the cowboy +must know what he was talking about. + +Worst of all, Laramie, at that moment--before she could think of +collecting herself--walked in through the open door. He came directly +to the counter. She hardly attempted to hide her consternation: "Are +you Jim Laramie?" she burst out in her excitement. + +It must have been the manner of her words rather than the words +themselves that startled him. For just an instant the curtain lifted; +a flash of anger shot from his eyes; it was drawn again at once: "Is my +reputation over here as bad as that?" he asked. + +Kate was dumb. Try as she would, she could not think of a thing to +say; the recollection of her reckless ride overwhelmed her. "What's +happened?" he continued with a little irritation. "If you weren't +afraid of me when you didn't know my name, why be afraid now?" + +She stammered something, some apology, which he received, she afterward +thought, coldly: "I'm running up to the house now to change," she went +on hurriedly, "but I must thank you for----" + +What on earth was she to thank him for? He helped her out: "Before you +go," he interrupted, sitting up on the counter stool nearest her and +looking at her without paying the slightest attention to her +meaningless words, "before you go, tell me your name." + +Oddly enough, by just speaking he restored order to her faculties. She +looked straight at him: "You guessed that this morning," she said +frankly. + +"Kate?" + +She nodded. + +"That's queer," he mused. "It must've been pure accident. I heard +that the man I came to round up today had a girl named Kate, so I +suppose that was the first name came into my head. Kate, what else?" + +"Suppose," she suggested gravely, "we keep the rest for the next time." + +"For our next ride?" + +She looked just away from his persistent eyes: "Perhaps." + +"Will your name," he went on, "surprise me as much as my name surprised +you?" + +"Who knows?" she retorted, and speaking she started for the front door. + +"Stop." He stepped in front of her just enough to bar her way. There +was a tinge of command in his voice and manner quite new. Halted, but +not pleased, she waited for him to go on: "You'll come back, won't you?" + +"I'll try to." + +"I want to listen," he added coolly, "to the worst story you ever heard +about Jim Laramie." + +"I don't pay much attention to cowboy stories." + +He certainly paid no attention to her words: "Will you come back?" he +persisted. + +"I will if I can," she said, confusedly. + +He was just enough in front of her to detain her: "Say you will." + +It was somewhat between command and entreaty. Old Henry at the side of +the platform was just mounting the dun horse. Kate was getting +panicky: "Very well," she answered, "I'll come back." + +The moment she got to the cottage she locked the front door and drew +all the shades. And every mouthful of the cold supper she ate with her +father lodged in her throat. To him she dared not say a word. Once in +the evening the door bell rang and some man asked for Barb Doubleday. +He made a few inquiries when Henry answered that Doubleday was not in +town, but he did not ask for Kate. She felt curious tremors, listening +to the low voice. But Laramie--for it was he--presently turned from +the door and she heard his footsteps crunching down the gravel path to +the street. + +In the morning Henry told her a man had lingered around the lunch room +until the lights were put out at ten o'clock. By that time he must +have known every pine knot in the varnished ceiling. When peaceably +put out of the room by the night man he had walked out on the platform +to the post where the horses had stood and looked long across the +tracks toward Doubleday's cottage on the hill. No lights were burning +in the cottage. He turned to walk toward it. But as he stepped into +the street the whistle of the eastbound Overland train sounded in the +hills to the west. Evidently this changed his mind, for he retraced +his steps and entered the waiting-room, walked to the ticket window and +bought a ticket for Sleepy Cat. He waited until the train pulled in +and loitered on the platform till it was ready to pull out, speaking to +no one. When the conductor finally gave the starting signal the man +looked for the last time around toward the lunch room door. Everything +was dark. + +He caught the hand rail of the last open sleeper and swung up on the +step. There he stood looking down the platform and across the street +while the train drew slowly out. Then turning to go into the car he +uttered only one word to himself--and that a mild one: "Gypped!" + +But, even then, had Kate heard it she would have been frightened. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOME OF LARAMIE + +Almost due north of Sleepy Cat the Lodge Pole Mountains, tumbling over +one another in an upheaval southward, are flung suddenly to the west +and spread in a declining ridge to the Superstition range. South of +the Lodge Poles the country is very rough, but at the point where the +range is so sharply deflected there spreads fanlike to the east an open +basin with good soil and water. It is known locally as the Falling +Wall country, and, as the names of the region indicate, it was once +famous as a hunting ground, and so, as a fighting ground, for the +powerful tribes of early days. And an ample Reservation in this +basin--ending just where the good lands begin--is the stamping ground +of the last of the mountain red men. + +But the struggle for possession of the Falling Wall country did not end +with the red men. White men, too, have coveted the lands of the +Falling Wall and fought for them. Among the blind the one-eyed are +kings, and the Falling Wall basin lies amid inhospitable deserts, +barren hills and landscapes slashed to rags and ribbons by mountain +storms--regions that have failed to tempt even a white man's cupidity. +The Indians fought for the basin with arrows, bullets, tomahawks and +scalping knives; the whites have fought chiefly in the land offices and +courts, but, exasperated by delays and inflamed by defeat, they have at +times boiled over and appealed to the rifle and the hip holster for +decrees to quiet title. + +It is for these reasons, and others, that the Falling Wall country has +borne a hard and somewhat sinister name, even in a region where men +have been habitually indifferent to restraint and tolerant of violent +appeals to frontier justice. In the very early days of the white man +the Indian clung to the Falling Wall country as his last stand; for the +bad lands along the canyon of the Falling Wall river made, as they yet +make, an almost impenetrable fastness for sally and retreat. + +But even before the Indians were driven into their barren cage to the +north, white adventurers had penetrated the basin and it became, with +the shifting of possession, a region for men of hard repute. Its +traditions have been bad and few in the Falling Wall country have felt +concern over the fact. + +Yet, from the earliest days, despite the many difficulties of living in +the widely known but not large park, a few hardy settlers managed from +the beginning, in secluded portions of the region, to keep their scalps +and their horses and to live through Indian days and outlaw +days--though not often in peace, and never in quiet. + +Among these early adventurers was one known as "Texas" Laramie, because +he had the extraordinary courage, or hardihood, to bring into the +Falling Wall the first cattle ever driven into the mountains from the +Panhandle. In a country where the sobriquet is usually the only name +by which it is courteous or safe to address a man, and where it is +invariably apt, few men are accorded two. But Laramie had also been +known as "Pump" Laramie because he brought into that country the first +Winchester rifle; and the instinctive significance the mind attaches to +the combination of cows and a repeating rifle was, in this instance, +justified--there was between the two a direct, even dynamic, +connection. Laramie thus figured prominently in the older Falling Wall +feuds. It would have been difficult for him to figure obscurely, and +do it more than once. + +Enemies said that he stole the bunch of cattle he first drove into the +Falling Wall. It was not true but it made a good story. And in any +event, Texas Laramie defended his steers vigorously against all men +advancing claim to them between darkness and daylight--as enterprising +neighbors not infrequently undertook to do. With the cattle, Laramie +had brought into the mountains a wife from Texas. She was a young +mother with a little boy, Jim; a good mother, never happy in the +country so far away from the Staked Plain--and not very long to live +there. But she lived long enough to send Jim year after year to the +Sisters' School on the Reservation. + +To obtain for a boy any sort of an education in a region so wild and so +inhospitable would have seemed impossible. Yet devoted +Sisters--refined and aristocratic American women--were already in this +mountain country devoting their lives to the Indian Missions. Under +such women little Jim learned his Catechism and his reading and from +them and their example a few of the amenities of life--so far removed +from him in every other direction. Under their care he grew up, after +he had lost his mother, among the Indian boys. With these he learned +to fish and hunt, to trap for pocket money, to use a bow and arrow and +a knife, to trail and stalk patiently, to lie uncomplainingly in cold +and wet, to ride without saddle or bridle or spur, to face a grizzly +without excitement, to use a rifle where the price of every cartridge +was reckoned and a poor aim sometimes cost life itself. + +And every summer at home his father added extension courses in the +saddle and bridle, spur, hackamore and lariat to his education. He +taught him to rope, throw and mark, to use a coffee pot and frying pan, +and at last on the great day--the Commencement day, so to say of the +boy's frontier education--he presented him with his degree--a Colt's +revolver and a box of cartridges--and died. As he lay on his deathbed, +Texas Laramie left a parting advice to his young son: "You've learned +to shoot, Jim--you don't shoot bad for a youngster. A man's got to +shoot. But the less shooting you do, after you've learned--without +you're forced to it, mind you--the more comfortable you'll feel when +you get where I am now. All I can say is: I never killed an honest man +that I knowed of. In fact," his breath came very slowly, "I never yet +seen an honest man in the Falling Wall to kill." + +And Jim began life with the ranch, youth, a little bunch of cattle, no +money and much health in the Falling Wall. His first year alone he +never forgot, for in the spring he drove all his steers--not a great +many--into the new railroad town, south--Sleepy Cat--and sold them for +more money than he had ever seen at one time in his life. He wandered +from the bank into Harry Tenison's gambling rooms--Harry having sold +out his livery stable to Joe Kitchen shortly before that--just to look +on for a little while before starting home. When Laramie did start +home, Tenison had all his steer money and Laramie owed the sober-faced +gambler, besides, one hundred dollars. Laramie then went to work on +the range for twenty-five dollars a month. He worked four months, and +it was hard work, took his pay check in and handed it to Tenison. That +was strangely enough the beginning of a friendship that was never +broken. Tenison tried to give the check back to Laramie. He could +not. But Laramie never again tried to clean out the bank at Tenison's. + +The Laramie cabin on Turkey Creek--the son built afterward on the same +spot--stood on a slight conical rise some distance back from the little +stream that watered the ranch. From his windows Jim Laramie could look +on gently falling ground in all directions. Toward the creek lay an +alfalfa field which, with a crude irrigating ditch and water from the +creek, he had brought to a prosperous stand. Below the alfalfa stood +the barn and the corral. + + +The day after Kate Doubleday's adventure with him at the Junction, +Laramie was riding up the creek to his cabin when a man standing at the +corral gate hailed him. It wag Ben Simeral. Ben, old and ragged, met +every man with a smile--a bearded, seamed and shabby smile, but an +honest smile. Ben was a derelict of the range, a stray whose appeal +could be only to patient men. Whenever he wandered into the Falling +Wall country, where he had a claim, he made Laramie's cabin a sort of +headquarters and spent weeks at a time there, looking after the stock +in return for what John Lefever termed the "court'sies" of the ranch. + +Laramie, greeting Ben, made casual inquiry about the stock. Ben looked +at him as if expectant; but Ben was not aggressive for news or anything +else. He grinned as he looked Laramie over: "Well, you're back again, +Jim." + +Laramie responded in kindly fashion: "Anybody been here?" + +"Nary critter," declared the custodian, "'cept Abe Hawk--he came over +to borry your Marlin rifle." + +"What did he want with that?" + +"Said he was going up into the mountains but he's comin' over again +before he starts. I knowed he helped you track them wire scouts over +to Barb's. The blame critters tore off all the wire t'other side the +creek, too. Get any track of 'em?" he asked, sympathetically alive to +what had been most on Laramie's mind when he had started from home. + +Laramie barely hesitated but he looked squarely at Ben and answered in +even tones: "No track, Ben." + +Ben looked at him, still smiling with a kindly hope: + +"Hear from the contest on the creek quarter?" + +"They told me at Medicine Bend it had gone against me." + +"Psho! Never! You've got another 'go' to Washington, hain't y'?" + +Laramie nodded and got down from his horse. Ben, removing the saddle, +asked more questions--none of them important--and after putting up the +horse the two men started for the house. Its rude walls were well laid +up in good logs on which rested a timbered roof, shingled. + +A living-room with a fireplace roughly fashioned in stone made up the +larger interior of the cabin. To the right of the fireplace a kitchen +opened off the living-room and adjoining this, to the right as one +entered the front door, was a bedroom. To the left stood a small +table, on which were scattered a few old books, a metal lamp and +well-thumbed copies of old magazines. Beside the table stood a heavy +oak Morris chair of the kind sold by mail-order houses. Two other +chairs, heavily built in oak, were disposed about the room, and on the +left of the entrance--there was but one door--stood a cot bed. On the +floor between the door and the fireplace lay a huge silver tip +bearskin, the head set up by an Indian taxidermist. It was some time +afterward when Kate saw the cabin, but she remembered, even after it +lay in ruins, just how the interior had looked. + +The four walls were really more furnished than the rest of the room. +To the right and left of the fireplace hung twin bighorn heads, and elk +and stag antlers on the other walls supplied racks for an ample variety +of rifles, polished by familiar use and kept, through love of trusty +friends, in good order. Trophies of the hunt, disposed sometimes in +effective and sometimes in mere man fashion, flanked the racks and +showed the tastes of the owner of the isolated habitation; for few +trails led within miles of Laramie's ranch on the Turkey. + +"Breakfast?" Simeral looked at his companion, who stood vacantly +musing at the door of the kitchen. + +"Coffee," answered Laramie, taking off his jacket, laying his Colt's on +the table and slipping off his breast harness. + +"I got no bread," announced Ben, to forestall objection. "Flour's low +'n' I didn't bake." + +"Crackers will do." + +"Ain't no crackers, neither," returned Ben, raising his voice and his +smile in self-defense. + +"Give me coffee and bacon," suggested Laramie, impatiently. + +"'N' I'll fry some potatoes," muttered Ben, shuffling with a show of +speed into the kitchen, and calling inquiries back in his unsteady +voice to the living-room, patiently digging at Laramie for scraps of +news from Sleepy Cat, volunteering, in return, scraps from the range +and ranch. Laramie sat down in the nearest chair, tilted it slightly +back, and resting one arm on the table gazed into the empty fireplace. +He appeared as if much preoccupied--nor would, nor could, he talk of +what was in his mind, nor think of anything else. + +Some minutes later he began in the same absent-minded manner on a huge +plateful of bacon, with a pot of coffee in keeping, and was eating in +silence when the stillness of the sunshine was broken by the sound of a +horse's hoofs. Laramie looked out and saw, through the open door, a +horseman riding in leisurely fashion up from the creek. + +The man was tall. He swung lightly out of his saddle near the door, +and as he walked into the house it could be seen that he was +proportioned in his frame to his height; strength and agility revealed +themselves in every move. A rifle slung in a scabbard hung beside the +shoulder of the horse, and the man's rig proclaimed the cowboy, though +aside from a broad-brimmed Stetson hat his garb was simplicity itself. + +It was the way in which he carried his height and shoulders that +arrested attention, nor was his face one easily to be forgotten. He +wore a jet-black beard that grew close and dropped compactly down. It +was neither bushy nor scraggly and with his black brows it made a +striking setting for strong and rather deep-set eyes which if not +actually black were certainly very dark. His smile revealed white, +regular teeth under his dark mustache, and his olive complexion, though +tanned, seemed different from those of men that rode the range with +him--perhaps it was owing to the glossy, black beard. + +Abe Hawk was evidently at home in Laramie's cabin. He stepped through +the door and pushing his hat back on his forehead took a chair and sat +down. The two men, masters of taciturnity, looked at each other while +this was taking place, and as Hawk seated himself Laramie called for a +cup and pushed the coffee pot toward his visitor. Paying no attention +to the unspoken invitation, Hawk's features assumed the quizzical lines +they sometimes wore when he relaxed and poked questions at his friend. + +"Well," he demanded, banteringly, "where's Jimmie been?" + +"Medicine, Sleepy Cat--pretty near everywhere." + +"I hear you got a job." + +"I was offered one." + +"Deputy marshal, eh?" + +"Farrell Kennedy got me down to Medicine Bend to talk it over." + +"What's the matter, couldn't you hold it?" + +"I didn't want it." + +"You're out of practise on this law-and-order stuff--you've lived up +here too long among thieves, Jim. Find out who tore down your wire?" + +Laramie replied in even tones but his voice was hard: "I trailed them +across the Crazy Woman. It was somebody from Doubleday's ranch." + +"They had a story at Stormy Gorman's you'd gone over there to blow +Barb's head off." + +"Barb wasn't home." + +Hawk was conscious of the evasion. "Was Stormy's talk true?" he +demanded curtly. + +"I expected to ask Barb whether he wanted to put my wire back. I was +going to give him a chance." + +"It wouldn't be hard to guess how that would come out. Where was he?" +asked Hawk, with evident disappointment. + +"They said he was in Sleepy Cat. I rode in and missed him there. He'd +gone to the mines. I took the train up to the Junction, There I +accidentally got switched off my job and came home." + +"How'd you get switched off?" asked Hawk, resenting the outcome. + +Laramie's manner showed he disliked being bored into. He leaned +forward with a touch of asperity and looked, straight at his visitor: +"By not 'tending strictly to my own business, Abe." + +Hawk knew from the expression of Laramie's eyes he must drop the +subject, and though he lost none of his bantering manner, he desisted: +"They didn't have a warrant for me down at the marshal's office, did +they?" + +"They were short of blanks," retorted Laramie coolly. + +"How you fixed for flour?" + +"Plenty of it." Laramie spoke loudly for fear Simeral might protest. +Then he called promptly to the kitchen: "Ben, get up some flour for +Abe." + +Ben quavered a protest. + +"Get it up now before you forget it," insisted Laramie. + +"Is Tom Stone still foreman over at Doubleday's?" + +"I guess he is," returned Laramie. + +"What does Doubleday aim to do with Stone?" asked Hawk, cynically, +"steal his own cattle from himself?" + +"A cattleman nowadays might as well steal his own cattle as to wait for +somebody else to steal 'em." Laramie spoke with some annoyance. +"There's going to be trouble for these Falling Wall rustlers." + +"Meaning me?" asked Hawk, contemptuously. + +"I never mean you without saying you, Abe--you ought to know that by +this time. But this running off steers is getting too raw. From the +undertalk in Sleepy Cat there's going to be something done." + +"Who by?" + +"By the cattlemen." + +"I thought," Hawk spoke again contemptuously, "you meant by the +sheriff." + +"But I didn't," said Laramie. "I meant by the bunch at the range. And +when they start they'll stir things up over this way." + +Hawk hazarded a guess on another subject: "It looks like Van +Horn--putting in Stone over at Doubleday's." + +"It is Van Horn." + +Hawk looked in silence out of the open door at the distant snow-capped +mountains. "Why don't you kill him, Jim?" he asked after a moment, +possibly in earnest, possibly in jest, for his iron tone sometimes +meant everything, sometimes nothing. + +Laramie, at all events, took the words lightly. He answered Hawk's +question with another. But his retort and manner were as easy as +Hawk's question and expression were hard. "Why don't you?" + +The bearded man across the table did not hesitate nor did he cast about +for words. On the contrary, he replied with embarrassing promptness: +"I will, sometime." + +"A man that didn't know you, Abe, might think you meant it," commented +Laramie, filling his coffee cup. + +Hawk's white teeth showed just for the instant that he smiled; then he +talked of other things. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AT THE BAR + +The arrival of a baby at the home of Harry Tenison in Sleepy Cat had an +immediate effect on Kate Doubleday's fortune in the mountains--and, +indeed, on the fortunes of a number of other people in Sleepy Cat--wholly +out of proportion to its importance as a family event. It was not, it is +true, for the Tenisons a mere family event. Married fifteen years, they +had been without children until the advent of this baby. And the birth +of a boy to Harry Tenison excited not alone the parents, but the town, +the railroad division and the hundred miles of range and desert, north +and south, tributary to the town. + +For a number of years Tenison had run his place in Sleepy Cat undisturbed +by the swiftly changing fortunes of frontiersmen and railroad men. +Tragedies, in their sudden sweep across the horizon of his activities, +the poised gambler and hotel man had met unmoved. Men went to the +heights of mining or range affluence and to the depths of crude passion, +inevitable despair and tragic death, with Harry Tenison coldly unruffled. +He was a man in so far detached from his surroundings, yet with his +finger on the pulse of happenings in his unstable world. But the birth +of one baby--and that a small one--upset him completely and very +unexpectedly shocked others of his motley circle of acquaintance. + +The complications followed on the announcement--on a Monday when the baby +was three days old and the mother and boy were reported by the nurse to +be coming along like kittens--that the following Saturday would be "open +day" at the Mountain House--Tenison's new and almost palatial hotel; with +the proprietor standing host for the town and the countryside. + +Before the week was out this word had swept through the mountains, from +the stretches of the Thief River on the South to the recesses of the +Lodge Poles on the North. It was the one topic of interest for the week +on the range. Few were the remote corners where the news did not +penetrate and the unfortunates who missed the celebration long did +penance in listening to long-winded accounts of Sleepy Cat's memorable +day. + +It dawned in a splendor of blue sky and golden sun, with the mountain +reaches, snow-swept and still, brought incredibly near and clear through +the sparkling air of the high plateau. The Sleepy Cat band were +Tenison's very first guests for breakfast. + +"'N' you want to eat hearty, boys," declared Ben Simeral, who had reached +town the night before in order that no round crossing the Tenison bar +should escape him: "Harry expec's you to blow like hell all day." + +Few men are more conscientious in the discharge of duty than the members +of a small-town brass band. The Sleepy Cat musicians held back only +until the arrival of the early local freight, Second Seventy-Seven, for +their bass horn player, the fireman. When the train pulled up toward the +station on a yard track, the band members in uniform on the platform +awaited their melodic back-stop, and the fireman, in greeting, pulled the +whistle cord for a blast. The switch engine promptly responded and one +whistle after another joined in until every engine in the yard was +blowing as Ben had declared Tenison expected the band itself to blow. + +In this wholly impromptu and happy way the day was opened. The band, +laboriously trained for years by the local jeweler--said to be able to +blow a candle through an inch board with his South Bend B flat +cornet--now formed in marching order, the grimed fireman gamely in place +even after a night run, with his silver contrabass. At an energetic +signal from their leader they struck up a march and started down street +with the offering as a pledge of what they might be expected to do. They +were not called on, however, to do all, for at noon the Bear Dance Band +arrived from the West and an hour later came the crack thirty-two-piece +military band from Medicine Bend, carrying more gold on their lacings and +their horns than the local musicians carried in the savings bank. + +By the time the noon whistle blew at the roundhouse every trail and road +into Sleepy Cat showed dust--some of them an abundance. The hotel was +naturally the center of attraction, and Main Street looked like a +Frontier Day crowd. The Reservation, too, sent a delegation for the +occasion and mingling in the jostling but good-natured crowd were chiefs, +bucks and squaws, who, in a riot of war bonnets, porcupine waistcoats, +gay trappings and formal blankets, lent yellows and reds and blues to the +scene. All entrances to the Mountain House were decorated and a stream +of visitors poured in and out, with congratulations for Tenison, who +received them at the bar in the big billiard hall opening on Main Street. + +By evening the hall presented an extraordinary scene. Every element that +went to make up the shifting life of the frontier could be picked from +the crowd that filled the room. Most numerous and most aggressive in the +spectacle, cattlemen and range riders in broad hats, leathern jackets and +mottled waistcoats, booted and spurred and rolling in their choppy steps +on pointed heels, moved everywhere--to and from the bar, around the pool +tables and up and down the broad flight of stairs leading to the second +floor gambling rooms. At the upper end of the long bar there was less +crowding than nearer the street door and at this upper end three men, +somewhat apart from others, while nominally drinking, stood in confab. +First among them, Harry Van Horn was noticeable. His strong face, with +its hunting nose, reflected his active mind, and as he spoke or listened +to one or the other of his companions--standing between them--his lively +eyes flashed in the overhead light. On his left stood Tom Stone, foreman +of the Doubleday ranch. His head, carried habitually forward, gave him +the appearance of always looking out from under his eyebrows; and the +natural expression of his face, bordering on the morose, was never +lighted by more than a strained smile--a smile that suggested a grin, +that puckered the corners of his eyes and drew hard furrows down his +cheeks, but evidenced nothing akin to even the skim-milk of human +kindness. + +On Van Horn's left stood an older man of massive features, the owner of +the largest ranch in the north country, Barb Doubleday. + +Miners from Thief River, with frank, fearless faces, broad-throated, +belted and shifted, and with brawny arms for pick and sledge and +doublejack, moved to and from the bar like desert travelers breathing in +an oasis. Men from the short spillway valleys of the Superstition +Range--the coyotes and wolves of the Spanish Sinks--were easily to be +identified by their shifty eyes and loud laughter and handy six-shooters. +Moving in a little group rather apart from these than mingling with them, +talking and drinking more among themselves, were men from the Falling +Wall--men professedly "ranching" on the upper waters of the Horse, the +Turkey and Crazy Woman creeks, tributaries of the Falling Wall river--in +point of fact, rustlers between whom and the big cattlemen of the range +there always existed a deadly enmity and at times open warfare. + +At two card tables placed together in the upper inner corner of the room +sat a little party of these Falling Wall men smoking and drinking in +leisurely, or, more correctly, in preliminary fashion, for the evening +was still young; and inspecting the moving crowd at the bar. At the head +of the table sat the ex-cowboy and ex-pugilist, Stormy German, his face +usually, and now, reddened with liquor--square-shouldered, square-faced +and squat; a man harsh-voiced and terse, of iron endurance and with the +stubbornness of a mule; next him sat Yankee Robinson, thin-faced and +wearing a weatherbeaten yellow beard. And Dutch Henry was there--bony, +nervous, eager-eyed, with broken English stories of drought and hardship +on the upper Turkey. These three men--brains and resource of several +less able but not less unscrupulous companions who preyed on the cattle +range north of Sleepy Cat--led the talk and were the most carefully +listened to by the men that surrounded them. + +It was later that two men entered the room from the hotel office +together. The contained, defiant walk of the slightly heavier and taller +of the two was characteristic, and without the black beard, deep eyes and +the pallor of his face, would almost have identified him as Abe Hawk; +while in the emotionless, sandy features of his companion and in his more +frank, careless make-up, the widely known ranchman of the Falling Wall, +Jim Laramie, was easily recognized. + +Hawk, separating from his companion, walked to the right. German hailed +him and Hawk paused before the table at which the former prize fighter +sat with his friends. Each of these in turn had something effusive to +say to Hawk. Hawk listened to everything without a change of +countenance--neither smile nor word moved him in the competition to +arouse his interest. When all had had their fling of invitation and +comment he refused an oft-repeated invitation to sit down: "I might +injure your reputations," he said grimly, and moved unconcernedly on. + +Van Horn's eyes had not missed the inconspicuous entrance of the two +Falling Wall men: "There's the man himself, right now," he exclaimed, +looking toward Laramie. + +"No better time to talk to him, either, than right now," added Barb +Doubleday hoarsely. "Take him back into the office, Harry. When you're +through come up to the room." + +Van Horn, leaving the bar, intercepted Laramie. Doubleday and Stone, +pretending not to observe, saw Van Horn, on the plea of important talk, +succeed, after some demur, in inducing Laramie to return with him to the +hotel office. Once there and in a quiet corner with two chairs, Van Horn +lost no time in opening his subject: "You know as well as I do, Jim, what +shape things are in on the North range. It can't go on. Everybody is +losing cattle right and left to these rustlers. They've been running +Doubleday's steers right down to the railroad camp on the Spider +Water--we traced the brands on 'em. You know as well as I do who took +'em." + +Laramie listened perfunctorily, his eyes moving part of the time over the +room. "Speak for yourself. Harry," he intervened at this juncture. "I +know exactly nothing about who took anybody's steers, nor that any were +taken." + +Van Horn uttered a quick exclamation: "Well, you sure heard about it!" + +"In this country a man can hear anything," observed Laramie, not greatly +moved. "I've heard there isn't a crooked cattleman north of Sleepy Cat." + +Van Horn stared. + +"Go on," continued Laramie, looking at the passers-by, "I'm listening." + +"Doubleday has sold the eating house and disposed of his property at the +Junction----" + +"You mean his creditors took it, don't you?" + +"Put it any way you like. He's going in for more cattle and we're going +to put this range on the map. But--we've got to clean out this Falling +Wall bunch first. The big men can't stand it any longer and won't stand +it." + +"What then?" + +"I want you to get in right, on the move, with us, Jim--this is your +chance. You're in a tough neighborhood over there. Now I know you're +not a rustler." + +"No, you don't." + +"Yes, I do," averred Van Horn. "But everybody doesn't know you as well +as I do. And your name suffers because you don't get along with the +cattlemen--Doubleday, Pettigrew and the rest." + +"What then?" + +"What then?" echoed Van Horn, feeling the up-hill pull. "Why, line up +with us against these rustlers. We're going to have a big get-together +barbecue this summer and when it's pulled we want you there. You'll have +a friend in every man on the range--however some of 'em feel now. They +know the stuff you're made of, Jim; they know if you put your hand to +your gun with them, you'll stay; and if you do it, they know it's good-by +to the rustlers." + +Closely as Van Horn, while speaking, watched the effect of his words, it +was impossible to gather from Laramie's face the slightest clue as to the +impression they were making. Laramie sat quite relaxed, his back to the +corner, his legs crossed, listening. He looked straight ahead without so +much as blinking. Van Horn, nervous and impatient, scrutinized him: +"That's my hand, Jim," he said flatly. "What have you got?" + +Laramie paused. After a moment he turned his eyes on his questioner: "No +hand. This is not my game." + +"Make it your game and your game in this country is made. Doubleday and +Dan Pettigrew want you. They're the men that run this country--what do +you say?" + +"The men that run this country can't run me." + +Van Horn, in spite of his assurance, felt the blow. But he put on a +front. "What makes you talk that way?" he flared. + +"This is the same bunch," continued Laramie evenly, "that sent two +different men to get me two years ago--and when I defended myself--had me +indicted. That indictment is still hanging for all I know. This is the +bunch that owns the district court." + +Van Horn made a violent gesture. "What's the use raking up old sores? +That's past and gone. That indictment's been quashed long ago." + +"This is the bunch," and Laramie spoke even more deliberately; he looked +directly, almost disconcertingly at Van Horn himself, "that sent the men +to rip off my wire just a while ago. I tracked 'em to Doubleday's and if +I'd found Doubleday or you or Stone there that day--if I'd got my eyes on +Barb Doubleday that day--you'd 've turned the men that pulled that wire +over to me or I'd known the reason why. + +"Now these same critters and you have the gall to talk to me about +joining hands. Hell, I'd quicker join hands with a bunch of +rattlesnakes. When that crowd want me let them come and get me. I'm not +chiding. They talk about cattle thieves! Why, your outfit would steal +the spurs off a rustler's heels. And when men like Hawk and Yankee +Robinson and German set up a little ranch with a few head of cows for +themselves your bunch blacklists them, refuses 'em work anywhere on the +range. Where did Dutch Henry learn to steal? Working for Barb +Doubleday; he branded mavericks for him, played dummy for his land +entries, swore to false affidavits for him. Now when he turns around and +steals the steers he stole for Barb, Barb has the nerve to ask me to +round him up at my proper risk and run him out of the country!" + +Van Horn rose: "That's the answer, is it?" + +Laramie sat still. He looked dead ahead: "What did it sound like?" he +asked, as Van Horn stood looking at him. + +"Just the same, Jim," muttered Van Horn, "the rustlers have got to go." + +Laramie looked across the office: "That all may be," he observed, rising. +And he repeated as Van Horn started away: "That all may be. And the men +that ripped off my wire have got to put it back. Tell 'em I said so." + +Van Horn whirled in a flash of anger: "You talk as if you think I'd +ripped it off myself." + +"I do think so." + +For one instant the two men, confronting, eyed each other, Van Horn's +face aflame. Both carried Colt's revolvers in hip holsters; Van Horn's +gun slung at his right hip, Laramie's slung at his left. Both were known +capable of extremes. Then the critical moment passed. Van Horn broke +into a laugh; without a yellow drop in his veins, as far as personal +courage went, he had thought twice before attempting to draw where no man +had yet drawn successfully. He put out his hand in frank fashion: "Jim, +you wrong yourself as much as me when you talk that way." + +He made his peace as well as it could be made in words. But when his +protestations were ended Laramie only said: "That all may be, Harry. But +whoever pulled my wire--and left it in the creek--will put it back--if +it's ten years from now." + +The two men, Van Horn still talking, made their way back to the billiard +hall--Laramie refusing to drink, and halting for brief greetings when +assailed by acquaintances. After they parted, Van Horn, as soon as he +could escape notice, passed again through the door leading to the hotel +office. He walked up the main stairway to the second floor, thence to +the third floor and following a corridor stopped in front of the last +room, slipped a pass key into the lock and, opening the door, entered and +closed it behind him. + +Two men sat in the room, Doubleday and Stone. Stone was just out of the +barber's chair, his hair parted and faultlessly plastered on both sides +across his forehead, and his face shaven and powdered. His forehead +drawn in horizontal wrinkles rather than vertical ones, looked lower and +flatter because of them. To add to the truculence of his natural +expression, he was now somewhat under the influence of liquor and looked +perplexed. + +Van Horn did not wait to be questioned; he walked directly to the table +between the two men and took a cigar from the open box: "Can't do a thing +with that fellow," he reported brusquely. + +Doubleday, by means of questions, got the story of the fruitless +interview. Stone listened. The slow movement of his eyes showed an +effort but none of the story escaped him. + +Van Horn, answering with some impatience, had lighted one cigar, and +bunching half a dozen more in his hand stowed them in an upper waistcoat +pocket. Doubleday, between heavy jaws and large teeth, shifted slowly or +chewed savagely at a half-burned cigar and bored into Van Horn. Van Horn +was in no mood for speculative comment: "You might as well talk to a +wildcat," he said. "Pulling that wire has left him sore all over." + +Doubleday looked at Stone vindictively: "That was your scheme." + +"No more than it was Van Horn's," retorted Stone. + +"What's the use squabbling over that now?" demanded Van Horn impatiently. +"I'm done, Barb. You've got to go ahead without him." + +Doubleday chewed his cigar in silence. Van Horn, restless and +humiliated, spoke angrily and thought fast. From time to time he looked +quickly at Stone--the foreman was in condition to do anything. + +"Look here, Tom," exclaimed Van Horn in low tones, "suppose you go +downstairs and give him a talk yourself. What do you say, Barb?" He +shot the words at Doubleday like bullets. Doubleday understood and his +teeth clicked sharply. He said nothing---only stared at the foreman with +his stony gray eyes. Stone drew his revolver from his hip and, breaking +the gun, slipped out the cartridges and slipped the five mechanically +back into place. + +Laramie in the meantime had joined a group of men at the upper end of the +bar in the billiard hall--McAlpin, Joe Kitchen's barn boss; Henry Sawdy, +the big sporty stock buyer of the town, and the profane but always +dependable druggist and railroad surgeon, Doctor Carpy. With one of +these, Sawdy, Harry Tenison from behind the bar was talking. He +interrupted himself to hold his hand over toward Laramie: "Been looking +for you, scout," he said, in balanced tones. "Been looking for you," he +repeated, releasing Laramie's hand and holding up his own. "If you'd +failed me today, Jim----" + +"I wouldn't fail you, Harry." + +"It's well you didn't--champagne, Luke," he added, calling to a +solemn-faced bartender who wore a forehead shade. + +"No champagne for me, Harry," protested Laramie. + +"What are you going to have?" asked the mild-voiced bartender, +perfunctorily. + +Laramie tilted his hat brim: "Why," he answered, after everybody had +contributed advice, "if I've got to take something on this little boy, a +little whisky, I suppose, Luke." + +"No poison served here tonight, Jim," growled Sawdy, throwing his +bloodshot eyes on Laramie. + +"I don't want any, anyway, Henry," was the unmoved retort. + +Luke, wrapping the cork of the champagne bottle under his long fingers, +hesitated. Tenison, looking with his heavily-lidded eyes, did not waver: +"You'll drink what I tell you tonight," he maintained coldly. "Open it, +Luke." + +Laramie stood sidewise while talking, one foot on the rail, his elbow +resting on the bar, and with his head turned he was looking back at +Tenison, who stood directly opposite him behind the bar. Laramie +submitted to the dictation without further protest: "A man will try +anything once," was his only comment. + +As he uttered the words he felt a point pressed tightly against his right +side and what was of greater import, heard the familiar click of a gun +hammer. + +It was too late to look around; too late to make the slightest move. All +that Laramie could get out of the situation, without moving, he read, +motionless, in Tenison's eyes, for Tenison was now looking straight at +the assailant and with a frozen expression that told Laramie of his +peril. The next instant Laramie heard rough words: + +"Turn around here, Jim." + +They told him all he needed to know, for in them he recognized the voice. +In the instant between hearing the words and obeying, a singular change +took place in the Falling Wall ranchman's eyes. Looking over at Tenison +his eyes had been keen and clear. Slowly and with a faint smile he +turned his head. When his eyes met those of Tom Stone, who confronted +him pressing the muzzle of a cocked Colt's forty-five gun against his +stomach, they were soft and glazed. Laramie had changed in an instant +from a man that had not tasted liquor to a man half tipsy. + +It was a feint, but a feint made with an accurate understanding of a +dangerous enemy. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LARAMIE COUNTS FIVE + +There was not a chance of escape. Laramie's left arm was resting on +the bar. Under the overhang, Stone, as he faced Laramie, now pressed +the gun with his right arm, into Laramie's stomach. For Laramie to +attempt to knock it away with his own right hand would be to take an +almost certainly fatal chance; while for any friend of his to touch +Stone or shoot him would mean certain death to Laramie. Feeling that +he had his enemy dead to rights, Stone baited him: + +"Laramie," he began, fixing his eyes on those of his victim, "there's +some men's lived in this country too long." + +The words carried the irritable nasal tone familiar to Stone's +acquaintances. Laramie's eyes merely brightened a little with the +effort to reply: "Tom," he declared, with just enough of hesitation to +play the game, "that's the first thing my wife said yes'day morning." + +Stone stared: "When," he demanded, "did you get married?" + +"Put up your gun. I'll tell you about it." + +Stone only grinned: "I can hear pretty well, right now." + +"If you want to see her picture, Tom, uncock your gun." + +"Not a little bit. I've got you right." + +Laramie smiled: "Sure, Tom, but there's plenty of time; put down the +hammer." Stone, without moving his gun, did silently lower the hammer. +Laramie counted one. Then he began to describe his trick bride. Stone +cut him off. He cocked his gun again: "Show me her picture," he +snarled. + +Tenison took the instant to lean impressively across the bar. He +pointed a long finger at Stone: "Tom," he said, with measured emphasis, +"no man can pull a gun here tonight and get away with it. That'll be +enough." + +Stone scowled: "Harry, this scout is through; nobody wants him any +longer in this country," he said. + +"Take your quarrel somewhere else tonight--this is my celebration--do +you get me, Tom?" + +Under the implied threat of the determined gambler the hammer of +Stone's gun came down: "I c'n get along with any man that'll do what's +right," asserted Stone, trying to keep his head clear. "Laramie won't." + +"Why, Tom!" expostulated Laramie, reproachfully. + +The revolver clicked; the hammer was up again. + +"Y' won't do what's right, will y', Laramie?" demanded Stone thickly. + +There were probably fifty men in the room. As if by instinct each of +them already knew on what a slender thread one man's life hung. Hawk, +the quickest and surest of Laramie's friends, stood ten paces away, up +the bar, but the silence was such that he could hear every deliberate +word. Glasses, half-emptied, had been set noiselessly down, +discussions had ceased, every eye was centered on two men and every ear +strained. A few spectators tiptoed out into the office. Others that +tried to pass through the swinging front-door screen into the street +found a crowd already peering intently in through the open baize. + +"Tom," resumed Laramie, in measured seriousness, "it's not you 'n' me +can't get on--it's men here has made trouble 'tween you and me, Tom. +You 'n' me rode this range when we didn't have but one blanket atween +us--didn't we, Tom?" he demanded in loud tones. + +Stone, in drunken irresolution, uncocked his gun but held it steady. +"That's all right, Laramie," he growled. + +"Did we quarrel then?" demanded Laramie, boisterously. "I'm asking +you, Tom, did you 'n' me quarrel then?" + +"When a man can't turn in with Harry Van Horn an' Barb Doubleday," +grumbled Stone, "it's time for him to quit this country." His revolver +clicked again; the hammer went up. + +Laramie regarded him with sobering amazement: "Who told you I wouldn't +turn in with Barb Doubleday?" he exclaimed loudly. "Who told you that?" + +"Harry Van Horn told me." + +Tenison tried to interpose. "You shut up, Tenison," was the answering +growl from Stone. But Tenison stuck to it till the hammer came down. +It was only for a moment--the next instant a score of breathless men +heard the click of the gun as it was cocked again. + +"Why," demanded Laramie, more cool-headed than his friends, drawn-faced +and tense about him, cooler far than his maudlin words implied, and +still fighting for a forlorn chance, "why didn't Harry Van Horn tell me +to turn in with a friend--why didn't he tell me to turn in with you, +Tom Stone--with a man I rode and bunked with? Why did they make you +their scapegoat, Tom? You've got me all right; I know that. But what +about you? You can't get ten feet. Abe Hawk's right back of you, +waitin' for you now. They'd dump us into the same hole, Tom. You +don't want to go into the same hole with me, do you? Let's talk it +over." + +The rambling plea sounded so reasonable it won a brief reprieve from +Stone. + +"Don't uncock your gun till I'm through, Tom," urged Laramie. "I don't +want to take any advantage at all of an old pardner. Keep it cocked +but listen. + +"I don't want to talk with Van Horn," Laramie went on, "not even with +Barb Doubleday, fine a man as he might be--I ain't 'a' sayin', Tom. +But I don't want to talk to him. I want to talk to you. Just you and +me, Tom--talkin' it over together. Don't be goat for nobody, Tom. +What?" + +The drunken foreman's brow contracted in irresolute perplexity: "What +do you say?" urged Laramie. Vacillating, Stone let down the hammer to +talk it over. It went up again almost instantly. There may in that +last brief instant have flashed across his muddled consciousness a +realization of his fatal mistake; perhaps he saw in the wicked flash of +Laramie's glazed eyes a warning of blunder. + +Knowing that mountain men carry only five cartridges in their +revolvers, leaving the hammer for safety on an empty chamber, Laramie +had parleyed with Stone only long enough to suit his own purpose. His +right arm shot out at Stone's jaw. As his fist reached it, the gun +against his stomach snapped viciously. But the hammer, already raised +six times, came down on the sixth and empty chamber. It was the chance +Laramie had played for. Stone sank like an ox. As he went down his +head struck the foot-rail. He lay stunned. + +Men drew long breaths. McAlpin, stooping in a flash, wrenched Stone's +revolver from his hand and with a grin, laid it on the bar. Laramie, +watching Stone coldly, did not move. His left foot still rested on the +rail, his left arm on the bar. But without taking his eyes off the +prostrate man he in some way saw the white-faced bartender peering over +in amazement at the fallen foreman: + +"It seems to take you a good while, Luke," protested Laramie, mildly, +"to open that bottle." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A DUEL WITH KATE + +When the eating-house at the Junction was closed, Harry Tenison sent +for Belle and offered her the position of housekeeper at the Mountain +House. This Belle declined. She had long had in her head the idea of +taking a place and serving meals on her own hook, as she expressed it. +Her instinct for independence, always strong, had not only prevented +her getting married but made her restive under orders. She was +stubborn--her enemies called her abusive names and her best friends +admitted that she was sometimes difficult. At Sleepy Cat she took a +cottage in lower Main Street. She had some furniture, and having a +little money saved and a little borrowed from McAlpin, Belle bought a +few new pieces, including a folding bed secured at a bargain, and +opened her doors for business. And whatever her faults of temperament, +Belle could cook. + +Kitchen's barn was headquarters for the small ranchers from the north +and for the Falling Wall men, and McAlpin soon had a trade seeking +Belle's place. The cottage itself faced the side street, but a little +shop annex opened on Main. In this and in the cottage dining-room +Belle served her meals. Very soon, however, she made trouble for +McAlpin. It developed that she would not serve anybody she did not +like and as her fancy was capricious she gave most of McAlpin's +following the cold shoulder. He spent much time in the beginning, +hot-footing it, as Belle termed it, between the barn and the cottage +trying to straighten things out. In the end he gave over and told +Belle she could starve if she wanted to. Whereupon she said tartly +that she did want to; and McAlpin snatching off his baseball cap, as he +did when greatly moved, and twirling it in his hand asked for his +money--which he failed to get. + +Yet one man among the hardy friends of the barn boss did find favor at +the cottage and he the last whom McAlpin would have picked for a likely +favorite. This was Jim Laramie. Laramie soon became a regular +customer of Belle's and his friends naturally followed him. + +The closing out of her father's interests at the Junction was without +regret for Kate, since it sent her up to where she wanted to be--at the +ranch. For some time after establishing herself there she rarely came +into Sleepy Cat. Then as the novelty wore off and small wants made +themselves felt, she rode oftener to town--mail and shopping and +marketing soon established for her a regular round and when she did +ride to Sleepy Cat she nearly always saw Belle; sometimes she lunched +with her. Belle was a stickler in her home for neatness, even though +the cyclone might have been supposed to harden her to dust. + +More than this, Belle knew what was going on--she had the news. +Little, in the daily round of the town and its wide territory, got by +the modest scrim curtains of Belle's place; she became Kate's reporter. +Men would say this was the principal attraction for Kate, and that the +cooking came second--not so. The real reason Belle got the gossip of +the country was because her customers were men. Kate was probably the +only woman, certainly almost the only one, among her patrons. Belle +explained this by saying that none of the rest of the ranchwomen would +spend their money for lunch. The truth really was that Belle did not +like women, anyway--Kate she tolerated because she did like her. + +It was the day after Tenison's big celebration that Kate rode into town +for the mail, and after some shopping walked down to Belle's for lunch. +Belle was at the butcher shop across the street, telephoning. She came +in after a moment. + +"It seems to me you spend a good deal of time with that butcher," said +Kate, significantly. + +"Oh, no, he's got a club foot. Has Harry Van Horn been shining up to +you?" + +Kate was taken aback, but she had been to blame for giving Belle an +opening and could only enter a confused denial. + +"The first serious symptom," said Belle, garrulously, "will be, he'll +have a headache; he'll ask for cold cloths on his forehead. When that +works pretty well he'll tell you your hair is like his sister's and +some evening he'll ask you to take it down. He asked me one night to +take mine down. I handed him my wig. Say! he was the most surprised +man in Sleepy Cat. I've been trying for an hour to get that rascally +milkman on the telephone--there's not a drop of cream in the house. +Well, how are you? Was Tom Stone home when you left?" + +One question followed another. Kate had not only not seen the ranch +foreman--she had not heard of the excitement of the night before. From +Belle she got the details of Stone's attempt to kill Laramie. The +story lost nothing in Belle's hands. She had heard all versions and +was pretty good at story telling herself. + +"After McAlpin picked up Stone's gun Laramie told him to turn it over +to Luke; and he told Luke not to give it back to Stone till this +morning--I guess they hid Stone last night." She wound up with an +abusive fling at Doubleday's foreman. "What do you keep such a beastly +critter around for?" she asked, looking at Kate hard for an answer. + +Humiliated at the recital, Kate thought it time to say something +herself: "Why do you ask me a question like that?"' + +Belle arched her eyebrows belligerently. "Why shouldn't I?" she +demanded. And bridling with further criticism of Stone and by +implication of those that employed him, she let fly again. + +Kate tried to ignore her outburst: "You know perfectly well," she said +firmly, "I have nothing to say about the ranch or how it is run, or who +runs it. And I don't care to listen to any comments on that subject." + +"If you don't like my comments you needn't come here to listen to +them," retorted Belle, flaming. + +The two were standing at the cook stove. + +"While I am here," returned Kate with tart dignity, "please don't abuse +me." + +"I say what I please to anybody if it's right," exclaimed Belle rudely. + +"You'll be ashamed of yourself when you cool off," Kate returned, +pointing to the broiler: "You don't expect me to eat all that meat, do +you?" + +Belle answered with an offended dignity of her own: "I expect Jim +Laramie to eat the biggest part of it. And there he comes now!" + +The front door opened, in fact, while she was speaking; Kate stood with +her back to it and though by turning she could have peeped through the +curtained archway, she would not have looked for a million dollars. If +Belle wanted her revenge she had it at that moment. Kate could not +sink through the floor to escape, but how she wanted to! She did step +quickly aside hoping she had not been seen, and retired to the farthest +corner of the kitchen. Belle's mouth, before the stove, set grimly and +with her left hand she gave her wig the vicious punch she used when +wrought up. Kate motioned to her frantically. Belle regarded her +coldly but did come closer and Kate caught at her sleeve: "For heaven's +sake," she begged in a whisper, "don't let him know I'm here." + +Kate eyed her anxiously. Belle's face was hard, and quick, firm steps +were coming from the front door. + +"Hello, Belle!" was the greeting. Had they been Kate's death message +the words could not have frightened her more. She knew, too well, the +voice. + +"You didn't get my message," were the next words flung through the +archway. + +"I got it," answered Belle, going forward and providentially stopping +Laramie before he reached the curtains. + +"Sit down right there," she added, pointing to a table at the rear of +the lunch room. "I hurried all I could but that rascally milkman +hasn't been here yet and there's no cream for your coffee. Your +dinner's most ready though." + +She started back to the kitchen. + +"Not enough for two, is there?" asked Laramie. + +"Who's coming?" demanded Belle, stopping in her tracks. + +"Belle, you're suspicious as a cattleman. Nobody's coming, but I'm +hungry." + +While he continued his banter she served him and attempted to serve +Kate behind the curtains. By persistent, almost despairing pantomime, +Kate dissuaded her from this. But at that moment the front door opened +again, a brisk greeting was called out and a heavy tread crossed the +uneven floor of the outer room. + +"John Lefever!" Laramie got up to welcome the big deputy marshal. +"Just in time. Take off your manners and sit down." + +A bubbling laugh greeted the sally: "Jim, I just can't do it." + +"Oh, yes, you'll eat with me. Where you from?" + +"Bear Dance; and Medicine Bend on the next train. Heard you were in +town and dropped off for just one hour. Say, this is more like life's +fitful fever to set eyes on you. Heard you were threatened last night +with appendicitis. How about it?" and John bubbled over again. In the +next breath he greeted Belle as gaily. Laramie asked for another plate +and Lefever promptly resumed: "You look kind of down in the mouth, Jim. +What's the matter with you?" + +"Nothing's the matter with me." + +Lefever shrugged his shoulders: "You're a kind of low-spirited Indian, +anyway. What you doing up in the Falling Wall?" + +"Nothing." + +"Always nothing," repeated Lefever. + +"Better come up," suggested Laramie. "What are you doing?" + +Lefever's eyes expanded with cheer, but his voice choked with emotion: +"Doing? Rusting!" + +"That doesn't sound much like 'life's fitful fever.'" + +John glared at his companion: "Life's fitful _fever_! Why, this is +only a passing flash! How about it when you can't raise even a normal +temperature? Fever? I haven't felt so much as a gentle perspiration +for months! The rust is eating into my finger tips," he declared with +violence. "I'm a fat man. A fat man must have action,"--his voice +fell--"else he gets fatter. I've got to do something. Once or twice +I've come pretty near having to go to work." + +Laramie's expression may have been skeptical; at all events John +pointed a corroborating finger at him: "You don't believe it! Just the +same," he added, moodily, "it's straight." + +"What's de Spain doing, John?" + +The tone of the answer bordered on the morose: "Running a nursery at +Medicine Bend." + +"Trees?" + +"Trees!" John snortingly invoked the hottest place he could think of. +"Trees? Babies! Jim," he exclaimed, "I'm no family man--are you?" + +"You like Medicine Bend, don't you?" + +"Too many people there." John settled gloomily back. Then with +wide-open eyes he started suddenly forward: "Give me a gun, Jim," he +said wildly, "a gun and a horse." + +"And a north wind!" exclaimed Laramie. + +"And a high country," cried Lefever with flashing eyes, "a country +where you can't see a damned thing in any direction for a hundred and +fifty miles!" + +Though talking vigorously he was eating, without protest from Laramie, +everything in sight. Kate could not help listening; Lefever's high +spirits were contagious. + +"Jim," came next between mouthfuls. "What was that story about you +being up at the Junction the day I wanted you to serve those papers on +old Barb Doubleday?" + +"I went up there that day because I had business of a different kind +with Barb." + +"About the wire ripping, yes. But I heard you got sewed up by a skirt +and didn't talk wire to Barb at all." + +"No more of that, John." + +"What was there to it?" + +"I guess there was." + +"A ride or something--what?" + +"Something, John." + +"Thunder! It must have been the ride. I had a deputy marshalship all +lined up for you if that hadn't happened. And believe me, boy, a +deputy marshalship isn't lying around loose every day!" + +Kate listened keenly for Laramie's comment: + +"The ride was worth the price, John," was all he said. + +"Some skirt, eh?" + +Laramie squirmed and with an expletive protested: + +"Hang it, John----" + +"No matter, no matter. I'll get it all from Belle some day. And after +you get through with your wire thieves we'll tell the story of your +brief romance----" + +"Over my grave." + +"Right, Jim--over your grave." + +"John," Laramie ran on, "do you remember that song Tommie Meggeson used +to sing on the round-up--a pretty little thing. It had one good line +in it: 'Death comes but once, and then, sometimes--too late.'" + +Belle appeared with a vegetable: "It won't keep you waiting an awful +while if things go on the way they're going now," she put in grimly. + +"That was a good song," mused Laramie, "a good old song." But he heard +a slight sound in the kitchen and his eyes were turned toward the +archway. + +"Just the same that song won't keep you from getting killed," persisted +Belle. + +"Even that would beat appendicitis clean to death, Belle," maintained +Laramie, still listening. + +"You've got lots of time," he added, as Lefever looked at his watch. + +"I haven't," exclaimed his companion. "I've got to send a message. +Come over to the train." + +"I've got to write a couple of letters." + +"Come over to the station and write your letters." + +Laramie shook his head: "I couldn't even get to the station by one +o'clock. Every man in Main Street wants to talk about Tom Stone. +You'd think I had a million friends among the cattlemen this morning." + +"I heard old Barb Doubleday is grinning like a hangman today." + +"If Belle's got some ink I'll write my letters right here." + +Kate's spirits, which had risen at the hope of being so luckily rid of +one who might prove troublesome, fell at his refusal to leave. John +urged, but Laramie only asked Belle again for the ink. Lefever tried +to coax Belle to go to the train with him. Belle would do almost any +fool thing--as John bluntly averred--but this time she must have had +pity on Kate and would not leave her unprotected. Lefever went his +way. From a shelf near where Kate, with clasped hands, sat in silence +Belle took paper and ink in to Laramie and began to clear the table. + +At this unlucky moment the front door was opened swiftly and a boy from +the butcher shop stuck his head inside. + +"Miss Shockley," he called, "the milkman is on the 'phone now, if you +want him." Closing the door he ran back across the street. With a +sense of her wrongs keen upon her, Belle, forgetting her charge in the +kitchen, hurried after him. + +Even then, Kate hoped that by keeping deathly still she might escape an +unpleasant meeting. She never breathed more carefully in her life, yet +she was doomed. She heard Laramie's chair pushed back and heard his +footsteps. She could not be sure which way he was walking, but she +thought only of flight. As stealthily and rapidly as possible, she +started for the back door. Without looking around she felt as if he +had come to the archway and was looking at her. With courage and +resolve, she grasped the knob to open the door. It was locked. She +fumbled with the key. Behind her, silence. She locked and unlocked +the door more than once, and with a fast-dying hope, for the wretched +door would _not_ open. Flushed with annoyance, she turned around only +to see Laramie standing precisely where she had imagined him. + +They faced each other. Kate could not have found a word to say had her +life depended on it. Laramie held in his left hand an ink bottle, in +his right a pen. He, too, seemed surprised but he recovered himself: +"You are certainly unlucky with doors," he said. "If you'll tell me +where Belle keeps her ink, I'll tell you how to open that," he added +calmly. + +Kate stiffened and shrugged her shoulders the least bit: "I haven't any +idea where Belle keeps the ink," she replied, clearing her throat of +its huskiness. + +He pointed to beyond where she stood: "I think the ink supply is on +that shelf; she gave me an empty bottle. Should you mind handing me +one with ink in it?" + +Kate turned to the shelf: "There seem to be two kinds here," she said +as coldly as possible. + +"Any bottle with a hole in the top will do," he suggested. "This one," +he held the bottle up in his hand and looked at it, "seems to have a +hole top and bottom. Give me the blue ink, will you?" + +"I am sure I don't know which is which. Perhaps you had better help +yourself," Kate said icily. + +"Thank you. But I'll show you how to open the door first." + +"Don't trouble yourself." + +"No trouble at all." He walked to the door, explaining as he took hold +of the knob: "The door wasn't locked, but the catch held the latch. I +could tell that from the way you handled it. You locked it, +yourself----" + +Kate could not hide her resentment: "It wouldn't open when I first took +hold of it," she declared hastily. "I tried it before I touched the +key." + +"That's what I'm explaining. When you did take hold of the key you +locked the door with the dead bolt and then you couldn't open it; so +you unlocked it and tried it again. After that you worked so fast I +lost track." He pointed to the back of the rim lock: "The catch was +on." And pushing down the catch, he turned the knob and opened the +door. + +Kate was thoroughly incensed: "You are doubtless better acquainted here +than I am." + +"To tell the truth, I have to be acquainted with rooms I go into. If +_I_ ever tried to get through a door and failed, it might not be +pleasant for me. And there's a board fence, six feet high, all around +this yard, so unless you're a good climber you couldn't have got out +anyway." + +Kate felt she looked very silly, standing staring at him, and perhaps +looking frightened--as she really was---for he went on as if he were +explaining to a child: "I'm not permitted to tell you, but I'm going +to----" + +"Don't bother, please----" + +"Yes, I'd rather: There is a way to get out without climbing the fence; +a loose board I'll show you sometime--but you must handle yourself fast +to make your get-away." + +"I never expect," she said contemptuously, "to have to make a get-away." + +"Then I was wrong," he returned frankly, "for I kind of thought you +were trying to make one a minute ago." + +His composure irritated Kate: "You are very much mistaken," she +declared with spirit in her words, for she saw--indeed knew--how +persistent he was. "I was only trying to leave for home quietly and +quickly." + +His eyes were a study in silent laughter: "That's all I've ever claimed +to be doing, any time in my life." + +"But I can just as well leave by the front door--which, perhaps," +retorted Kate, "you haven't always been able to do." + +"Before you go"--he was standing directly in the archway, so she had to +listen--"tell me about things at the Junction; I hear the lunch room +was closed up a while ago." + +"It was. But"--Kate thought the time for explanation had come--"I was +not working at the eating-house when you came in there. I am Kate +Doubleday and I wanted to save my father that day and I'm not a bit +sorry for it." + +"I suppose, then, I ought to speak out, too. I was sure you were Kate +Doubleday soon after I got into the lunch-room that day and I'm not a +bit sorry for it. And I knew pretty soon you were trying to save your +father. And I helped you." + +"Oh--" Kate suppressed an incredulous exclamation. + +"Believe it or not as you like, I helped you. And I'm not a bit sorry +for it. Though he is no friend of mine, you have been, from that day +on; and if you ever give me a chance I'll prove it. The worst thing +you did was to go back on your word----" + +"My word was not freely given," Kate was speaking furiously. + +"It shouldn't have been given at all, then. But it's all right. Will +you be friends with me?" + +"No man that speaks of my father as you spoke of him a moment ago can +be my friend." + +"It was Lefever spoke of your father. I couldn't shut him off. Of +course he didn't know you were here. I did know after I'd been here +awhile. I heard you whisper. That's why I asked for the ink--I had no +letters to write. There's a lot of hard feeling in this country right +now. Every man in it has his friends and enemies. You mustn't take it +seriously when you hear hard words--I don't; and I hear plenty. Hadn't +you and I better be friends to begin with, anyway?" + +"No," she exclaimed angrily. "Please let me pass." + +He stepped promptly aside: "I never dreamed of doing anything less." + +Kate started rapidly for the front door. Whom should she run into just +as she opened it but Belle coming back from her wretched telephoning +and with a bottle of cream! Kate inwardly blamed her for all her +trouble, and she was on edge, besides: "Where you going?" demanded +Belle. + +"Home," answered Kate, shortly. + +"Home? You haven't had your lunch." + +"I don't want any." + +Belle caught Kate's arm: "Now you just hold on. What's the matter? Is +it Laramie?" Belle must have read her face for she answered nothing, +only tried to get away. "But, child!" she exclaimed. "Where's your +coat--wait till I bring it--and your gloves!" Kate paused at the door. +In a minute Belle came running back: "He's gone, absolutely. There +isn't a soul anywhere about. Now you shan't go till you take a cup of +coffee. Here's the cream--he left it at the wrong door, the stupid!" + +Kate could not get away. And Belle had told the truth: Laramie was +gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BARBECUE + +Whatever the shortcomings of the American frontier code there never was +a time in its history when a man could violate the principles of fair +play and keep public opinion on his side. In this instance, Stone's +conduct reacted unfavorably on the cattlemen. The townspeople that +made money out of the trade of the big ranches always stood up for the +cattlemen, but they were put most unpleasantly on the defensive by the +incident. Even had Stone's attempt on Laramie's life succeeded it +would have been easier, for the partisans, to handle than the failure +it proved. As a _fait accompli_ it would have been regretted, but +forgotten; as a failure it settled nothing. + +Among the few townspeople that sturdily retained independence of +opinion on all matters, none stood higher than the surgeon, Doctor +Carpy. And encountering Doubleday in the street shortly after the +Stone incident, he took it on himself to talk to him. + +The doctor had his office at his home, but back of the prescription +case in his little drug store--no bigger than a minute--he had a small +room for emergency consultations. To this he invited Doubleday, and, +having ushered him in, seated him and closed the door, Carpy sat down: +"There's few men, Barb, in this country," the doctor began, "that dare +talk to you the way you ought to be talked to; of them few, I'm +probably the only one that would take the trouble. Your enemies won't +talk and everybody friendly with you is afraid of you. You've got so +much property and stuff here they're plumb afraid of you. I'm a poor +man, Barb--don't never expect to be anything else, and I don't give a +hang for anybody," averred the erratic surgeon, "and nobody gives a +hang for me." + +Doubleday, chewing the stub of a cigar, eyed his medical adviser with +an unsympathetic stare, but this in no way disturbed the self-appointed +critic. "For a long time now, Barb," he continued, "you've been in the +nastiest kind of a fight on Jim Laramie. You've tried to run him off +the range and you tried to beat him out of his land and you've tried to +break him. He's got the best land in the Falling Wall and he's in your +way. One time his wire is all pulled off his fence. Another time your +foreman pokes a gun into his stomach." + +Doubleday flared up: "Am I the only man that Laramie's got differences +with? When his fence is tore down, am I to blame? Am I to blame for +every drink Tom Stone takes? What are you talking about?" demanded +Doubleday with violence. + +The doctor could not have been calmer had he been reaching at the +critical moment of an operation for Doubleday's appendix. "Be patient +a minute; be ca'm, Barb; I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I don't +know who cut his wire. I don't know who done it and I won't undertake +to say, but what I do say to you, Barb, and I say it hard, you're +making a big mistake on this man, and if you don't slow up it'll cost +you your life yet." + +Doubleday was grimly silent. "I've known Jim Laramie," Carpy went on, +"since he was a boy. He's stubborn as a broncho if you try to ride +him. He's the easiest man in the world to get along with if you make a +friend of him. No matter what's said of Jim Laramie there ain't a +crooked hair in his head; but he's no angel and when his patience +quits--look out. What I'm going to tell you now, Barb, is on the +square. It can't go no further. I tell you because you ought to know. +A while back, just after this wire pulling, Jim Laramie walked into +this room, shut the door and locked it and sat down right where you're +sittin' now. He told me the wire story; he told me he was through. +He'd tracked the men to your ranch and was going to square accounts +with you and Stone and Van Horn. He was on his way to the Junction and +he told me he might not come back and wanted to tell me how to dispose +of his property. He was after you and he meant, before he fell down, +to get some or all of you. He asked me where you were, because he +heard I knew. I did know but I didn't tell him. I lied, Barb. I told +him the mines, but I knew you were at the Junction. He started for the +mines. What happened to turn him off your trail I never yet learned. +I never asked. + +"Now you saw, or you heard anyway, what happened when Stone tried to +kill him the other night. That man never can get Laramie. And don't +depend on Stone and Van Horn to play you fair, for if they had to save +their hides, Barb, they'd sell you. My advice is this: Put back +Laramie's wire. Let the cattlemen, you and Pettigrew to lead 'em, do +it to clear their own names. Say you know nothing about it, but it was +a dirty trick, and tell this town that cattlemen fight but they fight +fair. It'll do more to set you right and to set everything else right +on the range than anything else you could possibly do. And don't make +a mistake. Laramie'll follow that wire pulling for years but what +he'll get the man that did it. I know him. He's got a memory like an +Indian." + +Like all well-meaning and candid friends, the doctor found himself at +once in for a deal of angry abuse, but, as he explained, he had taken +so much abuse from patients at various periods of his career--and abuse +fully justified--that nothing Barb could add, deserved or undeserved, +to the volume would move him: "As our old governor back in Wisconsin +said, Barb, 'I seen my duty and I done it,'" was the doctor's only +retort to Doubleday's wrath. "Now if you're in a hurry, Barb, don't +let me keep you, not a minute. I had my say and if there's anything +pressing you down street go to it." + +But angry as Doubleday appeared, Carpy had given him something to think +about. Consultations were held--by precisely whom, no one could say, +but in them there was dissension. Van Horn vehemently opposed any +further overtures to Laramie and he was vastly put out at being +overruled. While the discussions were going on, he talked in a veiled +but emphatic way to Kate about the queer way her father was acting. +Van Horn would shake his head with violent emphasis at the way things +were going. But when Kate poured oil on the waters of his discontent, +Van Horn was always responsive and stayed to supper or for the evening, +if he were asked--and Kate was alone. On the gentler side, however, he +could make no headway. When he tried headaches for sympathy, Kate was +stony hearted. When he asked her one day at the spring to take down +her hair, she told him she wore a wig. He looked at her amazed. + +And in spite of his objections to placating Laramie a decision very +unpalatable to him was reached. Pettigrew, as spokesman, approached +Laramie and insisted, in order to allay bad feeling, on replacing the +barb wire. When Laramie declared the wire must be put back by the men +that had cut it, there was naturally an _impasse_, but Tenison and +Carpy aided jointly by the representations of Lefever and Sawdy, +induced Laramie to forego his punitive attitude and accept the amende +as offered. This, as the doctor had predicted, put a pleasanter face +on the tangled affairs of the range. And to strike while their iron +was hot, and to keep it hot, the cattlemen announced a big Fourth of +July celebration, at which old scores should be forgotten and friends +and enemies meet in good-fellowship. The place for it, after much +talk, was fixed at Doubleday's ranch. The saloon-keepers of Sleepy +Cat, except Tenison, fought this, but they lost out. + +Since her own home was to be the scene of the celebration, Kate took a +particular interest in the undertaking. She made herself, in a way, +hostess and her father gave her free rein. The eager crowd that +responded to the public invitation found awaiting them, as they +picturesquely rode in twos and threes and groups up the creek to the +ranch house, all the "fixin's" for a rousing celebration. Men came for +as much as fifty miles and some of them by trails and over passes Kate +had never even heard of. There were cattlemen, cowboys, sheepmen, +little ranchers--all the conflicting elements of the country, besides a +crowd from Sleepy Cat with the band, and all the town loafers that +could possibly secure conveyance. + +There was for these latter worthies the attraction of a free feed--for +they knew the prodigality of cattlemen; but there was also the +underlying hope that where so discordant elements were assembled a +fight _might_ occur; and nobody wanted to miss a fight. The principals +necessary for a serious affair were present. The fact that all were +armed was not significant, merely prudent. Men careless on this point +were no longer attending celebrations of any sort around Sleepy Cat. + +From the Falling Wall came the rustlers, every one of them except +Doubleday's old foreman, Abe Hawk, who scorned all pretense of +compromise. He advised Laramie not to go near the celebration. When +Laramie intimated he might go, Abe was greatly incensed. A master of +bitter sarcasm, he trained his batteries on his sandy-haired friend and +these failing he warned him he would be in serious danger. He +intimated that the scheme was to get the rustlers all together and +finish them in a bunch. In which event, one as hated as Laramie could +hardly hope to escape unmolested. But Laramie persisted in his resolve +to go, and he went. + +Doctor Carpy made it a point to go. He was usually needed +professionally at Fourth of July celebrations. But on this occasion he +was, in matter of fact, a sort of sponsor for the whole affair and he +brought Sawdy, Lefever and Tenison along. The four drove out in the +smartest wagon and behind the best team in the Kitchen barn, Kitchen +with them and McAlpin driving. + +By noon the big end of the crowd had arrived. The barbecue tables were +set out under the trees along the creek. The roasting itself was in +the skilled hand of John Frying Pan and before one o'clock he was ready +to serve. + +Doubleday had told Kate, when arranging for the tables, that his +particular friends would sit at his table, and she was on her way down +to the creek to ask him how many there would be in the party when whom +should she find him talking with, of all men, but Laramie, who had just +ridden over from the Falling Wall. + +Before Kate could retreat, her father had seen her. He called her +over. To her astonishment he insisted on introducing her to his +friend, Jim Laramie, of whom he was making as much as it was possible +to make of a wholly undemonstrative man. + +The band not far away was playing full tilt. Kate wished they could +have made even more noise to hide her confusion, but there was nothing +except to face the situation, much as it surprised her. Laramie, +fortunately, seemed indisposed to say anything. He spent most of his +time listening. Kate, being far from animated, her father was left to +do the honors. And on such rare occasions as Barb was communicative, +he was quite capable of good-fellowship. + +Laramie, however, seemingly under some restraint, soon made excuses and +left to join the crowd. + +Some of the little ranchmen had brought their wives along. A few of +these women had their babies with them, and Kate returned to the house, +where she made the mothers comfortable. There, her father afterwards +ran across her. He stopped as he came up: "You remember that man I +introduced you to--Laramie?" + +"Very well," assented Kate, wondering. + +"Treat him well at dinner." + +"But I'm going to eat here at the house." + +He shook his head: "You eat at the creek at my table." + +She had no choice but to obey. When she returned to the pits the +stones had been removed and John Frying Pan, with a pair of Sleepy Cat +ice tongs, was lifting out the first big chunks of roasted meat. The +crowd, being called, ran for the creek whooping and yelling, and while +Kate watched John and his helpers dish up the meat, the guests--nearly +all men--seated themselves pell mell at the long benches. It was a +noisy assemblage, overflowing with good-nature, and when Kate, very +trim in corduroy, appeared again at the tables the demonstrative ones +rose and led in a burst of cheers. Kate enjoyed it but when they began +calling for a speech, she ran to join her father. She found him and +old man Pettigrew at the table, Laramie calmly seated with them and the +fourth place waiting for her. + +Van Horn, as host to other cattlemen and guests, presided at the next +table. Unluckily, where he sat, he could see Laramie opposite Kate. +But if he was discomfited, the group at the next table below, where +Doctor Carpy presided, flanked by Lefever, Sawdy, Kitchen and McAlpin, +was correspondingly elated at the spectacle of the Falling Wall and the +Crazy Woman sitting in harmony. + +Despite the unpleasant stories Kate had heard about him she found +nothing to complain of in Laramie's manners. But he was, she told +herself, on his good behavior, and under the circumstances would +naturally try to appear at his best. Little as she relished her +assignment of making things pleasant for him, the friendly spirit of +the occasion to some extent infected her, and soon she found it not +difficult to help along with small talk and make the queer combination +at the table go. + +There was really no great need for her to work hard in this way--both +her father and Pettigrew were very lively. Laramie seemed a bit dazed +at being set up with such honors in the house of his enemies. But +though he did not volunteer much, when Kate said anything that afforded +a chance for comment, he improved it. + +The talk went a good deal to cattle, and range matters, but Pettigrew, +a crafty fellow, told good stories about men that everybody in and out +of Sleepy Cat knew, and appealed frequently to Laramie for confirmation +or a laugh. Some of the laughs he got were a little dry but they were +not ill-natured, and Kate enjoyed the rough humor. The two cattlemen +finished their dinner, and without ceremony got up to see how the crowd +was being served, leaving Kate with Laramie. "How do you like old +Pettigrew?" was the first thing Laramie asked as the bearded cattleman +moved away with her father. + +"The only thing I don't like about him," answered Kate candidly, "is +his eyes." + +She was looking at Laramie as she spoke. + +"You're a good observer," he said. + +"How so?" + +"A man's eyes are all there is to him. You don't mind if I smoke?" + +"Not a bit." + +He drew a sack of tobacco from a breast pocket. + +"Not going to run away, are you?" He was fishing for cigarette paper +when he asked. He spoke as if he had no special interest in the +matter, yet the question startled her. Kate had not made a move to go, +but she _was_ thinking, when the question came, of how she might manage +to escape. She flushed a little at being anticipated in her +intention--just enough perhaps to let him see he had caught her, not to +say irritated her. As luck would have it, Van Horn, who had risen, +sauntered towards them. Kate was glad just then to see him: "I hope +you got enough to eat," she said as he approached. + +He seemed stiff--Kate did not realize what he was put out about. He +made some answer and turned to Laramie. She felt at once the friction +between the two men, not from anything she had reason to suspect or +know--for she knew then nothing whatever of their personal relations. +Nor was it from anything said; for an instant neither man spoke. +Instinct must have made her conscious for as soon as Van Horn looked at +Laramie she felt the tension: "Well, Jim, where'd you blow from?" +demanded Van Horn after a pause. + +Laramie was making ready to smoke. He was in no haste to answer, nor +did he look at Van Horn, but continued, cowboy fashion, rolling his +cigarette in the finger-tips of one hand, his other hand resting on his +hip: "I didn't blow," he retorted. + +"How'd you get here?" asked Van Horn. + +"I was invited." + +Van Horn laughed significantly. While Kate would rather have been out +of it, she thought it proper, since she was in it, to say something +herself: "I didn't suppose anybody needed a special invitation for a +Fourth of July celebration," she interposed. "The town has been +covered for two weeks with bills inviting everybody." + +Van Horn laughed again. "It wasn't you invited him, eh?" he demanded +of Kate. The thing was said so unpleasantly she would have retorted on +impulse, but Laramie took any possible words out of her mouth. + +"Why don't you ask me who invited me? Barb Doubleday invited me. +That's enough, isn't it? And Pettigrew invited me. And," he added, +completing his cigarette in leisurely fashion, "while that wouldn't be +any particular inducement--you invited me." + +Van Horn stared: "How do you make that out?" he asked quickly. + +"You asked me to take in this barbecue when you tried to get me to line +up with you at the Mountain House." + +Van Horn took alarm: "That was put up to you in confidence," he said +angrily. + +"So was the barbecue," responded Laramie. "I wouldn't take in the +first proposition, so I'm enjoying the second." He turned from Van +Horn, and, ignoring him, spoke to Kate: "You remember you said you were +going to show me your ponies." + +It was Kate's turn to stare: "You must be mistaken." + +He did not press the subject: "Perhaps you've forgotten," was all he +said. + +"When or where did I ever say that?" Kate asked, resenting the +intimation. + +He looked down, then looking up his eyes rested on Kate's. He was not +disturbed: "Is that a challenge?" he asked. + +"If you wish to make it one," she returned coolly. + +"The 'where' was one day at Sleepy Cat Junction, the 'when' was the day +we rode up the Falling Wall river." + +"Oh," she exclaimed, collecting herself, "I had forgotten." + +"Do you remember now?" he asked; and she thought there was resentment +in the question. "If you don't," he added, "we'll let it go." + +"Why, I suppose I must have said something like that. Anyway," she +added, "we'll go see them to make sure I've kept a promise. Come, Mr. +Van Horn," she suggested, turning sweetly to him, "don't you want to +see the ponies?" To include Van Horn, it was plain to be seen, would +spoil the trip for Laramie, but she cared little for that. "Wait just +a minute," she continued, "I must tell John Frying Pan before I go to +give the Indians something to eat." + +The feeling between the two men she left together flared up at once: +"Does this mean you're going to hitch up with the cattlemen, after +all?" demanded Van Horn. + +Laramie, who had lighted his cigarette, stood looking after Kate: "I +hitch up with nobody." + +"Then don't spend your time hanging around Kate Doubleday." + +"So that's where the shoe pinches?" Laramie threw away his cigarette +as he spoke. "I've taken a good deal from you, Van Horn." + +Van Horn egged him on unabashed: "You've got your nerve with you to +show up here at all." + +"A man needs his nerve, Van Horn, to do business with crooks like you." + +Doubleday, passing near the two men at that moment, heard the last +exchange. He called out in his heavy, raspy voice to Van Horn: "Look +here, Harry." Laramie walked away and Doubleday took Van Horn in hand: +"You messed up things once with Laramie, didn't you? And you didn't +get him, did you?" continued Doubleday, choking off Van Horn's words: +"Now we've got him here, let me run this thing." + +"I can tell you right now you won't line him up," blurted out Van Horn, +very angry. + +Doubleday had a way of raising his chin to override objection; and his +voice grew huskier with stubbornness: "Just let me run this thing, will +you?" + +"Do as you please," retorted Van Horn, but with a stiff expletive that +irritated Barb still further. Then swinging on his heel, Van Horn +marched off. Barb was so incensed he could only keep his raised finger +pointed after Van Horn; and as his eyes blazed he shouted through a +very fog of throat-scraping: "I will." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AGAINST HIS RECORD + +On the level stretch between the ranch-house and the creek the cowboys +staged, after dinner, a Frontier Day show and a Fourth of July +celebration combined. The fun began mildly with the three-legged races +and the business of the greased pig. From these diversions it +proceeded to foot races, in which Indians shone, and to keenly +contested pony races between cowboys, Reservation bucks and sports from +Sleepy Cat. Money was stacked with freedom and differences of opinion +were intensified by victory and defeat. + +While the spirit ran high, rodeo riding began with the master artists +of the range and the pink of American horsemanship in the saddle. In +each succeeding contest the Sleepy Cat visitors headed by Sawdy and +Lefever with big loose bunches of currency backed their favorites +freely, and men that counted nothing of caution in their make-up took +the other end of every exciting event. Flushed faces and loud voices +added to the rapidly shifting excitement as one event followed another, +and the betting fever keenly roused called, after every possible wager +had been laid, for fresh material to work on. + +It was at this juncture that the shooting matches began. In a line and +in a country in which many excelled in perhaps the most important +regard, rivalry ran high and critics were naturally fastidious. The +temptation to belittle even excellent work with rifle and revolver was, +in Sawdy and especially in Carpy, partly due to temperament. Both men +were bad gamesters because they bet on feeling rather than judgment. +They would back a man, or the horse of a man they liked, against a man +they did not like and sometimes thereby knew what it was to close the +day with empty pockets. + +On this Fourth of July at Doubleday's, both men, as well as Lefever, +had been hit by hard luck. Their free criticism of the horse-racing +and the shooting did not pass unresented and the fact that Tom Stone +and his following had most of the Sleepy Cat money while the sun was +still high did not tend to temper the acerbity of their remarks. + +Nothing that the crack shots of the range could do would satisfy either +Sawdy or Carpy. Van Horn, himself an expert with rifle and gun, was +master of these ceremonies and the belittling by the Sleepy Cat sports +of the best the cowboys could show, nettled him: "Before you knock this +any more," he said, "put up some better shooting." + +The taunt went far enough home to stir the fault-finders. Sawdy and +Carpy took grumpy counsel together. Presently they hunted up Laramie, +who in front of the ranch-house was talking horses with Kitchen and +Doubleday. They told him the situation and asked for help: "Come over +to the creek and show the bunch up, Jim," was Sawdy's appeal. + +The response was cold. Laramie refused to take any part in the +shooting. Sawdy could not move him. In revenge he borrowed what money +Laramie had--not much in all--and went back in bad humor. With the +peeve of defeated men, the Sleepy Cat sports called for more horse +racing to retrieve their fortunes--only to lose what money they had +left and suffer fresh jeering from Van Horn and his following. + +But abating in defeat and with empty pockets, nothing of their +confident swagger, Carpy and Sawdy reinforced this time by +Lefever--McAlpin trailing along as a mourner--headed again for the +ranch-house after Laramie. + +They found him on a bench where he could command the front door, +whittling and talking idly with Bill Bradley. Laramie was there intent +on waylaying Kate, within. His friends descended on him for the second +time in a body. They laid their discomfiture before him. They begged +him to pull them out of the hole. It was too much in the circumstances +to refuse men he counted on when he, himself, needed friends, but he +yielded with an ill grace: "What do you want me to do?" he demanded +finally. + +They told him. He would not stand up before a target, nor would he +shoot in competition with anybody else. + +"I've only got a few cartridges, anyway," he objected. "Suppose when +they're shot away these fellows get a fight going on me?" + +It was argued that there were enough gunmen in the Sleepy Cat crowd for +defensive purposes and that there was no end of available ammunition. +A way was found to meet Laramie's objection on every point and it only +remained to hatch up a scheme for lightening the cattlemen's pockets. + +With Carpy, Lefever and Sawdy, Laramie sat down apart. An exchange of +views took place. Sawdy had in mind something he had once seen Laramie +achieve and on this--and the possibility of its success--the talk +centered. The feat, it was conceded, would be a stiff one. It was put +up to Laramie; he consented, after some wrangling and with misgivings, +to try to save the day for his misguided Sleepy Cat friends. The +moment consent was assured, his backers hurried away in a body--McAlpin +as crier, Lefever and Sawdy to raise money, and Carpy to bully Van Horn +and Stone and their following. + +The news that Laramie would shoot caused a stir. Not everyone present +had seen him shoot. His reputed mastery of rifle and gun was often in +question; and no more grueling test before friends and enemies could +ever be given than what he was to attempt now. + +Not everyone got clearly as the talk went on just what the trial was to +be. Sawdy having reinforced his resources, announced the event as +Laramie against his record--to tie or to beat. + +Laramie, himself, unmindful of the controversy, held to the bench. He +was still sitting, head down, and still whittling, when Bradley came to +say the crowd was waiting. He asked Bradley to bring up his horse. + +Kate coming out of the house drew his attention. He threw away the +stick in his hand and rose. + +"I hear you are going to shoot," she said. + +"Can't get out of it very well, I guess." + +"You wouldn't shoot, the time I asked you to." + +"I didn't actually refuse, did I?" + +"Pretty near it." + +"It's a harder case today. Your men have got all the money. My +friends are broke. And they've asked me to help them out somehow. +That's the only reason. If you really want to see me shoot, all you've +got to do is to tell me the next time you see me." + +"Oh, I'm going to see you shoot now." She looked at the gun holster +slung at his left hip. "I hear you are left-handed." + +"They've got work enough lined up today for two hands." + +Bradley returned with the horse and climbed awkwardly down from the +saddle. Laramie tried the cinches and turned to Kate. + +"Are you all ready?" she asked. + +"Just about." + +"You try the cinches; I should think you'd want to try your gun." + +"I tried that this morning before I left home. All I've got to do +before I begin is to slip an extra cartridge into the cylinder." + +Leading his pony, Laramie, clinging to the talk as long as he could, +walked with Kate toward the creek. Leaving her on a slight rise, where +he told her he thought she could see, he got into the saddle and rode +down to where the crowd had assembled. + +On a stretch of the trail extending along the creek, John Frying Pan, +under the direction of Sawdy and Van Horn, was placing at intervals of +from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards a series of targets. These +were ordinary potatoes, left over from the barbecue, but selected with +great care as to size and shape by the man whose money was up--Sawdy; +Frying Pan's work was to impale them on low-growing scrub along the +trail to serve as targets. Against these targets--six in +number--Laramie was to undertake to ride and to split five out of the +six as he galloped past them with six and no more bullets. The +potatoes were up when Laramie joined Sawdy, and Lefever with leather +lungs announced the terms of the test. Accompanied by Sawdy, Van Horn +and Frying Pan, Laramie rode slowly down the course--a quarter of a +mile long--examining the roadway and the targets. Here and there a +loose stone was removed from the trail; one potato was moved from a dip +in the course to a safer point; one was raised and one placed more +clearly in sight. + +Having ridden to the end, Laramie expressed himself as satisfied with +the conditions. Alone, he went back over the course and starting down +the creek made a trial heat at full speed past the targets. One of +these at his request was shifted again. While he watched this change, +Sawdy and Lefever, surrounded by their followers, were crowding him as +race touts crowd a favorite jockey with final words of admonition and +advice. When the one target was satisfactorily adjusted, Laramie +breaking away from everybody returned alone to the starting point. +Dismounting, and taking his time to everything, he again tested his +cinches, drew his gun from its holster and breaking it slipped a sixth +cartridge into the cylinder. Dropping the gun back into place, he +pulled his hat a little lower, glanced down the course and up toward +the little hill on which he had parted from Kate. She was standing +where he left her but Van Horn had ridden up and, joining Kate, was +talking to her. While she listened to him she watched the preparations +below. + +Laramie spoke to his pony, patted him on the neck and mounted. +Wheeling, he swung out into a wide circle across the level bench and +with gradually increasing speed into a measured gallop. Molded into +one flesh with his mount, Laramie, impassive in the saddle as a statue, +watched and nursed to his liking the pony's gait. When the rhythm +suited, he urged the horse to a longer stride and circling back into +the course, drew his gun, held it high in the air and, swinging it +slowly as if like a lariat, bore down at full speed on the first target. + +Markers for both sides in the betting stood to watch each potato. No +signal would mean the potato had been missed; for each hit, a hat was +to be thrown into the air. In a complete silence among the spectators +every eye was fixed on Laramie. Those close at hand saw him, with his +left arm still high in the air, sway slightly backward and slowly +forward, while with the circling gun poised at arm's length he shrank +closer and lower into the saddle. When he neared the first target, +throwing his left arm toward it like a bolt, he fired, sped on and was +again swinging his gun. He had hardly covered six more paces before a +hat was tossed into the air behind him. + +A yell went up from his friends. Horsemen wheeled into the course +behind the flying marksman. With five potatoes still to negotiate they +were afraid to cheer. But as one hat after another along the shooting +line--the second, the third and the fourth--were tossed up from the +target behind the speeding horseman, the Sleepy Cat men bellowed with +joyful confidence. The fifth target was of unusual distance--a hundred +and fifty yards--from the fourth. Leaving the fourth, Laramie's horse +broke and the onlookers saw that his rider was in trouble. He kept the +swing of his gun without breaking the rhythm, but his efforts were in +his bridle arm to steady his horse. + +The hopes of his backers fell as they saw how stubborn the pony had +become. The hundred and fifty yards were barely enough to bring him +under control. Laramie still circling his raised gun did bring him +under. But he was already nearing the fifth target. And to the horror +of his friends passed it without attempting to fire. + +Of the two chances left him to tie--which meant to win--he had passed +up one; the sixth and last meant life or death to the shaken hopes of +his backers. + +They saw him settled once more into the long, even stride he needed for +the shot and their breaths hung on each flying leap that brought the +rider nearer his last chance. The sixth target was separated by barely +fifty yards from the fifth. Laramie had covered half the distance when +he completely reversed his form. He stretched gradually up in the +saddle and riding close in on the target itself, rose to his full +height in the stirrups and smashed his fifth shot almost straight down +on it; the potato split into a dozen fragments. Bill Bradley at the +sixth was watching for Sawdy; his hat sailed twenty feet in the air. +The yelling crowd rode Laramie down as he galloped in a long circle +back, his lines swung on his forearm, while he slipped four fresh +cartridges into the warm cylinder of his revolver. + +He dismounted to ease his cinches. "I guess I over-did it," he +explained to the friends that crowded closest. "I got the cinches a +little tight. The pony didn't like it. I couldn't get the gait in +time for the Number Five. But I knew I could make Number Six." + +Remounting, he made his way through the crowd back over the course. +Kate was still on the hill. "You won, didn't you?" she cried as he +rode toward her. + +"If I hadn't, I guess I'd have had to head straight across the creek +for home. Could you see?" + +"I watched you the whole way. What a long arm you have." + +"While these tin horns are counting their money, would you like to show +me the ponies?" + +"You have a long memory, too." + +"I was brought up a good deal with Indians. Shall I hunt up Van Horn +to go with us?" + +She darted a quick glance at him: "Why, yes, surely," she retorted, "if +you want him." + +Laramie was tearing out a cigarette paper: "I could look at them +without him," he returned calmly. + +"I don't see him, anyway," murmured Kate, professing to sweep the +crowded course with her eyes. + +"Don't look too hard," cautioned Laramie. + +"I suppose we might save time," she suggested, ignoring his last +remark, "by going without him." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LEFEVER ASKS QUESTIONS + +Those closest to headquarters sometimes know least of what is going on. +That the big celebration at the ranch could have been anything more or +less than what it professed to be, did not occur to Kate; nor could +anyone actually say that it was more or less. Hawk could +contemptuously refuse its overtures; Laramie could for reasons of his +own accept them; the Falling Wall rustlers were out for a good time or +they would not have been rustling and they would celebrate any time at +anybody's expense--except their own; Carpy could believe it was to +usher in a better feeling--everyone to his taste. + +But the suspicious, because they did not quite understand such a move, +harbored their suspicions, and among the doubting was Belle +Shockley--shrewd and very much alive to the drift of things since her +struggle with a cyclone. Had Belle, instead of Kate, been out at the +ranch, things now coming along that Kate failed to see, would have told +volumes to her. + +But Kate did not feel at liberty to make of Belle a confidant in +everything--certainly not in what happened at home; so she neither said +anything to Belle nor asked of her any explanation of things that she +herself did not understand--such as guarded and more frequent +consultations between her father and Van Horn, Pettigrew and Stone; and +such as men riding up with a clatter to the ranch-house at night and +calling Doubleday out and calling for Van Horn who often now spent the +night at the ranch and left before daybreak. + +Some of this, Kate saw. She could see how absent-minded her father +was. He grew so taciturn she hardly knew him but the reason for it was +beyond her. More than she saw, she picked up from Bradley, working +then at the ranch. Bradley had taken a liking to Kate and often +reminded her of the night he brought her into the Falling Wall country. + +Whenever she was in Sleepy Cat, Belle was inquisitive. She always +wanted to know what Van Horn was doing, what her father was doing, and +then fell back on vaguely general questions about ranches and the range +and rustlers. More than once she spoke of strangers in town, Texas +men--cowboys and gunmen she called them--who bothered her for meals, +and whom she scornfully sent packing. + +And Henry Sawdy, too, one of her frequent visitors, was trying to court +her, she complained; all this made her suspicious. Of whom? Of what? +Kate asked. Belle could not tell exactly of whom, of what--she was +just suspicious: "Why should that big fat man come courting me?" she +demanded one day when Kate had come in for lunch. + +"You don't think it possible he likes you?" suggested Kate, barely +glancing Belle's way, and taking care to make her tone very skeptical. +Belle only snorted contemptuously and turned to her cooking; but as she +did so, she gave her wig a punch. + +By the merest chance, John Lefever came in a few minutes later. Belle +and Kate were at the table. John asked for something to eat. When +Belle wanted to be rid of him he refused "no" for an answer: + +"You wouldn't send me away without a cup of coffee, would you? No +potatoes? Well, I never eat potatoes"--John coughed. "They are +fattening." Then he looked up cheerfully as if a new idea had struck +him: "What's the matter with a little soft-boiled ice cream?" + +The upshot was that he had to be asked to share the lunch which he did +with relish, paying his way with his usual foolery. When the plates +were emptied and John had officiously asked leave to light a cigarette, +he glanced toward the folding bed and asked Belle to play something. + +"That's no piano," exclaimed Belle, with contempt. "That's a bed." + +John seemed undisturbed: "Curious," he mused, "we used to have an +upright piano at home with that same kind of wood, same pattern +exactly; you could have that bed made over into a piano, Belle. +Straighten out the springs and you wouldn't have to buy hardly any wire +at all." + +Belle stared at him: "Where would I sleep if I did?" she demanded. + +John threw back his head, blew a delicate puff of smoke toward the +ceiling and looked across at his unsympathetic hostess. Then he +brought his fist down on the table; "Marry me, Belle, and sleep in a +regular bed! What?" + +Belle was justly indignant. Kate's laughing made her more indignant. +For John had fairly bubbled his proposal through a laugh of his own. + +"I used to sleep in a box like that myself," he went on. "But the year +it was so dry the grasshoppers got into it." John coughed again +unobtrusively. "I raffled that bed off," he continued, low and +reminiscently. "A conductor won it. But it didn't fool him. He knew +the bed as well as I did; he'd slept in it. So I bought it in again, +cheap, and traded it to an old Indian buck--a one-eyed man--for a pony. +Many a time I've laughed, thinking of that bed up on the Reservation. +Those bucks, you know, are desperate gamblers. I understand they've +been playing hearts with that blamed bed ever since and putting it on +the high man." + +At this, John laughed harder than ever, Belle sputtering as she watched +him. + +Then he turned his amiable face on Kate: "How are you all at the home?" + +"Very well." + +"What's the news up your way?" + +"Not a thing since the Fourth of July." + +"Father pretty well?" + +"Quite." + +"When did you see him last?" + +It was an odd question: "Last night--why?" asked Kate in turn. + +"He didn't come in town with you today?" countered John. + +"He rarely does," said Kate. + +John nodded soothing assent to her explanation: "How's Van Horn?" he +asked casually. "And Stone?" he added, with undiminished interest. +"All well," was his echo to her perfunctory answers. "Say, Belle, was +Jim Laramie in town yesterday?" + +Belle shook her head. "How about the day before?" he asked. Again she +said, "no"; and went on with an impatient comment of her own: "You're +always asking questions. What for? That's what I want to know." + +John laid his cigarette on the rim of his plate and appealed to Kate: +"Did you ever in your life see a more unreasonable woman than Belle? +How am I to find things out without asking questions of my friends? +And among them I number you both," he added. + +Leaning forward, he spoke on: "Now I'll tell you why I asked those +harmless little questions--for I wouldn't ask either of you any other +kind. This news will get to each of you, about evening. By morning it +will be all over Sleepy Cat and by tomorrow noon across the Spanish +Sinks. This morning, early, Van Horn, Tom Stone, Pettigrew with +Bradley, and a bunch of Texas men and cowboys rode over into the +Falling Wall country and there's been hell to pay there every minute +since daylight--that's the word I got about half an hour ago, by +telephone, from a little ranch away up on the head-waters of the Crazy +Woman." + +He drew his handkerchief and wiped his brow. "The only man up +there--Belle knows that--that I'm any ways interested in, is Jim +Laramie. According to what I can hear, Jim is home. That's worrying +me just a little. + +"What will Jim do? That's what I'm thinking of. How will he stack up +if that bunch goes to his ranch on the Turkey? He hates 'em like +poison. They've gone up there, you understand," he added, speaking to +Kate, as if some further explanation were due a comparative stranger, +"to clean out the rustlers. You can imagine it'll be done--or at least +attempted--without much talk. There won't be very much talk. I've +known for some little time what's been going forward. They tried to +get Jim to join them; offered him about anything he wanted; offered to +see that the contests on his preemption and homestead be withdrawn; +offered him quite a bunch of cattle, I heard; and some money." + +Belle's face, her staring eyes and strained expression as she listened, +showed how well she knew what the news meant. "What answer did Jim +give?" she asked anxiously. + +"From what I can pick up," declared John, dropping calmly into the +inelegant expression, "he told 'em to go to hell. + +"That's what I'm worrying about now. Not about their going, but about +what Jim will do. What do you think, Belle?" + +Belle shook her head; she offered no comment. + +"And," John added, looking at Kate, "that was hatched mostly, right at +your place. And they rode away from there about two o'clock this +morning. That's why I was pumping you a little, till I see you didn't +know a thing about it." + +Why Kate had not asked before, she could not tell; but the possibility +never crossed her mind--until Lefever told her of their starting from +the ranch that morning--that her father might have gone. She +recollected now she had not seen him, as she usually saw him, the first +thing when she came from her room. Her heart leaped into her throat: +"Was my father with them?" she asked. + +She must have shown her excitement and fear in her manner, as well as +in her words, for Lefever looked at her considerately: "According to my +reports," he answered carefully, "your father was with them." + +"Godfrey!" muttered Belle. Kate could say nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE RAID OF THE FALLING WALL + +Against the alert, the effective blow is a sudden blow. Secrecy, and a +surprise, were the only hope of success in what the cattlemen were now +attempting in the Falling Wall. Of the men on whom they could count to +organize and carry through such a raid, they had just one capable of +energizing every detail--Harry Van Horn. Laramie, the man Doubleday +and Pettigrew would have chosen, they had failed to enlist, and what +was more serious--though this, perhaps, Doubleday did not realize--they +had likewise failed to rid themselves of; Tom Stone had bungled. + +But Doubleday in especial was not a man to lose time over a failure. +He knew that Van Horn had "go" enough in him to clean out a whole +county if he were given the men and backing, and that he stood high in +the councils of the range. When Van Horn spoke, men listened. His eye +flashed with his words and his long, straight hair shook defiance at +opposition. He swore with a staccato that really meant things and cut +like a knife. When once started, mercy was not in him. + +In the Falling Wall park there lived a mere handful of men, and these +widely scattered; but Van Horn was the last man to underestimate the +handful he was after. He knew them every one, and knew that no better +men ever rode the range than Stormy Gorman, Dutch Henry, Yankee +Robinson and Abe Hawk, and their associates--if, indeed, for a man that +never mixed with other men, Hawk could be said to have associates. + +But the four named were the men to whom the lesser rustlers of the park +looked; the men whose exploits they imitated, and these were the men on +whose heads a price had, in effect, been set. + +Van Horn assembled his men, earlier than Lefever had been informed. An +old trail from Doubleday's ranch to the Falling Wall crosses the road +to the Fort some distance north of Sleepy Cat. The party from the +ranch--Tom Stone with some of the most reckless cowboys and +Doubleday--waited there for the Texans whom Van Horn was bringing from +Pettigrew's. Both parties were at the rendezvous that night by twelve +o'clock, and within thirty minutes were headed north by way of the +Crazy Woman for Falling Wall park. + +The night for the raid had been chosen. The sky was overcast, and when +the party left the crossing between twelve and one o'clock their exact +destination was still a secret to the greater number. Small ranchers +along the creek might have wakened at the smart clatter of so many +horses, but men to and from the Fort traveled late at times and made +even more noise. This night there were riders abroad; but there was no +singing. + +Dawn was whitening the eastern sky when the raiding party halted near a +clump of trees on the south fork of the Turkey. The valley into which +they had ridden during the night was very broken, but offered good +grazing. Along the tortuous water course, Stormy Gorman, the old +prize-fighter, and Dutch Henry, the ex-soldier, had preempted two of +the very few pieces of land that did not stand directly on edge and +built for themselves cabins. Gorman's cabin lay a mile above the fork +where the raiders had halted; Henry's lay a few miles farther up the +creek. + +During the long night ride it had been decided to strike at Gorman's +ranch first; thence to follow the creek trail up to Dutch Henry's, +despatch him in turn, to cross rapidly a narrow rough divide beyond +which they could reach Hawk's cabin on the east fork of the Turkey and +thence sweep into the northwest to clean out the smaller fry--the +"chicken feed" rustlers--as Van Horn called them. But toward morning, +following much ill-natured dispute between Stone and Van Horn, the +tactics were changed. It was decided to go after Dutch Henry first--as +the more alert and slippery of the two--and as quietly as possible the +silent invaders rode slowly along the creek past Gorman's place up to +Henry's. + +Day was breaking as the riders, dismounting and leaving their horses on +the creek bottom, crept noiselessly, under Stone's guidance, up a wash +to the bench on which Henry's cabin stood. Hiding just below a shallow +bank at the head of a draw, they lay awaiting developments. Where +Stone had posted them they commanded the cabin perfectly. He had lived +part of one year with Henry when they two preyed jointly on the range +and he knew the ground well. + +They had hardly disposed of themselves in this manner and were +beginning, in the gray dusk, to distinguish objects with some +certainty, when the door of the distant cabin opened and a mongrel +collie bounded out followed by a man who left the door ajar. The man, +carrying a water pail, set it down, yawned, stretched himself and +tucked his shirt slowly inside his trousers. Wild with joy the dog +danced, leaped and barked about his master--only to be rewarded by a +kick that sent him yelping to a little distance, where turning, +crouching with extended paws, whining and frantically wagging his tail, +the poor beast tried to beg forgiveness for its half-starved happiness. +The man, giving this demonstration no heed, picked up the pail and +started for the creek. + +His path took him in a direction roughly parallel to the line along +which his hidden enemy lay. + +"Don't fire at that man," exclaimed Van Horn to his companions under +cover of the draw. "That's not Dutch Henry," he whispered the next +moment. "Don't fire. I'll take care of him." + +The rustler, quite unconscious of his deadly danger, tramped unevenly +on. His dog, no longer repulsed, dashed joyously back and forth, +scenting the trails of the night and barking wildly at his master by +turns. The man was walking hardly three hundred yards from where +Stone, rifle in hand, lay, and had reached the footpath leading from +the bench to the creek bottom when Stone, half rising, covered him +slowly with point-blank sights. In the path ahead, the dog had struck +a fresh gopher hole and, still yelping, was pawing madly into it, when +a rifle cracked. The man with the pail, swung violently half around by +the shock of a spreading bullet, jerked convulsively and the pail flew +clattering from his hand. He struggled an instant to keep his footing, +then collapsing, fell prone across the path and lay quite still. + +Stone, followed by a man nearest him, scrambling down the draw, hurried +along the creek bottom, and ran up to reach the path where the murdered +man lay. The dog, barking and dashing wildly around his prostrate +master, spied the foreman and sprang furiously down the trail at him. +Stone, rifle in one hand and revolver in the other, was ready, and, +firing from the hip, broke the collie's back. With a howl the stricken +brute turned, and, dragging his helpless hindquarters along the ground +with incredible swiftness, pawed himself back to the dying man's head +and yelping, licked frantically at the hand of his master. Coming up +into plain sight, Stone got a good look at the man he had killed: +"Stormy Gorman!" he exclaimed, with an oath of surprise. "Who'd 'a' +thought," he continued, "that big bum would be up at Dutch Henry's this +morning!" + +The old prize-fighter was struggling in his last round. His +heavy-lidded eyes, swollen with drink and sleep, were closed, and from +his mouth, as his head hung to one side, a dark stream ran to a little +pool in the dust. Only a stertorous breathing reflected his effort to +live and even this was fast failing. Van Horn hurried up the path from +the bottom, whither he had followed Stone; anger was all over his face: +"Kill that damned dog," he exclaimed, out of breath, to those about +him. Two of the three men drew revolvers and shot the collie through +the head. + +"Damnation!" cried Van Horn in a fury. "Stop your shooting. Couldn't +you knock him in the head? Do you want to start up the whole country?" +he demanded, as he saw the man who lay at his feet and had taken the +brief count for eternity was Gorman. He turned on Stone with rage in +his eyes and his voice: "Now," he cried, punctuating his abuse with the +fiercest gestures, "you've done it, haven't you!" Anger almost choked +him. "You've got Gorman with a brass band and left Dutch Henry in the +cabin waiting for us, haven't you? Why," he roared, "didn't you obey +orders, let this tank get down to the bottom and knock him on the head +into the creek?" A violent recrimination between Stone and Van Horn +followed. But the milk was spilt as well as the blood of the stubborn +rustler, and there was nothing for it but new dispositions. + +Gorman's presence indicated that Henry was at home. If he were at +home, he was, no doubt, within the cabin; but just how, after Stone's +blunder, to get at him, was a vexing question. + +Van Horn started down the foot trail back to the bottom and around to +the first hiding place. Lingering with a companion to look at Gorman +in his blood, Stone turned for approval: "See where I hit him?" he +grinned. "Poor light, too." + +A brief council was held in the draw. Watched for more than an hour, +not the slightest sign of life about the lonely cabin could be +detected. Various expedients, none of them very novel, were tried to +draw Henry's fire should he be within. But these were of no avail. A +dozen theories were advanced as to where Henry might or might not be. +To every appearance there was not, so far as the enemy could judge, a +living man within miles of the spot. The older heads, Pettigrew, +Doubleday, Van Horn, even Stone, talked less than the others; but they +were by no means convinced that the house was empty. + +One of the least patient of the cowboys at length deliberately exposed +himself to fire from the sphinx-like cabin. He stood up and walked up +and down the edge of the draw. Nothing happened. Emboldened, he +started out into the open and toward the cabin. No shot greeted him. +A companion, jumping up, hurried after him; a third, a Texas boy, +sprang up to join them. For those watching from hiding it was a +ticklish moment. Toward the draw there was a considerable growth of +mountain blue-stem, none of it very high and gradually shortening +nearer the house. The three men were hastening through the grass, +separated by intervals of perhaps fifty feet. The foremost got within +a hundred yards of the cabin door, which still stood open as Gorman had +left it, before Van Horn's fear of an ambush vanished. He himself, not +to be too far behind his followers, then rose to join the procession +through the blue stem and the crack of a rifle was heard. Van Horn, +with a shout of warning, dropped unhurt into the draw. But the last +man of the three in the field stumbled as if struck by an ax. Of the +two men ahead of him, the hindermost dropped into the grass and crawled +snakelike back; the man in front dropped his rifle and started at top +speed for safety; from the edge of the draw his companions sent a +fusillade of rifle fire at the cabin. + +Apparently the diversion had no effect on the marksman within. He +fired again; this time at the Texan crawling in the blue stem, and the +half-hidden man, almost lifted from the ground by the blow of the +bullet, dropped limp. Meantime the first cowboy in his dash for safety +was making a record still unequaled in mountain story. He jumped like +a broncho and zig-zagged like a darting bird, but faster than either. +The efforts of his companions to divert attention from him were +constant. Some of them poured bullets at the cabin. Others jumped to +their feet, and, yelling, sprang from point to point to expose +themselves momentarily and draw the fire of the enemy. This was of no +avail. The hidden rifle with deliberate instancy cracked once more. +The fleeing cowboy, slammed as if by a club, dashed on, but his right +arm hung limp. No snipe ever made half the race for life that he put +up in those fleeting seconds; and by his agility he earned then and +there the nickname of the bird itself, for before the deadly sights +could cover his flight again he threw himself into a slight depression +that effectually hid him from the range of the enemy. + +A swarm of hornets, roused, could not have been more furious than the +company under the lee of the draw. Shooting, shouting, cursing deep +and loud, they made continual effort to keep the deadly fire off their +fallen companions. They saw the half-open door of the cabin swing now +slowly shut and they riddled it with bullets. They splintered the logs +about it and, scattering in as wide an arc as they dare, continued to +pour a fire into the silent cabin. At intervals they paused to wait +for a return. There was no return. All ruses they had ever heard of +they tried over again to draw a fire and exhaust the besieged man's +ammunition. Nothing moved the lone enemy--if he were, indeed, alone. +The day wore into afternoon. By shouting, the assailants learned that +two of their three hapless companions lying in the blue stem were still +alive--the Snipe very much alive, as his stentorian answers indicated. +He called vigorously for water but got none. His refuge was too +exposed. + +How to get rid of Dutch Henry taxed the wits of the invaders. The +whole morning and the early afternoon went to pot-luck firing from the +trench along the draw, but although it was often asserted that Henry +must long since be dead--having returned none of the shooting that was +meant to call his fire--no one manifested the curiosity necessary to +prove the assertion by closing in on the cabin. Stone was still +sulking over Van Horn's sharp talk of the morning when Van Horn came +over to where the foreman had posted himself to cover the cabin door: +"We've got to get that guy before dark, Tom, or he'll slip us." + +"All right," replied Stone, "get him." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE GO-DEVIL + +"I want a wagon," scowled Van Horn. "There's one down at Gorman's +place he won't need any more. There's some baled hay down there, too. +Take the men you need, load what hay you can find on the wagon and +hustle it up here." + +Too stubborn to ask questions, and only starting after many hard +words--with which all the ground of the morning quarrel and much more +was traversed--Stone took two men and started reluctantly for Gorman's. +He spent a long time on his job, but came back as directed with the +wagon loaded with hay. + +The wagon was not much to view. It looked like the wagon of a man that +spent more time in Sleepy Cat saloons than on his ranch. A rack, +equally old and dilapidated, had been set on the running gear. The +paint had long since blown off the wheels, and one of these, a front +wheel, had lost a tire on the rough trip up the creek. But the felloes +hung to the spokes and the spokes to the hub. + +Van Horn inspected the outfit grimly. With half a dozen men he set +quickly to work and under his resourceful ingenuity the wagon and hay +were speedily turned into what would now-a-days be termed a tank. Only +lack of hay kept him from making a mobile fortress of it. By means of +wire he slung along the sides what baled hay he could spare, and with +much effort to avoid exposure the armored wagon was dragged over the +roughest kind of ground, to the north and west of the cabin. From this +direction the ground, fairly smooth, sloped from a ridge fringed by +jutting patches of rock, directly toward the cabin itself and eager +hands made the final preparations to smoke Henry out. With the load of +hay set ablaze and the wagon run down against the cabin the defender +was bound to be driven from cover or burnt. + +When the bustling, contradicting and confusion finally subsided, the +wagon was stealthily pushed over the ridge, the hay fired and the +blazing outfit, christened a go-devil, was started with a shout down +the slope. + +If there existed in the minds of those that talked least a lingering +suspicion that Dutch Henry was still alive it was soon strongly +justified. Before the wagon had rolled twenty feet the challenge of a +rifle-shot from the cabin answered the attack. Everybody dodged quick, +but no one was hit and a yell of derision rose from behind the rocks. +With ropes, borrowed from the men that carried them, and knotted +together, the wagon was kept under partial control and the line, as +paid out, served in some measure to guide it. On it went accompanied +with shouts and yells. From the threatened cabin came no answering +defiance. Henry's case looked bad as the wagon rolled down on him, but +his rifle fire, though seemingly wasted, answered unflinchingly. + +Stone danced with joy: "He'll be running the gauntlet next clip. He's +not hitting anybody. He must be shooting," yelled the excited foreman, +"at the blamed wagon." + +A steady fire, undismayed, did continue to come from the cabin. Van +Horn, who had run to the extreme right of the new sector, and was +keeping a close watch on the go-devil, was the first to perceive +trouble. "Hell's delight, boys," he cried, taken aback, "he's shooting +up the wheels." + +The words flew around behind the rocks. The rifle fire was explained. +Every eye was turned to the danger point, the wheel without the tire +which, as the wagon wobbled, was unluckily exposed to the cabin fire. +It could easily be seen where the deliberate marksman was getting in +his work. He had knocked one felloe off the rim and was hitting at the +spokes. It began to look like a race between the burning wagon and +Henry at bay. The hay was a mound of flame and sparks and smoke shot +high into the air. A hundred feet more would lodge the fire trap +against the rear wall of the cabin. But under the steady pounding of a +rifle that seemed never to miss its mark the injured wheel showed fast +increasing signs of distress. A second felloe was tracking uncertainly. + +As a diversion, Van Horn, active, energetic and covering every part of +his little line at once, ordered an incessant fire centered on the +threatened cabin. Nothing seemed to check the regular report of the +hidden high-powered rifle and the bullets that were splintering the old +oak spokes. When the roaring wagon struck a loose stone or rough spot +in its trackless path it wobbled and hesitated. Yet, jerked, steadied, +halted and started by means of the long cable, it rolled to within +twenty yards of its mark. There it pitched a bit, recovered and for +another ten yards sailed down a smooth piece of ground. The cowboys +were yelling their loudest when a lucky shot from the cabin knocked off +a second felloe. A second and third shot smashed rapidly through the +spokes of the staggering wheel. A threatening boulder lying to the +right of the wagon's course could not be avoided. The men on the line +jerked and swore. It was useless. One side of the wheel collapsed, +the front axle swung around and the blazing wagon straddled the +troublesome boulder like a stranded ship. The men guiding heaved to on +the line--it parted; the cabin stood safe. + +At once, the rifle fire from the cabin ceased. No taunt, no threat +could draw another shot from the silence. Chagrined, eyes flashing, +silent in his defeat, Van Horn, contemplating the last of the burning +wagon and watching the cabin as a dog, baffled, watches a cat on a +fence, was let alone even by the most reckless of his companions; for +the failure no one tried to bait him. Nor were he and Doubleday ready +to quit. They got ready a circle of fires to block any attempt made to +escape the beleaguered place after dark. This proved a difficult +undertaking, both because fuel was scarce and because the dead line, +drawn by the rifle fire of the wary defender, extended a long way in +every direction around his log refuge. + +The night, however, was fairly clear and a pretty good moon was due by +ten o'clock. The fires were lighted, not without some sharp objection +from the cabin, the moment darkness fell. The difficulty then was to +keep them replenished and maintain an adequate guard. Dark spots and +shadows fell within and across the circle around the cabin. Van Horn +ordered a rifle fire directed into these places; it was placed so +persistently that when the moon rose, the besiegers felt pretty +confident Henry had not escaped. And just before its light had +penetrated the narrow valley, the invaders had a cheering surprise when +the wounded man, nicknamed "The Snipe," crawled from his hollow between +the lines back to his comrades and told them in immoderate terms what +he thought of them for leaving him wounded and thirsty under the enemy +fire. Volunteers, inspired by his abuse, crawled out to the second man +that had fallen in the morning and by really heroic effort got him back +into the draw; badly hit, he was given long-needed attention. The +first man, shot through the head, the rescuers reported dead. + +When midnight came, the men had been fed and the watch well maintained. +A steer, interned earlier, had been cut up for the men's supper and Van +Horn and Doubleday were seated together before the camp fire near the +creek eating some of the reserve chunks of meat when a hurried alarm +called them up the draw--the cabin was on fire. + +Nothing could have happened to take the besiegers more by surprise. +There was hasty questioning but no explanation. Of all the +possibilities of the night none could have been so unexpected. But +whatever the cause, and theories were broached fast, the cabin was +ablaze. Smoke could be seen pouring through the chinks in the roof and +little tongues of flame darted out at the rear under the eaves. Though +there was not a breath of air stirring, the roof within fifteen minutes +was in flames and the cowboys, confident of victory, set up, Indian +fashion, their death chant for Dutch Henry. + +The old shack made a good fire. The roof collapsed and with the +incantations of the cowboys, the stout walls, worm-eaten and +bullet-splintered, falling gradually, blazed on. + +"The jig's up here, boys," announced Van Horn, as the fire burned down. +"The two biggest thieves on the range are accounted for. It's a good +job. If I guess right you'll find the Dutchman in the fire. Yankee +Robinson's next. He won't put up much of a fight, but the hardest man +to get is still ahead of us. This was a boy's job beside rounding up +Abe Hawk. He'll never be taken alive, because he knows what's comin' +to him. + +"There's not a minute to lose now. Stone and I will take two of your +men, Barb, and round up Yankee Robinson. From there we'll ride over to +Abe's place on the Turkey. About our only chance is to catch him +before he's up. If he's got wind of this, we'll have a hell of a chase +to get him. Feed the horses, the rest of you eat, and we're off! You +can follow us with Pettigrew and the bunch, Doubleday, just as soon as +you look the cabin over after daylight." Within half an hour Van Horn +and Stone and the two men crossed the creek, rode into the hills and +disappeared into the night. + +Setting a watch, Doubleday and his men curled up on the ground. When +earliest dawn streaked the sky the logs were still smoking, and the +cowboys, rifles in hand, walked down to where the cabin had stood. + +Everything within the walls had been consumed. Long after daylight, +with some of the men asleep, and others waiting for the fire to cool, +one of Doubleday's cowboys, poking about the sill log of the rear wall +with a stick, gave a shout. What had been taken for a half-burned log +was the charred body of a man. The invaders gathered and the body was +presently declared by those who knew him well to be that of Dutch +Henry. There was nothing more to detain the men that were waiting. +The cowboy worst wounded had started with a companion for home. The +Snipe insisted on going on with Doubleday. + +The horses had been left in good grass a little way down the creek. +When they were disturbed it was found that one was missing. A hurried +search failed to recover the horse. + +While trackers were at work, the Snipe, always alert, found a clue that +upset all calculations. It was a small dark red spot soaked into the +dust of the creek trail. It was very small, such as might have been +made by a single drop of blood; but one such sign was enough to put on +inquiry a man versed like the Snipe in mountain craft. Keeping his +discovery to himself, he tracked back and forth from his single spot, +almost invisible in the dust, until he found a second similar spot. +This he marked, and dodging and circling, like a hound on a scent, the +Snipe ran his trail from his first tiny spot to the trees near the +creek where the horses had been left. Doubling, he patiently tracked +the telltale spots up the path that led to the cabin. Then he called +to Barb. + +Doubleday, much out of temper, was in the saddle waiting to get +started. He bawled at the Snipe, and not amiably. + +"Keep cool," was the answer; "I'm 'a' comin'. But look here before you +start; there was two men in that cabin, Barb." + +"What are you givin' us?" blurted out a cowboy. Doubleday stared +ferociously. "There was two of 'em, boys," persisted the Snipe. + +"You must 'a' seen double when you was runnin'," was the skeptical +suggestion of another man. But Doubleday listened. + +The Snipe took him from the cabin down to the creek. Then back to the +cabin. There he showed him where someone had dug what might have been +a hole under the sill log, near the door. + +A horse was certainly missing. Then, shells from two different rifles +were picked out of the ashes. One size had been fired from a +Winchester rifle; the others, much more numerous, belonged to a Marlin. + +"Who was it, Barney?" asked Doubleday, breathing heavily. He was so +wrought up and so hoarse he could hardly frame the words. But he was +already convinced. + +The Snipe shook his head. "There's two or three fellows up here shoots +a Marlin rifle. If I got one guess on this man that's made his +get-away, Barb, I'd say----" The Snipe poked further into the ashes. + +"Well, say!" thundered Doubleday. + +"I'd say it was Abe Hawk." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +VAN HORN TRAILS HAWK + +A bomb exploding in the smoking remnants could hardly have caused more +consternation among the man hunters than the Snipe's naming of Abe +Hawk. But however Doubleday's jaw set at the unwelcome surprise he was +not the one to swerve in the face of any personal danger, and those +with him were not men to bolt whatever adventure they embarked in. +However, it was remarked by the Snipe that those least acquainted with +Abe were least disturbed by the news of his almost certain presence in +the cabin the day and night before and his escape after the fight. + +Common prudence made it necessary to cross the small divide with care +and to get word of the unpleasant discovery as soon as possible to Van +Horn in order that he and his companions might not be picked off by the +wounded man from ambush. The Snipe was assigned to Hawk's trail and +two men were sent to the wings to scout for him among the rocks. +Bradley rode to warn Van Horn; but the old man did not sweat his horse +in the effort. + +The trackers soon made it plain to those behind that the escaping man +had ridden a pretty straight course himself, and had picked his way in +the night like one thoroughly at home in the hills of the Turkey. And +though losing the trail at times, the Snipe had no serious trouble in +picking it again from the grass or the rocks. + +The country lying north of the forks of the Turkey is rougher than to +the south and pretty well covered with pine. On the Northern slope, +Hawk's trail led down a long and winding break mile after mile and in +the end pointed straight for his shack on the creek. + +Moving as nearly as possible in the order in which they had started, +the party emerged from the hills half a mile from the creek, and not +much farther from Hawk's, when they encountered Bradley and Van Horn +with one of his men. Doubleday hoarsely asked for the news. + +Van Horn rode up close before he answered, and, though his tone was +confident, his manner showed his annoyance at the way things had +turned: "Robinson's shack was empty," he said. "Whether he got wind of +yesterday I don't know; anyway, he's skipped--there's nothing left on +his place." + +"What's there to this talk of Barney's about Abe Hawk?" demanded +Doubleday. + +"From what Bradley says, it looks as if he might be right," said Van +Horn. "The horse Hawk took is eating grass in front of his cabin; we +saw him when we got here and waited for Hawk to show himself." + +"He didn't do it," interrupted Doubleday huskily and baring his teeth +as he spoke. + +"Stone's watching the place." + +"Is Abe there?" demanded Doubleday. + +"You tell," responded Van Horn. "He may or may not be. That horse may +be a stall. We've got to close in somehow on the shack and find out." + +A cowboy clattered up from the creek and pulled his horse to its +haunches between Doubleday and Van Horn: "He's just closed the door," +declared the cowboy. "The door was open when we got here--wasn't it, +Harry?" He pointed his finger at Van Horn in his excited appeal. + +Van Horn scowled and waved his head from side to side in irritation: +"The door was open, yes; the door is shut, yes." Then he swore at the +alarmist: "You blamed monkey," he pointed to the cottonwood. "Don't +you see how the wind is blowing? That door has been swinging half an +hour. The shack is empty." + +But nobody could be found with confidence enough in Van Horn's belief +to close in and demonstrate its truth. After a litany of hard words in +which everybody took more or less part, Van Horn declared he would +demonstrate. Whatever his faults, he was dead game, a formidable +antagonist in an encounter. He was risking his life on his belief that +either Hawk was disabled, or the cabin was empty. Stripping himself to +shirt and trousers, turning his effects over to a cowboy, bare-headed +and with only a six-shooter in hand, he shook out his long, brown hair, +hooked up his belt and started to crawl up a little wash breaking into +the creek not far from the cabin. + +There was no point from which he could be seen and his companions, +secreted where they could watch, bent their eyes along the course of +the wash up which their hidden leader was making his way. + +Fortunately for the slippery undertaking, Van Horn, by a little digging +as he made his way carefully ahead, was able to crawl to within fifty +feet of the door without exposing himself to fire. Reaching the +nearest spot he could attain with safety, he called in stentorian tones +to the cabin: + +"You're surrounded, Abe. You can't get away. If you want to +surrender, I'll guarantee your life. Come out unarmed and I'll meet +you unarmed. If not, it's what Gorman and Dutch Henry got, for you, +Abe." + +The cabin gave no answer back. But Van Horn would not be baffled. +Knowing it would be suicide to venture closer he patiently sought his +answer on the ground he now began to cover on his way back to the +creek. And on the ground he found it. + +"He's slipped us," Van Horn called out when Doubleday arrived, "but +I've got his trail." + +"Two hundred and fifty dollars to the man that gets him!" shouted +Doubleday, huskily. Some of the boys gave a whoop and began to look +around, but they did not scatter much. + +Van Horn, losing no time, led Doubleday part way up the break along +which he had crawled. Telltale traces of blood at irregular intervals, +sometimes imprinted as if by a hand on the flat face of rock that +bedded the wash; sometimes smeared on a starving bunch of grass, where +it clung desperately to a crevice in the scant soil--all so slight and +so well concealed that only the mere chance of Van Horn's crawling up +the very break chosen by Hawk for his escape to the creek had revealed +it to his pursuers. The tracker took the slender trail, followed the +wounded rustler to the creek bottom and thence down the creek to its +junction with the North Fork. There they lost the trail in a pool of +water, nor could they pick it up again. + +A mile below the fork of the Turkey stood Jim Laramie's cabin. The +raiders had already entered on his land; his cattle and some of his +horses were, in fact, grazing in and about the creek fork. The +following of Hawk's trail had been a nerve-racking job. Hawk, his +enemies knew, might be waiting at any turn in it and that meant, in all +probability, death for someone. In consequence, the pioneering fell +chiefly on Van Horn; even Stone showed little stomach for the job. But +the trail was completely lost. + +"There's a bunch of horses grazing at the fork," reported Van Horn, as +Doubleday reached the front, "Laramie's, I guess--anyway, the trail's +gone." + +A council was held. Doubleday, long-headed and crafty, listened to all +that was said. Van Horn finally asked for his opinion. + +"I don't know no more than the rest of you; but a blind man can figure +a few things out. He's hit, ain't he?" Barb put the question as one +not to be gainsaid and found none to say him nay. "He's looking for +help, that's more'n likely, ain't it? He's a mile from Jim Laramie's +cabin, not more; he's three miles from anybody else's--what?" he +exclaimed, as Bill Bradley interrupted to suggest that it was less than +two miles over to Ben Simeral's. "All right," shouted Barb, "Hawk's +here, ain't he? He's close to Laramie. Laramie's his friend. Where +would he go--what?" + +Chopping his ideas out as with an ax, Doubleday showed his companions +what they should have thought of without being told. "The thing to +do," he added, "is to go down to Laramie's cabin and see what we can +see--and find out what we can find out." + +It was precisely what Bradley had feared would happen, but there was no +escape from Doubleday's logic and no help for what others as well as +Bradley feared might follow. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HAWK QUARRELS WITH LARAMIE + +On the morning the raiders entered the Falling Wall, Laramie had +started with Henry Sawdy for the Reservation to appraise some allotted +Indian lands. Laramie rode home that night; Sawdy, promising to stop +at the ranch on his way down in the morning, stayed overnight at the +Fort with Colonel Pearson. Laramie got home late. He was asleep next +morning when a door was pushed open and a man walked unceremoniously in +on him. To what instinct some mountain men owe their composure when +disturbed in their sleep by a friend, as contrasted with the instant +defense they offer in like circumstances to an enemy, it would be +difficult to say--certainly there is a difference. + +Laramie half opened his eyes to realize that Abe Hawk had come into his +room and seated himself on the one chair. The sleepy man was not +inclined to wake up. "You're early, Abe," was his only greeting. Hawk +made no answer. + +After a further effort the drowsy man roused himself to the attention +that seemed demanded in the case: "Going somewhere?" he mumbled +perfunctorily. + +"Yes." Hawk's hard tone might have surprised his host for a moment; +but if it did, drowsiness overpowered his senses once more and it was +some time before he realized that his visitor was sitting silent at his +side and that he himself ought to say something. In protest he shifted +his comfortable position in bed: "Get your breakfast ready, Abe," he +suggested, hospitably, but with his heavy eyes closed. + +"I've had breakfast." + +"Where you bound for today?" + +"On a long trip." + +"Which way?" + +"Home." + +"What do you mean, 'home'?" + +"I mean hell, Larrie--the home long waiting for me." + +Laramie's eyes batted slowly. Not a half a dozen times in all their +long acquaintance had Hawk shortened Laramie's name in speaking to him; +and then only when he spoke as he rarely did from a depth always hidden +from the men among whom his wasted life had been spent. Roused by +something in the utterance of his guest, Laramie looked up. + +If the sight was a shock, the mountain man gave no outward sign of it. +The lower right side of Hawk's face had been torn away as if by some +explosion, and blood, darkened by clay and rude styptics, clotted the +long beard that naturally fell in a glossy black. His disordered +garments, blood-smeared and hanging loose--his coat sleeve and his +shirt torn from his forearm for bandages, his soft hat jammed low over +his eyes--for an instant, Laramie hardly recognized him. But the cold +black eyes that looked out of the wreck of a man before him pierced so +clearly the long shadows of the early light that Laramie had no choice +but to realize it was Hawk and even the shock only served to restrain +and steady him. He showed but little of his amazement when he sat up +and spoke quietly: "What's up, Abe?" + +"Night before last I was playing cards with Gorman over at Henry's. +After daylight Gorman went out for a bucket of water. We heard a rifle +crack. I looked out the window. Stormy was tumbling. + +"You know the draw that runs down past his corral? Barb Doubleday, +Pettigrew, Van Horn, Stone and a bunch of cowboys and Texas men lay in +that draw. It was hell to pay from daylight till dark. The Dutchman +got laid out cold right at the start. They tried to rush me. I +stopped three of 'em and dug myself in. We went at it hammer and +tongs. In the afternoon they put a hole through my whiskers. After +awhile they clipped my shoulder. Then I got a bullet through my arm." +He held up his left forearm swathed in a mass of soiled and +blood-soaked bandages. And he told of Van Horn's go-devil. + +"The raid's on," muttered Laramie. + +"Soon as it was dark, I began to dig under the sill," Hawk went on. +"They began lighting fires. I knew they couldn't keep those going a +great while. About ten o'clock I crawled out under the front sill and +got to the creek; I never was so gone for water in my life. I set a +candle so it would fire the shack when it burned down and sneaked a +horse from their bunch and got over to my place." He looked at his +arm. "I tried to keep things bound up. Maybe I left a little red +behind me. If I did, they'll be after me." + +His story haltingly told; his utterance through his torn cheek thick +and painful but savagely uncompromising; carrying a physical burden of +wounds that would have overwhelmed a lesser man but with a deadly hate +showing in his manner, Hawk, from sheer weakness, paused: "I went to my +cabin to look for more cartridges," he added slowly, "and not a one was +there left on the place." He hesitated again. "I didn't want to come +here----" + +Laramie sprang to his feet: "Where the hell else would you go?" + +Hawk heard unmoved the rough assurance; perhaps his eyes flashed, for +Laramie's voice rang strong and true. He already had his hand on +Hawk's chair: "Come over here to the light," he said, "till we get some +of this dirt off you. You need a bath, Abe. For a clean man you look +like----" + +Hawk put up his right hand: "I'll do for all the job that's left ahead +of me." + +"What job's left ahead of you?" + +"You've got a rifle like mine, Jim; the Marlin you don't use." + +"Well?" + +"I come to see if you'd lend it to me again." + +"Why not?" + +"Got any shells for it?" snapped Hawk. + +"I guess so." + +"I left the horse at the cabin to stand 'em off awhile. They'll lose a +little time there. They'll come down the creek--can't come any other +way. I'm going to wait for 'em in the timber." + +"What for?" + +"I'll finish with Doubleday and Van Horn, anyhow. Maybe I can with +Stone." + +"And they'll finish with you." + +"After I get them three the rest are welcome to what's left of me. +I've got to be moving." + +"Hold on a minute, Abe." Laramie sat down on the side of his cot, his +knees spread apart, his elbows resting on them, and his hands clasped +as he leaned forward, head down, to think. + +"Them fellows are riding every minute," Hawk reminded him grimly. + +"Let's talk this thing over," persisted Laramie. + +"I'll pay you for your rifle right now," mumbled Hawk, feeling with his +right hand in his trousers pocket for some gold pieces. + +"Don't talk monkey stuff, Abe." + +"Then don't make a monkey out of _me_," snapped Hawk. "Give me your +rifle and let me go!" + +"After we've talked it over." + +Hawk pulled himself up out of the chair. "You blamed fool," he said +brokenly. "Don't you know that bunch will track me to your door and +smash us with lead or burn us up in this shack if they get here first? +Give me the rifle," he thundered, "or I'll go into the timber with this +six-shooter. What do you mean? Are you going to turn yellow on me +because I'm a thief?" + +Laramie moved neither hand nor foot: "You're an older man than I am, +Abe," he replied, without even looking up. "I can take words from you, +I'd hate to take from anybody else--you know that; and you know why. +You won't talk; all right. Now I'll tell you where you get off; you're +not going down to the timber--not a blamed step," he added +deliberately. "Finger your six-shooter as much as you like." Laramie +waved his hand with his words. "Use it on me if you like. But, by +----, Abe----" As his voice changed, he jumped to his feet, adding +like lightning, "you're not going to use it on yourself!" + +He sprang for Hawk, reaching with his left hand for the gun. In +tigerish ferocity the two men came together. Sleepy Cat worthies had +sometimes speculated on what might happen if the two men most known and +most feared in the Falling Wall country, Hawk and Laramie, should ever +quarrel. They met now; but in a quarrel the wildest gossip had not +fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes +staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the +middle of the cooped-up room--Hawk striving to free and kill himself; +Laramie determined to wrest the gun from his grasp. + +It was an unequal contest. Weakened by loss of blood, Hawk was not +long a match for the only man on the range who under other conditions +could have stood up before him. Gradually, with the gun in his right +hand, Hawk was bent backward, with Laramie's left hand slipping along +the barrel closer and closer to the grip. Prolonged by the fear of +further injuring the wounded man, the tempestuous effort for mastery +ended when Hawk was forced to the bed and Laramie's iron fingers, +closing on the gun, wrenched it from him. + +Hawk was done out and Laramie without more resistance straightened him +out on the bed. + +"You're worse hit than you think," panted the conqueror. "I've got a +scheme better than yours, if there's time to put it through. Wait till +I get a couple of horses." + +The clatter of a horse outside cut into his last words. Laramie +instantly slipped Hawk's revolver back into his hand, picked up his own +gun and holster, strapping it to his waist as he ran, crossed the room, +tore up a board in the floor, snatched a pair of rifles from their +cache and hastening back to Hawk, his eyes glued all the while to the +door, pushed one rifle into Hawk's hand and swung the other to his hip. + +Not a word had been spoken. But preparations for a reception had been +made complete and eventualities thoroughly considered. Heavy footfalls +outside announced the approach of a man. The next moment the door was +flung open and the intruder heard Laramie's voice in savage emphasis: + +"Pitch up!" + +The intruder did not, however, pitch up. It was John Lefever. He +stood amazed. "For the love of God," he exclaimed, "what's broke +loose?" + +"Come in, John," cried Laramie, seizing his arm. "I want your horse a +minute. Stay here till I get back--come, Abe, lively!" + +"Where you going?" demanded Lefever, staring as he tried to collect his +wits. + +Laramie hurried Hawk past him: "That'll depend on the shooting, John," +was all Laramie hastily said. "Doubleday and Van Horn have got a bunch +of Texas men raiding the Falling Wall." + +Lefever, gazing stunned at Hawk, talked as if he saw nothing. "I know +all about that," he cried. "Man alive, that's what I'm here for. Hold +on, can't you?" + +"Not now. Stick around till I get back." + +Lefever caught his breath in time to fire one more question: + +"What about Abe?" + +"He's not coming back. Scout around down along the creek, John, so you +can see those fellows when they ride in. Hold 'em as long as you can +and for God's sake keep 'em out of this cabin--there's blood on +everything." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LEFEVER RECEIVES THE RAIDERS + +Laramie knew Lefever to be quite equal to the highly particular job he +had assigned to him and that John would give his best to it. Hardly +thirty minutes later, the raiders rode out of the timber along the +creek. Van Horn stopped his pack for a word of warning: + +"Look to your guns," he said harshly. "You can guess most o' you what +you'll be up against, if there's trouble at this joint." Leaving the +creek, the party rode out on a rarely used trail that, Stone told them, +led to Laramie's cabin. They followed this for some distance, keeping +two men ahead as they had done in the early morning. These two men, +reaching the bench, which at that point had been cut sharply away by a +flood, halted. The main party riding up the hill debouched on level +ground at the crest and joined their scouts. Half a mile to their +right stood Laramie's cabin. The bench land lying in front of it was +as smooth as a table and covered with mountain blue stem. Out of the +level ground, a hundred yards from the edge of the bench where +Doubleday's party had halted, rose a huge and solitary fragment of rock. + +Beside this rock stood a large man facing the intruders; slung over his +left forearm he carried a rifle and his right hand he held well out +toward them with its open palm raised in the air. The raiders +understood the signal; it warned them to advance no farther. + +"What's that fat buck doing up in this country?" asked Van Horn, +angrily. + +"Who is it?" demanded Doubleday. + +"John Lefever," returned Van Horn, greatly nettled. "What are you +doing here?" he bellowed at the unwelcome sentinel. + +John pointed a stubby forefinger at Van Horn and returned a perfectly +intelligible retort: "That's not the first question, Harry; that's the +second question," he yelled. "What are you doing here?" + +This was not in all respects a question easy to answer. But Van Horn +was resourceful: "We're on our way down the creek, John. Rode up from +the bottom to see Jim Laramie a minute." + +"Just a friendly call," assented John. "Well, how about sidearms," he +shouted, "and how many of you are there?" + +Van Horn looked around him: "Why, maybe a dozen, I reckon, John. You +know most everybody here." + +"How many of you are there want to see Jim a minute, Harry?" asked +Lefever, calm but conveniently close to the rock and quite conscious of +the delicacy of his position should shooting begin. + +There was some exchange of talk before the question was answered: "Look +here, Lefever," roared Doubleday huskily; "what the hell's all this +fuss about?" + +"Why, it's like this, Barb," returned Lefever, nothing abashed. "When +I seen you crossing down there at the forks I thought maybe you'd lost +your Bibles in the creek. That's the way you acted. But when I seen +you and Harry Van Horn and Tom Stone loading your rifles in the timber, +I reckoned you must be comin' up to ask Jim to run for sheriff on the +cattle ticket." + +Sarcasm could hardly convey more defiance and contempt. The riders +realized they had been watched and that deception was useless; Van Horn +was furiously angry. "Look here, Lefever," he called out, short and +sharp. + +"I'm looking right there, Harry," yelled Lefever irreverently. "With a +bunch of mugs like that on the horizon I sure wouldn't dare look +anywhere else!" + +"These boys won't stand any more fooling," roared Doubleday. + +"I wouldn't either, Barb, if you'd got me into this scrape as deep as +you've got them," was the retort. + +Nothing less than violent outbursts of profanity served now. And these +proceeding to a climax of strength and rapidity, gradually subsided as +such outbursts do and the two sides started to argue all over again. + +After much parley and protestations of peaceful intent, provided they +were treated fair, Doubleday and Van Horn were allowed to ride up to +the rock, but not to dismount. "Now," suggested Lefever to the two, +"talk just plain business." + +"Right you have it, John," returned Van Horn briskly. "The rustlers +have got to go. We're looking for Abe Hawk. Gorman and Dutch Henry +are lifting cattle now in the Happy Hunting Grounds. We're going to +clean out the rest of 'em. We've tracked Abe here. Without any hard +words, we want him." + +"Then, boys, you want to ride right on; keep on riding, for he's not +here. I don't know anything, but that much I do know," asserted the +big fellow positively. + +"How do you know?" demanded Doubleday grimly. + +"I just walked down here from the cabin; there's no one there. I rode +in here this morning from the Reservation, Barb. A buck looking for +horses over on the North Fork yesterday saw the fight at +Gorman's--everybody knows about it." + +Van Horn showed his teeth: "You're a pretty good artist, John, with +your buck looking for horses." + +Lefever deprecated the compliment: "You must remember, Harry, I worked +seven year for you. Seven year--and then didn't get all was coming to +me." + +"If you had," returned Van Horn candidly, "your headstone would be +covered with moss by this time, John. Where's Laramie?" + +Lefever stood with his left hand eagerly extended and appeared as if +sensitive at Van Horn's incredulity: + +"All the same, Harry," he exclaimed, "I can take you to that buck +inside two hours' ride and get his story. I've got five twenty-dollar +gold pieces in my pocket that says so. I'll put 'em up in Barb +Doubleday's hands right now against your five." + +"A man couldn't pry you loose from five twenty-dollar gold pieces if +you had five thousand in your pocket, John. What are you stalling +around for?" demanded Van Horn suspiciously. "Where's Laramie?" + +Lefever was frankness itself; almost over-frank in his genuine +simplicity. Had it not been for his big, blunt eyes and round, smooth +face he might have been suspected of duplicity--but not by the two men +now talking to him; they knew beyond a doubt that John was "stringing" +them. Unfortunately they could not prevent it. He answered Van Horn's +sharp question as innocently as a child. + +"That's more than I can say this minute, Harry, where Jim Laramie is; +but he's not far, I can tell you that, for the coffee pot was on the +stove when I got to the shack a while ago." + +"Then what are you holding us up here for?" barked Doubleday with rough +words. + +"I'm a peace officer, Barb, a deputy marshal." The bursting expression +of disgust on his questioners' faces did not ruffle John's candor. "I +know what you fellows are up to. I won't have any bloodshed here this +morning--that's flat. Laramie gets hot sometimes and this is one of +the times for folks to go slow. If you want to talk to Laramie come +along up to the shack. But send them longhorns over there down to the +creek," he added, as an afterthought and in the bluntly candid tone of +appeal that distinguished his persuasiveness. + +"Long hell!" spluttered Doubleday. + +"Longhorns," persisted Lefever. + +Barb growled at the proposal to send the boys down to the creek, and +Van Horn objected, but there was no escape from Lefever's stubbornness, +except a fight and this was not wanted. Lefever passed his word that +Hawk was not in the cabin, but he was adamant on sending the men to the +bottoms and his demand was grudgingly acceded to. In point of fact, +John reckoned himself on foot with a rifle equal to two men on +horseback, even if Van Horn were one. But not being able to take care +of a dozen horsemen he was resolved to have no volleying applause from +other guns, if the unexpected should happen on the open bench land. + +After Doubleday and Van Horn's following had at length filed down to +the creek bottom, Lefever walked beside the two horsemen toward the +cabin, and, since he would not walk fast and the two refused to ride +ahead of him, the pace was deliberate all the way. Nor could Lefever +be persuaded even to walk between the two horsemen; he kept them both +religiously on his left, his rifle lying carelessly across his forearm +as he entertained them with a moderately timed and unfailing flow of +Reservation small talk. + +But he could not control Van Horn's quick, flashing eyes, and these +were busy every moment and every foot of the way with reconnaissance +and inference. It did not escape either him or Doubleday that a bunch +of horses had been but lately driven over the ground they were +crossing, and every trail leading to and from the cabin obliterated; +this, however, only assured both that their man was close at hand and +strengthened their determination to get him in their own way when they +were ready. So intent were they on reading the ground as well as on +keeping a sharp eye on the cabin itself, that they had almost reached +it before Van Horn, halting, fixed his eyes on the hills to the +left--that is, down the creek--and exclaimed sharply: "Who's that?" + +Riding in a leisurely fashion down and out of the rough country to the +South, a mile away, a man emerging from a rift between two hills could +be seen following one of the cattle trails toward the creek. + +Lefever, after a minute's study, answered the question blandly: "I'm +thinkin' that's Jim Laramie, right now." + +He waved his hat at the distant horseman, who, also rode with a rifle +slung across his pommel and carried his lines high in his right hand. +The horseman continued for some moments toward the creek, then looking, +seemingly by accident, toward the house he saw the signaling, stopped +his pony, paused, and reigning him around, headed at an easy pace for +the group before the cabin. It was, as Lefever had said, Laramie. + +A few minutes later he trotted his horse across the field and slowed +him up in front of Van Horn and Doubleday. His greeting to his +visitors was dry; their own was somewhat strained, but Lefever at once +took the initiative: "Jim," he said, identifying himself in his bluntly +honest way with the interests of the raiders, "we're looking for Abe +Hawk." + +Laramie's response was merely to the point: "He's not here." + +"Has he been here?" demanded Van Horn. + +"Yes," answered Laramie. Lefever at intervals looked virtuously from +questioner to questioned. + +"How long ago, Jim?" continued Van Horn. + +Laramie regarded him steadily: "Several times in the last few weeks." + +"Was he here yesterday?" asked Van Horn suddenly. + +"I was on the Reservation yesterday." + +"Has he been here this morning?" + +"Yes." + +If Lefever jumped inwardly at this most unexpected admission he +suppressed all outward sign of surprise; his wide open eyes did not +blink and his close-cut mustache preserved its honesty undefiled. But +he wondered what might be coming. + +"How long ago?" continued Van Horn. + +"Early. What's all this questioning about?" Laramie demanded in turn, +looking from Van Horn to Doubleday and to Lefever. "Who wants Hawk?" + +"Jim, we're cleaning up the rustlers," said Van Horn. "Things have got +so bad it had to be done. We want Hawk. We've got Gorman and Henry. +Now, if it's a fair question, is Abe here?" + +"He's not." + +"Not in your shack?" + +"No." + +"Are you willing we should search it?" + +"Search hell! What do you mean?" asked Laramie curtly. "Isn't my word +good as to who's in my shack?" + +"Jim!" Lefever held up a peacemaker's hand. "We thought maybe he +might have come in since you rode away." + +"Well----" Laramie cooled somewhat, "if it'll do you any good, I'll +look inside and see." + +Van Horn sarcastically demurred: "Don't take the trouble, don't take +the trouble, Jim." + +"Still he might be there," urged Lefever, "in the way I say--he +might've walked in since you went into the hills--what? No objection +to my looking in there, is there, Jim?" + +"No man can search my cabin," snapped Laramie. "Have you got a warrant +for Abe Hawk?" He threw the question sharply at Lefever. + +With Lefever's disclaimer, Doubleday interposed a savage rejoinder: "A +rope'll fit Abe's neck better than a warrant." + +Laramie eyed the old cattleman unmoved: "And you're here to get me to +help you slip the noose, are you?" + +"We're here to clean out these cattle thieves," stormed Doubleday. + +"There are no cattle thieves here," retorted Laramie undisturbed. +"You're wasting the time you'll need on your job. Move on!" + +Even Van Horn was taken aback by the rude command; he pulled his horse +around: "Look here, Jim; let me talk to you a minute alone." + +Laramie, guiding his horse with his heels, followed Van Horn twenty +feet away and listened: "Jim, I'm leading this bunch, and whatever +troubles you've had with Barb and his friends, now's the time to fix +'em up. They'll give you the best of it. If you've got any line on +where Hawk is, say so and it puts you with us; say nothing, and you're +against us." + +Laramie eyed him without a quiver: "I'm against you, Harry." + +Van Horn did not give up. He talked again, and talked hard. It was +useless. Doubleday rode over to where Van Horn held Laramie in deadly +earnest conference. Van Horn, ready to quit, gladly let the older man +take over the case. But Doubleday made no better success. Laramie +could not be moved. If coaxed, he was obstinate; if threatened, +impatient--contemptuous. Doubleday, when Laramie coldly refused even +to answer his questions concerning Hawk, boiled over. + +He moved his horse a step and opened his vials of wrath: "Laramie, +you've turned down the last chance decent folks on the range'll ever +try to hand you--the last chance you'll ever see to pull away from +these Falling Wall thieves. Now," he exclaimed, raising his right hand +and arm with a bitter imprecation, "we'll show you who's going to run +the Sleepy Cat range. I'll drive you out of this country if it takes +every cowboy I can hire and every dollar I've got. This country won't +hold you and me after today. D'ye hear?" he shouted, almost bending +with his huge frame over Laramie and beside himself with rage. Then +spurring his horse, he wheeled it around to rejoin Van Horn. + +Even then Laramie was too quick for him. Almost in the very instant, +he jumped his own pony after the angry man and gaining the head of +Doubleday's horse, caught the bridle and jerked the beast almost to its +haunches. + +It was a ticklish instant. Van Horn, with his hand on his revolver, +attempted to spur to Doubleday's assistance. Lefever interposed with a +sharp move that put him plumply in front of Van Horn: "Not till them +two are through, Harry. We stay right here till them two's done." + +The very impudence of Laramie's move had taken Doubleday by surprise +and Laramie was hurling angry words at him before Lefever had +intervened: "Hold on, Doubleday," Laramie said bluntly, "you can't put +your abuse all over me first and then run away with it. You'll hear +what I've got to say. I rode this range before you ever saw it; I'll +ride this range when you're gone. I was born here, Doubleday; my +father lived here before me. The air I breathe, this sky over my head, +this ground under my feet, are mine, and I stick here in spite of you +and your cattle crooks. If men run off your cattle it's your sheriff's +business--you own him. And it's your business to run 'em down--not +mine. You come here without a warrant, without a definite complaint, +and ask me to turn an old man over to a bunch of lynchers! Not on your +life. Not today or any other day." + +Doubleday interrupted, but he was forced to listen: "You talk about +thieves," Laramie spoke fast and remorselessly, "and you belong to the +bunch that's tried to steal every foot of land I own in the Falling +Wall. After you and your lawyers and land office tools have stolen +thousands of acres from the government, you talk as if you were an +angel out of heaven about the men that brand your mavericks. Hell!" +The scorn of the expletive drew from the very depths of furious +contempt. "I'd rather stand by a thief that calls himself a thief, +than a thief that steals under a lawyer. Send your hired men after me; +give 'em plenty of ammunition. They'll find me right here, Barb--right +here where I live." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE + +When Sawdy rode into Sleepy Cat next morning it was known that he had +come from the Reservation and he was besieged for news from the Falling +Wall. At Kitchen's, where he put up his horse; on his way up street to +his room over McAlpin's pool hall, he was assailed with questions. +Pretty accurate reports of the two exciting days in the North country +had already trickled into Sleepy Cat. To these, Sawdy listened with +stolid attention but he managed to add to them very little. He +possessed to a degree the faculty of talking freely, sententiously +even, without contributing anything strictly pertinent to a subject. +What he conveyed, when he meant to withhold information, was really no +more than an air of reserve in which wisdom seemed discreetly +restrained. On this present occasion he realized it would be known +that he had encountered the raiders the day before at Laramie's--but +while admitting this profusely, he minimized all else. + +Not until he had bathed, slept, shaved and set himself down near +nightfall at Belle Shockley's did he tell any considerable part of his +story. But all that prudence would permit he told, or rather, Belle +demanded and received at his hands. Where the heart is involved the +strongest men are helpless. + +"I ran into the bunch on my way down, right at Laramie's cabin," Sawdy +said to Belle. "Laramie and Doubleday were having the hottest kind of +a row when I rode up. I made sure we'd be shooting in the next couple +of minutes. But John Lefever was watching pretty close and holding Van +Horn. Barb cooled down when he saw three of us on deck. I told him on +the side, the Governor had telephoned Pearson and the Colonel was going +to send cavalry down after them and they'd better scatter. It was a +bluff, but for a few minutes I had him and Van Horn guessing. They +said they'd go home when they got Hawk. Lefever is staying up there +for a day or two." + +"What did they do after that?" demanded Belle, referring to the men +whose names were on everybody's tongues. + +"Beat the bushes from Laramie's to the Reservation," answered Sawdy. +"Didn't leave a square yard of country unturned from the Falling Wall +to the Crazy Woman." + +"Will they ever find Hawk?" + +"Did you ever find a needle in a haystack?" + +"I never looked for one." + +"Them fellows are looking for the stack. They can't locate the hay. +Slip me that Worcestershire sauce, Belle. Yours truly. No more +potatoes. This is a good piece of ham, Belle. I wish to God you'd +serve a glass of beer with a man's supper." + +"You can get all the supper and all the beer you want at the hotel," +flared Belle. "This is no blind pig----" + +"It's the only place in Main Street, then, that ain't." + +"And it never will be," averred Belle, indignantly. + +"Come up to the hotel with me right now," returned Sawdy coldly, "and +I'll buy you a bottle of beer. Bet you ten dollars you da'ssent do +it--who the devil--" Sawdy almost choked as the two heard a knock at +the door--"who the devil is that?" he repeated. The door opened and +Jim Laramie walked in. + +He sent his hat sailing toward a side table, stepped forward and, +catching at a chair on the way, greeted Belle and her guest and sat +down before a plate cover opposite Sawdy. He pointed to what remained +of Sawdy's supper and, with knife and fork, started in: "There's enough +for me right here, Belle," he said. + +Sawdy raised his chin: "Not this time, Jim. Not on your life. That's +the way you always eat my supper." + +"You eat too much, Henry--it will kill you some time," observed +Laramie, losing no time in his initiative. He ignored Sawdy's stare +and the big man, disgusted, sat dumb: "Don't surrender, Sawdy," +counseled Laramie. "Keep going, and excuse me if I seem to begin." + +Sawdy paused, his knife and fork firmly in hand, but pointing +helplessly into the air: "This is the first square meal I've had for +two days," he said, as one whose hopes have been dashed. + +"First I've had for ten days," returned Laramie. + +"What are they doing up there, Jim?" asked Sawdy peremptorily. + +"Killing their horses." + +"They won't find him," Sawdy predicted in words inaudible six feet away. + +"I hope not." + +"How's he holding out?" + +"Hard hit, Henry." + +"Will he make it?" + +"You can't kill a cat." + +"Well"--Sawdy resumed his supper, "it's your game, Jim, not mine; but +I'd think twice before I'd get that range bunch after me on any man's +account." + +Laramie's eyes flashed, but he spoke quietly: "I couldn't see Abe +killed like a rattlesnake." + +"What are you down for?" + +"I've got to have a couple of needles, a little catgut and some gauze." + +"Where are you going to get them?" + +"Going to steal them over at Doc. Carpy's." + +"Nervy." + +"You can do it for me, Henry." + +"Me?" + +"I'll give you the key to his cabinet." + +"Where'd you get that?" + +"Met him on my way in. He was going up to Pettigrew's to look after +the wounded. The window in the end of the wing opens into the +operating room, where the supplies are." + +"I'd look fine climbing into a window at two hundred and twenty pounds." + +"It's on the ground floor," returned Laramie, unmoved. + +"What will the family be doing while I'm burgling?" + +"Mrs. Carpy and the girls are in Medicine Bend. The house is empty. +When you're through, leave the key in the skull of the skeleton behind +the door." + +Sawdy stared without much enthusiasm at the little key that Laramie +passed to him; then he slipped it without comment into his pocket. The +talk went on in low, leisurely tones until the second portion of ham +had been served, when both resumed their supper as if nothing had been +eaten or said. Afterward, Laramie spent an hour getting together some +things he needed at home. He met Sawdy later at Kitchen's barn. +Sawdy, with abundance of grumbling at his assignment, had the gauze and +the catgut, but he had brought the key back. He could not find the +surgeon's needles. There seemed nothing for it but for Laramie to go +to the office and make the search himself. He thought of Belle; she +would do it for him, he knew, but he felt it would not be right to mix +her up in what might prove a still more tragic affair. After brief +reflection he started for Carpy's himself. + +The doctor's house stood back of Main Street, a block and a half from +the barn. Laramie walked half a mile to reach it, choosing unlighted +ways for the trip. The night was dark and by crossing a vacant lot he +reached the rear of the house unobserved. The office, divided into a +consulting room and an operating room, consisted of a one-story wing +connecting with the residence--the consulting room adjoining the +residence, the operating room occupying the end of the wing. This +latter was the room Laramie sought. The window that Sawdy had already +burglariously entered, opened easily, and Laramie, standing alone in +the dark room, felt in his pocket for a match. + +He had been in the office more than once before and knew about where +the cabinet containing the surgical instruments stood. A connecting +door led from the room he had entered to the office proper. He tried +this. It was unlocked and he left it closed. The curtains of the +windows were drawn and he took a match from his pocket, lighted it and +looked around. The first thing he saw was the articulated skeleton +suspended near the door from the ceiling. It would have been a shock +had he not seen it before and been familiar with the label fastened to +the breastbone reciting that this had once been Flat Nose George, an +early day desperado of the high country. + +Turning from this relic, Laramie set about his work, disdaining to +inspect various gruesome specimens in alcohol ranged along a shelf. +Aided by an occasional match which he lighted and shielded in his left +hand, he found the cabinet and with his key opened the door. The flame +of his match too carefully guarded, flickered in his fingers, failed +and went out. He thrust it hastily into one pocket, drew a fresh match +from another and was about to scratch it across his leather wristlet +when he heard a door open. The next moment he saw, under the door +leading from his room to the consulting room, a flash of light. + +Awkward as it was to be interrupted, he faced the surprise with such +composure as he could muster. Who could it be? he asked himself. The +family was accounted for, the house locked. He scratched the match +again. As it flared up he looked into the cabinet, found the packet of +needles, tore a card of them in two, slipped one piece into a waistcoat +pocket and closed the cabinet door. He turned to listen to the office +intruder. Laramie hoped that nothing would bring the unwelcome visitor +into the operating room, but as he stood awaiting developments the +unlocked door was pushed open and a tiny flashlight was thrown into the +room in which he stood. + +Fortunately Laramie outside the circle of light was left in the dark. +The intruder was a woman. He shrank back and she luckily turned her +light from him but only to encounter, as she stepped forward, Flat Nose +George, no less forbidding now than he had been in life. The woman +with the light started back in horror and a sharp little exclamation +betrayed her identity; Laramie was at once aware that he was facing +Kate Doubleday. + +Nothing could have pleased him less. In so small a room it was +impossible to escape detection. He could almost hear her breathe and +would have reveled in her presence so close, but that the apprehension +of frightening her weighed on him like a mountain. Hardly daring to +breathe himself he cursed the erratic doctor's skeleton pet--hung, of +all places, where every little while he was cutting people open. + +The skeleton had already set the girl's nerves on edge. What would +happen if she discovered a live man as well as the ghastly remains of a +dead one--not to mention alcoholic clippings from other subnormal +notables of the mountains? With the flashlight she was evidently +searching for something and Laramie surmised it must be the electric +light switch: "I think," he suggested in as steady a tone as possible, +"you'll find the light button to the right of the door behind you." + +He was prepared for a scream or a swoon. Instead, the flashlight was +turned directly on him: "Who are you?" came sharply and quickly from +behind it. + +"I might ask the same question. You can see I'm Jim Laramie. I can +guess you're Kate Doubleday." + +"I am, and I've come here for dressings for wounded men at Pettigrew's. +What are you doing here?" she demanded, peremptorily. + +His lips were sealed for more reasons than one. Least of all would it +do for him to expose Doctor Carpy's friendliness and embroil him in a +feud which Laramie knew he ought to face alone. + +Kate held the light excitedly on him. It was an instant before he had +his answer in hand: "I've lied to a good many people at different times +about different things," he said deliberately. "I've still got my +first lie to tell to you, Kate. And I certainly won't tell it tonight. +Don't ask me what I'm doing here. Turn on the light by the door, or +let me do it, so I can see you. You here alone?" + +"No, there are plenty of men outside with me," she exclaimed abruptly. + +"I shouldn't have asked that question," he continued in the same tone. +"I know you're alone. You say 'men' because you're afraid of me----" + +"I'm not the least afraid of you. And don't deceive yourself. There +are men here." + +"But they are mostly in bottles, Kate--and in pieces. Live men don't +ride up to a place like this without making a noise. Flat Nose George +is the only man here besides me, outside the alcohol, and I can claim +him as well as you can." + +"I'm sure you would feel perfectly at home with Flat Nose George," she +retorted swiftly. + +If the words stung, Laramie kept his temper. "Probably there's a good +deal I deserve that you haven't heard about me," he said slowly. "But +from the way you talk, you've heard a few things maybe I don't deserve. +Nobody's got any right to class me with Flat Nose George or anybody +else in Carpy's museum." + +"You've classed yourself with him," she exclaimed vehemently. +"Defending cattle thieves and harboring them! Everyone knows that!" + +"I did talk rough to your father this morning. I was pretty angry. +Just the same, don't believe everything you hear about me. At present, +it's just us two. What do you want to do, surrender to me?" + +"No!" she snapped the word out furiously. "I won't, not if you kill +me." + +"Suppose I surrender to you? What do you want me to do--stick up my +hands? So far, they haven't been up--if I remember right. But I +expect I'll have to learn sometime how to surrender." + +"I want no surrender, no parley with you. The doctor told me his house +was empty and directed me here for the dressings. When I come, I find +you. I'll get away at once. Before I go----" + +"No, I'll go. But let me turn on the light." He stepped to the door +and pressed the button. "I wanted," he continued, as a light flooded +the queer room, "to have just one look at you before I go." She stood +before him quite unafraid. Her eyes flashed as if she were actually +mistress of the situation instead of really helpless in the presence of +her father's most resourceful enemy. + +Laramie half-smiled at her serenity: "Why don't you go?" she exclaimed. + +Still regarding her, he shifted his position a little and replied with +entire good-nature: "I only live along, from one sight to another of +you. I'm just filling up, like a man at a spring. You don't object to +my only looking at you for a minute?" + +"I object to being delayed and annoyed," she declared in a blaze. +"I've come here for dressings needed for wounded men----" + +"Well, so have I, if you must have it." + +"I was sent here by Doctor Carpy for things he wants tonight; you have +no more right here helping yourself to his property than you have +taking other people's." + +"Don't say I take other people's property!" Laramie spoke fiercely. +"Don't call me a thief." His words burned with anger. "My hands may +not be as white as yours--they're just as clean!" + +Stunned as she might well have been at the outburst, Kate stood her +ground: "Did Doctor Carpy give you permission to come here tonight?" +She shot the words at Laramie without giving him time to breathe. + +Laramie checked the flood of anger he had loosed: "I don't need +permission from Doctor Carpy to come here night or day. Ask him if you +want to," he said with scornful disgust. He sank down on the chair at +his side in complete resentment of the whole situation and, leaning +forward with a hand spread over one knee and one fist clenched on the +other, he stared not at Kate's eyes, but at the floor, with only her +trim boots in his field of vision. "What's the use?" he exclaimed, +drawing the words up seemingly all the way from his own disorderly and +alkali-stained foot coverings. "What's the use?" he repeated, in +stronger and more savage tones. "I've treated her from the first +instant I saw her, and every instant since, as I thought a woman ought +to be treated--would like to be treated. Now I get my reward. She +calls me a thief--and, my God! I take it. I don't ride out and kill +her father who taught her to do it, quick as I can reach him; I just +take it!" he exclaimed. + +He hesitated a moment. Then he flung a question at her like a +thunderbolt: "What do you want here?" + +She was frightened. His rage was plain enough; who could tell the +lengths to which it might carry him? + +She kept her dignity but she answered and without quibbling: "I want +some gauze and some cotton and some medicines." + +He strode to the cabinet and, concealing the movement as he unlocked it +with Carpy's key, he threw open the glass door: "You'd be all night +finding the stuff," he said curtly, taking the supplies from various +cluttered piles on different shelves. "You say he wants this tonight," +he added, when her packet was complete: "How are you going to get it to +him?" + +"Carry it to him." + +"At Pettigrew's? What do you mean? It would take an experienced +horseman all night to ride around by Black Creek." + +"I'm going over the pass." + +He could not conceal his anger: "Does your father know that?" + +"He said I might try it." + +Laramie flamed again: "A fine father to send a tenderfoot girl on a +night ride into a country like that!" + +She was defiant: "I can ride anywhere a man can." + +"Let me tell you," he faced her and his eyes flashed, "if you try +riding 'anywhere' too often, some night your father's daughter will +fail to get home!" + +Ignoring the door, he stepped to the open window by which he had +entered and, springing through it, was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE HIDING PLACE + +Disdaining any further attempt at concealment, Laramie rode angrily +over to Kitchen's barn; anyone that wanted a dispute with him just then +could have it, and promptly. Kitchen got up his horse and, cutting +short the liveryman's attempt to talk, Laramie headed for home. + +The sky was studded with a glory of stars. He rode fast, his fever of +anger acting as a spur to his anxiety, which was to get back to dress +Hawk's wounds. + +His thoughts raced with the hoofs of his horse. Nothing could have +galled and humiliated him more than to realize how Kate Doubleday +regarded him. Plainly she looked on him as no better than one of the +ordinary rustlers of the Falling Wall country. This was distressingly +clear; yet he knew in his own heart that hers was the only opinion +among her people that he cared anything about. Furious waves of +resentment alternated with the realization that such an issue was +inevitable--how could it be otherwise? She had heard the loose talk of +men about her--Stone, alone, to reckon no other, could be depended on +to lie freely about him. Van Horn, he was as sure, would not scruple +to blacken an enemy; and added to Laramie's discomfiture was the +reflection that this man whose attentions to Kate he most dreaded, held +her ear against him and could, if need be, poison the wells. + +To these could be added, as his implacable enemy, her own father. This +last affair had cut off every hope of getting on with the men for whom +he had no respect and who for one reason or another hated him as +heartily as he hated them. + +Under such a load of entanglement lay the thought of Kate. What utter +foolishness even to think of her as he let himself think and hope! +Clattering along, he told himself nothing could ever come of it but +bitterness; and he cast the thought and hope of knowing her better and +better until he could make her his own, completely out of his heart. + +The only trouble was that neither she, nor the bitterness would stay +out. As often as he put them out they came in again. The first few +miles of his road were the same that she would soon be riding after +him. Again and again he felt anger at the idea of her riding the worst +of the Falling Wall trail at night to Pettigrew's. More than once he +felt the impulse to wait for her, and even slackened his pace. + +But when he did so, there arose before him her picture as she flung the +hateful words at him; they came back as keenly as if he heard them +again and he could feel his cheeks burning in the cold night air. +Self-respect, if nothing else, would prevent his even speaking another +word to her that night. His hatred of her father swelled in the +thought that he should let her attempt such a ride. + +For several miles beyond where he knew Kate must turn for the pass, +Laramie rode on toward home; then watching his landmarks carefully he +reined his horse directly to the left and headed for the broken country +lying between the Turkey and the mountains. At some little distance +from the trail, he stopped and sitting immovable in his saddle, +listened to ascertain whether he was followed. For almost thirty +minutes--and that is a long time--he waited, buried in the silence of +the night and without the slightest impatience. He heard in the +distance the coyotes and the owls but no horseman passed nor did the +sound of hoofs come within hearing. Then reining his pony's head again +toward the black heights of the Lodge Pole range he continued his +journey. + +Soon all semblance of any trail was left behind and he rode of +necessity more slowly. More than once he halted, seemingly to reassure +himself as to his bearings for he was pushing his way where few men +would care to ride even in daylight. He was feeling across precipitous +gashes and along treacherous ledges esteemed by Bighorn but feared by +horse and man; and among huge masses of rocky fragments that had +crashed from dizzy heights above before finding a resting place. And +even then they had been heaved and tumbled about by the fury of +mountain storms. + +Laramie was, in fact, nearing the place--by the least passable of all +approaches--where he had hidden Hawk. Yet he did not hesitate either +to stop or to listen or to double on his trail more than once. +Maneuvering in this manner for a long time he emerged on a small +opening, turned almost squarely about and rode half a mile. +Dismounting at this point and lifting his rifle from its scabbard he +slung his bag over his shoulder and walked rapidly forward. + +The hiding place had been well chosen. On a high plateau of the +Falling Wall country, so broken as to forbid all chance travel and to +be secure from accidental intrusion--a breeding place for grizzlies and +mountain lions--there had once been opened a considerable silver mining +camp. Substantial sums had been spent in development and from an old +Turkey Creek trail a road had been blasted and dug across the open +country divided by the canyon of the Falling Wall river. In its escape +from the mountains the river at this point cuts a deep gash through a +rock barrier and from this striking formation, known as the canyon of +the Falling Wall, the river takes its name. + +Where the old mine road crosses the plateau an ambitious bridge, as +Laramie once told Kate, had been projected across the river. It was +designed to replace a ferry at the bottom of the canyon but with the +ruinous decline in the value of silver the mines had been abandoned; a +weather-beaten abutment at the top of the south canyon wall alone +remained to recall the story. The earth and rock fill behind this +abutment had been washed out by storms leaving the framing timbers +above it intact, and below these there remained a cave-like space which +the slowly decaying supports served to roof. + +Laramie on a hunting trip had once discovered this retreat and had at +times used it as a shelter when caught over night in its vicinity. +During subsequent visits he found an overhang in the rock behind the +original fill that made a second smaller chamber and in this he had as +a boy cached his mink and rat traps and the discard of his hunting +equipment. + +To the later people coming into the Falling Wall country with cattle +the existence of all this was practically unknown. Nothing visible +betrayed the retreat and to men who rarely left the saddle and had +little occasion to cross the bad lands, there was slight chance to +stumble on it. It was here, a few miles west of his own home, that +Laramie had carried Hawk. + +Making his way in the darkness toward the dugout, Laramie whistled low +and clearly, and planting his feet with care on a foothold of old +masonry swung down to where a fissure opening in the rock afforded +entrance into the irregular room. + +A single word came in a low tone from the darkness: "Jim?" + +Laramie, answering, struck a match and, after a little groping, lighted +a candle and set it in a niche near where Hawk lay. The rustler was +stretched on a rude bunk. The furnishings of the cave-like refuge were +the scantiest. Between uprights supporting the old roof, a plank +against the wall served as a narrow table; the bunk had been built into +the opposite wall out of planking left by the bridge carpenters. For +the rest there was little more in the place than the few belongings of +a hunter's lodge long deserted. A quilt served for mattress and +bedding for Hawk and his sunken eyes above his black beard showed how +sorely he needed surgical care. To this, Laramie lost no time in +getting. He provided more lights, opened his kit of dressings and with +a pail of water went to work. + +What would have seemed impossible to a surgeon, Laramie with two hours' +crude work accomplished on Hawk's wounds. But in a country where the +air is so pure that major operations may be performed in ordinary +cabins, cleanliness and care, even though rude, count for more than +they possibly could elsewhere. The most difficult part of the task +that night lay in getting water up the almost sheer canyon wall from +the river three hundred feet below. It would have been a man's job in +daylight; add to this black night and the care necessary to leave no +traces of getting down and climbing up. + +Leaving Hawk when the night was nearly spent, Laramie returned to his +horse, retraced his blind way through the bad lands and got to the road +some miles above where he had left it. He started for home but left +the road below his place and picking a trail through the hills came out +half a mile northwest of his cabin. Here he cached his saddle and +bridle, turned loose his horse and going forward with the stealth of an +Indian he got close enough to his cabin to satisfy himself, after +painstaking observation, that his cabin was neither in the hands of the +enemy, nor under close-range surveillance. When he reached the house +he disposed of his rifle, slipped inside and struck a light. On the +stove he found his frying pan face downward and the coffee pot near it +with the lid raised. From this he knew that Simeral in his absence had +cared for his stock; and being relieved in his mind on this score he +laid his revolver at hand and threw himself on the bed to sleep. Day +was just breaking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +STONE TRIES HIS HAND + +In getting home safely, Laramie had not flattered himself that he was +not actually under what in mountain phrase is termed the death watch. +In matter of fact, Van Horn and Doubleday had gone home to stay until +the excitement should blow over. But they had left Stone and two men +charged with intercepting Laramie on his return. The investing lines +had not, however, been skilfully drawn and Laramie had slipped through. + +He slept undisturbed until the sun was an hour high. Then peering +through a corner of the blanket that hung before the window he saw +Stone and two companions half a mile from the house, riding slowly as +if looking for a trail; particularly, as he readily surmised, for his +own trail. As to his horse betraying him, Laramie had no fear, knowing +the beast would make straight for the blue stem north of the hills. It +was no part of Laramie's plan of defense to begin fighting or to force +any situation that favored him--as he believed the present one to do. + +Few men that knew his enemies would have agreed with him in this view; +they would, indeed, have thought it extremely precarious for Laramie to +be caught in any place he could not escape from unseen. But Laramie +was temperamentally a gambler with fortune and he put aside the worries +that occasionally weighed on his friends. Standing at his one small +window--though this was by no means the only peephole in the cabin +walls--he watched without undue concern the scouting of the trio, who +beyond doubt had been hired to kill him and were only waiting their +chance. + +After a long inspection of the ground--much of it out of sight of the +cabin--broken by frequent colloquies, the three rode from the creek +bottom out on the upper field and, halting, surveyed the distant cabin +with seeming doubt and suspicion. Two of them reined their horses +toward the creek. The third man spurred up the long slope straight for +the house. + +This put a different aspect on things. Laramie tightened a little as +he watched the oncoming rider. If it should prove to be Stone--he +hesitated at the thought, deciding on nothing until sure who the man +might be. But watching the approach of the unwelcome visitor coldly, +Laramie put out his hand for his rifle. He thought of firing a warning +shot; but to this he was much averse since it would mean a fight and a +siege--neither of which he sought. As the man drew closer it was +apparent that it was not Stone and Laramie decided that milder measures +might answer. He held his rifle across his arm and waited. But the +man, as if conscious of the peril to which he was so coolly exposing +himself, galloped rapidly away, rejoined his companions and the trio +disappeared. + +Laramie at the window watched the departing horsemen. It appeared, +from what he had seen, as if the watch had really been set on him. He +got out his little bottle of oil and a rag and ramrod to clean his +rifle. He made the preparations and sat down to his task in a brown +study. + +The rifle had not been fired for some time, and it was a very long time +since it had been trained on a man. He took it apart slowly, thinking +less of what would next appear through the range of the sights than of +Kate, as she confronted him the night before in Carpy's office. He +realized with a sort of shame that he was trying to forgive her for +calling him a thief--which, in point of fact, he argued, she had not +actually done. And though she had certainly spoken careless-like, as +Bill Bradley might say, she had only credited the tales of his enemies +in her own household. + +Laramie poked and squinted as he pondered his difficulties. He had +refused to give up Hawk to be merely murdered; he could not do less and +respect himself. It had made her father more than ever his enemy; +still he wanted Kate. Stone would assassinate him at any time for a +hundred dollars; Van Horn, now that he was aware Laramie liked Kate, +would do it for nothing. Laramie, indeed, realized that if he stood in +Van Horn's way with a woman he would not figure any more in Harry's +calculations than a last year's birds' nest. And back of all loomed +rancorous Barb Doubleday. + +How, he asked himself, could a girl like Kate, pick such a bear for a +father? All of which troublesome thinking brought him no nearer a +solution of his difficulties. He had his life to look out for, Hawk to +take care of and a strong-willed girl to bring to his way of thinking. + +He reached, at last, the conclusion that the sooner he knew whether he +could leave his own place and ride to and from Sleepy Cat without being +"potted" from ambush, the sooner he would know what to do next. +Persuading himself that the watch would wait for him somewhere down the +road, Laramie, making coffee and cooking bacon, breakfasted, made his +final preparations for death by shaving himself with a venerable razor, +and rifle in hand, got down as directly and briskly as possible to the +corral. He got up a horse, rode back into the hills, and recovering +his saddle, started for Simeral's. Having spoken with Ben, Laramie +made a detour that brought him out on the creek a mile below his usual +trail. Thence he rode as contentedly as possible on his way. + +The country for a few miles ahead was adapted for ambuscades. The +valley was comparatively narrow and afforded more than one vantage +point for covering a traveler. It was wholly a matter, Laramie felt, +of bluffing it through. And beyond keeping a brisk pace with his +horse, he could do nothing to protect himself. "You're a fool for +luck, Jim," he remembered Hawk's saying once to him, "but you'll get it +sometime on your fool's luck, just the same." + +When old Blackbeard, as he sometimes called Hawk--though no one else +ventured to call him that--uttered the warning, it made no impression +on Laramie. Now it came back. Not unpleasantly, nor as a dread--only +he did recall at this time the words--which was more than he had ever +done before. And he reflected that it would be very awkward for Hawk, +if their common enemies should get his nurse at this particular time. + +While this was running through his mind, he was not sorry to notice +ahead of him the dust of the down stage. At that particular stretch of +the road it would be less nerve-wearing to ride beside it a way. He +overtook the wagon and to his surprise found McAlpin on the box. +McAlpin, overjoyed to see him, explained with a grin he was filling in +for a sick man. In reality, he had substituted for the northern trip +in the hope of seeing some fighting while out and the sight of Laramie +was the nearest he had got to it. Laramie, after a long talk, made an +appointment to meet him in town in the evening and as they reached the +foot of the hill where the road climbed to the Sleepy Cat divide, +Laramie feeling he had no further excuse for loitering, put spurs to +his horse and took a bridle trail, used as a cut-off, to get into safer +country. + +He rode this trail unmolested, crossed the divide and coming out of the +hills could see, to the south, Sleepy Cat lying below. He made up his +mind that his judgment was more nearly right than his apprehension, and +rode down the slopes of the Crazy Woman, over the Double-draw bridge +and up the south hill in good spirits. He had, in fact, got half-way +up the long grade when he heard a rifle shot. + +Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie drooped over +his pommel. As his heels struck the horse's flanks, the beast sprang +ahead. The rebound jerked back the rider's head and shoulders. While +the horse dashed on, Laramie with as little fuss as possible pulled his +rifle from its scabbard, trying all the time to get his balance. A +careful observer could have noted that the rifle was drawn but held low +in the right hand as if the rider could not bring it up. Yet even a +close observer could hardly have detected in his convulsive swaying +that the wounded man was closely scanning the sides of the narrow road +along which his horse was now flying. At all events, he seemed with +failing strength to be losing his seat as he lost control of his horse, +and a hundred yards from where he had been struck he toppled helplessly +from the saddle into the roadway. The speed at which the horse was +going sent the fallen rider rolling along the grade, the sides of which +had been torn in spots by summer torrents. Near one of these holes, +Laramie had left the saddle, and into it he rolled headlong. + +[Illustration: Knocked forward the next instant in his saddle, Laramie +drooped over his pommel] + +The hole, between four and five feet deep, looked like an irregular +well with an overhang on one side and to the bottom of this, Laramie, +covered with dust, tumbled. He righted himself and turning under the +overhang took breath, put down his rifle, whipped out his revolver, +looked toward the top of his well and listened. + +Not a sound broke the stillness of the sunny morning. With his right +hand, but holding his eyes and ears very much at attention, he drew a +handkerchief, wiped the dust from his eyes and face and twisted his +head around to investigate the stinging sensation high on his left +shoulder, almost at the neck. The rifle bullet had torn his coat +collar and shirt and creased the skin. He could feel no blood and soon +inventoried the shot as only close. But he was waiting for the man +that fired it to appear at the hole to investigate; and with at least +this one of his enemies he was in a mood to finish then and there. + +Taking off his coat, as his wits continued to work, he spread it over a +little hump in front of him so it would catch the eye for an instant +and with patient rage crouched back under the overhang. He so placed +himself that one could hardly see him without peering into the hole and +that might mean any one of several things for the man that ventured +it--much depended, in Laramie's mind, on whose face he should see above +the rim. + +An interminable time passed. The first sound he heard was that of +horses toiling up the long grade and the creaking of battered hubs; +this he reckoned must be McAlpin with the stage. Where his hat had +rolled to, when he tumbled out of the saddle to simulate death, he had +no idea. If it lay in the road he might expect a visit from McAlpin. +But without stopping, the stage rattled slowly up the grade. + +It seemed then as if the distant gunman, after waiting for the stage to +pass, would not fail to reconnoiter the hole. Yet he did so fail. The +high hours of midday passed with Laramie patiently resting his Colt's +up between his knees and studying the yellow rim of the hole and the +heavenly blue of the sky. His neck ached from the cramped position, +long held, in which he had placed himself; but he moved no more than if +he had been set in stone. Neither hunger, which was slight, nor +thirst, at times troublesome, disturbed his watch. But it was in vain. + +He sat like a spider in its web through the whole day without an +incident. A few horsemen passed, an occasional wagon rumbled up and +down the hill; but none of the travelers looked in on Laramie. Toward +dusk he heard a freighting outfit working laboriously up from the +creek. Resolving to give up his watch and go into town with this, he +felt his way cautiously out of his hiding place. Without really hoping +to recover it, he began to search for his hat and to his surprise found +it in another gully near where he had tumbled from his horse. The +driver of the freighting outfit wondered at seeing Laramie on foot. He +explained that he had been hunting and that his horse had taken a +short-cut home. + + +Stone's companions under instructions had left him and returned to +Doubleday's before the shot across the Crazy Woman. Stone himself got +back to Doubleday's ranch at about the time that Laramie started for +Sleepy Cat in the evening. But Barb Doubleday and Van Horn, he was +told, were in town. He followed them and discovered Van Horn in the +bar room at the hotel. + +"I hear you got him," muttered Van Horn, bending his keen eyes on Stone. + +"Who said so?" demanded Stone. + +"His horse came into Kitchen's barn this afternoon, all saddled. +McAlpin is telling he heard a rifle shot on the Crazy Woman. They're +wild down at the barn over it. Did you get him?" + +Stone paused over a glass of whisky; his face brightened: "I tumbled +him off his horse, if you call that getting him." + +Van Horn asked questions impatiently. Stone answered with the +indifference of the man that had turned a big trick. But Van Horn +insisted on knowing what had become of Laramie. + +"He tumbled into a hole," said Stone. "I didn't cross the creek to +look for him." + +"Why didn't you?" asked Van Horn nervously. + +Stone dallied with his glass: "I watched the hole all day. He didn't +come out. That was enough, wasn't it?" + +"No," snapped Van Horn. + +"Well, I'll tell you, Harry; next time you and the old man want a job +done, do it yourself. I never liked Laramie: I didn't care for getting +too close to the hole he tumbled into. After he was hit, he stuck to +his horse a little too long to suit me," said Stone shrewdly. + +Van Horn's retort was contemptuous and pointed. He laughed: "Afraid of +him, eh?" + +Stone regarded him malevolently: "Look here!" he exclaimed harshly, +"I'll make you a little proposition. When I get shaved we'll ride over +to the Crazy Woman and you c'n look in the hole for yourself." + +The uncertainty irritated Van Horn. When Stone, newly plastered, +emerged from the barber shop, Van Horn took him with his story to +Doubleday whom they found in his room, chewing the stub of a cold cigar +and looking over a stock journal. He did not appear amiable, nor did +his face change much as the news was cautiously conveyed to him. When +Van Horn announced he would ride out with Stone to examine the road +hole, Doubleday, whose expression had grown colder and colder, broke in: + +"Needn't waste any time on that," he said with a snap of his jaw. + +Stone snorted: "Maybe _you_ think he wasn't hit." + +"Hit!" exclaimed Barb. "Hit!" he repeated, raising a long forefinger +with deep-drawn disgust. "He's sittin' in that room across the hall +right now----" + +"What's he doin'?" + +"Playin' poker," muttered the old cattleman grimly, "with Doc. Carpy +and Harry Tenison." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +KATE RIDES + +In strict point of fact, Laramie had left the room across the hall and +at that particular moment was sitting down for a late supper at Belle +Shockley's whither Sawdy and Lefever had dragged him from the hotel. +Carpy had come with them. + +At the table--after Laramie had told part of his story--the talk, +genial to cheerfulness, was largely professional criticism of the shot +across the Crazy Woman. The technical disadvantages of shooting +uphill, the tendency to over-elevate for such shots, the difficulty of +catching the pace and speed of a horse, all supplied judicial +observations for Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie--so nearly the +victim--leaving the topic to these Sleepy Cat gun pundits, conferred +with Carpy about the care of gunshot wounds; and protested against Flat +Nose George and the Museum of Horrors in the Doctor's office. + +"But I want to tell you, boys," remarked the doctor, when the talk +turned on the discomfiture of the enemy group, "what Barb asked me +tonight--this is on the dead." The doctor looked around to include +Belle--who was standing with folded arms, her back against the +sideboard and listening to the conversation--in his injunction of +secrecy. "He came to me at the hotel. 'Doc,' says Barb, 'I want to +ask you a question. There's stories circulating around about Laramie's +getting shot this morning, on his way into town. Has Laramie been to +you to get fixed up, at all?' + +"'Well, Barb,' I says, 'that's not really a fair question for me to +answer--you know that. But since you spoke about it, Jim was in awhile +ago----' + +"'Was in, eh?' + +"'For a few minutes----' + +"'Hit?' + +"'That I couldn't say. What he asked for, Barb, was a bottle of Perry +Davis' painkiller--said the rheumatiz was getting him to beat the +band.'" + +Carpy paused: "'Rheumatiz!' says Barb. He didn't stop to swear--he +just bit his old cigar right square in two in the middle, dropped one +end on the floor and stamped on it." The Doctor leaned forward and +spoke to Laramie: "How's longhorn, Jim?" + +Laramie looked troubled: "If it wasn't for dragging you into it, I'd +ask you to go out and see him." + +"Jim, a doctor's place is where he's needed." + +"I left a twenty dollar gold piece in your medicine chest for the stuff +I took." + +"You go to hell!" The Doctor pulled a handful of money from his pocket +and threw a double eagle at Laramie. "There's your gold piece." + +"Belle, look at them fellows," exclaimed Sawdy moodily, "pockets +loaded. I never had more than twenty dollars at one time in my life. +My mother told me to take care of the pennies and the dollars would +take care of themselves. The blamed dollars wouldn't do it. I took +care of the pennies. I've got 'em yet--that's all I have got. Jim, +I'll match you for that gold piece." + +"Gamblers never have a cent," commented Belle darkly. + +"That gold piece," explained Laramie, "is not my money, Harry. It's +Carpy's money and he'll keep it if I have to make him swallow it." + +"That's not the question," declared Carpy. "Did you get what you +wanted?" Laramie told him he did. "And by the great Jehosaphat," +added the doctor, "you bumped into Kate Doubleday!" + +"What else did you expect?" retorted Laramie, not pleased at the +recollection. + +Carpy, throwing back his head, laughed well: "After Kate Doubleday told +me she was going for the dressings herself, I says to myself, 'There'll +be two people in my house tonight--a man and a woman--I hope to God +they don't meet.'" + +"Jim," intervened Belle, "you ought to get Abe Hawk to a hospital." + +"He's got to get him to one," affirmed Lefever. "I've seen that man," +he added emphatically, "I know." + +"How's he going to do it," inquired Carpy, "without starting the fight +all over again?" + +Lefever stuck to his ground: "Get him down to Sleepy Cat in the night," +he insisted. + +"Can he ride?" asked Sawdy. + +"He may have to have help," said Laramie. + +"There's a moon right now. They'd pick you off like rabbits," objected +Sawdy, "and they've got that whole trail patroled to the Crazy Woman. +They're watching this town like cats. You'll have to waste a lot of +ammunition to get Abe to a hospital." + +"From all I hear," observed Carpy, "if Abe gets any more lead in him +you won't need to take him to the hospital. He'll be ready to head +straight for the undertaker's." + +"We've got to wait either for a late moon or a rainy night; then we'll +get busy," suggested Lefever. + +"He might die while you're waiting," interposed Carpy. + +Lefever could not be subdued: "Not as quick as he'd die if Van Horn's +bunch caught sight of him on the road," he said sententiously. "We'll +get him down and he won't die, either." + +"Well, pay for your supper, boys, and let's get away," said Carpy. "I +want some sleep." + +But for Lefever and Sawdy there was little sleep that night. The +echoes of the "fatal" shot--almost fatal, as it proved, to the prestige +of the enemy--were being discussed pretty much everywhere in Sleepy Cat +and wherever men that night assembled in public places, Sawdy and +Lefever swaggered in and out at least once. The pair looked wise, +spoke obscurely, looked the crowd, large or small, over critically, +played an occasional restrained and brief finger-tattoo on the butts of +their bolstered guns and listened condescendingly to everyone that had +a theory to advance, a reminiscence to offer, or a propitiating drink +to suggest. + +Wherever they could induce him to go, they dragged Laramie--at once as +an exhibit and a defi; but Laramie objected to the thoroughness with +which his companions essayed to cover the territory, and unfeelingly +withdrew from the party to go to bed. Sawdy and Company, undismayed by +the defection, continued to haunt the high places until the last +sympathizer with Van Horn and Company had been challenged and bullied +or silenced. + +But the differing sympathies on the situation in Sleepy Cat were not to +be adjusted in a single night, either by force or persuasion. The +whole town took sides and the cattlemen found the most defenders. What +might be designated, but with modesty, as "big business" in Sleepy Cat +stood stubbornly, despite the violence of their methods, with Van Horn, +Doubleday and their friends; the interest of such business lay with the +men that bought the most supplies. The banks and the merchants were +thus pretty much aligned on one side. The surgeon of the town +professed neutrality--at least as regarded operations--for he was +needed to administer to both factions. Harry Tenison, as dealer of the +big game in town and owner of the big hotel, was of necessity neutral; +though men like himself and Carpy were rightly suspected of leaning +toward Laramie, if not even as far as toward Abe Hawk. The open +sympathizers of the Falling Wall men were among trainmen, liverymen, +the clerks, the barbers and bartenders, and those who could be usually +counted as "agin the government." + +Meantime, the element of mystery in the still unclosed tragedy of the +upper country concerned the disappearance of Hawk; and this naturally +centered about Laramie. None but he knew to a certainty the fate of +the redoubtable old cowboy, so long a range favorite. And whenever +Laramie appeared in town, speculation at once revived every feature of +the situation, and Kate Doubleday when she came to Sleepy Cat, whether +she would or not, could not escape the talk concerning the Falling Wall +feud. + +Loyalty to her own and the intense partizanship of her nature, combined +to urge her to sympathize with the fight of the range owners against +the Falling Wall men. But in this attitude, Belle Shockley was a trial +to Kate. Belle would not drag in the subject of the fight but she +never avoided it; and Kate, even against her inclination, seemed +impelled to speak of the subject with Belle. She instinctively felt +that Belle's sympathies were with the other side; and felt just as +strongly in her impulsiveness, that Belle should be set right about +rustlers and their friends--meaning always, by the latter, Jim Laramie. +Belle, stubborn but more contained, clung to her own views. Though she +rarely talked back, the attempt to assassinate Laramie had intensified +everyone's feelings, and for days only a spark on that subject was +needed to fire more than one Sleepy Cat powder magazine. One afternoon +rain caught Kate in at Belle's and kept her until almost dark from +starting for home, and one magazine did explode. + +The two women were sitting on the porch watching the shower. McAlpin +on his way uptown from the barn, had stopped at Belle's a moment for +shelter. + +"I'll tell you, Kate," said Belle, after listening as patiently as she +could to what Kate had to say about the Falling Wall fight and its +consequences, "I like you. I can't help liking you. But the only +reason you talk the way you do is because you haven't lived in this +country long. You don't know this country--you don't know the people." + +McAlpin nodded strongly: "That's so, that's true." + +"I, at least, know common honesty, I hope." + +"But you don't know anything at all of what you are talking about," +insisted Belle, "and if you think I'm ever going to agree with you that +it was right for Van Horn and your father and their friends to take a +bunch of Texas men up into the Falling Wall and shoot and burn men +because they're rustlers, you're very much mistaken. And I can tell +you the people of this country won't agree with you either, no matter +what some folks in this town may say to tickle your ears." + +"Do you mean to say you stand up for thieves, too?" asked Kate, hotly. + +McAlpin looked apprehensively out at the clouds. Belle twitched her +shoulders: "You needn't be so high and mighty about it," she retorted. +"No, I don't. And I don't stand up for burning men alive because they +brand mavericks. You talk very fierce--like everybody up your way. +But if Abe Hawk or Jim Laramie walked in here this minute, you wouldn't +agree to have them shot down. And don't you forget it, Jim Laramie +doesn't claim a hoof of anybody's cattle but his own." + +Kate would not back down: "Why do they call him king of the rustlers?" +she demanded. + +"King of the rustlers, nothing," echoed Belle in disgust. "That's +barroom talk. No decent man ever accused him of branding so much as a +horse hair that didn't belong to him." + +"And his reputation is, he's not very slow when it comes to shooting, +either," declared Kate. + +McAlpin thought it a time for oil on the waters! "You've got to make +allowances," he urged with dignity. "Ten years ago--less'n that, +even--they was all pretty quick on the trigger in this country. Jim +was a kid 'n' he had to travel with the bunch." + +"And he was quicker 'n any of them," interposed Belle, defiantly, +"wasn't he, Mac?" + +McAlpin was for moderation and better feeling: + +"Well," he admitted gravely, "full as quick, I guess." + +"It seems to me," observed Kate, still resentful, "as if men here are +pretty quick yet." + +"Oh, no," interposed McAlpin at once; "oh, no, not special now'days. +More talk'n there used to be--heap more." + +"Bring over my pony, Mr. McAlpin, will you?" asked Kate, very much +irritated. + +McAlpin looked surprised: "You wouldn't be ridin' home tonight?" + +"Yes," replied Kate, sharply, "I would." + +As McAlpin started on his way she turned on Belle: "And you mustn't +forget, Belle, that vigilantes, no matter whether they do make mistakes +or go too far, have built this country up and made it safe to live in." + +Belle's face took on a weariness: "Oh, no--not always safe to live +in--sometimes safe to make money in. There's nothing I'm so sick of +hearing as this vigilante stuff. The vigilante crowd are mostly big +thieves--the rustlers, little thieves--that's about all the difference +I can see." + +"Well, is there any difference between being a rustler, and protecting +and being the friend of one?" + +Belle's restraint broke: "You'd better set your own house in order +before you criticize me or Jim Laramie. He's never yet tried to +assassinate anybody." + +"Neither has my father, nor the men that raided the Falling Wall." + +"Don't you know," demanded Belle, indignantly, "that the men who raided +the Falling Wall are the men that tried to murder Laramie?" + +"I don't believe it," said Kate, flatly. "Father doesn't believe +_any_body tried to murder him." + +Belle's wrath bubbled over: "Your father's as deep in it as anybody." + +She could have bitten her tongue off the instant she uttered the angry +words. But they were out. + +Kate sprang to her feet. Even Belle, used to shocks and encounters, +was silenced by the look that met her. For a moment the angry girl did +not utter a word, but if her eyes were daggers, Belle would have been +transfixed. Kate's breast rose sharply and she spoke low and fast: +"How dare you accuse my father of such a thing?" + +Belle, though cowed, was defiant: "I dare say just what I believe to be +true." + +"What proof have you?" + +"I don't need proof for what everyone knows." + +"You say what is absolutely false." Kate's tranquil eyes were aflame; +she stood child, indeed, of her old father. Belle had more than once +doubted whether Kate _could_ be the daughter of such a man--she never +doubted it after that scene on the day of the rain. Barb himself would +have waited on his daughter's words. "You're glad to listen to the +stories of our enemies," she almost panted, "because they're your +friends; you're welcome to them. But my father's enemies are my +enemies and I know now where to place you." + +White with anger as she was herself, Belle, older and more controlled, +tried to allay the storm she had raised: "I didn't meant to hurt you, +Kate," she protested, "you drove me too far." + +"I'm glad I did," returned Kate, wickedly, as she stepped back into the +living-room, pinned on her hat and made ready as fast as possible to +go. "I know you in your true colors." + +"Well, whether I'm right or wrong, you'll find my colors don't fade and +don't change." + +A boy stood at the gate with Kate's pony. + +The two women were again on the porch. Belle looked at the sky. The +rain had abated but the mountains were black. "Now, Kate, what are you +going to do?" + +Kate had walked out and was indignantly throwing the lines over her +horse's neck. "I'm going home," she answered, as sharply as the words +could be spoken. + +Belle crossed the sidewalk to her side: "This is a poor time of day for +a long ride. We've quarreled, I know, but don't try a mountain trail a +night like this. The rain isn't over yet." + +"I'll be home before it starts again," returned Kate, springing into +the saddle. "I'm sick of this town and everybody in it." + +So saying, she struck her horse with the lines and headed for the +mountains. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +NIGHT AND A HEADER + +For John Lefever the rainy night promised to be a busy one; darkness +and the storm would, he felt, give Laramie a chance to get Hawk safely +into town; but to do this successfully would call for precaution. + +The rain had hardly begun to fall that afternoon--to the discomfiture +of Kate and her undoing with Belle--before Lefever began to cheer up in +speculating on what might be done. He found Laramie at the hotel and +set out to round up Sawdy. The rendezvous was set at Kitchen's barn +and half an hour later the three men were shut up in the old harness +room back of the office to talk the venture over. + +Laramie made no effort to discourage John concerning the project; it +had become a pet one with the big fellow; but he did not give the idea +strong endorsement. "You're too blamed pessimistic, Jim," growled +Lefever. + +"No, John," protested Laramie evenly, "I'm only trying to see things as +they stand. Don't figure we are going to pull this thing without +trouble. Harry Van Horn's got a good guess that Dave is pretty well +shot up; and that he's hiding out. He knows a man can't hide out +without friends." + +"I grant you that," interrupted John. "But if you can get him across +the Crazy Woman, Jim, it's a cinch to run him into town." + +"Don't figure that every mile of that road isn't watched, for it is. I +ride it oftener than you and I see plenty of sign. And Harry knows +what a rainy night means just as well as we do. He'll be on the job +with his men--that's all I'm saying. Now, go ahead. You want Abe +brought in--that's your business. I'm here to bring him in--that's my +business. Shoot." + +Laramie and Lefever arranged things. Number Seventy-eight, the through +fast freight, would be due to leave Sleepy Cat for Medicine Bend at +4:32 in the morning. The crew were friendly. Could Laramie make it +with Abe, starting by midnight? He could. It was impossible to meet +Laramie outside town because no one could tell which trail he might +have to choose to come in on. But Sawdy and Lefever could look for him +out on the plateau at the head of Fort Street. Henry Sawdy, his heavy +mustaches sweeping his thick lips, and his bloodshot eyes moving from +one to the other of the two faces before him only stared and listened. + +"Why don't you say something, Henry?" demanded Lefever, exasperated. + +Sawdy turned a reproachful look on his lively partner: "When you're +talking, John, there ain't no chance to say anything. When Jim's +talking, I don't want to say anything." + +Laramie ordered his horse, got into oilskins, and riding out the back +way of the stable started for the Falling Wall. The day was spent and +the rain had turned soft and misty. He rode fast and with a little +watchfulness, exercised before reaching the Crazy Woman, satisfied +himself that he had not been followed out of town. + +What had actually happened was that he rode north not long after Kate +herself started for home. But Laramie followed old trails out of +town--even at the price of rounding fences and at times dodging through +wire gates for short cuts. Night was upon him when he reached the +bluffs of the creek. Between showers the sky had lightened, but the +north was overcast, and Laramie knew what to look forward to. When he +had got up the long hill, and reached the northern bluffs, it was +raining steadily again, and night had spread over mountain and valley. + +Abating something of his usual precaution in riding to reach Hawk's +hiding place, Laramie went slowly into the bad lands by a route less +dangerous than that he usually followed. As the night deepened, the +wind rising brought a heavier rain. The trail became increasingly +difficult to follow; rough at best, it was now almost impassable. +Sheets of water trickled over stretches of rock causing the horse to +slip and flounder. In other places rivulets shooting out of crevices +cut the loose earth from under the horse's feet. Leg-tired, the horse +finally resented being headed into the driving rain and went forward +slipping, hesitating and groping like a man on hands and knees. + +When Laramie got him to the old bridge, the pony was all in. Laramie +found shelter for him under a ledge and rifle in hand clambered along +the side of the canyon toward the abutment. Close to the entrance he +set his rifle against the rock, listened carefully, as always, felt +down at his feet for the few chips of rock he had so placed that they +would be disturbed if trodden by an enemy, listened again carefully, +and with his revolver cocked in his right hand, and the muzzle lying +across his left forearm, Laramie slowly zigzagged his way to the +inside. Once there, he stood perfectly still in the darkness and +called a greeting to Hawk. He failed to receive the usual gruff +answer. This never before had happened, and without trying for a +light, Laramie moved slowly and with much caution over to the recess +within which Hawk lay. There he could hear the cowboy's labored, but +regular breathing as he slept. The storm, waking the water crevices of +the mountains into a noisy chorus, had lulled the hunted man into an +untroubled sleep. + +Laramie shook his oilskins in a heap on the floor, cautiously lighted a +candle and set it on the board that served as a table. In spite of his +slickers he was wet through. He hung his hat on the end of a broken +timber and laid his revolver beside the candle. Bethinking himself, +however, of his rifle, he picked up the six-shooter again, stepped +outside the entrance, brought in his rifle, wiped it, stood it in a +convenient corner and turned toward Hawk. + +The candle, burning at moments steadily and at moments flickering, +threw its uncertain rays into the recess where the wounded rustler lay. +They lighted the sallow pallor of the sleeping man's face, fell across +his sunken eyes and drew the black of his long beard out of the gloom +below it. Laramie seated himself on a projecting ledge and looked +thoughtfully at his charge. He was failing; of that there could be no +doubt. Steel-willed and hard-sinewed though he was, the wounds that +would long ago have put an ordinary man out of action, were undermining +his great vitality and Laramie, in a study, felt it. + +Yet such was the younger man's natural stubbornness that left to his +own devices he would have fought out the battle against death right +where the failing man lay; only the judgment of Lefever and Carpy +swayed him in the circumstances. + +Believing sleep was the best preparative for the ordeal of the ride to +town, Laramie hesitated about waking Hawk--yet the hours were precious, +for the trip would be long and slow. Fortunately he had not long to +wait before Hawk woke. + +Laramie was sitting a few feet away and silently looking at him when +Hawk opened his eyes. They wandered from one object to another in the +dim candle gloom, until they rested on Laramie's face; there they +stopped. + +Laramie's features relaxed into as near a smile as he permitted himself +on duty: "How you coming, Abe?" + +Hawk eyed him steadily: "What are you doing here tonight?" + +Laramie answered with a question: "How about trying the gauntlet?" + +"That what you want?" + +"It's what Lefever and Carpy want." + +"They running things?" + +"They think you'd get well full as quick at a hospital." + +"What do you think?" + +"I guess you would." + +"Tired taking care of me?" + +"Not yet, Abe." + +"Raining?" + +"Hell bent." + +"What's the other noise?" + +"Thunder; and the river's up." + +The roar of the waters was not new to the ears of the two men who +listened, however much it might have disturbed others unused to their +tearing fury. + +Hawk listened thoughtfully: "Why didn't you pick a wet night?" he asked. + +"We had to pick a dark one, Abe." + +"Where's the horses?" + +"Over at my place--what's that?" + +The last words broke from Laramie's lips like the crack of a pistol. +He sprang to his feet. Hawk's hand shot out for his gun. Only +practised ears could have detected under the steady downpour of rain, +the deep roar of the canyon and the reverberation of the thunder, the +hoof beats of a stumbling horse. The next instant, they heard the +horse directly over their heads. Laramie, whipping out his revolver, +looked up. As he did so, a deafening crash blotted out the roar of the +storm--the roof overhead gave way and amid an avalanche of rock and +timbers, a horse plunged headlong into the refuge. + +In the narrow quarters so amazingly invaded, darkness added to an +instant of frantic confusion. Laramie was knocked flat. In the midst +of the fallen timbers, the horse, mad with terror, struggled to get to +his feet. A suppressed groan betrayed the rider under him. + +Laramie, where he lay, gun in hand, and Hawk, had but one thought: +their retreat had been discovered and attacked. It was no part of +their defense to reveal their presence by wild shooting. The enemy who +had plunged in on top of them was at their mercy, even though unseen. +He was caught under the horse, and to clap a revolver to his head and +blow the top off was simple; it could be done at any moment. Of much +greater import it was, carefully to await his companions when they rode +up, above, and pick them off as chance offered. Escape, if the raiding +party were properly organized, both men knew was for them +impossible--and they knew that Harry Van Horn organized well. The +alternative was to sell their lives as dearly as possible. + +This was by no means a terrifying conclusion to men inured to affray. +And for the moment, at feast, the situation was in their hands, not in +the enemies'. + +A deluge of wind and rain swept through the broken roof. Laramie, +stretching one arm through the debris, felt the shoulder of the rider, +flung in the violence of the fall close to him. + +The prostrate horse renewed his struggles to get to his feet. + +Laramie, exposed to the pouring rain, covered with mud, bruised by +broken rock still rolling down the open crater, and caught among rotten +timbers, struggled to right himself before his enemy should do so. He +raised himself by a violent effort to his elbow, freed his pistol arm +and reaching over, pushed his cocked revolver into the side of the +fallen horseman. + +A bolt of lightning shot across the crater, leaving behind it an inky +blackness of rain and wind. The sudden onslaught from overhead might +well have confused his senses; but he had seen the lightning sweep +across a white, drawn face turned toward the angry sky--and in the +flash he had caught the features of Kate Doubleday. + +Stunned though he was by the revelation, he knew his senses had not +tricked him. There was in his memory but one such riding cap as that +which shaded her closed eyes; for him, but one such coil of woman's +hair as that falling now in disarray on her neck. Completely unnerved, +he carefully drew away his revolver, averted the muzzle and spoke +angrily through the dark: "Who's here with you?" + +There was no answer. He asked the question sternly again, listening +keenly the while for sounds of other riders above. Had she discovered +the retreat and led to it his enemies? Could it be possible that even +they would allow her with them on such an errand and on such a night? + +He called her name. The roar of the canyon answered above the storm; +there was no sound else. Once more he stretched out his arm. His hand +rested on her breast and he was doubly sure his senses had not tricked +him. But she might be dying or dead. The fear struck home that she +was dead. Then her bosom rose in a hardly perceptible respiration. + +A storm of emotion swept Laramie. He squirmed under the debris that +pinned him and got nearer to her. He listened still for sounds of an +enemy, of those who must be with her--where could they be? The +delicate breathing under his heavy hand came more regularly. Then a +moan of pain checked and, again, released it. + +Feeling slowly in the stormy dark for obstructions that might have +caught her, Laramie freed one of her feet caught in the stirrup and by +pushing and lifting at the shoulder of the horse succeeded after much +exertion in freeing her other foot, caught under it. He felt his way +back to Kate's head and getting on his feet placed his hands under her +shoulders to draw her toward him. + +As he did so, a sharp question of fear and confusion was flung at him: +"Where am I? Who are you?" + +"Who are you?" echoed Laramie, pulling her away from the horse which +had begun to struggle again. "Who's here with you?" he demanded. +There was no answer. + +"Who's here with you?" he repeated sternly. "Tell me the truth." + +"I've lost my way. Where am I? Who are you?" + +The truth in her manner was plain. Incredible as it seemed that she +could have strayed so far, all apprehension of an attack vanished with +her questions. + +"You're a long way from home," he said, shortly. + +She made no reply. + +"Your horse took a header. You fainted. I suppose"--he hardly +hesitated in his words--"you know who is talking to you?" + +In her silence he heard his answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +A GUEST FOR AN HOUR + +"Can you stand on your feet?" he asked. + +Supporting her as she made the trial he felt his way from where the +horse had plunged through to where he found a partial seat for her. +"Are you much hurt?" he asked again. + +She could not, if she would, have told in how many places she was +broken and bruised. All she was sharply conscious of was a pain in one +foot so intense as to deaden all other pain. It was the foot that had +been caught under the horse. "I think I'm all right," she murmured, in +a constrained tone and, in her manner, briefly. "How did you find me +here?" she asked, almost resentfully. "Where am I?" + +He knew from her words she had neither headed nor followed any +expedition against him but he did not answer her question: "I'll see +whether I can get the horse up." + +While he worked with the horse--and once during the long, hard effort +she heard between thunder claps a sharp expletive--Kate tried to +collect in some degree her scattered and reeling senses. What quieted +her most was that her long and fear-stricken groping for hours in the +storm and darkness seemed done now. Without realizing it she was +willingly turning her fears and troubles over to another--and to one +who, though she stubbornly refused to regard him as a friend, she well +knew was able to shoulder them. She heard the kicking and pawing of +the horse, then with new dismay, the low voices of two men; and next in +the terrifying darkness, more kicking, more suppressed expletives, more +heaving and pulling, and between lightning flashes, quieting words to +the horse. The two men had gotten the frightened beast to his feet. + +Laramie groped back to Kate. He had to touch her with his hand to be +sure he had found her: "I'm taking you at your word," he said, above +the confusion of the storm. + +"What do you mean?" + +"That you're alone and don't know where you are." + +"I am alone. I wish I might know where I am." + +Both spoke under constraint: "It's more important to know how to get +home," he replied, ignoring the request in her words. "Your horse is +here for the night--that's pretty certain," he declared, as a sheet of +rain swept over the crater. "I've got a horse near by and we'll start +for where we can get more horses." + +There was nothing Kate could say or do. She already had made up her +mind to submit in silence to what Laramie might suggest or impose. One +thing only she was resolved on; that whatever happened there should be +no appeal on her part. + +His first thought was to get her out of the pit by the way she had +plunged in. A moment's reflection convinced him that such a precaution +was unnecessary. When he asked her to follow him he held her wet +gloved hand in his hand. "Look out for your footing till we get to the +horse," was his warning. "The way we're going, we should never make +but one slip. Take your time," he added, as she stepped cautiously +after him out into the drive of wind and rain. "It's only about twenty +steps." + +In obeying orders she gave him nothing to complain of, but there was +little relaxing of the tension between the two. Every step she took on +her injured foot was torture, made keener by the uncertain footing. +More than once, even despite the dangers of her situation, she thought +she must cry out or faint in agony. The twenty steps along the steep +face of the canyon, pelted by rain, were like two hundred. Kate made +them without a whimper. Thence she followed him slowly between rocky +walls guarding the nearly level floor of the widening ledge, till they +reached the horse. She stumbled at times with pain; but if it were to +kill her she would not speak. + +Hawk had followed the two from the abutment. He joined them now. Kate +was only aware that a second man had come up and was moving silently +near them. Laramie spoke to him--she could not catch what he +said--then helped her into the saddle. "I'm going to the house again," +he said, "this man will stay with you. I'll be back in a moment." + +Little as she liked being left with another, she could not object. The +rocky wall saved her partly from the storm and as to the other man she +was only vaguely conscious at intervals of a shapeless form outlined +beside the horse. + +Laramie was gone more than a moment but under Kate's shelter nothing +happened. The horse, subdued by storm and weariness, stood like a +statue. Uneasy with pain, Kate was very nervous. New sounds were +borne on the wind from the darkness; then she heard Laramie's voice; +and then a rough question from another voice: "How the hell did you get +him out?" + +"Walked him out," was the response. Laramie had brought back her own +horse. "Get on him," added Laramie, speaking to the other man. "I'll +lead my horse--he's sure-footed for her. You know the way down." + +Kate made only one effort as the man she knew must be Laramie came to +the head of the horse she was on, patted his wet neck and took hold of +the bridle. She leaned forward in the saddle: "I'll try again to get +home if you'll help me get out of here." + +"I'm helping you get out," was the reply. "If you knew where you were, +you wouldn't talk yet about trying for home." He stepped closer to the +saddle, tested the cinches and spoke to Kate: "It's a hard ride. You +can make it by letting the horse strictly alone. I'll lead him but he +won't stand two bosses in this kind of a mess, over the only trail that +leads from here. How you ever got in, God only knows, and He won't +tell--leastways, not tonight. Sit tight. Don't get scared no matter +what happens. If the horse should break a leg all we can do is to +shoot him and you can try your own horse; but your horse is all in now." + +To ride at night a mile in the chilling blackness of a mountain storm +is to ride five. To face a buffeting wind and a sweep of heavy rain +mile after mile and keep a saddle while a horse pauses, halts, starts +and staggers, rights himself, gropes painfully for an uncertain +foothold among rocks where a bighorn must pick his way, is to test the +endurance even of a man. + +Laramie, moving unseen and almost unheard in the inky blackness, +piloted the nervous beast with an uncanny instinct, past the dangers on +every hand. He guided himself with his feet and by his hands, halting +on the edge of crevices and heading them with the horse at his +shoulder, feeling his way around slopes of fallen rock and clambering +across them when they could not be escaped, holding the lines at their +length ahead of the horse and speaking low and reassuringly to urge him +on: waiting sometimes for a considerable period for a flash of +lightning to give him his bearings anew. + +Kate could see in each of these blinding intervals his figure. Each +flash outlined it sharply on her retina--always the same--patient, +resourceful, silent and unwearied. The man who had been directed to +ride her own horse she never caught sight of. When they reached open +country and better going her guide did not break the silence. He spoke +only when at last he stopped the horse and stood in the darkness close +to her knee: + +"This brings us to the end of our trail--for awhile. We're in front of +my cabin. Of course, it's small. And I've been thinking what I ought +to say to you about things as you'll find them here. The man that rode +behind us and passed us on your horse is Abe Hawk. You know what they +call him over at your place; you know what they call me for taking his +part--you know what you called me." + +She repressed an exclamation. When she tried to speak, he spoke on, +ignoring her. "Never mind," he said, in the same low, even tone that +silenced her protest, "I'm not starting any argument but it's time for +plain speaking and I'm going to tell you just what has happened +tonight, so, for once, anyway, we'll understand each other--I'm going +to show my cards.", + +The chilling sheets of rain that swept their faces did not hasten his +utterance: "When you get home and tell your story, your men will know +it was Abe Hawk you ran into whether you knew it or not. They'll ask +you all about his hiding place and you'll tell them all you know--which +won't be much. I don't complain of all that--it's war; and part of the +game. All I'll ask you not to say is, that I brought Abe Hawk with you +to my cabin. Abe won't be here when they come--it isn't that. We can +take care of ourselves. I'm speaking only because I don't want my +place burned. It isn't much but I think a good deal of it. Burning it +won't help get rid of me. It will only make things in this country +worse than they are now--and they're bad enough. I wouldn't have +brought you here if there'd been any other place to take you. There +wasn't; and for awhile you'll have to make partners with the two men +your father and his friends are trying to get killed." + +She almost cried out a protest: "How can you say such a thing?" + +"Just the plain fact, that's all." + +"Is it fair because you are enemies to accuse my father in such a way?" + +"Have it as you want it but get my view of it with the one you get over +at your place. And if you'll climb down we'll go under cover." + +"Now may I say something?" + +"No more than fair you should." + +She spoke low but fast and distinctly; nor was there any note of fear +or apology in her words: "You must put a low estimate on a woman if you +would expect her to go home with tales from the camp of an enemy that +had put her again on her road. It may be that is the kind of woman you +know best----" + +Laramie tried to interrupt. + +"I've not done," she protested instantly. "You said I might say +something: It may be that is the kind of woman you understand best. +But I won't be classed with such--not even by you. If you've saved me +from great danger it doesn't give you the right to insult me by telling +me you expect me to be a tale-bearer. It isn't manly or fair to treat +me in that way." + +"You mustn't expect too much from a thief." + +"You shame yourself, not me, when you use a word I never in my life, +not even in anger, ever used of you." + +"You shame your friends when you call me or think of me as anything +else. I'm no match for you----" + +"I've not done----" + +"I'm no match for you, I know, in fine words--or in any other kind of a +game--don't think I don't know that; but by----" he checked himself +just in time, "thief or no thief, you've had a square deal from me +every turn of the road." + +Bitter with anger, he blurted out the words with vehemence. If he +looked for a quick retort, none came. Kate for an instant waited: +"Should you wish me," she asked, "to look for anything else at your +hands?" + +"Well, we're not holding up this rain any by talking," he returned +gruffly. "Get down and we'll get inside. You can stay here till +morning." + +"Oh, no!" + +"Why not?" + +"Just put me on the road for home and let me be going." + +"This is my cabin. I told you that." + +"I can't _stay_ here." + +"This is my cabin. I'm responsible for the safety of everyone that +steps under my roof." + +"I know, but I must go home. They have most likely been searching the +trails for me. Father would telephone"--she was desperate for +excuses--"to Belle and learn I'd started home--and the storm----" + +He did not hesitate to cut her off: "Afraid of me, eh?" + +The contempt and resentment in his words stirred her. Without +answering she sprang as well as she could in her wet habit from the +saddle and faced him, close enough almost to see into his eyes in the +darkness. From the fireplace inside a gleam of light, from the blaze +that Hawk had started, piercing the tiny window sash shot across her +face: "Does this look like it?" she demanded, her eyes seeking his. He +was stubborn. "Answer me!" she exclaimed in a tone of a dictator. + +"Then why don't you do what I ask you to do instead of giving me a +story about Barb Doubleday telephoning?" he demanded. She winced at +her mistake in urging an impossible thing. She felt when she made it, +Laramie would not credit so wild an assertion. Her father would not +take the trouble to telephone to save even a bunch of his steers from a +storm, much less his daughter. "But there may be others over there," +Laramie added grimly, "that would." + +The reference to the man he hated--Van Horn--was too plain to be passed +over. "Now," she returned, as if to close--and standing her ground as +she spoke, "have you said all the mean things you can think of?" + +He evaded her thrust. "The wires are down a night like this, anyway," +he objected. "If you'd be as honest with me as I am with you we'd get +along without saying mean things." + +"I am honest with you. Can't you see that a woman can't always be as +open in what she says as a man?" + +"What do I know about a woman?" + +"But since you make everything hard for me I shall be open with you." + +"Come inside then and say it." + +"I couldn't be any wetter than I am and if I've got to say this to one +man I won't say it to two: You ask me to stay all night in your cabin +as it I were a small boy--instead of what I am." + +"You could take all the shooting irons on the place into your own room +with you." + +"I shouldn't need to. But what would people say of me when they heard +of it? That I had stayed here all night! You know what they can do to +a woman's reputation in this country--you know how some evil tongues +talk about Belle. I would like to keep at least my reputation out of +this bitter war that is going on--can't you, won't you, understand?" + +He was silent a moment. "Come in to the fire, then," he said at +length, "and we'll see what we can do. You've been on the wrong road +all night. There's no need of any secrets now on anybody's part, I +guess. But I'd rather turn you over to ten thousand devils than to the +man you're going back to tonight." + +"Surely," she gasped, "you don't mean my own father?" + +"You know the man I mean," was all he answered. Then he threw open the +cabin door and stood waiting for her to pass within. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CRAZY WOMAN WINS + +It would have been idle for Laramie to deny to himself, as she stepped +without hesitation under his roof, that he loved her; or that he could +step in after her and close his door for her and for him--even for an +hour--against the storm and the world, without a thrill deeper than he +had ever felt. + +He leaned his rifle against the cabin wall; a blanket had been hung +completely over the window and he let down two heavy bars across the +door. Kate, in front of the fire, followed him with her eyes. "Don't +mind this," he said, noticing her look. "The place is watched a good +deal. I couldn't afford too much of a surprise any time." + +While he was searching for a lamp, her eyes ran quickly over the dark +interior, lighted fitfully as the driftwood, snapping on the stone +hearth, flared at times into a blaze. Kate herself, despite the doubts +and fears of her situation, was conscious of a strange feeling in being +under Laramie's roof--at one with him in so far as he could make her +feel so. Like a roll of fleeting film, strange pictures flashed across +her mind and she could not help thinking more and more about the man +and his stubborn isolation. + +He had taken off his coat and was trying to light the lamp. She looked +narrowly at the face illumined by the spluttering flare of the wick as +he stood over it, looking down and adjusting the flame; he seemed, she +was thinking--for her at least--so easy to get along with--for everyone +else, so hard. + +A pounding at the door gave her a start. Hawk was returning from the +barn where he had taken the horses. Laramie showed no surprise and +walked over to lift the double bar only after he had got the lamp to +burn to suit him. She felt startled again when Laramie in the simplest +way made the formidable outlaw, who now walked in, known to her. The +picture of him as he swung roughly inside from the wild night was +unforgettable. Erect and with his piercing eyes hollowed by illness, +his impassive features made slender by suffering and framed by the +striking beard, Hawk seemed to Kate to confirm in his appearance every +fantastic story she had ever heard of him. + +Not till after Laramie had urged him and Kate herself had joined in the +plea, would he come near her or near to the fire. + +"A wet night and a blind trail do pretty well at mixing things up," +observed Laramie. "However, we needn't make any further secrets. Abe, +here, has got it in his mind to head for a hospital tonight. You," he +looked at Kate, "are heading for home. I don't like either scheme very +much but I'm an innocent bystander. We'll ride three together till the +trails fork. Then," he spoke again to Kate, "we'll put you on a sure +trail for the ranch, and the two of us will head into town. It isn't +the way I planned, but it's one way out." + +"The sooner we get started the better," said Hawk, curtly. The two men +discussed for a moment the trip; then Laramie and Hawk left the house +for the barn and corral to get up horses. Before leaving, Laramie +showed Kate how to drop the bars and cautioned her not to neglect to +secure the door. "Some of this bunch Van Horn has got out wouldn't be +very agreeable company." + +"Surely they wouldn't harm me!" + +"It would mean a nasty fight for us when we bring up the horses." + +Kate secured the door. Wet and uncomfortable but undismayed by the +various turns of her predicament she sat down to study the fire. Her +eyes wandered through the gloom to the dark corners of the rough room +and over the crude furnishings. + +The long, slender snowshoes on the wall, the big beaded moccasins with +them, the coiled lariats hung on the pegs in company with old spurs; +the bunk in the corner strewn with Indian blankets from the far-off +Spanish country, and overflowing with the skin of a grizzly--all +brought to mind and reflected an active life. The firelight glinted +the bright, bluish barrels of the rifles on the rack, to Kate, almost +sinisterly, for some of them must suggest a side of Laramie's life she +disliked to dwell on--yet she allowed herself to wonder which rifle he +took when he armed not for elk or grizzlies but for men. And then at +the side of the fireplace she saw fastened on the rough wall a faded +card photograph of a young woman--almost a girl. It was simply +framed--Kate wondered whether it might be his mother. Over the crude +wooden frame was hung an old rosary, the crucifix depending from the +picture. The beads were black and worn by use as if they had slipped +many times through girlish fingers. + +She had a long time to let her thoughts run. The two men were not soon +back and she was beginning to wonder what might have happened, when, +standing at the door to listen, she heard noises outside and Laramie's +voice. She let him in at once. "You didn't have the door barred," he +said, suspiciously. + +"Oh, yes, but I heard you speak." + +He was alone. "We're ready," he said. "No dry clothes for you, but we +can't help it." + +She protested she did not mind the wet. Hawk in the saddle was waiting +with their horses. Rain was still falling and with the persistent +certainty of a mountain storm. Kate, mounting with Laramie's help, got +her lines into her hands. "It's pretty dark," he said, standing at her +stirrup. "We'll have to ride slow. I go first, Hawk next, then you; +if our horses can make the trail yours likely can. I don't think we'll +meet anybody, but if we do it's better to know now what to do. If you +hear any talk that sounds like trouble, push out of the line as quick +as you can and throw yourself flat on the ground. Stay there till you +don't hear any more shooting, but hang on to your lines so you don't +lose your horse. + +"The only other trouble might be your getting lost from us." He spoke +slowly as if thinking. "That must depend a good deal on you. Keep as +close as you can. Can you whistle?" Kate thought she could. "If you +can't make us hear," he continued, "shoot--have you got a pistol?" She +had none. He brought her a double action revolver from the cabin and +showed her how it worked. "Don't use it unless you have to. It might +be heard by more than us." + +Kate stuck the revolver under her wet belt. "Why couldn't I ride with +you?" she asked. + +"There's more danger riding ahead." + +"No more for me than for you." + +"I wouldn't say that. But if you want to try it, all right. Keep +close. Don't be afraid of bumping me--and Hawk can follow us." + +There was nothing in the night to encourage heading into it. That men +could find their way with every possibility of landmark and sight +blotted out and nothing of sound above the downpour except the +tumultuous roar of the Turkey which they were following, was to Kate a +mystery of mysteries. Even the lightning soon deserted them. Their +pace was halted by washouts, obstructed by debris in the trail. In +places, the creek running bank-full, backed up over their path. + +At times, Laramie halting his companions, rode slowly ahead, sounding +out the overflows and choosing the footing. Where streamlets poured +over rock outcroppings the horses slipped. Frequently to get his +bearings, Laramie felt his way forward by reaching for trees and +scraped his knees against them as he pushed his horse close. And in +spite of everything to confuse, intimidate and hold them back, they +slipped and floundered on their way, until quite suddenly a new roar +from out of the impenetrable dark struck their ears. + +Laramie halted their party, and the three in silence, listened. +"That," said Laramie, after a moment, to Hawk, "sounds like the Crazy +Woman." + +He went ahead to investigate. He was gone a long time, yet he groped +half a mile down the road and made his way back to his companions +without a signal. He was on foot. "We're all right," was the report +he brought, "it's a little dryer ahead. While I'm down," he said to +Kate, "I'll try your cinches. It's a mean night." + +"Did you ever see such a night?" she echoed, shuddering. + +"Plenty of 'em," returned Laramie. "Once we cross the creek the going +will be better." + +Of the going between them and the creek, Laramie prudently said +nothing. It was the worst of the journey. Two stretches were filled +with backwater. Across these they cautiously waded and swam the +horses. When they gained high ground adjoining the creek, Kate +breathed more freely. There was a halt for reconnaissance. For this, +Laramie and Hawk, after placing Kate where she would be safe whether +they should come back or not, went forward together. + +The splashing and floundering of their horses as the two left her side, +was gradually lost in the roar of the night and she was alone in the +darkness. They were gone a good while but Kate had enough of confused +and conflicting thought to occupy her reflections. After a long +interval the report of a Colt's struck her anxious ear. She swallowed +in sudden fear to listen more keenly. If there were a fight it would +be followed by another report and more. With her heart beating fast +she listened, but there was no successor to the single shot and, +calming somewhat, she speculated on just what it might mean. Again she +waited with such patience as she could until the measured splash of a +horse's feet nearing her through the shallow water announced someone's +approach. Laramie was back and alone. + +Almost anybody in the world would have been welcome at such a juncture. +He called and she answered quickly, but he brought unwelcome news--the +little bridge that spanned the creek at this point was out. + +"We can't get across, can we?" she exclaimed in disappointment. + +"We can swim the creek if you're game for it." + +"Could we possibly get across?" + +"If I didn't expect to get across I'd sure never try it. It'll be a +wet crossing." + +"I couldn't be wetter." + +"Hawk asked if you could swim." + +"I can't." + +"I told him I didn't suppose you could." + +"Are we all to go together?" + +"He's over now. He signaled a minute ago. I told him I'd get you +across if he'd get you out. It's close to daybreak. Better take off +your coat." + +While he strapped her coat to the saddle, she lightened and freed +herself as much as possible, disengaged, as he directed, her feet from +the stirrups, and they started for the creek. At the point he had +chosen for the plunge, he gave her a few admonitions, chiefly to the +effect of doing nothing except to cling to her seat in getting into the +flood and getting out. Just as her horse poised beside Laramie's a +wave of dread swept over her. It was very literally a plunge into the +dark. "Are you afraid?" he asked, divining her feeling. + +Pride dictated her answer: "No," she said stoutly. "Though, of +course," she added with an attempt at lightness, "I'd prefer to cross +on a bridge." + +"All in getting used to it, I suppose. I guess I've crossed here a +hundred times before there was any bridge. Don't get scared if your +head goes under water when your horse jumps in. The bank here is a +little high, but it's clean jumping. Say when you're ready." + +"I'm ready." + +"Go!" + +With his hand on her bridle, he spoke loudly and sharply, kicked her +horse with one foot and punched his own horse with the other at the +same time. The next instant, gripped by an overpowering fear, and +breathless, Kate felt herself jerked into the air, then she plunged +headlong forward and sank into the boiling flood. Down, down she went, +her ears swooning with water, mouth and eyes tight shut, and moving she +knew not where or how until her head rose out of the flood and a voice +yelled above the tumult: "You're all right! Horse's doing fine. Hang +on!" + +Then she was conscious of a hand clutching her upper arm, a hand so +strong her flesh winced within its grip. And she could feel the +powerful strokes of her horse as he panted and swam under her. + +Above the terrifying swirl of the waters, carrying in the hardly +distinguishable light of the breaking day, a mass of debris that swept +about the two riders, the only sound was the hard breathing of the +horses and a shout repeated by Laramie, until at last it was answered +by Hawk somewhere in the darkness ahead. + +Urging the horses to their task, Laramie guided them to where Kate +could make out portions of the creek bank. She could realize how fast +they were being carried down stream by the wild sweep of the current. +Trees flashed past her like phantoms, as if the bank were mad instead +of the creek. It seemed impossible she could ever make the bank, now +very near, and get up out of the water; only Laramie's hand locked firm +now in her horse's mane, his strong voice as he urged the horses or +called to Hawk, gave her the slightest hope of coming out alive. + +Laramie cried to her to duck as a cottonwood leaning over the water +almost tore her cap and hair from her head. The next instant the +cottonwood was gone and, looking ahead, she saw a horseman on a slope +in the bank, his own horse half submerged. They had reached one of +several old fords. Here the two men had purposed to get Kate ashore. +But she did not know that this was the last of the ford crossings for a +mile--the only shelving bank--nor why Laramie made such superhuman +efforts to head her horse toward Hawk, to get to where the horse could +ground his feet. Hawk, in an effort to catch Kate's bridle, spurred +down to them till his own horse was afloat. Kate's horse struggled +desperately, lost headway and was swept below the ford opening. The +two men with shouts, curses and entreaties, guiding their own horses, +urged the hapless beast to greater effort; it was evident he could not +reach the ford. + +"The roan can't make it," shouted Hawk. "Crowd him up to the ledge +where I can get hold of her." + +Hawk, reining his horse hastily about, got him back up the shelving +ford, spurred down the bank to where Kate, despite Laramie's efforts, +was being driven by the sweep of the water and sprang from his horse. +Where Kate's horse struggled at that moment the creek bank rose +vertically above the peak of the flood. Deep water gave the horse no +chance for a foothold and it swam helplessly. Hawk, running along the +ledge, awaited his chance. It came at a moment that Laramie succeeded +in crowding the roan to the bank. Hawk saw the opportunity and held +his hand out to Kate: + +"Reach up!" he shouted. + +"Give him both hands!" cried Laramie, punching and pushing her horse +against the bank. As Kate swept along, her hands upstretched, Hawk +caught her wrists and, bracing himself in the slipping earth, dragged +her up and out of the saddle. The roan, with Laramie's hand on his +bridle, swept on downstream. The clay bank, under the strain of the +double load, gave under Hawk's feet. But without releasing Kate's +hands he threw himself flat and, matching his dead weight against the +chance of being dragged in, caught her with one arm and flung the other +backward into the dark. A clump of willow shoots clutched in his +sinewy fingers gave him a stay and, putting forth all his strength, he +drew Kate slowly up. She scrambled across his prostrate body to safety. + +The force of the gnawing current had already undercut the soft clay. +The next instant the whole bank began to sink. Hawk shouted to Kate to +run. She saw him struggling in the crumbling earth. Crying out in her +excitement she stretched her hands toward him. He waved her back. As +he did so, a great section of the bank on which he was struggling +broke, and in the big, soft splash, Hawk went into the creek. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +KATE DEFIES + +The instant he saw Kate in Hawk's keeping, Laramie rode down with the +flood, looking sharply for a chance to get out the two horses; when +finally he did get them ashore he was spent. Leading Kate's horse, he +made his way up-creek through the willows to where she should be with +Hawk. + +Hawk's horse he found browsing in the heavy wet grass at the old ford. +Neither Kate nor Hawk were in sight. Laramie walked down to the +water's edge where Hawk had pulled her out. Familiar with the meander +of the bank below the ford, he saw what had happened. The bank, +under-cut, had been swallowed by the flood. Laramie ran down stream +and came suddenly on Kate standing alone on a rock jutting out above +the torrent. + +In the uncertain light of the gray morning he saw her anxious face. +She explained what had happened. Laramie showed no alarm. "I guess +Abe will handle himself," he said. + +"Can't we do anything to help him?" + +"I'll put you on your trail, then I'll ride down the creek and look for +him. He'll make it if his strength doesn't give out." + +Laramie took Kate up the creek and, riding through the hills, brought +her, unexpectedly, out on a trail within sight of her father's +ranch-house hardly three miles away. He pointed to a break heading +from the creek. "You can follow that draw almost to the house," he +explained. Then, reining about, he wheeled his horse to take the back +trail. "Are you going to run away without giving me a chance to thank +you?" she exclaimed, with a feminine touch of surprise. + +"There's a gate near the head of the draw where you can get through the +wire," he rejoined stubbornly. + +"I can't see how I can ever repay you for what you've done tonight," +she persisted. + +He was coldly uncompromising. "You needn't bother about any pay, if +that's what you call it." + +Skilfully she drew her horse a step closer to him. "What shall I call +it?" she asked innocently, "debt, obligation? I owe you a lot, ever so +much to me--my life." + +"I've done no more for you than I've done for less than a human being," +he returned impatiently. + +"I'm sure that's so. But human beings," she added, with a touch of +gentle good-nature, "are supposed to have more feeling than cows or +steers, you know." + +"I never had a cow or a steer call me names," he retorted rudely. + +"If you weren't a human being you wouldn't mind being called names; you +wouldn't be so angry with me, either." + +"I'm not angry," he said resentfully. His very helplessness in her +hands pricked her conscience at the moment that it restored her +supremacy. His strength might menace others--she at least had nothing +to fear from it. + +"Do you know," she exclaimed, shaking off for the moment all restraint, +"what I'd like to do?" + +He looked at her surprised. + +"I'd like to ride back this minute with you and help find Abe Hawk. I +know I mustn't," she went on as he listened. "But I'd like to," she +persisted hurriedly. And then, afraid of herself more than of him, she +repressed a quick "good-by" and, without giving him time to answer, +galloped away. + +She reached the ranch-house without further difficulty. No one was +stirring. She stopped at the corral and turned in her horse and, +walking awkwardly on her swollen ankle to the kitchen, built a fire, +warmed herself as best she could and went to her room. By the time her +father was stirring, Kate, under her coverlets, quite exhausted, was +fast asleep. + +It was broad day when she woke. Through an open window, she saw sullen +gray clouds still rolling down from the northwest, but between them the +sun shot out at ragged intervals--the storm had broken. Walking +gingerly from her room, on her lame foot, she found the house empty. +Her father, Kelly told her, had gone out early, and she sat down to a +late breakfast glad to be undisturbed in her thoughts. Her mind was +still in a confusion of opinions; some, long-cherished being crowded, +so to say, to the wall; others, more than once rejected, growing +bolder. It was in this mental condition that her seclusion was invaded +by Van Horn. + +He swept off his hat with a show of spirits. "Just heard you'd got +home." He sat down with her at the table. "Everybody thought you +stayed in town last night. Got lost, eh?" + +Kate raised her coffee cup non-committally. "For awhile," she murmured +between sips. + +"What time did you get here?" + +"I was so glad to get to bed I never looked at my watch." Again she +regarded him, quite innocently, over the rim of her cup. "Did anybody +lose any stock?" + +He did not abandon his inquisition willingly, but each time he asked a +question, Kate parried and asked one in turn. He gave up without +having gained any information she meant to withhold. + +It was not hard to keep him in good humor; indeed, it was rather too +easy. He pushed back his chair, crossed his legs, talked of a strong +cattle market for the fall and spoke of Hawk and the hunt he was +keeping up for him. "They had a story around--or some of the boys had +the idea--that his friends would pick a wet night like last night to +take him into town." + +"Is he still in the country?" + +"Sure he is. Say, Kate," he changed his attitude as lightly as he did +his subject--uncrossed his legs, squared himself in his chair and threw +his elbows on the table. + +She met the new disposition with a tone of prudent reserve: "What is +it?" + +"When are you going to do something for a lonesome old scout?" he asked +bluntly. + +With as little concern as possible, she put down her knife and fork, +and, with her hands seeking her napkin, looked at him. "What do you +mean?" she returned collectedly, "by 'doing something'?" + +"Marry me." + +"Never." + +The passage was disconcertingly quick. Van Horn, thrown quite aback, +remonstrated. His discomfiture was so undisguised that Kate was +embarrassed. The next moment he was very angry. "If that's the case," +he blurted out, "what's the use o' my sticking around here fighting +your battles?" + +"You're not fighting my battles." + +"Maybe you don't call 'em your father's, either," he exclaimed +scornfully. + +"They're your own battles," declared Kate. "You know that as well as I +do." + +"All the same, your father gets the benefit of them," he continued +hotly. + +"I wish to heaven he had kept out of them." + +Van Horn eyed her sharply. His face reflected his sarcasm. "Of +course, you needn't worry," he grinned, with implication. "They +wouldn't steal your horse even if you do always leave it in Kitchen's +barn; the Falling Wall bunch think too much of you for that." + +Surprised as she was at this outbreak, Kate kept her head. "There are +some of the rustlers I'd trust as far as I would some of the raiders," +she rejoined coolly. + +"Why don't you say Jim Laramie," he exclaimed harshly. + +"Jim Laramie," she returned defiantly, "is not the only one." + +"He'll be the 'only one' after our next clean-up in the Falling Wall. +And he won't be 'one' if he doesn't change his tune." + +Kate's eyes were snapping fire. "Take care that next time the Falling +Wall doesn't clean you up," she said bitingly. + +He snorted. "I mean it," she exclaimed. "Next time you'll need to +look out for yourself." + +He bolted from his chair. "That's the first time I ever heard anybody +on this ranch take sides with the men that's robbing it--or carry a +threat to this ranchhouse for rustlers." + +"Call it whatever you please, you won't change my opinion of you. But, +of course, I'm only a woman and don't know anything." + +"I'm thinking you know a whole lot more than you let on," he declared. + +"Anyway, I wish you'd leave this ranch out of the rest of it. If you +keep on 'cleaning up,' as you call it, you'll go farther and fare +worse." + +He brought down his fist. "Not until I've cleaned out two more pups, +anyway! Now, look here, Kate," he went on, "you may be fooling about +this marrying, but you can bet I'm not." + +"Well, you can bet _I'm_ not," she returned, echoing his pert slang +sharply. + +"Who's the man?" He flung the question at her point-blank. + +If she flushed the least bit it was with anger at his rudeness. "There +isn't any man, and there isn't going to be any--so please never talk +again about my marrying you or anybody else." + +She rose and left the table. He jumped to intercept her and tried to +catch her hands. She let him see she was not in the least afraid and +as he confronted her, she faced him without a tremor. "Let me pass!" +She fairly snapped out the words. + +Van Horn, without moving, broke into a boisterous laugh. Kelly walked +in just then from the kitchen and Van Horn, losing none of his +malevolence, did stand aside. + +"All right," he said, "--this time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +A DIFFICULT RESOLVE + +For two days Kate burned in feverish reaction from her exposure, +wretched in mind and body. Her only effort in that time was to get +down to the corral and see that Bradley, acting as barn boy, should do +something for her cut and bruised pony. + +Her father was still in Medicine Bend, and Van Horn, much to her +relief, had disappeared. When she left her bed she spent the morning +trying to rehabilitate her riding suit. The task called for all her +ingenuity and she was still in the kitchen working on it late in the +afternoon when Bradley came in. + +He had no sooner sat down by the door to report to Kate at his ease, +than Kelly interrupted him with a call for wood. Even after he had +filled the box, Kelly warned him he would have to split more next +morning to get a supply ahead. + +"Easy, Kelly," remonstrated Bradley, in his deeply tremulous voice. +"Easy. I can't split no wood t'morrow mornin', not for nobody." + +"Why not?" + +"Got to go to town." + +"What for?" + +Bradley declined to answer, but Kelly, persistent, bored into his +evasiveness until Kate tired at the discussion: "Tell him what you're +going for and be done with it," she said tartly. The reaction of three +days had not left her own nerves unaffected; she admitted to herself +she was cross. + +Bradley, taken aback by this unexpected assault, still tried to +temporize. Kate refused to countenance it. When he saw he was in for +it, he appealed to her generosity: "It'd be most 's much 's my job's +worth if they knew here what I'm goin' to town tomorrow f'r." + +"If that's all," said Kate, to reassure the old man, "I'll stand +between you and losing your job." + +Bradley drew his stubby chin and shabby beard in and threw his voice +down into his throat: "D' y' mean that? Then don't say nothin', you +and Kelly. Least said, soonest mended. I'm goin' t' town t'morrow t' +see the biggest funeral ever pulled off in Sleepy Cat," he announced +with bleary dignity. + +"What do you mean--whose funeral?" demanded Kate, looking at him +suddenly. + +"Abe Hawk's. It's goin' t' be t'morrow er next day." + +If the old man had meant to stupefy his questioner, he could not better +have succeeded. Kate turned deathly white. She bent over the table +and busied herself with her ironing. Bradley, pleased with his +confidence safely made, talked on. He found a pride in talking to +Kate, with Kelly in and out of the room, and launched into unrestrained +eulogies of the famed rustler, always the friend of the poor man, once +king of the great north range itself. + +"It's a pity," murmured Kate, when she felt she must say something, +"that he ever went wrong." + +Bradley had a point to offer even on that. "It's a pity they ever +blacklisted him; that was Stone's get-up. And Stone, when I was +sheriff, was the biggest thief in the county an' the county was four +times as big then as it is now--that's 'tween you 'n' me." + +"Were you ever sheriff, Bill?" + +"You won't believe it, but it's so--dash me 'n' dash drunkards one and +all." + +"I hear, though," returned Kate, only because in her distress of mind +she could think of nothing else to say, "that Tom Stone has stopped +drinking." + +"That man," was Bradley's retort, and he kept his tremulous voice still +far down in his throat, "is mean enough to do any d--d thing." + +"You used to be sheriff?" + +"Yes. And when I was sheriff, Kate, I found out it was better to trust +an honest man turned thief than a thief turned honest man." + +Kate, listening to his halting maunderings, hardly heeded them. She +heard in her troubled ears the rush of mad waters; phantom voices +cracked again in pistoled oaths at the horses, the fear of sudden death +clutched at her heart, and in the dreadful dark a powerful arm caught +her again and drew her, helpless, out of an engulfing flood. + +She got out of doors. The sunshine, clear and calm, belied the +possibility of a night such as Bradley's words had summoned. "Dead," +she kept saying to herself. Laramie had been sure he would get out of +the creek. What could it mean? + +She went back to the kitchen where Bradley, eating supper, had switched +from his long-winded topic. Kate had to question him: "What was the +matter with Abe? When did he die?" she asked, as unconcernedly as she +could. + +There was little satisfaction in Bradley's slow, formal answer: "Some's +got it one way and some's got it another, Kate. I can't rightly say +what ailded him or when he died 'n' I guess nobody else can, f'r sure. +Some says he got shot; some says he was drownded 'a' las' Tuesday night +in the Crazy Woman; some says they's been a fight nobody's heard of +yit, 't' all. The only man that knows for sure--if he does know--is +the man that brought him into Sleepy Cat 'n' if he knows he won't +tell." He held out his big enameled cup. "Kelly, gi' me jus' a squirt +o' coffee, will y'?" + +Kate, on nettles, waited to hear who had brought Hawk in. Bradley +would not volunteer the name. Some deference was due him as the +purveyor of the big news, and he meant that anyone curious of detail +should do the asking. Kate, realizing this, framed with reluctance the +question he was waiting for: "Who brought Abe in?" + +Even so, she knew there would be but one answer. Bradley gulped +another mouthful of scalding coffee and set down his cup. "Jim +Laramie," he answered laconically. + +She said to herself that Hawk had never got out of the creek; that he +had drowned miserably in the flood. She tortured herself with +conjecture as to exactly what had happened. And night brought no +relief. Sleepless, she tossed, marveling at how close his death had +come home to her. Every scrap of the meager news added to what she +already knew--pointed to what she most feared. + +She lay propped up on her pillows and looked through the open window +out on the glittering stars. Strange constellations passed in +brilliant procession before her eyes. And while she lay thus +reflecting and revolving in her mind the loneliness and unhappiness of +her surroundings, a startling suggestion far removed from these doubts +offered itself to her mind. Repelled at first, it came back as if +demanding acceptance. And not until after she had promised herself she +would consider it, did her thoughts give her any peace. She fell into +an uneasy slumber and woke with day barely breaking; but without an +instant's delay she dressed and slipped from her room out to the barn. + +Forehanded as she had been in getting an early start, Bradley was +already stirring. Pail in hand, the old man, standing in front of the +feed bin, stared at Kate speechless as she walked in on him. + +"Who's sick?" he demanded after a moment. + +"Nobody, Bill. I'm going to town with you, that's all." + +"With _me_?" + +She half laughed at herself and at his surprise. "I mean, I'm for town +early. Get up a pony for me--Spider Legs will do." + +Born of long-forgotten experience in waiting for women, Bill Bradley, +as Kate walked away, put in a caveat: "I'm headin' out jus' soon's I +c'n get breakfast." + +"I, too, Bill. I'll be across the divide before you are." + +Curiosity would not down: "What y' goin' t' town f'r?" he called. + +Turning half around, Kate, with a little shrug, paused. She would not +be ungracious: "To pick up a few things," she answered unconcernedly. + +Bill, not satisfied, felt obliged to desist. "Startin' airly," was his +only grumble. Had he known what possibilities for that day had lodged +themselves in Kate's mind, he would not have been able to slip Spider +Legs' bridle over his ears. But his business being only to get up the +horse, he discharged it with shaky fidelity and for himself started +with high expectations for town. Had he been given to speculating on +the variableness of woman, he might have found a text in Spider Legs' +standing for hours after he was made ready. And in the end his +mistress unsaddled him and turned him back into the corral. + +The truth was, Kate had been seized with cruel fits of doubt and for a +long time could not decide whether she ought to go to town or not. But +as often as she gave up the idea of going, a heart-strong impulse +pleaded against her uneasy restraint. She felt she _must_ go. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +HORSEHEAD PASS + +Bradley had not been able to tell her just when the funeral was set +for. But it surged in Kate's heart that after what Abe Hawk had done +for her, to let the poor, bullet-torn, neglected body be put into the +ground without some effort to pay a tribute of gratitude to the man +that had once animated it, would be on her part fearfully cold. + +The difficulties of the situation were many. She feared the anger of +her father, and owed his feelings something as well. But every time +she decided she ought to stay at home, the pricking at her heart grew +keener. In the end, her feelings overrode her restraint. She resolved +at least to go to town. The funeral might have already taken place--it +would be a relief even to learn more about his death. + +Late in the afternoon, she got Spider Legs up again, saddled him and, +telling Kelly she might not be back that night, rode away. + +It was dark by the time she reached town and leaving her horse with +McAlpin she crossed the street from the barn and walked hurriedly +around the corner to Belle's. The front door stood open and the +red-shaded lamp burned low on the dining-room table. + +Tapping on the screen door, Kate, without waiting for Belle to answer, +opened it and went in. There was no light in the living-room and the +portieres were drawn. She walked down the hall to the dining-room, +where she laid down her gloves and took off her coat and hat. +Smoothing her hair, she knocked on the door of Belle's room, but got no +answer. Conjecturing that she had gone out on an errand, Kate sat down +in a rocking chair and, taking a newspaper from the table, tried to +read. + +Her thoughts soon blurred the print. She read on only to think of what +had brought her so irresistibly to town and to wonder what she should +hear now that she had come. + +After some struggle to concentrate, she tossed the paper aside to ask +herself why Belle did not return, and, being tense, began without +realizing it, to rock softly. Her eyes naturally turned to the +familiar lamp. Its somber paper shade threw the light in a circle on +the table, leaving the room in the heavy shadows of its figured +pattern. Kate became all at once conscious of the utter silence, and +impatient for Belle's return, got up and walked through the dark hall +toward the front door. + +Passing the living-room portieres, she pushed open the screen door and +stepped out on the porch. There she stood for a moment at the top of +the steps looking at the stars. Lights here and there burned in +neighboring cottage windows. No wind stirred. The street and the town +were as still as the night. After some minutes, Kate descended the +steps, opened the gate, leaving it to close with a click behind her, +and walked to the corner of Main Street. It looked dark. The stores +were closed. From the saloon windows spotty lights shot at intervals +across the upper street, but these only made the darkened store fronts +blacker and revealed the nakedness and desertion of the street itself. +Not a man, much less a woman, could she see anywhere moving. + +Either the silence, or the night, or her long wait changed her +impatience into a feeling of loneliness. She turned back toward the +cottage gate. She had not noticed before how very dark the side street +was. Reaching the gate she hesitated, pushed it open and then stopped, +conscious of a curious repugnance to entering the house. + +Her feeling refused to explain itself. Through the screen she could +see the lamp still burning on the dining-room table. Things appeared +just as she had left them, yet she did not want to go in. But, +dismissing the qualm, she walked up the steps, crossed the narrow +porch, opened the screen door and, stepping inside, closed it after her. + +This time that she passed the living-room she noticed the portieres +were partly open. Both times she had passed before, she felt sure, +they had been closed. + +Kate sat down in the dining-room and looked suspiciously back at the +portieres. She was already sorry she had come into the house, for the +silence and her aloneness added to the conviction fast stealing over +her that someone must be in the dark living-room. + +Once entertained, the suspicion became insupportable. Her ears were +pitched to a painful intensity of listening and her eyes were fastened +immovably on the motionless curtains. + +She carried a ranchwoman's revolver and, putting her hand on it, she +rose, stepped close to the door of Belle's room--into which she could +retreat--and, with one hand on the knob, called sharply toward the +living-room: "Who's there?" + +Not a sound answered her. + +"Who is in the living-room?" she demanded again. This time, after a +moment's delay, she heard something move in the darkness, then a man's +step and Laramie stood out between the portieres. + +Except for a fatigued look as he rested one hand on the portiere and +the other on his hip, he appeared quite as she had last seen him. "Are +you calling me?" he asked. + +"Yes," she responded tartly. "Why didn't you answer?" + +"I didn't know who you were speaking to at first. I've been here all +the evening. I didn't know you were in town till I saw your hat on the +table a few minutes ago." + +"Where is Belle?" asked Kate, still on edge. + +"She went over to Mrs. Kitchen's." + +"When will she be back?" + +He seemed to take no offense at her peremptory tone. "She said she +wouldn't be gone a great while. But," he added, with his customary +deliberation, "all the same, I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed over +pretty late--or even all night." + +This was not just what Kate wanted to hear. "Why didn't you say +something when I first came in?" she asked, her suspicion reflected in +her voice. + +He did not seem nonplused but he answered slowly: "I heard someone come +in. I didn't pay much attention, that's about the truth." + +"What are you doing in there in the dark?" + +He was provokingly deliberate in answering. "You probably haven't +heard about Abe Hawk?" + +Her manner changed instantly and her voice sank. "Is it true that he +is dead?" + +"Yes." + +"He didn't drown that morning, did he?" she asked eagerly anxious. +"You thought he could get out--what happened?" + +"He got out of the creek. But he strained his wounds--they opened. I +wasn't much of a surgeon. I got him to the hospital--he died there. I +had no place to take him then. I wouldn't leave him there alone. +Belle said I might bring him here. I'm spending my last night with +him." + +"You're not trying to spare me, are you?" she asked, unsteadily. "He +really did get out of the creek?" + +"He did get out." + +She spoke again brokenly: "He saved my life." + +"Well," remarked Laramie, meditating, "he wouldn't ask anything much +for that. Do you mind if I smoke?" + +"Not a bit." + +"I'm kind of nervous tonight," he confessed simply. Then he crossed +the room, rested his elbow on the mantelpiece and made ready a +cigarette. "I wonder," he said, "if I could ask you a question?" + +"What is it?" + +"You always act kind of queer with me. Why is it? You've never been +the way you were the first day we met. Haven't I always been square +with you?" + +She hesitated but she answered honestly: "You always have." + +"Then why are you so different?" + +"I've made that confession once. I was acting a part that day." + +"No, I can't figure it in that way. That day you were acting natural. +Why can't you be like that again." + +"But, Mr. Laramie----" + +"No--Jim." + +"But----" + +"Every time you call me Mr. Laramie I'm looking around for a gentleman. +Why can't you be the way you were the first time?" + +She realized his eyes were on her, demanding the truth--and his eyes +were uncomfortably steady as she had reason to know. "If I spoke I +should hurt your feelings," she urged, summoning all her courage. "You +know as well as I do that the first time I met you I didn't know who +you were." + +He did not seem much disconcerted, except that he tossed away the +unlighted cigarette. "You don't know now," was his only comment. + +"I can't help knowing what is said about you--you and your friends." + +He made an impatient gesture. "That gives you no clue to me." + +"What are people to believe when such stories are public property?" + +"Only what they know to be true." + +"How are they to find out what is true?" + +"By going straight to the person most concerned in the stories." + +"Would you honestly expect a young woman to go to work and investigate +all the charges against men she hears in Sleepy Cat?" + +"We are talking now about the charges against one man--against me. I +want to give you an instance: + +"I suppose there's been a good many hard words over your way about my +keeping Abe Hawk out of the hands of your people. Because I did +shelter him--you know how--they've blackened my name here at Sleepy Cat +and down at Medicine Bend. A man doesn't have to approve all another +man does, to befriend him when he's down and a bunch of men--not as +good as he--set out to finish him. I haven't got any apologies to make +to anybody for protecting Abe when he was wounded--and if he wasn't +wounded, no man would talk any kind of protection to him. But you've +been fed up with stories about it--I know that--so," he added grimly, +"I'm going to tell you one story more. + +"I grew up in this country when the mining fever was on--everybody +plumb crazy in the rush for the Horsehead Camp in the Falling Wall +country. One winter five hundred men in tents were hanging around +Sleepy Cat waiting for the first thaw, to get up to the camp. That's +when I got acquainted with Abe Hawk. Abe was carrying the mails to the +mines. He hadn't a red cent in the world. My father had just died; I +was a green kid with a pocketful of money. Abe didn't teach me any bad +habits--I didn't need any teacher. One night we were sitting next to +each other, with Harry Tenison dealing faro. + +"I heard Abe was going up over the pass to Horsehead with the Christmas +bag. The few miners that got in the fall before had hung up a fat +purse for their Christmas mail and Abe needed the money. He was the +only man with the crazy nerve to try such a thing. And there were +twenty men, with all kinds of money, crowding him to take them along: +to beat the bunch in might mean a million dollar strike to any +tenderfoot in Sleepy Cat. + +"Abe wouldn't hear a word of it, not from anybody--and he could talk +back awful rough. He was sure he could make the trip alone. He was +the strongest man in the mountains. I never saw the day I could handle +Abe Hawk. But the pass in December was not a job for any ordinary +mountain man--let alone a bunch of greenhorns. Just the same, I made +my play to go with him. He cursed me as hard as he did anybody and +turned me down. + +"One night, after that, I was at Tenison's again. I was losing money. +Hawk was near me. He saw it. I waited for him to come out. I knew +he'd be starting soon and I was desperate. I tackled him pretty +strong. He swore if I talked again about going with him he'd kill me. +Old Bill Bradley ran the livery. My horse was in the same barn with +Abe's and Bill promised to tip me off when Abe was ready to start. He +waited for a blizzard. When it passed he was ready. But I got ahead +of him, out of town, and trailed him--I knew how. Only it snowed +again, as if all hell was against me; I had to close up on Abe or lose +him, but he never saw me till we got so far I couldn't get back; though +he could have dropped me out of the saddle with a bullet, and had the +right to do it. + +"When I rode up he only looked at me. If I had been as small as I +felt, he'd never seen me. He ought to have abused me; but he didn't. +He ought to have shot me; but he didn't; or turned me back and that +would have been worse than shooting. But if he'd been my own father he +couldn't have acted different. He just told me to come along." + +Laramie paused. He was speaking under a strain: "I didn't understand +it then; but he knew it was too late to quarrel. He knew there was +about one chance in a hundred for him to get through; for me, there was +about one in a hundred thousand--in fact, he knew I _couldn't_ get +through, so he didn't abuse me. + +"You don't know what the winter snow on the pass is. When it got too +bad for us, he put his horse ahead to break the trail, but he let me +ride mine as far as I could--he knew what was coming. When my horse +quit, he told me to tramp along behind him. + +"I guess you know about how long a boy's wind would last ten thousand +feet up in the air. I wasn't used to it. I quit." + +Laramie drew from his pocket a handkerchief and knotted it nervously in +his fingers: "He told me to get up," he went on. "I did my level best +a way farther. It was no use. I quit again. He was easy with me. +But I couldn't get up and I told him to go on. + +"Abe wouldn't go. I couldn't walk another step in that wind and snow +to save my soul from perdition. I just couldn't. And when I tell you +next what I asked of him, then you'll understand how mean a common +tramp like me can be. But I've got past pretty much caring what you +think of me--only I want you to know what _I_ think, and thought, of +Abe Hawk. I did the meanest thing then I ever did in my life--I asked +him to let me ride his horse. It was useless. I offered him all the +money I had. He refused. He didn't just look at me and move on, the +way most men would to save their own skins and leave me to what I +deserved. He stopped and explained that if his horse gave out we were +done--we could never break a trail to the top without the horse. + +"It was blowing. He stripped his horse. The mail went into the snow. +I tried again to walk. I didn't get a hundred feet. When I fell down +that time he saw it was my finish. + +"He stood a minute in front of me, looking all around before he spoke. +His horse was breathing pretty heavy; the snow blowing pretty bad. +After a while he loosened the quirt from his saddle and looked at me: +'Damn you,' he said, 'you were bound to come. All hell couldn't keep +you back, could it? Now it's come in earnest for you. You're goin' +over the pass with me. Get up out of that snow.' + +"I could hear him, but I couldn't move hand or foot. And I never +dreamed what was going to happen till he laid the quirt across my face +like a knife. + +"All I ever hoped for was to get up so I could live long enough to kill +him. He gave me that quirt till I was insane with rage; long afterward +he told me my eyes turned green. I cursed him. He asked me whether +I'd get up. I knew, if I didn't, I'd have to take more. I dragged +myself out of the snow again and pitched and struggled after him--to +the top of the pass. + +"Then he put me on his pony--we got the wind worse up there. Abe had a +little shack a way down the pass, rigged up for storm trouble. But the +pony quit before we got to the shack, and when the pony fell down, my +hands and feet were no use. Abe carried and dragged and rolled me down +into the shack. I was asleep. There was always a fire left laid in +the stove. Abe had a hard time to light it. But he got it lighted and +when he fell down he laid both hands on the stove--so when they began +to burn it would wake him up; if the fire didn't burn he didn't want to +wake up. The marks of that fire are on his hands right in that room +there now, tonight. He saved my hands and feet. He stayed with me +while I was crazy and got me safe to Horsehead. + +"Do you suppose I could ever live long enough to turn that man, +wounded, over to an enemy? He didn't ask me for any shelter after Van +Horn's raid. All he ever asked me for was cartridges--and he got 'em. +He'd get anything I had, and all I had, as long as there was a breath +left in my body, and he asked within reason. And Abe Hawk wouldn't ask +anything more." + +Kate rose from her chair: "I've a great deal to learn about people and +things in this country," she said slowly. "Not all pleasant things," +she added. "I suppose some unpleasant things have to be. Anyway, I'll +ride home tonight better satisfied for coming in." + +"You going home?" he asked. + +She was moving toward the door: "I only hope," she exclaimed, "this +fighting is over." + +"That doesn't rest in my hands. It's no fun for me. You say you're +going to ride home?" + +"There's a moon. I shan't get lost again." + +He was loath to let her get away. At the door he asked if he couldn't +ride a way with her. "I'll get Lefever or Sawdy to stay here while I'm +gone," he urged. + +"No, no." + +"It isn't that they don't want to," he explained. "But the boys felt +kind of bad and went down to the Mountain House. Why not?" + +She regarded him gravely: "One reason is, I'd never get rid of you till +I got home." + +"I'll cross my heart." + +"We might meet somebody. I don't want any more explosions. Let's talk +about something else." + +He asked to go with her to the barn to get her horse. The simplicity +of his urging was hard to resist. "I must tell you something," she +said at last. "If you go with me to the barn we should be seen +together." + +"And you're ashamed of me?" + +"I said I must tell you something," she repeated with emphasis. "Will +you give me a chance?" + +"Go to it." + +She looked at him frankly: "I don't always have the easiest time in the +world at home. And there is always somebody around a big ranch to +bring stories to father about whom I'm seen with. Everybody in town +talks--except Belle. I must just do the best I can till things get +better." + +"Here's hoping that'll be soon." + +"Good-by!" + +"Safe journey." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE FUNERAL--AND AFTER + +The funeral had been set for the following afternoon, but preparations +were going forward all morning. In spite of the brief notice that had +got abroad of Hawk's death, men from many directions were riding into +town that morning to help bury him. A reaction of sentiment concerning +the Falling Wall raid was making itself felt; its brutal ferocity was +being more openly criticized and less covertly denounced. Hawk's +personal popularity had never suffered among the cowboys and the cowboy +following. He had been known far and wide for open-handed generosity +and blunt truthfulness--and these were traits to silence or to soften +reprobation of his fitful and reckless disregard for the property +rights of the big companies. He was a freebooter with most of the +virtues and vices of his kind. But the crowd that morning in Sleepy +Cat was assembling to pay tribute to the man--however far gone wrong. +His virtues they were, no doubt, willing to bury with him; the memory +of his vices would serve some of them when they might need a lawless +precedent. + +Up to the funeral hour the numerous bars of Sleepy Cat were points of +interest for the drinking men. In front of these, reminiscences of the +dead man held heated sway. Some stories pulled themselves together +through the stimulus of deep drinking, others gradually went to pieces +under its bewildering effects, but as long as a man could remember that +he was talking about Abe Hawk or the Falling Wall, his anecdotes were +tolerated. + +Nor were all the men that had come to town to say good-by to Abe, lined +up at the bars. Because Tenison had insisted that it should, Hawk's +body lay during the morning at the Mountain House in the first big +sample room opening off the hotel office. All that the red-faced +undertaker could do to make it presentable in its surroundings had been +done at Harry Tenison's charge. Laramie's protests were ignored: +"You're a poor man, Jim," declared Tenison, "and you can't pay any +bills now for Abe. He thought more of you than he did of any man in +the world. But most of his money he left here with me, upstairs and +down. Abe was stiff-necked as hell, whether it was cards or cattle, +you know that. And it's only some of his money--not mine--I'm turning +back to him. That Dutchman," he added, referring with a contemptuous +oath to the unpopular undertaker of Sleepy Cat, "is a robber, anyhow. +The only way I'll ever get even with him is that he'll drink most of it +up again. I played pinochle with that bar-sinister chap," continued +Tenison, referring to the enemy by the short and ugly word, "all one +night, and couldn't get ten cents out of him--and he half-drunk at +that. What do you know about that? + +"Jim," Tenison changed his tone and his rambling talk suddenly ceased, +"you've not told me rightly yet about Abe." + +Laramie looked up: "Why, Harry," he said quietly, "I told you where I +found him that night--he got out of the creek at Pride's Crossing." + +Tenison shook his head: "But what I want to know is what went on before +he got to Pride's Crossing." + +"Well, I started with him that night for town." + +"That's what you said before," objected Tenison with an impatient +gesture. "What you didn't say is what I want to hear." + +"Harry, I won't try to give you a long line of talk. I can't tell it +all--and I don't want to try to fool you. There's another name in the +story that I don't feel I've got a right to bring in--that's all. Some +day you'll hear it." + +Neither Lefever nor Sawdy could get any more out of Laramie. He showed +the strain of sleeplessness and anxiety. Sawdy kept the crowd away by +answering all questions himself--mostly with an air of reserve, backed +by intimations calculated to lead a man to believe he was really +hearing something, and counter-questions skilfully dropped into the +gravity of the occasion. Those who could not be put off by Sawdy were +turned over to Lefever, who could hypnotize a man by asking questions, +and send him away satisfied, but vacantly speculative as to whether he +was crazy or Lefever was. + +To Lefever also were referred the men arranging the details of the +funeral. Not till two o'clock was the word given for the procession to +move from the Mountain House, but for two hours before that, +horsemen--peers of any in the world--dashed up and down Main Street +before keen-eyed spectators, on business if possible, but always on +display. + +Stage drivers and barnmen from Calabasas and Thief River mingled with +cowboys from the Deep Creek country--for Hawk himself had, years +before, driven on the Spanish Sinks line. From the barn at Sleepy Cat +these men brought out and drafted the old Wells-Fargo stage coach that +Abe had driven on the first trip to the Thief River mines. Six of the +best horses in the barn were to pull it in the procession. These +horses were driven by the oldest man in service on the Calabasas run, +mounted on the near wheel horse with the driver's seat on the box empty +and covered with wreaths of flowers. Old-time Indians from the +Reservation who had known Hawk when he first went into the Falling Wall +country, were down to see him buried; they rode behind the cowboys. + +At two o'clock the roundhouse whistle blew a long blast. It was taken +up by the engines in the yard and those of an overland train pulling +out; and the procession, long and picturesque, moved from the hotel. +Laramie, Tenison, Lefever and Sawdy rode abreast, behind the hearse, +and as the procession moved down Main Street, the cowboys chanted the +songs of the bunkhouse and the campfire, the range and the round-up. + +"My God!" exclaimed Carpy when it was all over, "if Sleepy Cat could do +that much for a thief, what would it do for an honest man?" With Sawdy +and Lefever, the doctor sat at a table in the billiard room of the +Mountain House. Tenison and Laramie sat near them. + +"Not what they did for Abe," averred John Lefever promptly, "and don't +you forget it. But I don't call Abe Hawk a thief--never. Abe was a +freebooter born out of time and place. He called himself a thief--he +wasn't one. He hadn't the first instincts of one--no secrecy, no dark +night stuff, no lying. He never denied a raid if he made one. And +never did worse when the big cattlemen protested, than to tell them to +go to hell. He had a bunch of old Barb's calves branded along with his +own one year: 'Well, you're the coolest rustler in the Falling Wall,' I +says to him. 'They're my share of Barb's spring drop,' was all he +said. You know he lent Barb all his savings one year--that was when he +used to save money, before his wife died. He never got a red cent of +it back, never even asked for it. But when he wanted money he'd drive +off some of Barb's steers. Yes, Abe stole cattle, I admit; yet I don't +call him a thief--not today, anyway," said John, raising his glass. +"Why, if Abe Hawk owed a man a hundred dollars he'd pay him if he had +to steal every cow in the Falling Wall to do it. But take a hoof from +a poor man!" he went on, freshened, "The poor men all used to run to +Abe when Dutch Henry or Stormy Gorman branded their calves. They'd +yell fire and murder. And Abe would make the blamed thieves drive +their calves back! You know that, Jim." Lefever between breaths threw +the appeal for confirmation across at Laramie who sat moodily listening +and trying without success to interest himself in a drink that stood +untouched before him. + +Laramie made no response. "Have it your own way, John," nodded Carpy +tolerantly, "have it your own way. But whatever they say against old +Barb, the man ain't livin' that can say a word against his girl--not +while I'm in hearing. And I'll tell you, you could have knocked me +over with a feather when I seen her this afternoon and she bound to +ride in that procession behind Abe Hawk." + +"What do you mean?" asked Lefever. + +"I mean riding to the graveyard," insisted Carpy. + +"What are you talking about?" demanded Lefever, to bring out the story. +"You never saw it." + +"I'll tell you what I saw." Only those who knew Laramie well could +have told how keenly he was listening. "I drove down Hill Street," +said the doctor, "just after the funeral started, and sat there, quiet, +to one side, waiting for it to pass; a doctor's got no business around +funerals. Right then, Kate Doubleday pulled up close to me on +horseback. She was just from the trail, that was sure; her horse +showed the pace and the girl was excited--I seen that when she spoke to +me. 'Doctor'--then she hesitated. 'Is that Abe Hawk's funeral?' 'It +is,' I says. She looked at it and kept looking at it. The tail-end of +the procession was passing Hill Street. I noticed the girl bite her +lip; she was as restless as her horse. 'Doctor,' she says, hesitating +just the same way the second time, 'do you think people would think it +awfully strange if I--rode to the cemetery with them?' + +"I never was more dashed in my life. 'Well,' I says, 'I expect they +would, Kate.' 'I feel as if I ought to do it,' she says. 'Don't do it +for the fun of the thing, Kate. The boys wouldn't like that.' 'Oh,' +she says, looking at me mighty hard. 'I've got the best of reasons for +doing it.' 'Then,' says I, 'do it, no matter what they think or don't +think. That's what Abe Hawk would 'a' done!' 'I'm such a coward,' she +says, but I want to tell you there was fire in her words. 'Go ahead,' +says I. 'Doctor, will you ride with me?' 'Hell!' says I, 'I never +went to a funeral in my life.' 'Will you ride to this one with me? I +can't ride alone; all the rest are men.' 'Dog gone it! Come over to +the barn,' says I, 'till I get a horse.' + +"That's the way it happened. + +"When we got to the graveyard we kept back to one side. All the same, +she saw the whole thing. But just the minute the boys turned from the +grave, away we went down the hill lickety-cut. We took the back +streets till we struck the divide road, and she turned for home. When +we stopped there, she says: 'Doctor, tell me the truth: Did Abe Hawk +drown?' 'No,' I says, 'he didn't drown. I reckon he strained himself. +Anyway, one of his wounds opened up. The old man bled to death." + + +Laramie felt no inclination that night to go home. In his depression, +he could think only of Kate Doubleday and reflect that the years were +passing while he faced the future without an aim, and life without an +outlook. + +It was not the first time this conviction had forced itself on him. +And it was getting harder and harder, he realized, to shake it off. +But tonight, talk served in some degree as an anodyne, and he sat with +the idlers late. The one bit of news that did stir him in his torpor +was that Kate Doubleday had had at least the feeling to appear at the +funeral of the man who, though rightly regarded as her father's enemy, +had, Laramie knew, let go his own life, without a thought, to save hers. + +This was the last reflection on his mind before he went to sleep that +night. It was the first when he woke. Late in the morning he was +sitting in Belle Shockley's at breakfast when McAlpin walked in. + +"Jim," exclaimed the excitable barn boss, "I got a word this morning +from the Falling Wall." + +Laramie regarded him evenly, but did not speak till McAlpin looked +inquiringly toward Belle: "No secrets here, Mac," he said briefly. + +"Probably couldn't keep 'em from a woman if you tried," returned +McAlpin, grinning. He pointed calmly toward the kitchen: "If we're all +alone here----" + +"Go ahead," intervened Belle impatiently, "we are." + +"Punk Budd brought the stage from the Reservation this morning. Coming +down the Turkey he met Van Horn. They had a bunch of Barb's boys with +them driving in some cattle." + +"Whose cattle?" + +"Punk says when he run into 'em they was roundin' up yours." + +"Was Punk sober?" asked Laramie. + +"He sure was," replied McAlpin. + +Belle, with folded arms, stood in the archway immovable as a statue; +McAlpin sat in silence; Laramie, continuing his breakfast, looked only +at his plate. The silence grew heavy, but two of the three had no +reason to break it and the third did not choose to. + +Laramie, at length, took up his coffee, and, drinking slowly, finished +the cup. Setting this down, he wiped his lips and looked at McAlpin. + +"Much obliged, Mac," he said, laying down his napkin. + +McAlpin regarded him inquiringly: "What you going to do about it, Jim?" +he demanded, when he saw Laramie would say no word. + +Laramie pushed back his chair: "What would you do?" + +McAlpin spoke seriously: "I'm askin' you." + +"I can tell better after I know more about it, Mac." + +The barn boss evidently thought Laramie was taking the news too +quietly. He was for violent measures but Laramie calmed him. "If +they've got any of my cattle, they won't run away," said he, "and they +won't blow up. They'll keep, and I'll get them back--every hoof. I'm +riding home this morning, anyway, so I'll be over after my horse in a +minute." + +McAlpin went away somewhat disappointed. Laramie only laughed when he +talked it over with Belle: "So long as they don't burn my place, I can +stand it," he said, philosophically. + +Nevertheless, he felt disturbed at McAlpin's news--not for its +substance so much as for what it might note in renewed warfare. +Getting his horse, he followed the railroad right of way out of town +and struck out upon open country toward the north. He had no intention +of taking the direct road home; that had long become dangerous, and he +rode along abandoned cattle trails. At times he struck, swiftly and +straight, across open country, at times disappeared completely in +favoring canyons, and emerging again, headed winding draws up to the +divide--any ground that carried him in his general direction was good +ground. + +He tried always to be thinking just what the other fellow must be +thinking as to favorable points to pick a man off--the fellow patiently +waiting with a rifle day after day in ambush for him. And not having +gone home of late twice by the same route, he meant to keep the other +fellow continually guessing. Today, he was somewhat handicapped, in +that he was riding in broad daylight instead of in the dawn or in the +twilight when the uncertain light made it more difficult with the fine +sights of a Winchester or Savage to cover a distant man. + +This hazard, however, called only for a little more precaution, which +Laramie did not begrudge to the pride of disappointing an enemy. At +points in his route where the main road could not well be avoided, he +rode faster and with quickened circumspection. The Double-draw bridge +he could not avoid without a long and difficult detour. Moreover, +there, or beyond, he might expect to intercept the raiding party, and +this was his business. + +He did, however, approach the Double-draw bridge with an uncertainty +and a caution not reflected in the pace which he rode toward it; but +his horse was under close control and his rifle carefully in hand. + +Despite his misgivings, no enemy was sighted. Only a flight of bank +swallows, disturbed by the footfalls of his horse, darted noisily from +their nests under the south bridge abutment and scattered twenty ways +in the sunshine. Spurring freely, as they flew away, Laramie galloped +briskly across the bottoms and up the hill. Skirting the long trail +toward home, he rode on without meeting a living soul or hearing the +unwelcome singing of a bullet. + +In fact, things were too quiet; the silence and the absence of any sort +of life as he approached his ranch were a surprise. The few head of +cattle and horses he usually met, when riding home along the creek, +were nowhere to be seen. Evidently the raid had been made. To survey +the whole scene without exposing himself, Laramie rode out of the +tangle along the creek bottom and took the first draw that would bring +him out among the southern hills. As he emerged from the narrow gorge, +his eyes turned in the direction of the house. But where the house +should be he saw above the green field, only a black spot with little +patches of white smoke drifting lazily up from it into the still +sunshine. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +AN ENCOUNTER + +Kate awoke the morning after Hawk's funeral with a confused sense of +having consorted with her father's enemies; and of trying to justify +herself for having done what she had felt compelled to do to answer her +sense of self-respect. + +And all this before anyone had accused her. But being extremely +dubious as to how her father would take her conduct, she was not only +ill at ease until she should meet him, but glad he had been away. And +it was something of a shock to her that morning to find his bedroom +door closed; it meant that during the night he had unexpectedly come +home. + +After her breakfast she walked down to the corral to talk to Bradley +about the saddle horses. Not that she had anything to suggest, but +because she was nervous. Laramie was intruding more and more into her +mind; every time she banished him he returned, frequently bringing +someone else with him. Between the perplexities and the men that beset +her, Kate was not happy. And when, after a ramble along the creek, she +returned to the house, she was not surprised to find that her father, +coming from the breakfast table, hardly responded to her greeting. He +was much engrossed in cutting off the end of a cigar as he passed her +and in walking to the fireplace to find a match. + +But the matches were not on the mantelpiece, where they belonged, and +this annoyed him. If he said nothing, it did not deceive Kate as to +his feelings. She hastened to hand him the matchbox from the table. +He took it without saying a word, but he slammed it back to its +accustomed place with a silent and ominous emphasis. + +She knew it was coming. What surprised her was that she felt no +further inclination to shrink from the moment of reckoning she dreaded. +Doubleday, his cigar lighted, seated himself in his heavy chair beside +the fireplace. + +"What kind of a trip had you, father?" Kate, as she asked, made a +pretense of arranging the papers and magazines on the table. + +There was little promise of amiability in her father's answer; "What +d'y' mean," he asked. + +"Did you get your notes extended?" + +"Yes." His heavy jaw and teeth, after the word, snapped like a steel +trap. "Did you go to Abe Hawk's funeral?" He flung the question at +her like a hammer. + +"Were you told I did?" Kate asked. + +"Rode to the graveyard with him, didn't you?" + +Kate saw there was no use softening her words: "Father," she said +instantly and firmly, "the night I came out from town in the storm I +got lost. I got on the wrong side of the creek. My horse gave out; I +was dead with the cold." + +Her father flung his cigar into the fire: "What's that got to do with +it?" he broke in harshly. + +"Just wait a moment." + +"I don't want any long-winded story." + +"I won't tell any." + +"I won't listen to you," he shouted. "Answer my question." + +Her eyes kindled: "You may call it whatever you like, but you will +listen to my answer in the way I make it. When I'd given up hope of +saving my life, and my horse was drifting, he fell into a dugout. And +in the dugout were two men--Abe Hawk and Jim Laramie. They thought +there was a party of men with me. They seized me. They got ready to +fight. I was at their mercy." + +"What dugout?" demanded Doubleday. His husky tone seemed to indicate +he was cooling a little; the question took her off her guard. + +"At the old mine bridge." + +A flash of cunning lighted her father's eyes. The curtain fell +instantly, but not before Kate had seen. "When they questioned me," +she hurried on, "I told them what had happened. They believed me. +They rode with me back to the creek. We swam our horses across. Mine +couldn't make the bank. Abe Hawk pulled me out and Laramie saved my +horse. But the bank caved in with Hawk when he pulled me out of the +creek and the next thing I heard, he was dead. I didn't go to his +funeral except to ride to the cemetery in the procession. Father, +could I do any less?" she demanded, wrought up. + +Barb's harsh, red features never looked less uncompromising: "D' you +expect me to believe that stuff?" he asked, regarding her coldly. She +only eyed him as he eyed her: "D' you expect anybody to believe it?" he +continued, to drive in his contempt. + +Kate turned white. When she spoke, her words were measured: "Oh, no," +she said quietly. "I don't expect you any more to believe anything I +say. Those other men would believe me when they had me at their +mercy--when they might have choked or shot me or thrown me into the +Falling Wall canyon--they only believed me. But my own father--he +couldn't believe me----" + +Neither appeal nor reproach moved her father; his mind was fixed. Van +Horn had been sarcastic over Kate's escapade; Barb's own men were +laughing at him. He interrupted Kate: "Pack up your things," he said +ruthlessly. + +She faced her father without flinching: "What do you mean?" she asked. + +He tossed his head with as little concern as if he were discharging a +cowboy: "Don't want you around here any longer," he snapped. "Pack up. +Get out." + +She looked at him in silence. Perhaps, as she turned defiantly away +and walked to her room, she thought of the man that had deserted her +mother when she herself was a baby in her mother's arms. At any rate, +anger fortified her against the shock. Her preparations were soon +made. A trunk held all she wished to take. She asked Bradley to get +up her pony. Bradley was hitched up for a trip to Sleepy Cat and, +putting her trunk in the wagon, was on the road ahead of Kate. She +spent a little time in straightening up her room and shortly afterwards +rode down the trail for town. + +Absorbed in thoughts tinged with bitterness and anger, she rode toward +the creek as if casting things up again and again in her mind, but +reaching no conclusion. When her horse struck the Sleepy Cat road he +turned into it because he was used to doing so, not because she guided +him. In this haphazard way she was jogging on, her eyes fixed on +nothing more encouraging than the storm-worn ruts along her way when a +shout startled her. Looking up, she saw she was nearing the lower gate +of the alfalfa patch and across the road a party of horsemen had +stopped Bradley with the wagon. She recognized Harry Van Horn--his +smart hat, erect figure and scarlet neckcloth would have identified him +before she could distinguish his features; and he always rode the best +horse. Stone and three of the Texas men were with him. With the +exception of Van Horn, they had dismounted, and with their drooping +horses close at hand were stacking their rifles against the gate and +yelling at Bradley. + +Swinging his hat, Van Horn dashed toward Kate just as she looked up +and, whipping out his revolver, pulled his horse to its haunches +directly in front of her: "You're held up!" he cried. + +The shock on her reverie was sudden and Kate was too confused and +frightened to speak. + +"You can't get by without giving up your tobacco, girlie," Van Horn ran +on in sing-song raillery. "Shell out!" He held out his left hand for +the spoil and poised his gun high--a picture of life and dash. "You +see what's happening to Bradley." The cowboys, in great feather, were +dragging the old man with mock violence from the wagon. + +Kate recovered her breath: "What's it all about?" she asked. + +Van Horn put away his gun. He was in very good humor as he glanced +over at the boys crowding around Bradley: "They want tobacco," he +laughed. + +"Oh." + +"You know what I want." + +Kate regarded his expectancy unmoved: "How should I know?" she asked, +chilling her question with indifference. + +"Because," he exclaimed, sweeping back with a flourish the brim of his +hat, "I want you." + +She eyed him without a tremor and responded without hesitation: "Well, +I can say you will never get me if that's all you want." + +He laughed again: "Talk it over with me, Kate; talk it over." + +His eyes, always bright and liquid, were a little inflamed. Still +laughing, he glanced toward the wagon. The boys were boisterous. Kate +could hear Bradley's voice in shrill protest: "What'd I be goin' to +town f'r, if I had a bottle?" he was demanding angrily. But, while she +looked and listened, Van Horn slipped quickly from his saddle and +caught her bridle rein: "Come on," he said, at her horse's head, "let's +walk down to the creek, girlie, and talk it all over." + +Kate was indignant: "I won't walk anywhere----" + +"I'll carry you." + +She suppressed an angry word: "I'm on my way to town," she exclaimed. +"Let go my bridle!" She struck her horse. The beast jumped ahead. +Van Horn, laughing, held on. But the shock jerked him almost from his +feet. As he staggered forward, clinging to the rearing animal, the +half-muffled report of a revolver was heard. Almost like a +thunderbolt, it changed the situation. One of the Texas men had fired +in the air, but no one had seen him fire and the other Texans jumped +like longhorns. Stone, clapping his hand to his holster, whirled from +the wagon wheel. Kate, frightened more than ever, struck her horse +again; the bridle was jerked from Van Horn's hand and he turned +sharply. Quickest to grasp what he saw as his eye swept the road, he +yelled: "Look out, boys! There's Laramie!" + +The words were not out of his mouth when Kate caught sight of a man +down the road leaping from a horse. As the rider touched the ground he +slapped his pony's shoulder and the beast dropped flat. The man, rifle +in hand, threw himself behind the prostrate animal and Kate heard his +brusque yell to Van Horn and the Texans: "Pitch up!" + +It would have been hard to say who was most astonished. Laramie +evidently was not expecting an encounter. To dash on horseback into +any five men on foot, of the enemy's camp, was the last thing he would +be likely to attempt. If he did attempt it, he would never choose Van +Horn or Stone to be of the party. The ground about the scene was flat, +or only slightly rolling, with the branch road and its old ruts running +across it. Caught squarely in the open and without a sagebrush for +cover, he had been forced to drop behind his horse for shelter. Lying +flat and covering Van Horn and the men with his rifle, he awaited the +unpleasant odds against him. + +The situation of the five men in front was even worse. Their rifles +were stacked against the gate hardly a dozen feet away. But to run a +gauntlet of a dozen feet against Laramie's rifle fire was a feat none +had stomach for, nor were they ready at a hundred yards to pit +revolvers against it. One of them might get him but they knew it would +be after some of the others had practically ceased to be interested in +the result. + +The minds of the Texas men were perfectly clear; their hands shot up +like rockets. Stone had taken one big step toward the gate post--he +changed his mind, halted and his hands went up at the very instant +Laramie changed _his_ mind, and did not press the trigger against the +burly outline darkening the field of his sights. Van Horn, caught, +stood helpless and enraged--humiliated in circumstances he least +relished for humiliation. Everybody's hands were up. His one chance, +Van Horn realized, was to use his Colt's against the Winchester behind +the prostrate horse--it was not a living chance and no one knew it +better than he; his hands moved grudgingly up to his shoulders and he +sang out savagely: "What the blazes do you want?" + +There was no answer from Laramie. To add to a difficult situation, +Kate's horse, nervous from the shouting and catching its mistress's own +fright, jumped and bucked till she was halfway down the road toward +Laramie before she could check him. To add to her confusion, words +came from ahead just loud enough for her to hear: "Pull the blamed +brute to one side, will you?" It was Laramie speaking, she knew. "If +he gets between me and that bunch," she heard him say, "I'm a goner." +She jerked her horse violently out of the road; Laramie had raised his +voice and kept right on talking: "Turn your back, Van Horn--you, too, +Stone. Shoot up your hands, you Texas--higher!" he called to one of +the Texans. And with the words not out of his mouth, he leaped as if +on springs to his feet. It seemed as if his rifle covered his enemies +all the time, even while he was doing it. + +With his head forward, his elbows high and the Winchester laid against +his cheek; stepping like a cat, and swiftly and with his eyes fixed on +the men ahead, Laramie walked toward the wagon. In doing so he +approached Kate, whose horse had subsided. Laramie took no note of +her. She only heard his words as he passed: "You'd better get out of +this." Approaching his prisoners in such a way they could not reach +either the gate or the wagon without crossing his fire, Laramie +compelled Bradley, really nothing loath, to disarm the three cowboys in +turn and drop their guns into the wagonbox. Stone, sullen, was +gingerly approached by Bradley, under strict orders to keep out of +reach of his arms. But the old man knew all the tricks of the play +being staged, even though he was not able to turn them. And when +Stone, cursing, was ordered to lower his right arm and hand his +revolver to Bradley at arm's length, the old man's feet were planted at +least six feet from the foreman for a jump-away in case Stone tried to +clinch him and shoot at Laramie from behind Bradley's cover. + +But after he was disarmed, Laramie was not through with Stone. Sullen +and obdurate, he was ordered to face away, while Bradley from behind +searched his pockets. And the crown of his abasement was reached when +Bradley drew from a hip pocket a full flask of whisky. The material +advantage of the find was not great, but the tactical advantage was +enormous. Behind Stone, Bradley silently but jeeringly held it up as +an exhibit for the thirsty Texas men; and to show it was full, uncorked +and with gusto sampled it. Stone was ordered back to his horse. + +"How long is this joke, Laramie?" sang out Van Horn, his humor oozing. +"Can't you frisk a few cowboys in less than all day?" + +"When I frisk a pair of cut-throats with them, it's different." + +"Well, don't waste your valuable time on me. This is your +innings--I'll wait for mine." + +"Drop your gun to the ground," returned Laramie. "Pick that up, Bill," +he added to Bradley as Van Horn threw his revolver contemptuously from +its holster. He was searched with the same scrupulous care by old +Bradley, his morale greatly strengthened by Stone's flask: "I don't +give a d--n whether you get me or not," he retorted at Van Horn, in +answer to a low threat from his victim. + +Laramie having told Van Horn to mount, turned to the Texas men: "Which +one of you boys wants to carry the rifles over to that big cottonwood +for me?" he asked, pointing toward the creek. + +"I do," responded the nearest man, promptly. + +"Don't you do it, Tex," called out Stone. + +The Texan eyed his foreman: "Why not?" he demanded. "Ain't I been +ridin' this country all day with a man squealin' for a drink as loud as +I was, an' had his pocket full of it all the time? I'm through with my +job." + +Laramie broke in without losing the precious moment: "Who set my house +on fire, Tex?" he demanded. + +The Texan nodded in Stone's direction: "Ask him." + +"He'd lie, Tex; I'm askin' you." + +The rawboned horseman hesitated: "I'll talk that over with you when I'm +rested," he drawled. + +"Go get your Colt's out of the wagon, Tex." Laramie pointed the way. +"Pick out the guns of the other two boys and tote them over to that +tree with you. The boys'll ride over there after you. Tell Barb I'll +give him twenty-four hours to get every hoof, round or split, that +belongs to me back to the Falling Wall--failing which I'll be over to +talk to him privately. Will you do that, Tex?" + +"I sure will." + +"These rustlers here," he looked toward Stone and Van Horn, "won't be +able to carry messages for awhile. They're ridin' to town with me. +Bill," he added, turning to Bradley, "dump their rifles into the wagon +and follow on along." + +"What's this?" snapped Van Horn with an oath. "Going to town with you! +Not on your life." + +"You're headed for jail tonight, Harry; that's all. You boys," he +spoke to the Texans and gave no heed to the oaths and abuse from Van +Horn, "ride down to the cottonwood and get your guns from Tex. There's +two good trails from here to town and plenty of room on both. Today +I'm riding the Double-draw bridge. If any of you are going to town, +take the other trail. Lead off now, you two." + +He spoke to Van Horn and Stone, both mounted, and with the two headed +for town, and the Texans started up the road, Laramie climbed into his +own saddle. Not until then did he look around for Kate. She had +disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +A MESSAGE FROM TENISON + +Speeding in a panic from what she feared might happen behind her at any +moment; soon out of sight of the scene, but with ears pitched for the +sound of a shot, and a volley of shots; her head swimming with +excitement and her heart beating a roll in her breast, Kate urged her +horse down the road. + +And Belle's silence, her enigmatic face as she listened later to the +story only convinced Kate that her own apprehensions of trouble were +well founded. "It's coming," was all she could get Belle to mutter, as +Belle hobbled on a lame foot at meal time between the table and the +stove, "but nobody can say when or where." Both the women could tell +even earlier than this, from McAlpin's intimations, from watching +groups of men in the street and from the way in which those who could +have no direct interest in the affairs of the Falling Wall country were +hurrying to and fro, that Laramie had reached town with his prisoners +and was busy getting them jailed. + +Kate, stunned by her father's utter coldness in casting her out, did +not want to talk about it. She had left home resolved to tell Belle +everything, despite the humiliating shame of the recital. But the +excitement of the ride and the stir in the town were excuses enough to +put off explaining. It was possible that her father might become as +ashamed of himself as she was of him--in which event, nothing said +would be best. + +But when Bradley stopped the ranch wagon before Belle's cottage door +with Kate's suitcase and trunk, something was needed to satisfy Belle. +Kate's intimation that she should spend a few days in town, and might +be called East was somewhat disjointed, but at the moment, enough. +Bradley, however, after unloading the trunk and while Belle stood +wondering, reappeared at the door with two rifles. + +"Lord A'mighty, man!" cried Belle, already stirred, "what're you doing +with them rifles?" + +Bradley tried to placate his nervous questioner: "I'm just leavin' 'em +here, Belle, while I go down 'n' get a load o' feed," he explained with +dignity. + +"Don't you believe you're leavin' any rifles here, Bill Bradley. This +is nobody's arsenal, I want you to know." + +"Why, Belle, they belong t' the ranch," remonstrated Bradley. + +"What's that got to do with it?" she exclaimed, turning from the door +and shutting it vigorously in Bradley's face as he stood discomfited. +"I wonder if everybody's going crazy in this country." + +On this point Kate entertained convictions that she did not express. +She was only glad that Belle's curiosity, usually robust enough +concerning ranch happenings, was now under more engrossing pressure. + +Concerning what was setting the town ablaze that day, only confused +echoes reached the secluded women; and chiefly through the butcher, +between whom and Belle a tacit armistice was soon in effect. Chops +were slashed ruthlessly as he revealed details of what was going on, +and the patent block shook under the savage blows of the cleaver while +the butcher hinted at things more momentous to come. From him, Belle +learned that Van Horn and Stone had been held somewhere up at Tenison's +incommunicado, by Lefever and Sawdy, while Laramie, opposed by the +cattlemen's lawyer, was demanding from Justice Druel warrants for his +prisoners; and that after they had reluctantly been issued, Sheriff +Druel had pigeon-holed them until Tenison, backing Laramie, had told +Druel after a big row, he would run him out of town if he didn't take +his prisoners to jail. + +It was five o'clock when the butcher, instead of sending over the boy, +brought the meat for supper himself: "They're locked up," he said in a +terse undertone, as he handed his package to Belle. "There was a big +bunch up there when they was put in. Some of 'em talked pretty loud +about a jail delivery. Laramie stood right there to see they went into +their cells and they went." + +"Were you there?" demanded Belle. + +"I was." + +"What did Laramie say?" + +"All he said to Druel was: 'If you don't keep 'em locked up, Druel, I +take no responsibility for what happens.' I come all the way from the +jail with Laramie myself," recited the butcher; "walked right alongside +him and Harry Tenison down t' the hotel." + +"Well, if you walked so far with him, is he coming here for supper?" + +The butcher was taken aback: "How in thunder should I know?" he blurted +out. + +"There you go, slamming away with your blasphemy again. Couldn't you +ask him?" + +"Why, yes, Belle, I reckon I could. Maybe I can. Say!" he returned +after starting down the steps, to point to the package in her hand, +"there's a mess o' sweetbreads in there for you." + +"Shucks! I can't use sweetbreads tonight, Heinie." + +"Throw 'em away then. A present, ain't they? Nobody in town eats 'em +but you." + +Kate unfortunately suggested braizing the sweetbreads for Sawdy and +Lefever. + +"What?" exclaimed Belle. "Men don't eat sweetbreads, don't you know +that? You've got to give 'em steak--round steak and the tougher the +better--tough as cowhide and fried to tears. They'd be insulted. +Lefever and Sawdy won't be here tonight, anyway. They're in Medicine +Bend on an Indian case. All I'm wondering is, whether Jim's coming." + +But Laramie did not come--greatly to Kate's relief. He spent the night +at the hotel and left town early. Next morning when Belle heard the +news of the street she was thankful he had gone, for it was said that +Van Horn and Stone were out of jail. Barb had been summoned in the +night by the lawyers, and next day the prisoners were out on bail. + +Laramie had made no secret of his riding north, except that, in the +circumstances, he preferred to ride the night trail rather than the day +trail. He wanted to look up his cattle and see Simeral and he thought +he knew Barb well enough to be sure the stock would be sent back very +promptly in as bad condition as possible. + +He got to his ranch in good time. There were no signs of life +anywhere. Riding about noon over to Simeral's he found his shack +empty. But he hunted up food and cooked himself a breakfast. + +While he was eating peacefully at Simeral's, Van Horn was with Stone +and Doubleday, the three breakfasting in the back room of a Main Street +saloon. Just what took place at that breakfast was not figured out for +a long time afterward, if it really ever was. But the street heard +that Van Horn and Doubleday had had a quarrel at breakfast and that +Doubleday in a rage had turned the prisoners over to the sheriff and +asked to be released from his bail bond. + +No news more exciting could have reached Belle Shockley. She heard the +story up street and ran halfway home to tell Kate, who remained in +seclusion. Kate herself was not less excited; the news meant so much +if it were true, and the butcher confirmed it beyond a doubt. By +nightfall everybody knew that Van Horn and Stone were locked up again. + +One man in town was not altogether at ease over the day's developments. +Tenison spent much time that afternoon in the hotel billiard room, it +being the best clearing house for the street gossip. + +He tried more than once during the afternoon to get hold of Kitchen or +Carpy--neither was in town--and with the day drawing to a close, +Tenison's restlessness increased. He was standing late in the evening +near a favorite corner at the upper end of the bar and above the +billiard tables, when among the crowd drifting in and out of the room +he caught sight of Ben Simeral. Tenison lost no time. Without moving, +he asked the nearest bartender to take a message to the old rancher. +And when Simeral passed through the door leading into the hotel, +Tenison was behind him. He followed Simeral into the office and back +past the wash room, through the hallway leading to the sample rooms. +Opening the door of the first of these, Tenison pressed a light button, +and motioning Simeral to enter, followed him into the room, closed the +door, locked it, and sat down facing the rancher: "I want to get a +message to Jim Laramie, Ben," he began at once. "You know what's been +going on here today?" + +The old rancher nodded silently. + +"Can you ride to the Falling Wall for me right away with a word for +Laramie?" + +Simeral said nothing, but his heavy eyes closed as he nodded again. + +"Laramie's gone home. He thinks Van Horn is in jail. The story is," +continued Tenison, "that Van Horn and old Barb quarreled, that they +came to blows and that Barb turned Stone and him over to Druel again to +lock up." Tenison spoke slowly and impressively: "Tell Laramie," he +said, "I copper all that stuff--every bit of it. Tell him to look out. +I don't know what them fellows have got in their heads; but it's +something. Van Horn won't be in jail long." + +"He's out again now." + +Tenison eyed his messenger steadily: "What do you mean?" + +"I just come from Hinchcliffe's saloon. They've been out an hour." + +Hard as the blow struck home, Tenison did not bat a lash: "We may be +too late," he said. "It's worth trying. Warn Jim if you can." + +"I can." + +"There'll be a good horse for you at Kitchen's. Ask McAlpin for it. +Tell him I couldn't get hold of a man any quicker. Will Jim sleep at +your place tonight?" + +Simeral shook his head: "No tellin'." + +Tenison rose. Drawing from a trousers pocket a roll of bills, he +slipped off several and passed them to Simeral. + +"What's this f'r?" asked Simeral, looking at the money as it lay across +his hand and then at Tenison. + +The gambler regarded him evenly: "You're getting old, Ben." + +"Not when it comes to doin' a turn f'r Jim." + +Tenison literally swore the money on him. "Ride hard," he said. "An +hour may make the difference." + +Simeral listened to the injunction but he was putting the money away as +slowly and carefully as if he never expected to see money again. This +done, he hitched his trousers, shifted his quid, pushed his hat and +followed Tenison across the room. He was so slow that Tenison was +forced inwardly to smile at his own exasperation: "Never get nervous, +do you, Ben?" he asked imperturbably. + +"Nervous?" + +Tenison, unlocking the street door of the long room, only stood by with +his hand outstretched to speed his laggard messenger. The old man +stepped out into the night. Tenison, looking after him, shook his head +doubtfully. But he was doing what he could and he knew that though the +old fellow walked slow, once in a saddle, he could ride fast; and that +for Laramie, he would do it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE CANYON OF THE FALLING WALL + +Laramie, after disposing of his prisoners, had ridden north with less +of a hunted feeling experienced every time he mentally inventoried the +rocks commanding the trail, the boulders looming ahead of him, and the +cottonwoods through which he wound his way along the creek bottoms. +And when at length he looked across Turkey creek, he was not surprised +to see his cows straying down the hills toward their own range. + +Even the bitter sight of the ruins of his cabin bore upon him less now +that he had put Van Horn actually in jail for the trick. "You can't +keep him there long," Tenison had cynically warned him. + +"I've put the mark on him, if he's only there overnight," had been +Laramie's reply. "He'll be a long time explaining. And I want you to +notice, Harry, with all the fighting they've put me to, they've never +got me locked up yet--not for a second. I guess for that," he added, +reflecting, "I ought to thank my friends." + +Never so much as that day had he realized how every aspect of his +situation, as he viewed it, was colored by the thought of Kate +Doubleday. If he were determined that despite any intrigue worked +against him, he would never be locked up alive on a trumped-up charge, +it was chiefly because of the disgrace of such a thing in her eyes. If +he avoided opportunities now of finishing with Van Horn, he knew it was +chiefly because of her. She would probably never see that finish, but +she would hear the story of it from his enemies. Laramie was not at +any time thinking merely of being justified in the last resort, nor of +the justification of his friends, which would in any case be his. But +what would Kate think? + +Yet he knew what was ahead of him; he knew what lay at the end of the +trail he and Van Horn were traveling. Lawing, as Sleepy Cat +contemptuously termed it, was the least of it all and the most +futile--yet in thinking of the other, her judgment was what he dreaded. +This bore on him and perplexed him. It had, more than all else, put +two little vertical furrows between his eyebrows; they were there often +of late. Suppression of the feeling that had always and irresistibly +drawn him toward her, had only intensified this worry. His pride had +suffered at her hands; yet he made excuses for her--he had no high +opinion of himself, of his general reputation--and had built dreams on +the fanciful imagining that she should, despite everything, some day +like him. He wearied his brain in recalling a chance expression of her +eyes that could not have been unfriendly; an inflection of her voice +that might have carried a hope, if only their paths had been less +crossed: and his pride, despite rebuffs, sought her as a moth seeks a +flame. It drew him to her and kept him from her, for he lacked for the +first time in his life the boldness to stake everything on the turn of +a card, and ask Kate to marry him. + +Simeral had told him that John Frying Pan saw the cabin burning, and +Laramie rode up to his place on the Reservation to talk with him. +Failing to find him at home, Laramie left word with his wife and turned +south. It was then late. The trail had taken him high up in the +mountains and he made up his mind to ride over to the old bridge, stay +for the night, pick up the few things he had left there and take them +over to Simeral's in the morning. + +Night had fallen when riding in easy fashion he reached the rim of the +canyon and made his way from foothold to foothold until he came to an +open ledge with grass and water for his horse, near the abutment. +Leaving him in this spot, Laramie, carrying his rifle, climbed by a +zig-zag footpath up a hundred feet to the shelter and rolled himself in +a blanket for the night. + +He woke at what he believed to be near midnight. The night was cold +and he began to think about something to eat. With the aid of a candle +he found bacon cached under a crevice in a baking-powder can near his +bunk, and found some splinters of wood. These he laid for an early +breakfast fire and wrapped himself again in his blanket. He had closed +his eyes for another nap when a sound arrested his attention; it was +the rumbling of a small piece of rock tumbling into the canyon. + +Nothing was more common than for fragments, great and small, of the +splintered canyon walls to loosen and start in the silence of the +night. As mountain trees withstand the winter winds only to fall in +summer calms, so it seemed as if the masses of rock that hung poised on +the canyon rim through countless storms, chose the stillest hour of the +stillest night to ride like avalanches the headlong slopes, plunge over +dizzy cliffs and crash and sprawl in dying thunders from ledge to ledge +into the river below. All these noises, big and little, were familiar +to Laramie's ears. He could hear them in his sleep without losing the +thread of a dream; but the echo of a single footstep would bring him up +sitting. + +The sound that now caught his attention had a still different effect. +Listening, he lay motionless in his blanket with every faculty keyed; +had a man at that moment stood before him reading his death warrant, he +could not have been more awake. The noise was slight; only a small +fragment of rock had fallen and the echoes of its journey were lost +almost at once; it was the beginning of the sound that he was thinking +of--the noise had not started right. He thought of the four-footed +prowlers of the night and as a cause eliminated them one after another. +He thought of his horse below--it was not where such a sound could +start. But always slow to imagine a mystery when a reason could be +assigned, Laramie, lying prone, was brought back every time to his +first instinctive inference. Numberless times when tramping the canyon +walls, his foot slipping before he recovered his balance had dislodged +a bit of loose rock. He knew that sound too well and it was such a +sound he had just heard. Behind the sound he suspected there was a man. + +He tried long to reason himself out of the conviction. For an hour he +lay perfectly still, waiting for some further alarm. There was none +and the night was never stiller. Nor was there any haste, even if it +should prove the worst, about meeting the situation. He was caught not +like a rat in a trap but like a man in a blind canyon, with ample means +of defense and none of escape except through a gauntlet. No enemy +could molest him where he lay, but he could not lie there indefinitely. +And with little ammunition and scarcely any food or water, he had no +mind to stand a siege. + +If his enemies had actually discovered his retreat and put a watch on +him, he must in any event wait for the first peep of daylight. The one +chance of escape lay down and not up, and the descent of the canyon was +not to be made in complete darkness. A moon would have been a godsend. +It would have made things easy, if such a word could be used of the +situation; but there was no moon. Acting on his premonition as if it +had been an assurance, Laramie, at the end of a long and silent vigil, +rolled out of his blanket to save his life if he could. He lighted his +breakfast fire and fried his bacon unconcernedly. He could neither be +rushed nor potted and if there was a touch of insolent bravado in his +seeming carelessness he was well aware that while the appetizing odors +of a good breakfast would not tantalize an enemy believing himself +master of the situation, it would make him believe he had taken the +quarry unawares. + +Below, he felt that all was safe--no one without passing him could +possibly reach his horse. + +By the time the eastern sky warned him of the coming dawn he had +crawled to the edge of the abutment to look down and estimate his +chances for dropping to the narrow ledge on which it stood footed. +Then he crawled noiselessly toward the overhead break through which +Kate had plunged. The sky was alive with stars. Worming himself close +to the opening, he lay for a time patiently scrutinizing the rocks +commanding the abutment from above. One of these long vigils +disclosed, he fancied, against the sky the outline of a man's hat. + +To satisfy himself if it were one, Laramie picked up a chip of rock and +flung it down the canyon wall. The suspicious object moved. Laramie +slowly took up his rifle and leaning forward raised it to his shoulder. +Against the eastern sky the man's head made a perfect target. It was +close range. Laramie covered the hat low. The bullet should penetrate +the brim just where it covered the forehead. His finger moved to press +the trigger before he thought further. Then he hesitated. + +It seemed on reflection like murder, nothing less. He did not know the +man, though he was no doubt an enemy who had come either to kill him or +to help kill him. And to his natural repugnance to blowing off the top +of an unknown man's head even in constructive self-defense, there was +the thought of another's view of it. This might, after all, be merely +a Texan acting as a lookout. It was even possible, though improbable, +that it might be Barb himself. And if the man were not alone less +would be gained by killing him. + +The rifle came down from Laramie's shoulder as slowly as it had gone +up. He made immediate disposition for his escape. Retreating +noiselessly from the opening, he found his blanket, cut from it four +strips, knotted these into a rope and creeping to the face of the +abutment, lowered his rifle, ammunition belt and revolver down to the +footing some twenty feet below, where they hung in darkness. For +himself there was nothing but to drop after his accoutrements. At one +point the horizontal footing ledge below jutted out in a blunt tongue +something like six feet; this tongue was where he must land; elsewhere +the ledge narrowed to only a foothold for a sober man already on it. + +Laramie found an old mackinaw of Hawk's, put it on over his coat, and +padding his back under it with the pieces into which he tore a quilt, +strapped the mackinaw tight and returned to look over the ledge. He +thought he knew precisely where the tongue lay, but wanted a little +daylight to dispel any misgiving about letting go at a point where he +might drop two hundred feet instead of twenty. + +From the abutment the depths of the canyon looked in the half light +pretty black, but its recesses hid no terrors of sentiment for Laramie. +Fairly serene and stuffed in his baggy mackinaw, he lay for a few +minutes flat on his stomach peering over the edge. Far below he could +hear the rush of the river. Day was racing toward the mountain tops +and diffusing its reflected light into their recesses. The rock tongue +below outlined itself faintly in an almost impenetrable gloom. Waiting +no longer, Laramie, with a careful hand-hold, let himself down over the +face of the abutment and hung for an instant suspended. Loosing one +hand he swung sidewise and threw back his head. The fingers of the +other hand, straightened by his weight, let go. + +Falling like a plummet, one of his heels smashed into the rocky gravel +and he struck the ledge on his back. With such instinct as the swift +drop left him he threw himself toward the canyon wall when he landed +and, shocked though he was, tried to rise. + +He could not get a breath, much less move. His mind remained perfectly +clear, but the fall left him momentarily paralyzed. His efforts to +regain his breath, to make himself breathe, were astonishingly futile, +and he lay annoyed at his helplessness. It seemed as if minute after +minute passed. Listening, he heard sounds above. Daylight was coming +fast and every ray of it meant a slenderer chance of escape. + +To his relief, his lungs filled a little. Soon they were doing more. +He found he could move. He turned to his side, and, beginning life +over again, crawled on hands and knees to where his belt, revolver and +rifle hung suspended. He stood up, got out of the mackinaw, adjusted +his belt and revolver, and with his rifle resting across his forearm +looked around. He was battered and had a stinging ankle, but stood +with legs and arms at least usable. Listening, he tiptoed as fast as +he could to the narrow footpath leading into the canyon, and turning a +corner of the rock wall hastened down to where he had picketed his +horse. This trail was not exposed from above. But when he reached his +horse and got stiffly into the saddle his problem was less simple. + +To get out of the tremendous fissure in which he was trapped from +above, Laramie had one trail to follow. This led for a hundred feet in +an extremely sharp descent across the face of a nearly vertical canyon +wall that flanked the recess where the horse had been left. This first +hundred feet of his way down to the river, so steep that it was known +as the Ladder, was all that caused Laramie any uneasiness; it was +commanded every foot of the way from the abutment above. + +Making all possible haste, Laramie headed his horse stealthily for the +Ladder. He knew he had lost the most precious juncture of the dawn in +lying paralyzed for some unexpected moments after his drop. It was a +chance of war and he made no complaint. Indeed, as he reached the +beginning of his trail and peered downward he realized that he needed +daylight for the perilous ride. To take it slowly would be child's +play for him but would leave him an easy target from above. To ride it +fast was to invite a header for his horse and himself; one misstep +would send the horse and rider bolting into space. How far it was to +the river through this space Laramie felt little curiosity in figuring; +but it could hardly have been less than two hundred and fifty feet. + +There was no time for much thinking; the trail must be ridden and the +sooner and faster the better. He struck his horse lightly. The horse +jumped, but not very far ahead. Again Laramie used his heels and again +the frightened beast sprung as little as he could ahead. A stinging +lash was the only reward for his caution. If horses think, Laramie's +horse must have imagined himself backed by a madman, and under the +goading of his rider, the beast, quivering with fear, peered at the +broken rocks below and sprang down among them. Concealment was no +longer possible. + +Like a man heading into a hailstorm, Laramie crouched to the horse, +dropped the reins low on the beast's neck, and, clinging close, made +himself as nearly as he could a part of the animal itself. The trail +was five to six feet wide, but the descent was almost headlong, and +down it the horse, urged by his rider, sprang in dizzy leaps; where the +footing was worst Laramie tried to ease his frantic plunges. Stricken +with terror, the beast caught his breath in convulsive starts and +breathed in grunting snorts. Halting and bucking in jerky recoveries; +leaping from foothold to foothold as if every jump were his last, and +taking on a momentum far beyond his own or his rider's control, the +frightened pony dashed recklessly ahead. It was as if a great weight, +bounding on living springs, were heading to bolt at length against the +sheer rock wall across the canyon. + +Half the distance of the mad flight, and the worst half, was covered +when a rifle cracked from the top of the abutment. Laramie felt a +violent blow on his shoulder. There was no possible answer; there +could be no more speed--no possible defense; the race lay between the +rifle sights covering him and the four slender hoofs of the horse under +him. Ten yards more were covered and a second rifle shot cracked +crisply down the canyon walls. Laramie thought it from a second rifle; +the bullet spat the wall above his head into splinters. They were +shooting high, he told himself, and only hoped they might keep trying +to pick him off the horse and let the horse's legs alone. None knew +better than he exactly what was taking place above; the quick alarm, +the fast-moving target in the gloomy canyon; the haste to get the feet +set, the rifle to the shoulder, the sights lined, the moving target +followed, the trigger pressed. + +It was a madman's flight. As one or other of the rifles cracked at +him, Laramie threw himself back in the saddle. With his hat in his +hand, his arm shot straight up, and pointing toward the abutment he +yelled a defiant laugh at his enemies. In an instant the hat was +knocked from his fingers by a bullet; but the springing legs under him +were left untouched. The trick for the rider now was, even should he +escape the bullets, to check the flight of the horse before both shot +over the foot of the Ladder into the depths. Laramie threw his weight +low on the horse's side next the canyon wall and spoke soothingly into +his ear as his arms circled the heaving neck. + +And on the rim of the precipice, high above, two active men, bending +every nerve and muscle to their effort, stood with repeating rifles +laid against their cheeks, pumping and firing at the figure plunging +into the depths below. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +KATE GETS A SHOCK + +Late that afternoon a stable boy from Kitchen's barn appeared at +Belle's, making inquiries for Doctor Carpy. Kate heard Belle at the +door answering and asking questions, but the messenger was not able to +answer any questions; his business was to ask only. When Kitchen +himself came over a little later there was more talk at the door, this +time in low tones that left Kate in ignorance of its purport. But the +moment Kitchen went away, Belle, never equal to hiding an emotion, +passed with compressed lips and set face through the room in which Kate +sat sewing. Kate looked up as Belle walked toward the kitchen and +noticed the tense expression--fortunately she asked no questions. +After some vigorous moments in the kitchen, evidenced by the sound of a +creaking bread-board, sharp blows at the stove lids and an unabashed +slamming of the stewpans, Belle passed again through the room carrying +a plate covered with a napkin, and evidently going somewhere. + +Kate felt compelled to take notice: "Where you bound for, Belle?" she +asked. + +"Not far. But if I don't get back, don't wait supper," was the only +answer. The manner rather than the matter of it puzzled Kate as she +bent over her work. But the next moment she was alone and thinking +about her own troubles. + +Half an hour passed rapidly on her sewing--for Kate's fingers were +quick--and Belle returned more perturbed than when she left. She gave +Kate hardly a chance to question her. + +"Why didn't you eat your supper?" she demanded. + +Kate answered unconcernedly: "I wasn't hungry--it isn't late, is it?" + +Without answering the question Belle asked another. "Kate," she said, +unpinning her hat as she spoke, "how long you going to stay here?" + +A less sensitive person than Kate could hardly have mistaken the import +of the question. She flushed as she looked up. "Why, surely no longer +than you want me, Belle," she answered, as evenly as she could; but her +voice showed her surprise. Belle stood before her, a statue of +implacability and Kate, in growing astonishment, rose to her feet: +"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, then as her wits worked +fast: "Doesn't my father wish you to keep me?" + +"I'm not thinking about what your father wants. Things are getting too +thick here for me." Kate made no effort to interrupt. "I don't say I +don't like you, Kate--I've always treated you right, or tried to," +continued Belle, laboring under evident excitement. "But it's no use +shutting our eyes any longer to facts. You're Barb Doubleday's +daughter and Barb Doubleday is making war all the time on my friends +and hiring men to assassinate them, and it doesn't seem right to me and +it won't to other people, me sheltering Barb Doubleday's daughter with +such things going on----" + +"But, Belle----" + +Belle raised her voice one key higher: "You needn't tell me, I know. +Now they're trying to murder Jim Laramie and they've close to done it, +this day----" + +Belle had received and accepted strict injunctions of secrecy on the +next point she disclosed, but her feelings were not to be denied. And +she was not prepared for the question that Kate, stung by the +accusation, flung at her: "What do you mean?" + +"I mean he's lying near here bleeding to death this minute and Doctor +Carpy in Medicine Bend." + +In tones broken with anger and excitement, Belle told the disconnected +story as it had come to her in jerks and nods and oaths from McAlpin at +the barn, and in the little she had pulled out of Laramie himself when +she took food to him. Then came in terribly heated words the brunt of +her anger at Kate. "You knew," she said, pointing her finger at Kate, +standing stupefied. "You knew where Jim Laramie hid Hawk. Nobody else +did know--not even Lefever or Sawdy knew--I didn't know till you told +me. Now, after they've burned his cabin, they set a death watch there +at the bridge on Laramie. How did they know there was such a place if +you didn't tell 'em?" + +Stunned by the fire of Belle's wrath, Kate, breathless, tried to +collect her senses. It was only her anger at the final implication +that cleared them. But even as her words of indignant denial reached +her lips, her utterance was paralyzed by the recollection that +unwittingly she had told her father of the night she was thrown into +Laramie's retreat. Yet even this did not check her resentment. + +"Who accuses me of telling them?" she demanded. "Who says I conspired +to murder anyone--did Mr. Laramie say so?" + +She shot the question at Belle in a furious tone. Her eyes flashed in +a way that confounded her accuser. + +"I'm asking you how they found out," retorted Belle, but in spite of +herself on the defensive. + +Kate's face was set and her eyes were on fire. All the anger that a +woman could feel centered in her words and manner. "Answer my question +before you say another word." She confronted Belle without yielding. +"Did Jim Laramie accuse me in any way of anything?" + +"Oh, you needn't be so high and mighty," flustered Belle. "I'll answer +your question; no. Now you answer mine, will you?" + +"How can _I_ answer how they found out? I will not say another word +until I see Mr. Laramie--where is he?" + +"You can't see him--nobody knows he is here--he won't talk to you." + +Kate paid no attention to her words: "He'll have to tell me that +himself," she returned. "If he is near here--he must be at Kitchen's." + +Belle could say nothing to check or swerve her. Taking up her hat and +ignoring all warnings, Kate walked straight over to the barn. She +found McAlpin at the stable door: "I want you to take a message for me +to Mr. Laramie," she said, speaking low and collectedly. "Ask him if +he will see Kate Doubleday for just two minutes." + +McAlpin, in all his devious career, had never passed through more or +quicker stages of astonishment, confusion, poise and evasion than he +did in listening to those words. But at pulling his wits together, +McAlpin was a wonder. By the time Kate had finished, his innocent +question was ready: "Where is he?" + +"He is here. I must see him at once." + +"But I ain't seen him myself for a week. He's not here. Who told you +he's here?" + +"Belle," persisted Kate calmly, "told me he _is_ here. I must see him. +Don't deceive me, McAlpin--do just as I ask you, no more, no less." + +"No more, no less, sure," grumbled the Scotchman. "You gives me one +kind of orders--the boss gives me another kind. I can't do no more, I +can't do no less. I can't do nothin'--I've got a family to support and +all this damned rowing going on, a man's job is no safer nowadays in +this country than his head!" + +But words were not to save him. Kate persisted. She would not be put +off. McAlpin, swearing and protesting, could in the end only offer to +go see whether he could by any chance find Laramie. After a long trip +through the winding alleys of the big barn--for Kate watched the +baseball cap and crazy vizor as long as she could follow it--then +complete disappearance for a time, McAlpin came back to Kate, immovable +at the office door, his face wreathed with a surprised smile. + +He spoke, but his eyes were opened wide and his words were delivered in +a whisper; mystery hung upon his manner: "Come along," he nodded, +indicating the interior. "Only say nothing to nobody. He's +hit--there's all there is to it. Here's all I know, but I don't know +all: About three hours ago Ben Simeral was riding up the Crazy Woman +when he seen a man half dropping off his horse, hat gone, riding head +down, slow, with his rifle slung on his arm. Simmie seen who it +was--Jim Laramie. He looked at horse 'n' man 'n' says: 'Where the hell +you bin?' 'Where the hell 'a' you been,' Laramie says, pretty short. +'Ridin' all over this'--excuse my rough language, Kate--'blamed +country, lookin' f'r to tell you Van Horn and Stone's out o' jail!' + +"Laramie seen then from the ol' man's horse how he'd been ridin' 'n' +softened down a bit. 'So I heard, Simmie,' he says. 'Who'd you hear +it from?' says Simmie. 'Direct, Simmie,' he says. 'Did they pot y', +Jim?' 'Nicked my shoulder, I guess.' 'Where you goin'?' 'To town.' +'Man,' says Simmie, 'you've lost a lot o' blood.' 'Got a little left, +Simmie.' + +"Then John Fryin' Pan c'm along. Simmie tried to ride to town with +Laramie--f'r fear he'd fall off his horse. Laramie wouldn't let +neither of 'em do a thing. 'This is my fight,' he says. But Simmie +and John Fryin' Pan scouted along behind and Simmie rode in ahead near +town to tell me Laramie was comin'. God! He was a sight when he rode +into this barn. He tumbled off his horse right there"--McAlpin pointed +to a spot where fresh straw had been sprinkled--"just like a dead man. +I helped carry him upstairs," he whispered. "I'll take y' to him. But +y' bet your life"--the grizzled old man stopped and turned sharply on +his companion--"y' bet your life some o' them niggers bit the dust +some'eres this morning. This way." + +Kate, pacing McAlpin's rapid step breathlessly, hung on his +half-muttered words: "He's bleedin' to death," continued McAlpin; +"that's the short of it, and that blamed doctor down at Medicine Bend. +I don't think much o' that man. Can't none of us stop it. Where's +this goin' to end?" + +He led her by roundabout passages, up one alley and down another, and +at last opened the door of an old harness room, waited for Kate to +follow him inside and, closing the door behind her, spoke: "I didn't +want you to have to climb a barn ladder," he said, explaining. +"There's the stairs." He pointed in the semi-darkness and led her +toward the flight along the opposite wall. At the top of this flight +light fell from a square opening in the hay-mow. + +"Walk up them stairs--I lifted the trap-door f'r ye. He's right up +there at the head of the steps. When y' come down, open _this_ door at +the foot, here. It's a blind door; don't show on the other side. See, +it's bolted. It takes you right into the office. We keep it bolted +from the inside, so no trouble can't come, see?" He unbolted and +opened the door a crack to show her, closed and rebolted it. Then +starting her up the stairs, McAlpin jerked the crazy vizor on his +forehead into a fashion once more simulating child-like frankness and +disappeared by the way he had come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +AT KITCHEN'S BARN + +To be so summarily left alone and in such a place was disconcerting. +Kate, in the semi-darkness and silence, put her foot on the first tread +of the steps and, placing her hand against the wall, looked upward. +Not a sound; above her a partial light through a trap-door and a +wounded man. She stood completely unnerved. The thought of Laramie +wounded, perhaps dying, the man that had rescued her, protected her, in +truth saved her life on that fearful night--this man, now lying above +her stricken, perhaps murdered, by her own father's friends! How could +she face him? Only the thought that he should not lie wounded unto +death without knowing at least that she was not ungrateful, that she +had not wittingly betrayed him, gave her strength to start up the +narrow steps. + +When her head rose above the trap opening the light in the large loft +seemed less than it had promised from below. There were no windows, +but through a gable door, partly ajar, shot a narrow slit of daylight +from the afterglow of the sunset. Kate caught glimpses of a maze of +rafters, struts and beams and under them huge piles of loose hay. +Reaching the top step she paused, trying to look about in the dim +light, when Laramie, close at hand, startled her: "McAlpin told me you +wanted to see me," he said. She could distinguish nothing for a +moment. But the low words reassured her. + +"I'm lying on the hay," he continued, in the same tone. "If you'll +open the door a little more you can see better." + +Picking her way carefully over to it, Kate pushed the door open +somewhat wider and turned toward Laramie. + +He lay not far from the stairs. The yellow light of the evening glow +falling on his face reflected a greenish pallor. Kate caught her +breath, for it seemed as if she were looking into the face of death +until she perceived, as he turned his head, the unusual brightness of +his eyes. + +In her confusion what she had meant to say fled: + +"Are you very much hurt?" she faltered. + +"Far from it." He spoke slowly. If it cost him an effort none was +discernible. "Coming into the barn tonight," he went on, very +haltingly, "I had a kind of dizzy spell." He paused again. "I've been +eating too much meat lately, anyway. They say--I fell off my horse; +leastways I bumped my head. I'll be all right tomorrow." + +"Belle told me there had been a fight up at the canyon bridge," Kate +stammered, already at a loss to begin. + +A sickly yellow smile pointed the silence. "I wouldn't call it exactly +a fight," he said, dwelling somewhat on the last word. "Far from it," +he repeated, with a touch of grimness. "There was some shooting. And +some running." She could see how he paused between sentences. "But if +the other fellows ran it must have been after me. I didn't pay much +attention to who was behind. I had to make a tolerable steep grade +down the Falling Wall Ladder to the river. I was on horseback and +didn't have much leisure to pick my trail." + +"And they shooting at you from the rim!" + +"Well, they must have been shooting at something in my general +direction. I guess they hit me once. I didn't mind getting hit +myself, but I didn't want them to hit my horse. I was heading for the +bottom as fast as the law would allow. If they'd hit the horse, I +wouldn't have had much more than one jump from the rim to the river. +Can't ask you to sit down," he added, "unless you'll sit here on the +hay." + +Without the least hesitation Kate placed herself beside him. Without +giving her a chance to speak and in the same monotone, he added: "Who +told you I was a gambler?" + +Less than so blunt and unexpected a question would have sufficed to +take her aback. And she was conscious in the fading light of his +strangely bright eyes fixed steadily on her. "I don't remember anybody +ever did. I----" + +"Somebody did. You told Belle once." + +"It must have been long ago----" + +"Is that the reason you never acted natural with me?" + +She flushed with impatience. But if she tried to get away he brought +her back to the subject. Cornered, she grew resentful: "I can't tell +who told me," she pleaded, after ineffectual sparring. "I've +forgotten. Are you a gambler?" she demanded, turning inquisitor +herself. + +He did not move and it was an instant before he replied: "What do you +mean," he asked, "by gambler?" + +Kate's tone was hard: "Just what anybody means." + +"If you mean a man that makes his living by gambling--or hangs around a +gambling house all the time, or plays regularly--then I couldn't fairly +and squarely be called a gambler. If you mean a man that plays cards +_sometimes_, or _has_ once in a while bet on a game in a gambling +house, then, I suppose"--he was so evidently squirming that Kate meanly +enjoyed his discomfort--"you might call me that. It would all depend +on whether the one telling it liked me or didn't like me. I haven't +been in Tenison's rooms for months, nor played but one game of poker." + +"I despise gambling." + +"Why didn't you tell me?" + +"Why should I?" + +"In one sense everybody's a gambler. Everybody I know of is playing +for something. Take your father and me: He's playing for my life; I'm +playing for you. He's playing for a small stake; I'm playing for a big +one." + +She could not protest quick enough: "You talk wildly." + +"No," he persisted evenly, "I only look at it just as it is." + +"Don't ask me to believe all the cruel things said of my father any +more than you want me to believe the things said of you. I am terribly +sorry to see you wounded. And now"--her words caught in her +throat--"Belle blames me even for that." + +"How on earth does she blame you for that?" + +Despite her efforts to control herself, Kate, as she approached the +unpleasant subject, began to tremble inwardly with the fear that it +must after all be as Belle had rudely asserted--that her father was +behind these efforts against Laramie's life. For nothing had shaken +her tottering faith in her father more than the blunt words Laramie +himself had just now indifferently spoken. + +"If I am in any way to blame, it is innocently," she hurried on. "I +will tell you everything; you shall judge. My father was bitterly +angry when he learned I had been seen at Abe Hawk's funeral. I told +him about my getting lost, about falling into the place at the +bridge--how you did everything you could and how Abe Hawk had done all +he could. He was so angry he would listen to nothing----" she stopped, +collected herself, tried to go on, could not. + +"Oh, I hate this country!" she exclaimed. "I hate the people and +everything in it! And I'm going away from it--as far as I can get. +But I wouldn't go," she said determinedly, "without seeing you and +telling you this much." + +Laramie spoke quietly but with confidence: "You are not going away from +this country." + +Kate had picked up a stem of hay and looking down at it was breaking it +nervously between her fingers. "You will have to hurry up and get well +if I stay," she said abruptly. "I'm beginning to think you are the +only friend I have here. And," she added, so quickly as to cut off any +words from him, "I've told you everything. I only hope my speaking +about the hiding place at the bridge when father was angry with me--and +only to defend myself--was not the cause of _this_." + +She was close beside him. "Can it be," she asked, "that this was how +it happened?" He heard her voice break with the question. + +"No," he blurted out instantly. + +"Oh," she cried, "I'm so thankful!" + +Listening to her effort to speak the words, he was not sorry for what +he had said. "If you're going to lie," Hawk had once said to him, +cynically, "don't stumble, don't beat about the bush--do a job!" The +moment Kate told her story, Laramie knew exactly how he had been +trapped. But why blame her? "It's the first time I ever lied to her," +he thought ruefully to himself. "It's the first time she ever believed +me!" + +"Does Belle know you quarreled with your father?" he asked, to get away +from the subject. + +"No," she answered, steadying herself. + +"She said you'd been acting sort of queer." + +"I can't tell people my troubles." + +"Why did you tell me?" + +"You might die and blame me." + +"Who says I'm going to die?" + +"They were afraid you might." + +"Well, I don't like to disappoint anybody, but dying is a thing a man +is entitled to take his time about." + +"Can't I do something till the doctor comes?" + +He turned very slowly on his side. Kate made an attempt to examine his +shoulder. She was not used to the sight of blood. The clotted and +matted clothing awed and sickened her. Even the hay was blood-soaked, +but she stuck to her efforts. Supplementing the rude efforts of +McAlpin and Kitchen to give him first aid, she cut away, with Laramie's +knife, the bullet-torn coat and shirt and tried to get the wound ready +for cleansing. "I'm so afraid of doing the wrong thing," she murmured, +fearfully. + +"I don't care what you do--do something," he said. "Your hands feel +awful good." + +"I've nothing here to work with." + +"All right, we'll go to the drug store and get something." After +stubborn efforts he got on his feet and insisted on going down the +stairs. Nothing that Kate could say would dissuade him. "I've been +here long enough, anyway," was his decision. "I'm feeling better every +minute; only awfully thirsty." + +Kate steadied him down the dark stairs, fearful he might fall over her +as she went ahead. Secrecy of movement seemed to have no significance +for him. If his friends were disturbed, Laramie was not. He evidently +knew the harness room, for he opened the blind door with hardly any +hesitation and stepped into the office. The office was empty but the +street door of the stable was open. McAlpin stood in the gang-way +talking to some man who evidently caught a glimpse of Laramie, for he +said rudely and loud enough for Kate to hear: "Hell, McAlpin! There +comes your dead man now!" + +Kate recognized the heavy voice of Carpy and shrank back. The doctor, +McAlpin behind him dumbly staring, confronted Laramie at the door: +"What are you doin' here, Jim?" he demanded. + +"What would I be doing anywhere?" retorted Laramie. + +"Go back to your den. This man says you're dying." + +"Well, I'm not getting much encouragement at it--I've been waiting for +you three hours to help things along. I'm done with the hay." + +"Looking for a feather bed to die in. Some men are blamed particular." +As he spoke Carpy caught his first glimpse of Kate. "Hello! There's +the pretty little girl from the great big ranch. No wonder the man's +up and coming--what did you send for me for, McAlpin? Where you +heading, Jim?" + +With his hands on the door jambs, Carpy effectually barred the exit. +Knowing his stubborn patient well, he humored him, to the verge of +letting him have his own way, but with much raillery denied him the +drug store trip. A compromise was effected. Laramie consented to go +to Belle's to get something to eat. In this way, refusing help, the +obdurate patient was got to walk to the cottage. + +"Don't let him fall on y'," McAlpin cautioned Kate, as the two followed +close behind. "I helped carry him upstairs. He's a ton o' brick." + +But Laramie, either incensed by his condition--the idea of any escort +being vastly unpleasant to him--or animated by the stiff hypodermics of +profanity that Carpy injected into the talk as they crossed the street, +did not even stumble; he held his way unaided, met Belle's amazement +unresponsively and, sitting down, called for something to eat. + +"How does he do it, Doc?" whispered McAlpin, craning forward from the +background. + +"Pure, damned nerve," muttered Carpy. "But he does it." + +They got him into bed. While the doctor was excavating the channel +ripped through his shoulder, Laramie said nothing. When, however, he +discovered that Kate was missing, he crustily short-circuited Belle's +excuses. Words passed. It became clear that Laramie would start out +and search the town if Kate were not produced. + +"She wanted to see _me_," he insisted, doggedly. "Now I want to see +_her_." + +Carpy found he must again intervene. He despatched McAlpin as a +diplomatic envoy over to his own house whither he had taken Kate as his +guest when she peremptorily declined to return to Belle's. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +MCALPIN AT BAY + +However others may have felt that night about Laramie's affairs, one +man, McAlpin, was proud of his ride, desperately wounded, all the way +to town. Laramie had made a confidant of no one but Kate. His +experience in being trapped was not so pleasant that he liked to talk +about it and neither McAlpin's shrewd questioning nor Carpy's +restrained curiosity was gratified that night. + +In the circumstances, McAlpin's fancy had full play; and distrustful of +his imagination unaided, he repaired early to the Mountain House bar to +stimulate it. Thus it gradually transpired along the bar, either from +the stimulant or its reaction or from McAlpin's excitement, that a big +fight had taken place that morning in the Falling Wall from which only +Laramie had returned alive. It was known that he had come back and +inference as to who the dead men might be could center only on his two +active enemies, Tom Stone and Harry Van Horn. The pawky barn boss, who +possessed perfectly the art of tantalizing innuendo, thus stirred the +bar-room pool to the depths. + +McAlpin chose the rustler's end of the bar--as Abe Hawk's old stand was +called--and held the interest of the room against all comers. As the +place filled for the evening, his cap, its vizor more than ordinarily +awry, was a conspicuous object and it became a favor on his part to +accept the courtesies of the bar at any man's hands. + +"I knowed how it had to end," he would repeat when he had rambled again +around all aspects of the mysterious encounter. "I knowed if they kept +after Jim how it _had_ to end. Why, hell, gentlemen," he would aver, +planting a hob-nailed barn boot on the foot-rail, while swinging on one +elbow from the polished face of the mahogany, "I've _seen_ the boy stop +a coyote on the go, at 900 yards--what could you expect? No, no, not +again. What? Well, go ahead; just a dash o' bitters in mine, Luke. +Thank you. + +"Well, boys, accordin' to my notion, there's two men never would be +missed in this country, anyway, if nobody ever seen 'em again. 'N' if +my count is anywhere near right, nobody ever will see 'em again. They +chased Laramie one foot too far--just one foot--'n' it looks as if they +got what was comin' to 'em. I won't name 'em--they won't bother no +more in this country." + +He had become so absorbed in his recital that the entrance into the +bar-room from the barber shop of a booted and spurred man escaped him. +The man, advancing deliberately, heard the last of McAlpin's words. He +got fairly close to the unsuspecting barn boss unobserved. A few in +the listening circle, noting the approach of the new arrival, stepped +back a little--for, of all men that might be expected, after McAlpin's +dark intimations, to appear, then and there, alive and aggressive, was +Tom Stone. + +Freshly barbered, head forward, keen eyes peering from under staring, +sandy brows; thumbs stuck in his belt and his face framing a confident +leer. Stone sauntering forward, listened to McAlpin. So intent was +McAlpin on impressing his hearers that the foreman elbowed his way, +before McAlpin saw him, directly to the front. + +"So you won't name 'em?" grinned Stone, confronting the startled +speaker. McAlpin caught his breath. The wiry Scotchman was not a +coward, but he knew the merciless cruelty of Stone. Armed, McAlpin +would have been no man to affront his deadly skill; he now faced him +unarmed. + +Stone, leaving his right hand hooked by the thumb in his belt, rested +his left elbow on the bar. The bartender, Luke, just back of him, +leaning forward, mopped the bar more slowly and, listening, moved a +little farther down the bar until his fingers rested on an electric +button underneath connecting with Tenison's office in the hotel. + +"Name the two men, McAlpin," said Stone, ominously, "while you're able +to talk." + +McAlpin exhausted his ingenuity in his efforts to evade his danger, but +Stone drew the noose about him tighter and tighter. He played the +unlucky man with all the malice of an executioner. He baited him and +toyed with him. McAlpin, white, stood his ground. His fighting blood +was all there and he broke at length into a torrent of abuse of the man +that he realized was bent on murdering him. + +Made eloquent by desperation, McAlpin never rose to greater heights of +profane candor. It was as if he were making his last will and +testament of hatred and contempt for his murderer, and when he had +showered on his enemy every epithet stored in a retentive memory he +struck his empty glass on the bar and shouted: + +"Now, you hellcat, shoot!" + +It might have been thought Stone would check such a public castigation. +He did not. Impervious to abuse, because master of the situation, he +seemed to enjoy his victim's fury. "I'm finishing up with your gang +around here, McAlpin," he snarled, never losing his grin. "You've run +a rustler's barn in Sleepy Cat long enough. I've warned you and I've +warned Kitchen. It didn't do no good. Fill up your glass, McAlpin." + +"Stone, I'd never fill up a glass with you if I was in hell 'n' you +could pull me out." + +Stone's grin deepened: "Fill up your glass, McAlpin." + +Onlookers, knowing what a refusal would mean, held their breaths. But +McAlpin, white and stubborn, with another oath, again refused. + +"Fill it, McAlpin," urged a quiet voice behind the bar. Looking +quickly, like a hunted animal, around, McAlpin saw Harry Tenison, +white-faced and cold, pushing the bottle in friendly fashion toward +him. Every man, save one, watching, hoped he would humor at least that +much his expectant murderer. But the barn-boss had reached a state of +fear and anger that inflamed every stubborn drop in his blood. He +swore he would not fill his glass. + +Tenison spoke grimly: "Will you drink it if I fill it, you mule?" he +demanded, picking up the bottle and pouring into both glasses in front +of him. + +In the dead silence McAlpin's brain was in a storm. He collected a few +of his wildly flying thoughts. Perhaps he remembered the wife and +Loretta and the babies; at all events he stared at the liquor, gulped +to see whether he could swallow, and, reaching forward, picked up the +glass. Stone lifted his own. The two men, their glasses poised, eyed +each other. + +Stone barbed a taunt for his victim: "Goin' to drink, air you?" he +sneered, wreathing his eyes in leering wrinkles. + +"No," said a man, unnoticed until then by any except Tenison and Luke, +and speaking as he pushed forward through the crowd to face both Stone +and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink." + +[Illustration: "No," said a man, . . . as he pushed forward to face +both Stone and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink"] + +Stone's glass was half-way up to his lips; he looked across it and saw +himself face to face with Jim Laramie. Laramie who, unseen, had heard +enough of the quarrel, stood with his coat slung over his right +shoulder; one arm he carried in a sling, but as far as this concerned +Stone, it was the wrong arm. Daring neither to raise the whisky to his +lips nor to set the glass down, lest Laramie, suspecting he meant to +draw, should shoot, Stone stood rooted. "McAlpin's not going to drink, +Stone," repeated Laramie. "What are you going to do about it?" + +The mere sight of Laramie would have been a vastly unpleasant surprise. +But to find himself faced by him in fighting trim after what had taken +place in the morning was an upset. + +"What am I going to do about it?" echoed Stone, lifting his eyebrows +and grinning anew. "What are you going to do about it, Jim?" he +demanded. "You and me used to bunk together, didn't we?" + +"I bunked with a rattlesnake once. I didn't know it," responded +Laramie dryly. "Next morning the rattlesnake didn't know it." + +"Jim, I'll drink you just once for old times." + +"I wouldn't drink with you, Stone. No man would drink with you if he +wasn't afraid of you. And after tonight nobody's going to be afraid of +you. You're a thief among thieves, Tom Stone: a bully, a coward, a +skulker. You shoot from cover. When Barb made you foreman, you and +Van Horn stole his cattle, and Dutch Henry sold 'em for you and divvied +with you. Then, for fear Barb would get wise, you and Van Horn got up +the raid and killed Dutch Henry, so he couldn't talk. + +"Now you're going to quit this stuff. No more thieving, no more +man-killing, no bullyragging, no nothing. Tenison will clear this +room. Hold your glass right where it is, till the last man gets out. +When he gets out set down your glass; you'll have time enough allowed +you. After that, draw where you stand. You're not entitled to a +chance. God, Stone, I'd _rather_ bunk with a rattlesnake than with +you. I'd rather kill one than kill a thing like you. Your head ought +to be pounded with a rock. You're entitled to nothing. But you can +have your chance. Get the boys out of here, Harry." + +Not for one instant did he take his eye off Stone's eye, or raise his +tone above a speaking voice, and Laramie's voice was naturally low. To +catch his syllables, listeners crowded in and craned their necks. Few +men withdrew but everyone courteously and sedulously got out of the +prospective line of fire. + +What it cost Laramie even to stand on his feet and talk, Tenison could +most shrewdly estimate. From behind the bar he coldly regarded the +wounded man. He knew that Laramie must have escaped Carpy and escaped +Belle, to look for the men that had tried that morning to kill him. +Having found Stone he meant then and there to fight. + +Tenison likewise realized that he was in no condition to do it, and +promptly intervened: "Don't look at me, Jim," he said. "But I'm +talking. There's no man in Sleepy Cat can clear this room now. Most +of this crowd are your friends. They want to see this hell-hound +cleaned up. But you know what it means to some of 'em if two guns cut +loose." + +Stone saw the gate open. He welcomed a chance to dodge. Eyeing +Laramie, he swallowed his drink, set his glass on the bar. With a +voice dried and cracked, he cried: "Keep your hands off, Tenison. I'll +give Jim Laramie all the fight he wants, here or anywhere." + +Tenison was willing to bridge the crisis with abuse. "Shut up, you +coyote," he remarked, with complete indifference. + +"You'll throw a man down no matter how much of your whisky he drinks, +won't you, Tenison?" cried Stone. + +Tenison, both hands judicially spread on the bar, seemed to fail to +hear. "McAlpin," he said contemptuously, "walk around behind Laramie +and lift Stone's gun." + +Stone started violently. "Look out, Tenison! I lift my gun when +there's men to stand by and see fair play!" + +A roar of laughter went up. "I don't lift it for no frame-up," he +shouted, turning angrily toward the unsympathetic crowd. "Get out!" +cried one voice far enough back to be safe. "Send for Barb," shouted a +second. "Page Van Horn," piped a barber, as Stone moved toward the +door. + +The baited foreman turned only for a parting shot at Laramie: "I'll see +_you_ later." + +"If I was your friend," retorted Laramie, unmoved, "I'd advise you not +to. If you ride my trail don't expect anything more from me. And I +make this town," he hammered home the point with his right forefinger +indicating the floor, "and the Falling Wall range _my_ trail." + +"Stone ought to have tried it tonight," observed Tenison at the cash +register. He was speaking to his bartender long after Stone had +disappeared, Laramie had been put to bed again and the billiard hall +had been deserted. "He'll never get a chance again at Laramie half +shot to pieces." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +KATE BURNS THE STEAK + +Laramie, held for a week in bed, learned from the Doctor of Belle's +outburst at Kate, and, acting through him and with him, arranged peace. + +Complaining of a cold, with her other troubles, Belle took to bed when +Laramie was moved to the hotel and Kate turned in to nurse her. + +"You won't starve while she stays, Belle," declared Carpy, leaving Kate +in possession at the cottage, "and while I think of it," he added, +turning to Kate, "Laramie says he wants to see you. You call him up on +the telephone, will you?" + +"What for, doctor?" + +"To oblige me, girl. I want to hold that fellow in his room a few days +more and keep his arm in a sling. He's no easier to handle than a +wildcat." + +Kate looked perplexed: "What shall I say to him?" + +Carpy stood at the door with his hand on the knob: "Jolly him +along--you know how. He says he's coming down here for dinner tonight. +Tell him Belle's sick." + +Belle listened. The more Kate considered the mandate, the more +confusing it seemed. But she rang up the hotel, called for Laramie and +heard presently a man's voice in answer. + +"Is this Mr. Laramie?" she asked. + +"It is not," was the answer. + +"Isn't he there?" + +"No." + +"Can you tell me when he will be in?" + +"He won't be in." + +She sighed with impatience: "I want to speak to him. And I think this +is he speaking. You know very well who I am," she persisted. + +"I do." + +"And I know very well who you are." + +"In that you may be mistaken." + +"Surely I'm not mistaken in believing Mr. Laramie a gentleman." + +"But you are mistaken in believing any person by that name here." + +"There is a person there who loves to persecute me, isn't there?" + +"There is not." + +"Is there one there that likes to have his own way?" + +"No more than you like to have your own way." + +"Is there a man named Jim there?" + +"Speaking, Kate." + +"I've a message from Belle." + +"What is the message?" + +"She is in bed with a cold and fever and wants you not to come tonight. +As soon as she is up she will let you know." + +Belle held her peace till Kate left the telephone. "I can't make +Doctor Carpy out," she grumbled. "If he didn't want Jim Laramie to +come down here what did he ask _you_ to call him up for? If he doesn't +know any more than that about doctoring," she added, contemptuously, +"I'd hate to take his medicine." + +She waited for Kate's comment but Kate possessed the great art of +saying nothing. "I guess," continued Belle, at length, "it's time to +take that pill he left, but I guess I won't take it. What do you think +about it?" she asked, referring again to Carpy. + +Kate was not to be drawn out: "I found out a long time ago that Doctor +Carpy doesn't tell all he knows," she observed dryly. "But I do know +he wants Mr. Laramie to stay in his room. He says his shoulder will +never heal if he doesn't keep still." + +Belle made no response, but when Laramie knocked at the door in the +evening she knew who it was. Kate received him. + +Talking in leisurely fashion to her, he walked to the door of Belle's +room, looked in, wanted to know whom she had been fighting with and +asked if she would get up and get supper for him. + +He carried his right arm at his side with the thumb hooked into his +belt: "Where's your sling?" demanded Belle, tartly. Laramie pulled it +out of his pocket: "I put it on when Carpy comes around," he explained. + +"You keep fooling around the streets this way and they'll get you +sometime," said Belle, tartly. + +He turned the remark: "That idea doesn't seem to worry me as much as it +used to. Have I got to cook my own supper?" + +This venture after discussion was assumed by Kate. She put on her hat +to go across the street to get a steak. Laramie insisted on going with +her. She asked him not to. + +"Why not?" he asked. + +Kate was keyed up with apprehension: "Why take chances all the time?" +she asked in turn. "Someone might shoot from the dark." + +Belle answered for him: "Nobody in this country would shoot a man when +a woman's with him," she said. "Go along." + +The butcher stumping in from the back room to wait on them showed no +surprise at the two from hostile camps asking for one steak, but he +tried so hard to watch the pair and to hear what they were saying that +he nearly ruined one quarter of beef before he got what Kate wanted. +What he finally cut off and trimmed looked more like a roast than a +steak but neither customer seemed disturbed by this. + +Laramie paid, over indignant protests, and placing the package in the +loop of his left arm, opened the shop door for his companion. He +passed out behind her in excellent spirits. The butcher, looking after +them, took his surreptitious pipe from his pocket, watched the shop +door close, shook his head and ramming the burnt tobacco down hard with +the finger that lacked the first joint, stumped back to his lonely +stove. + +The kitchen was farthest removed from Belle's room. Laramie started +the fire with kerosene. When he lighted it there was a flare-back that +alarmed Belle in her bed, but she could hear nothing of what was going +on in the kitchen. While the supper was being cooked, Laramie stood on +the other side of the stove from his enemy's daughter, watching every +move. If Kate walked over to the cupboard, his eyes followed her +step--she walked with such decision and planted her heels so fast and +firm. If she turned from the stove to the table, his eyes devoured her +slenderness in amazement that one so delicately proportioned could so +crowd everything else out of his head. It seemed as if nothing before +had ever been shaped like her ankles--there was so little of them to +bear uncomplainingly even so slight a figure--and Kate was by no means +diminutive. + +As the supper progressed, Laramie watched almost in awe the short-arm +jabs she gave the meat on the broiler. The cuffs of her shirtwaist, +half back to her elbows, revealed white arms tapering to wrists molded +like the ankles, and hands that his eyes fed on as a miser's feed on +gold. The blazing coals flushed her cheeks and when she looked up at +him to answer some foolish question her own eyes, flushed and softened +by the heat, took on an expression that stole all the strength he had +left. When she asked him how he liked it, he exclaimed, "Fine," and +Kate had to ask him whether he liked the steak well done or rare. + +"Any way you like it," he stammered, "but lots of gravy." + +As he watched her laugh at his efforts to help her by picking up the +hot platter, a sense of his own clumsiness and size and general +roughness overcame him. She was too far removed, he told himself, from +his kind to make it possible for her ever to like him. + +The closer he got to her daintiness and spirit and laughter, the more +hopeless his wild dreams seemed. Whenever she asked if the steak were +cooked enough, he suggested--to prolong the pleasure of watching her +hands--that she give it one more turn. Every moment he saw something +new to admire. While she was attending to the meat he could look at +her hair and see where the sun had browned her pink throat and neck. +As the broiling drew near an end, almost a panic gripped Laramie. The +happiest moments of his life had been spent there at the stove. They +were slipping away. She was lifting the steak the last time from the +fire. He asked her to turn it once more. + +"Why, look at it," she exclaimed, "it's burnt up now; hold the platter +closer." + +It brought him closer in spirit than he had ever been to heaven, to +feel her elbow brush against his own, as she deftly landed the smoking +steak on the platter while Laramie held it. + +A great melancholy overcame him: "What do you want me to do?" he said +suddenly. + +Kate's eyebrows rose. She looked at him: "Why, set it on the table," +she laughed. + +"No, I mean what do you want me to do--myself." + +She could not wholly misunderstand his look, though little did he +realize how she feared it; or what a dread respect she secretly had for +the grave eyes so closely bent on her own. She laughed really to +gather courage, and it was easy to laugh a little because he did look +so odd as he stood before her, with the platter in both hands, but +terribly in earnest. "Set the platter on the table before you burn +yourself," she pleaded. + +"You must want me to do something," he persisted, "get off the earth or +stay on it--now, don't you? Say what you want me to do, and, by----" +He checked himself. "And I'll do it." + +She could restrain him but she could not turn him. He did put the +platter on the table without getting any answer but now that his mind +was set, it reverted stubbornly to the one subject and when supper was +over and they sat opposite each other in the little dining-room +talking, she said she knew he had burned his hands. "I wouldn't mind +if I had," he remarked frankly. "Almost every time I've talked with +you I've held the hot end of a poker; I'm getting to look for it." He +drew a deep breath. "You never liked me, did you, Kate?" + +"That isn't so." + +"You always kind of held off." + +"Perhaps I was a little afraid of you." + +"You're not afraid of me now--are you--with one arm out of commission? +Are you?" + +She looked at him in a troubled sort of way: "Why, no--not very," she +returned, half laughing. + +"You were never half as much afraid of me as I was of you," he murmured. + +His eyes across the table were growing very importunate. She could not +realize how flushed and soft and tantalizing her own eyes were, framed +by the warm color high in her cheeks. She rose with a hurried +exclamation and looked dismayed at him, her hands tilted on the table, +her brows high and her burning eyes still laughing: "We've left the +light on by the stove all this time," she whispered. "Belle will be +furious!" + +She slipped hurriedly out into the kitchen and turned off the light. +Her face was hot. She was thirsty and stepping to the water faucet she +picked up a glass. The mountain water tasted so cold and good; in some +way it made her think of great peaks and the crisp, clear air of his +home far up among them. She had not realized how heated she was. "Do +you want a drink?" she called back to the dining room. + +He was standing directly behind her. She turned only to stumble +against him and before she knew what had happened he was raining kisses +on her resisting cheeks. Then his lips found hers and, faint with the +moment, she resisted no more. + +After a long time she got one hand around his neck and laid the other +across his mouth: "Don't make so much noise," she whispered wildly. +"Belle will hear us!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE UNEXPECTED CALL + +The hush that followed the brain storm in the kitchen put Belle, quite +unsuspecting, to sleep. Laramie, with a tread creditable to a cat--and +a stealth natural to most carnivorous animals--closed the door without +breaking her heavy breathing. The shades, always drawn at nightfall, +called for no attention. In the living-room, there was preliminary +tiptoeing, and there were futile efforts on Kate's part to cool her +rebellious cheeks by applying her open hands to them--when she could +get possession of either one to do so. The small couch which served as +sofa was drawn out of range of even the protected windows, and the +floodgates were opened to the first unrestrained confidences together. + +When they could talk of more serious things, Kate could not possibly +see how she could marry him; but this, in the circumstances, seemed to +cause Laramie no alarm. She admitted she had tried not to like him and +confessed how she had failed. "Every time I met you," she murmured, +"you seemed to understand me so well--you knew how a woman would like +to be treated--that's what I kept thinking about." + +"You used to talk and laugh with Van Horn," he complained, jealously. +"When I came around, I couldn't drag a smile out of you with a lariat." + +"You're getting a smile now that he isn't getting, aren't you?" + +"Somehow you never acted natural with me." + +"Jim!" It was the word he most wanted to hear, even if the reproach +implied the quintessence of stupidity. "Don't you understand, I wasn't +afraid of him, and I was of you!" + +"And I only trying to get a chance to eat out of your hand!" + +"How could I tell--after all I used to hear--but that you'd begin by +eating out of my hand and finish by eating me?" + +He had to be told every word of her troubles at home, but her +uneasiness turned to the dangers threatening him. These, she +protested, he belittled too much. Ever since he had come in wounded +she had been the prey of fears for him. "It's a mystery how you +escaped." He had to tell every detail of his flight down the canyon. +"By rights," he said in conclusion, "they ought to have got me. No man +should have got out of that scrape as well as I did. Van Horn didn't +get into action quick enough. And it seemed to me as if Stone himself +was a little slow." The way he spoke the things strengthened her +confidence. And his arm held her so close! + +"I'll tell you, Kate," he added. "You can easy enough hire a fellow to +kill a man. But you can't really hire one to hate a man. And if he +doesn't really hate him, he won't be as keen on your job as you'd be +yourself. These hired men will booze once in awhile--or go to sleep, +maybe. It's work for a clear head and takes patience to hide in the +rocks day after day and wait for one certain man to ride by so you can +shoot him. If you doze off, your man may pass while you snore. And +the kind of man you can hire isn't as keen on getting a man as the man +himself is on not getting 'got'--that's where the chance is, sometimes, +to pull out better than even." + +Because his aim was to reassure, to relieve her anxiety, he did not +tell her that all the unfavorable conditions he had named, while never +before arrayed against him at one time, were now pretty much all +present together. Kate herself, he knew, stood more than ever between +him and Van Horn. Stone had been twice publicly disgraced by Laramie +at Tenison's--he would never forgive that. He had the patience of the +assassin and when hatred swayed him he did not sleep--these were still, +Laramie knew in his heart, bridges to be crossed. + +But why spoil an hour's happiness with the thought of them now? +Laramie drew his hand across his heated forehead as if to clear his +eyes and look again down into the face close to his and assure himself +he was not really dreaming. "What do I care about them all, Kate," he +would say, "now that I've got you? No, now that you've given yourself +to me--that's what I'll say--what do I care what they do?" + +But she would look up, sudden with apprehension: "But don't you think +_I_ care? Jim, let's leave this country soon, soon." + +Laramie laughed indulgently: "Somebody'll have to leave it pretty +soon--that's certain." + +A rude knock at the door broke into his words. Kate threw her hands +against his breast. She stared at him thunderstruck, and sprang from +the sofa like a deer, looking still at him with wide-open eyes and then +glancing apprehensively toward the door. + +Laramie sat laughing silently at her get-away as he called it, yet he +was not undisturbed. + +Nothing, in the circumstances, could have been less welcome than any +sort of an intrusion. But a knock at the door, almost violent, and +coming three times, stirred even Laramie's temper. + +The door was not locked. Laramie rose, his fingers resting on the butt +of his revolver, and stepping lightly into the dining-room, turned down +the lamp. He stood in the shadow and beckoned Kate to him. His face +indicated no alarm. + +"This may be something, or it may be nothing. You step into the +kitchen. I'll go to the door." + +She clung to him, really terror-stricken, begging him not to go. As he +tried to quiet her fears the heavy knock shook the flimsy door the +second time. Kate, declaring she would go, would not be denied. +Laramie told her exactly what to do. + +She reached the door on tiptoe and stood to the right of it. The key +was in the lock. Kate, reaching out one hand, turned the key. With +the door thus locked and standing close against the wall she called out +to know who was there. Laramie had followed behind her. He stepped to +where he could look from behind the window shade out on the porch. He +turned to Kate just as an answer came from outside, and signed to her +to open. Standing where she was, Kate turned the key swiftly back in +the lock and threw the door wide open. + +Stooping slightly forward to bring his hat under the opening, and +looking carefully about him, her father walked heavily into the room. + +Laramie had disappeared. Kate, dumb, stood still. Barb closed the +door behind him, walked to the table, put down his hat and turned to +Kate. "Well?" he began, snapping the word in his usual manner, his +stupefied daughter struggling with her astonishment. "You don't act +terrible glad to see me." + +Kate caught her breath. "I was so surprised," she stammered. + +"What are you staying in town so long for?" demanded Barb. His voice +had lost nothing of its husky heaviness. + +She answered with a question: "Where else have I to stay, father? I've +been waiting for money to get East with and it hasn't come yet." + +"What do you want to go East for?" + +"I've nowhere else to go." + +"Why don't you come home?" + +"Because you told me to leave." + +He sat slowly down on a chair near the table and with the care of a +burdened man. + +"Well," he said, "you mustn't take things too quick from me nowadays." +She made no answer. "I've had a good deal of money trouble lately," he +went on, "everything going against me." He spoke moodily and his huge +frame lost in the bulk of his big storm coat overran almost +pathetically the slender chair in which he tried to sit. His spirit +seemed broken. "I reckon," he added, taking his hat from the table and +fingering it slowly, "you'd better come along back." + +She was sorry for him. She told him how much she wished he would give +up trying to carry his big load, and she urged him to take a small +ranch and keep out of debt. He laid his hat down again. He told her +he didn't see how he could let it go, but they would talk it over when +she got home. + +This was the point of his errand that she dreaded to meet and putting +it as inoffensively as possible she tried to parry: "I think," she +ventured, "now that I've got some clothes ready and got started, I'd +better go East for awhile anyway." + +"No." His ponderous teeth clicked. "You'd better wait till fall. I +might go along. Tonight I'll take you out home. Put on your things +and we'll get started." + +She did not want to refuse. She knew she could not consent. She knew +that Laramie in the shadow, as well as her father in the light, was +waiting for her answer: "Father," she said at once, "I can't go +tonight." + +"Why not?" was the husky demand. + +"Belle is sick in bed," pleaded Kate. + +"Is that the only reason?" + +She saw he was bound to wring more from her. "No," she answered, "it +isn't, father." + +"What else?" + +"I'm afraid----" she hesitated, and then spoke out: "I can't come +back--not just as I was, anyway." + +"Why not?" + +"It's too late, father." + +"What do you mean?" he asked. + +"When I come back from the East," she spoke slowly but collectedly, "I +expect to go into a new home." + +"Where?" + +"In the Falling Wall." + +For a moment he did not speak, only looked at her fixedly: "What I've +heard's so, then?" he said, after a pause. + +"What have you heard?" + +"The story is you're going to marry Jim Laramie." + +Kate, in turn, stood silently regarding her father, and as if she knew +she must face it out. + +"Is that so?" he demanded harshly. + +She burst into tears, but through her tears the two men heard her +answer: "Yes, father." + +Barb picked up his hat without wincing: "I guess that ends things +'tween you and me." He started uncertainly for the door. + +"Father!" Kate protested, taking a quick step after him as he passed +out. "You don't do him justice. You don't know him." + +But slamming the door shut behind him, he cut off her words. If they +reached his ears he gave them no heed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +BARB MAKES A SURPRISING ALLIANCE + +By a happy chance, on the night of Laramie's great hour, Sawdy and +Lefever returned from Medicine Bend. It was late when they +arrived--into the early morning hours, in fact, and at the Mountain +House the bar was not only closed but securely closed--barricaded +against just such marauders. Even the night clerk had gone to bed. +But this was less of an embarrassment, for the two adventurers, turning +on the lights, took his pass keys from the drawer and, opening the +doors of one room after another in the face of a variety of protests, +kept on till they found satisfactory quarters that "seemed" +unoccupied--quarters in which at least the beds were unoccupied. + +The hardy scouts slept late. They breakfasted late, in what Sawdy +called the hotel "ornery," and while they were reducing the visible +supply of ham and eggs, Tenison walked in on them to ask about +complaints made at the office by indignant guests whose privacy had +been invaded during the night. Rebuffed on this subject, all knowledge +being disclaimed, Tenison was called on for the story of events since +the two had been away, and of these Laramie's escape from the canyon +came first. Tenison reported further, in confidence, Laramie's success +with Kate. Had the news provided every man in the Falling Wall with a +brand-new wife, it could not have been more to the humor of Sawdy and +Lefever. + +Sawdy rose and stretched himself from the waist down to make sure his +legs touched the floor: "I've got to have a good cigar on that," he +declared. "Take away, Mabel." He nodded courteously to the waitress. +"Harry, we had the dustiest trip I ever seen in my life," he added, as +with his companions he left the table. "The old Ogallala trail wasn't +a marker to it. Why, the dust was a mile deep. My tonsils are plumb +full of it yet." + +Not everyone in Sleepy Cat was so quick to credit the news that Kate +Doubleday was going to marry Jim Laramie. The cattlemen sympathizers +looked grumpy, when approached on the subject. They preferred not to +talk, but if taunted would retort with an intimating oath: "That show +ain't over yet." + +"Jim Laramie acts as if it was, anyway," grumbled Belle, when the +butcher told her what they were saying. In fact, all of Laramie's +intimates were out of patience with him when he announced he was going +to rebuild the cabin on his Falling Wall ranch and live there. + +"Wait till this cattle fight is over," they would urge. + +"It is over," he would retort. And heedless of their protests, he +spent his time getting his building materials together. + +"What do you want me to do?" he demanded, stirred at length by Belle's +remonstrances against going back to the Falling Wall. "I've got to +live somewhere. Danger? Why, yes--maybe. But I can't keep dying +every day on that account. Here in town a man was run over just the +other day by a railroad train." + +Kate said little either way. She heard all that Belle could urge and +held in her heart all the men said. But when Jim asked her what _she_ +wanted to do she told him, simply, whatever _he_ wanted to do. Then +Belle would call her a ninny, and Laramie would kiss her, and Belle in +disgust would disappear. + +There came one morning the crowning sensation in the suspense of the +situation. Barb Doubleday drove into town in the buckboard, headed his +team into Kitchen's barn to put up and gave McAlpin a cigar. + +An earthquake, where one had never been known, could not have stirred +the town more. When McAlpin ran up street to the Mountain House to be +first with his news, he was reviled as a vender of stories calculated +to start a shooting. + +But McAlpin, with a cigar in his mouth--where no cigar, except a free +cigar, was ever seen--his face bursting red with import, stuck to his +guns. He walked straight to the billiard room bar, and attracted +attention by brusquely ordering his own drink. This, it was known, +always meant something serious. + +When Sawdy saw the commotion about the barn boss, he walked in and +after listening began a stern cross-examination. + +"Explain?" McAlpin echoed scornfully. "I don't explain. No, he wasn't +drinking! Nor he wasn't crazy!" McAlpin took the burning cigar from +his mouth. "That's the cigar he give me, right there--and a bum one. +Barb never smoked a good one in his life--you know that, Henry? I +don't explain--I drink. Hold on!" he exclaimed, as he emptied his +glass with a single gulp. He was looking across the street and +pointing. "Who's that over there comin' out of the lumber yard with +Barb Doubleday right now--blanked if it ain't! It's Jim Laramie, +that's who it is." + +Doubleday had in fact run into Laramie in the lumber yard. With +nothing more than a greeting, he opened his mind: "I want a talk with +you, Jim," he said bluntly. "Where's Kate?" + +Not even the freedom of the bar fully established could hold McAlpin +after he had seen Laramie and Doubleday walk out of the lumber yard and +start down Main Street together. McAlpin had the reputation of having +missed no important shooting in Sleepy Cat for years. He had been +witness in more than one inquest and did not mean to imperil his +importance by slacking now. As he hastened out to trail the long-day +bitter enemies, he was framing in his mind the preliminary answers for +the coroner. He would be compelled to testify, he felt, that the dead +man had showed no sign of intoxication or excitement when he drove his +team into the barn--for in the circumstances, the barn boss already +figured Barb as the inevitable victim. + +Thus ruminating, he trailed the unsuspecting pair as far as Belle's. +At Belle's without sign of heated argument, they knocked and entered +the cottage together. This left McAlpin across the street with nobody +but the butcher to talk to, while he listened intently for the first +shot. + +Lefever was bolder. He followed the two men unceremoniously to Belle's +porch and bluffed Belle herself into admitting him to the living room. +Laramie had gone into the back part of the house to hunt up Kate; Barb, +alone, sat in the rocking chair, chewing an unlighted cigar. + +Lefever greeted the big cattleman effusively; Barb's response was cold. +He looked Lefever over critically: "What'you doing?" he asked, without +warm interest in any possible answer. + +"Buying a relinquishment now and again, Barb." + +"Railroad man, eh?" muttered Barb, irrelevantly. + +"No, no. I've quit that game; I've got a claim up near you. I'm going +to try to live the life of a small but dishonest rancher, Barb." + +"You ought to do well at that, eh?" + +"Why, yes and no. But I'm thinking, if I can't figure out the game, +some of my neighbors can help me catch on--what?" + +Barb's retort--if he had one--to Lefever's continued laugh, was cut off +by Laramie's entrance with Kate. John saw that he was _de trop_, that +it was a family conference, and only extracting from Laramie a promise +to see him--about nothing whatever--before leaving town he made what he +termed a graceful getaway. Kate and Laramie faced her father. Belle, +too, was for going out. Doubleday stopped her: "No secrets, Belle; +stay if you want to." + +All sat down. Kate was for a chair, but Laramie domineering, made her +sit with him on the sofa. Barb spoke first: "This Falling Wall fight +is off," he began briefly. "Anyway, I quit on it. I've got to, Jim. +The settlers there are in to stay," declared Barb philosophically. +"They've got to be reco'nized." The settlers, in this instance, meant +Jim Laramie, since practically everyone else had been driven or +frightened out. But all understood what was intended; for if the +fighting ceased the park would fill up. + +"Since yesterday," Doubleday went on, "I've found out something else." +He was speaking directly to Laramie. "That man Stone," he exclaimed, +"has been robbing me." + +The old man paused. No one made any comment. Abe Hawk had long ago +told Laramie as much. "He's been misbranding on me--him and that +rascally Van Horn have been selling my steers to the railroad camps on +the Reservation. I've got the evidence from some Indians that came +over yesterday with the hides. Last night," continued the victim +coolly, "I fired Stone. He went right over to Van Horn's. I told him +that's where he belongs. I'm through with 'em both." + +"Why don't you have 'em arrested?" demanded Belle. + +"I might, yet," muttered Barb vaguely. + +Laramie held his peace; but even Kate realized _that_ would never do. +"Jim and me has had our differences," added Barb, "but they're ended. +If you two get married----" + +"There ain't goin' to be any 'if,' Barb," interposed Laramie, "there's +just going to be 'married,' and married right off." + +"Well, that's for you and the girl to say; but when you say it, you've +got to have a house to live in. I met Jim," added her father, speaking +now to Kate, "over in the lumber yard this morning. When you get your +house up, turn the bill in to me." + +Kate's kisses confused and stopped her father. Belle made ready a good +dinner. The four ate together. Belle was excited, Kate happy and +Laramie content. But for the old man it was somehow hard to fit in. +Having had his say, he relapsed into grim silence and taciturn +responses. Even his presence would have repressed Belle but for Kate's +happy laugh. She looked at her father, talked to him, thought of him, +studied him, and throwing off lingering doubts--for she never felt she +quite knew her father--enjoyed him, eating as he was in peace with her +husband-to-be. + +When Laramie's cigars were lighted after the dinner, Barb seemed to +feel more at his ease. He told stories of his old railroad days and +laughed when Kate and Belle and Laramie laughed. Later, his daughter +and his new son-in-law walked up street with him. They went with him +on his errands and then to the barn. McAlpin, personally, hitched up +the ponies, both in compliment to a new customer and to hear every word +that passed in the talk. + +"Damme," he muttered to the hostler in the harness room, "y' can't get +around old Barb. Look at him. What do I mean? Don't he fight Laramie +five years 'n' get licked? Now he turns him into his son-in-law and +gets the Falling Wall range anyway--can y' beat it? Coming right +along, sir!" he shouted, as Barb in the gangway bellowed for more +speed. And with a flutter of activity, real and feigned, McAlpin and +his helper fastened the traces. + +When ready, the wiry team and the long narrow buckboard looked small +for Barb, who cautiously clambered into the seat and gingerly +distributed his bulk upon it. Laramie had taken the reins from +McAlpin; he passed them to Barb who, as he squared himself so as not to +fall off his slender perch, was huskily demanding when Laramie and Kate +would be out. At the last minute, Kate insisted on and was given, a +good-by kiss. She and Jim promised to go out next day. Barb spoke to +the horses. They jumped half-way out of the barn. Kate, with Laramie +following, hurried forward to see her father drive away. + +The broad back, topped by the powerful shoulders and neck, and the big +hat bobbing up and down with the spring of the buckboard, the little +team plunging at their bits, and her father heedless of their +antics--all this was a familiar sight, but never had it been so +pleasing. The setting sun touched with gold the thin cloud of dust +that rose from the wheels. It was the close of a beautiful day and it +had been next to the happiest in her life, Kate thought, while she +stood, watching and thinking. The ponies reaching a turn in the road +dashed ahead and her father disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +BRADLEY RIDES HARD + +The evening was spent at Belle's. Lefever came in late with +congratulations. He told them about his trip and the wonders. + +"I'll bet you're glad to get back to Sleepy Cat," objected Belle. + +Lefever pointed a serious, almost accusing finger at her: "Thank you +for saying it, Belle; and that's never hinting the Panhandle's not a +good country--not a bit of it. But, just the same, I'm glad to get +back to my own. There's no place like hell, Jim, is there?--especially +if you've got friends there--you know that." + +"You ought to be ashamed, John Lefever, to say such things," exclaimed +Belle, indignantly. But nothing could check Lefever's spirits. His +laugh was contagious: "I am, Belle, I am. I want you to feel that I +am." + +"And you came back across the Sinks?" interposed Laramie. + +"We did," responded John, starting all over again, "and I want to tell +you the Sinks are picking up. There's a better class of people going +in. I was laid up at Thief River--something I ate. I felt pretty bad." + +"How do you feel now?" Laramie asked. + +"Why, not very good to tell the truth. I had a kind of a sleepy night. +You wouldn't believe it, Jim, but there's quite a town at Thief River. +And the Sisters here at Sleepy Cat have got a little hospital going. +They treated me fine. Everybody, in fact, seemed to take an interest +in getting me on my feet. There's an awful nice undertaker there. I +forget his name; but he knew Henry de Spain well; said he'd done a good +deal of business for Henry, off and on--when he could get the coffins. +He sent some flowers over to me at the hospital with his card. I sent +back my own card--wrote: 'Not yet.' When we were leaving I went over +to thank him and tell him I was sorry I hadn't been able to throw him a +job. Even then, I didn't feel I could logically say good-by to an +undertaker--I just said '_Au revoir_.'" + +The two men afterward joined Sawdy at the Mountain House. In the +morning, breakfasting together early, Sawdy and Lefever with Laramie +walked in the bright sunshine down to Kitchen's barn to saddle up and +ride across the river to look at some horses. Laramie stopped at +Belle's to see whether he could get Kate to go over with them; and +while Sawdy went on to the barn, Lefever waited at Belle's gate to find +out whether Kate was going. + +When Laramie came to the door after a few moments to say that Kate +would go, Lefever stood outside the gate looking intently into the +north. + +"Somebody from the Crazy Woman," he observed as Laramie joined him, +"must have an urgent call in town this morning." + +He was watching what appeared to be little more than a speck on the +northern horizon, but even at that distance it was moving fast. +Lefever walked over to Kitchen's to order the fourth horse. Rejoining +Laramie he found him still at the gate. And when Kate, fresh as the +morning, appeared, the two men though talking of indifferent things, +had their eyes fixed on a horseman galloping at breakneck speed down +the long slope of the northern divide. He was now less than a mile +away and the dust thrown from his horse's hoofs rose evenly behind him +in the stillness of the sunshine. He must pass the barn to reach town. +Kate asked a question. + +"It may be one of your father's horses," mused Lefever aloud, "and it +rides something like old Bill Bradley." + +Still pushing his speed to the limit and cutting in reckless fashion +the turns of the open road, the rider drew rapidly nearer. They could +see he was hatless and coatless and urging his horse. "It's Bradley," +declared Lefever decisively. Laramie said nothing. Kate instinctively +drew closer to him. The horseman disappeared at that moment behind the +railroad icing plant. The next, he whirled with a sharp clatter of +hoofs into Main Street, and, dashing past Carpy's, pulled his foaming +horse to its haunches in front of Kitchen's barn. + +McAlpin and Sawdy were leading the four saddle ponies to the stable +door. The group at Belle's gate could not hear what Bradley shouted; +but they saw McAlpin start. Sawdy, too, spoke quick, and pointed, with +his words, across the way. Bradley jerked his panting horse around and +spurred toward Belle's gate. + +The old man, his thin hair flying and his blood-shot eyes bulging, +reined up before Laramie with his arm out, to speak. But the ride and +the excitement had been too much. His features worked convulsively but +he could not utter a word. + +"For God's sake, Bill," cried Lefever, catching his arm and jerking +him. "What's up?" + +Bradley, his eyes glued on Laramie, got back his voice: "It's Barb, +Jim!" he shouted wildly. "Tom Stone shot him this morning!" + +Kate's sharp cry rang in Laramie's ears. He caught her in his arm. +Belle ran out, only adding to the confusion with her scream. Lefever, +joined now by Sawdy and McAlpin, who had hurried over, got Bradley off +his horse, into a chair on the porch, refreshed him with water and +steadied his whisky-wrecked nerves with whisky. + +Stone and Van Horn came over from Van Horn's early, Bradley told his +hearers brokenly. They asked for Barb and he was down at the creek. +Barb had sent Bradley about a mile below the house to repair a small +break in the irrigation ditch and had ridden down to show him what he +wanted done. After giving instructions, he had started back for the +house. Before he got far, Stone and Van Horn met him. Bradley heard +voices up the creek but paid no special attention to them, and busied +himself with his job. Some minutes later he heard the voices again, +loud and angry. As they were close by, Bradley, shovel in hand, walked +along the ditch bank to where he could see what was up. + +"They'd all got off their horses," continued Bradley, "and was standin' +not fur apart. I was close to the willows along the ditch. 'Fore you +could say Jack Robinson, Stone and Van Horn snapped out their guns and +begun to shoot. The old man was game, boys, but he didn't have no +show. He managed to get his gun out, both men a-shootin' at him." + +"Both!" echoed Laramie, bitterly. Sawdy swore a withering oath. + +"Is my father dead?" cried Kate in agony. + +"Not yet," replied Bradley disconcertingly. + +"We must get Carpy up there quick. Hunt him up, will you, John?" said +Laramie to Lefever. + +"Hold on," interposed Bradley. "Carpy's there afore this. I met him +drivin' north and he put right out for the ranch." + +"Couldn't you do something while they were trying to murder Father?" +sobbed Kate, wringing her hands as she appealed to Bradley. + +"Why, what could _I_ do?" stared Bradley. "_I_ didn't have no gun. +Kelly and me got the wagon down and picked Barb up 'n' got him to the +house. He told me to put out for town and get you and Jim Laramie; +he's out of his head, you see." + +"Did they see you, Bradley?" interrupted Laramie. + +"Never seen me, Jim." + +"Did Barb hit either of them?" asked Laramie. + +"'Tain't likely. He only got in one shot. When they seen him +wrigglin' on the ground, all doubled up--you know, Jim--they jumped +their horses and put across the creek." + +For a moment Kate's suppressed sobs broke the silence. Laramie held +her in his arm. He promised her he would get her right out to her +father as soon as he could take measures for pursuit. When the other +men questioned Bradley, Laramie listened. He urged Kate to go inside +with Belle, but she begged to stay: "I won't cry, Jim," she pleaded in +a whisper. "I must stay. Let me stay." + +He placed her in a chair. Belle, schooled in silence during such +moments, stood beside her. Laramie placing himself near Kate, half sat +on the edge of the porch floor, one foot resting on the ground and the +other curled under. Lefever facing him, sat on the end of the porch +steps while Sawdy stood with the horses. McAlpin had hurried over to +the barn to get Kitchen and telephone Tenison to come down. + +"There's two ways they can get out," said Laramie, casting up the +situation with his companions. "One is across the Falling Wall and +over the Reservation. If they've gone that way they've got a start; +but they're easy to trail. The other way would be to strike east or +west for the railroad. That's the big gamble--it's the easiest to play +and the worst if they lose. They may separate." + +"My Godfrey, Jim, don't let 'em get away," exclaimed Belle, fearfully. + +"And there's one more angle," remarked Laramie. "They may show up +right here and try to bluff it out." + +Sawdy shook his head against that idea. Lefever supported him. +Laramie did not urge the view. "Van Horn plays cards different from +everybody else," was all he said. + +Kitchen drove up and Tenison was in the buggy with him. + +What help might be had from the sheriff's office was put in Tenison's +hands to manage. The railroad men were warned across the division. +Outgoing train crews were notified and the enginemen told what to do, +if stopped. Sawdy and Lefever were directed to strike for the Falling +Wall and watch the Reservation trails, while Laramie, with Kate, was to +ride straight to the ranch and pick up the trail across the creek. + +The news of the shooting of Barb Doubleday filled the corners of Main +Street with little knots of men eager to hear all that was known and to +be first to catch what might come. Women sometimes stopped to listen +and men making ready to ride the northern trails supplied clattering in +the streets for every moment and added to the tense scene. The chances +for the escape of Van Horn and Stone were canvassed among critics and +listeners, and with almost as much insight as they had been cast up in +the war council at Belle's. The men that might be expected to give +battle if they encountered the fugitives were watched for and every +time they rode past, the maneuvering and fighting abilities of each +were speculated on with surprising accuracy; records were recalled and +inferences drawn as to the possibilities now ahead. + +The picture of the busy street, constantly renewed and dissolved, +changed fast. Lefever and Sawdy, together, were the first to clear for +their long ride. Kitchen, strapping on, for the first time in years, a +well cared-for Colt's revolver, got fresh ammunition, and throwing +himself on a good horse, rode for where he had sworn he would never +appear again, the Doubleday ranch--to get the cowboys started at poking +out the hiding places along the creek. + +McAlpin, with much ado, enlisted every man with any sort of a claim to +being a tracker--and this included pretty much every loafer interested +in a drink or a fight. He assembled a noisy crew at the barn and +despatched them singly with orders to scatter and watch the trail +points outlying the town. But birds of this feather were hard to keep +scattered. Urged both by prudential and social reasons, they tended +continuously to flock together. They kept the barn boss busy by riding +back furiously in bunches to report nobody seen, to ask for further +orders and to get a drink before reestablishing a patrol. + +Knowing the value of every moment in a long chase, and working with all +possible haste, Laramie had to throw out his dragnet carefully before +he could get away himself. He had told Kate to prepare at Belle's for +a hard ride and he would get her to the ranch. + +With every minute lingering like an hour, both women, nervously +expectant, waited, talked, and watched for Laramie's return. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS + +Divide lands north of Sleepy Cat lie high and over their broad spread, +trails open fan-like, north, northeast and northwest. Each of the +trails penetrates at a negotiable point the broken country running up +to the mountains that battle with the northern sky. + +The first highways of the country followed the easiest travel lines. +Without fences or boundaries, their travelers, to escape washouts or +dust, were free to broaden them as they fancied. In this way older +ruts were gradually abandoned and new ones formed. And with heavy +travel these trails grew into sprawling avenues. + +As settlers took up lands and fenced their claims, such pioneer roads +were blocked at intervals. To meet this difficulty new trails were +made around the gradually increasing obstacles and in the end roads +along section lines were laid out, with grading and bridging. But the +wagon and cattle trails of the early days, rut-cut, storm-washed, and +polished by sun and wind and sand to a shining smoothness, still +stretch across country, truncate and deserted. Under their +weather-beaten silence lies the story of other days and other men and +women. + +Along one of the earliest and broadest of these trails running into the +north country, Laramie, an hour after Bradley's arrival, was galloping +with Kate Doubleday. + +But for the shadow of her father's condition there was everything in +the ride to make for Kate's happiness. The sweep of the matchless sky, +the glory of the sunshine, the wine of the morning air, the eager feet +and spreading nostrils of the horses, and at her side--her lover! The +trust a woman gives to a man, the security of his protection, the daily +growth of her confidence in her choice and her surrender--these could +temper, if they could not extinguish, her confused grief. + +For Laramie the shadow meant less; sympathy drew him closer to Kate; +there was even happiness in knowing that she turned in her distress to +him for consolation and guidance. + +Timidly, she tried to tell him, as they rode, of some of the better +traits of her father, traits that might extenuate his cold, hard +brutality--as if to build him up a little in the eyes of one she wished +not to think of him too harshly. + +"Don't worry over what I'm going to think about him," said Laramie. +"If I worried over what a lot of people think about me, where should I +be? There's some good in most every man; but it doesn't always get a +chance to work." + +Kate's anxiety was reflected in her manner. "If only," she exclaimed, +"they haven't killed him today." + +The two had crossed the first divide. Below them lay the Crazy Woman, +spanned by the Double-draw bridge. + +"His friends were his worst enemies," continued Laramie. "But they've +got to get out of this country now. And the worst men are out of the +Falling Wall. Still if you don't like it there, we won't live there," +he added, sitting half sidewise toward Kate in his saddle to feast his +eyes on her freshness and youth. + +"I shall like it anywhere you are, Jim," she said, looking at him +simply. + +The picture was too much for his restraint. He reined eagerly toward +her. + +With a laugh she shied away, struck her horse and dashed ahead. +Laramie spurred after her. But they were on the level creek bottom and +riding swiftly. She gave him a long run--more than he had looked for. + +He realized, as they raced toward the bridge, that he had for one +moment forgotten everything but his complete happiness. He called to +Kate to stop. In her zest she spurred the harder. He knew she must +not reach the bridge ahead of him. Yet he realized the difficulty he +faced; she would not understand; and at every cost he must stop her. +Animated by this sudden instinct of danger he crowded his horse, forged +abreast the flying girl, caught her bridle, and to her astonishment +dragged her horse and his own rudely to their haunches. They were +almost at the bridge itself. + +"Back up!" he exclaimed. "Back up!" + +"Jim!" she cried, "_please_ don't throw me!" + +"Don't speak--back!!" he said low and sharply. Something in the tone +and manner of the command admitted of no parley. + +With her horse cavorting, half strangled, as he was jerked and backed, +Kate, looking amazed at Laramie, saw in his face a man new to her--a +man she never had seen before. Not her questioning look, nor the +frantic struggles of the rearing horses touched him; nothing in the +confusion of the sudden moment drew his eye for an instant from the +bridge before him and his drawn revolver was already poised in his +hand. Kate knew her part without another protest. She tore her +horse's mouth cruelly with the curb. Where the danger was, or what, +she did not know, but she could obey orders. Her eyes tried to follow +Laramie's, bent ahead. The bottoms spread level in every direction. +The approach to the little bridge and beyond was as open as the day. +Not a living creature was anywhere in sight, nothing with life had +anywhere stirred, nothing of sound broke the silence of the morning, +except--when Laramie allowed them to stop--the startled breathing of +the horses. + +"Jim!" exclaimed Kate in awed restraint. "What is it?" + +His eyes were riveted straight ahead, but he answered in a most +matter-of-fact tone: "There's somebody under that bridge." + +She strained her eyes to see something he must have seen that she could +not see. The dazzling sunshine, the dusty road, the rough-built, short +wooden bridge before them, were all plain enough. And Kate realized +for the first time that Laramie, who had been riding on her right was +now on her left and presently that his revolver was sheathed and his +rifle, which had hung in its scabbard at the horse's shoulder, was +slung across the hollow of his right arm. + +"Kate," he said, speaking without looking at her, "will you ride back +about a mile and wait for me?" + +She turned to him: "What are you going to do, Jim?" + +"Smoke that fellow out." + +She spoke almost in a whisper: "Is it Van Horn, Jim?" + +"I don't believe he'd hide there. It's more like Stone." + +"Jim! Stone's a deadly shot!" + +Looking into the distance he only replied: "From cover. This may be a +long-winded affair, Kate." He added, pausing, "you'd better ride as +far as the hills." + +She looked at him bravely restrained but with all her love in her eyes: +"I don't want to leave you, Jim." + +"It's poor business for you to be in," he returned firmly. "There's no +way to make it pleasant." + +"Don't drive me away!" + +He hesitated again: "You might do this: Ride back fast about eighty +rods. Leave the road there, bear to the west and circle around the +little knoll you'll see. There's a clump of willows below the west +side of that knoll." + +"Do you know every clump of willows in this country, Jim?" + +He answered unmoved: "I know that one for I've crawled up there more +than once to take observations under that bridge myself. Get around +behind those willows and you can see the creek bottom all the way to +the bridge. I'm going up the creek about five hundred yards. I'll +work down. Whoever's under the bridge can't get away except down the +creek. If you see a man trying that, just fire two shots--in the air, +close together--I'll understand. If you get into any kind of +trouble--which you're kind of trying to do--fire two shots a few +seconds apart. I won't be far off." + +With a plea to him to be careful--behind which all her agony of +apprehension was repressed and mastered--Kate wheeled her horse and +galloped back. + +Laramie, skirting a depression, rode into a break leading to the creek +bed. The creek was practically dry; just a thread of water here and +there among the rocks marked the course of flood time. Dismounting, +Laramie shook himself out of the saddle and laying his rifle across his +arm, walked carefully down-stream along the bed of the creek. + +He knew if he were seen first, the fight would be over before he got +into it; of chances to kill from cover, the criminal he felt sure he +was hunting, would need but one. No man from the Falling Wall country +was Stone's superior in the craft of hiding; but none was Laramie's +equal in the art of surprise; and Laramie meant, for once, to make an +antagonist formidable from cover, show in the open. + +With this alone in purpose, he stalked with the patience of an Indian +from point to point and cover to cover down toward the bridge; +crouching, halting and peering; slipping from the shoulder of a rock to +the shelter of a boulder; flattening on his stomach to worm his way +under a projecting ledge and sliding noiselessly on his back down the +face of a water-worn glacis--but drawing closer all the time to the +bridge. + +He knew every inch of the ground. He knew how well his quarry had +concealed himself to render surprise impossible. But Stone's very +safety in this respect made his retreat more difficult. A man lying in +wait under the Double-draw, staked practically everything on one +chance: that the man he sought to kill should cross the bridge. It +were then easy to pick him off from behind. But if the intended +victim, suspicious, should get unseen into the creek bed, the skulker +could hardly avoid a fight. + +Three hundred yards above the bridge, the creek walls open in an +ellipse, narrowing abruptly where the bridge spans them. This open +space has been scoured by floods until the bedrock lies like a polished +floor and it was now dry except where the piers of the bridge stood in +stagnant pools. Once within this amphitheater whose vertical walls +rise twenty to thirty feet, no fighting cover is available. + +Behind a rocky point that guarded the upper entrance of the opening, +stood Laramie. He was watching the shadow cast by a shrub that sprang, +shallow-rooted, from a crevice in the bedrock. For an interminable +time he waited, only noting the slow swing of the narrow shadow as the +morning sun, flooding the rock-basin, rose in majestic course. +Gradually the deflection of the slender indicator, moving like a finger +on the rock dial, marked the turn of the sun well past the shoulder of +the point at which Laramie must emerge. When that moment came he +looked sharply out, sprang from behind the point and ran sidewise into +the narrow shadow thrown from the curving wall. + +Stone, uneasy and alert, stood under the bridge, his rifle across his +arm. The two men saw each other almost at the same instant. For +Stone, it was the climax of a hatred long nursed because of a supremacy +long challenged. And for him it was an open field with weapons in +which his skill was as matchless as Laramie's was held to be, at close +quarters, with a Colt's revolver. + +Nor had Laramie underestimated the chances of an encounter under such +circumstances. He counted only on the slight advantage of a +surprise--knowing from disagreeable experiences how a surprise jars the +poise; and there persisted in his mind, what he had never until then +hinted to another, that Stone, shooting as an assassin from cover and +Stone himself facing death, might shoot differently. On these slender +hopes he covered Stone, as the ex-rustler jumped his rifle to his +check, and cried to him to pitch up. + +Stone's answer was a bullet. His shot echoed Laramie's, and as Laramie +whipped the hat from his enemy's head, his bullet tore through the +right side of Laramie's belt. Bare-headed, and thirsty to close on his +antagonist, Stone, jumping from Laramie's second bullet, ran forward, +hugging the creek wall, dropped on one knee, fired, and ran in again. +Laramie refused to be tempted from the shadow in which he stood, until +Stone, rounding the wall again as he came on, firing, threatened to +find partial cover should Laramie stand still. It was a contest of +deadly fencing, of steady heads and cool wit, a struggle in instant +strategy. And if Stone meant to force Laramie into the sunshine, he +now succeeded--but at a fearful cost. Laramie jumped not only into the +sunshine but into the blinding sun itself, and when Stone ran in again, +Laramie tore open his hip with a bullet. It knocked the foreman over +as if it had been a mallet. But he was swiftly up and firing +persistently almost outlined with bullets Laramie's figure against the +rock wall. He splintered the grip of Laramie's revolver in its +holster, he cut the sleeve from his wrist, and tore hair from the right +side of his head; but he could not stop him. Enraged, and realizing +too late how every possibility in the fight had been figured out by his +enemy before he stepped into sight, Stone, crippled, yet forced to +circle, dropped once more on his knee to smash in a final shot. + +He was covered the instant he knelt. A bullet from Laramie's rifle +shook him like a leaf. His head, jerking, sunk to his breast. With a +superhuman effort he rallied. He looked at Laramie--narrowly +watching--shook the hair from before his eyes and fumbling at the +firing lever tried to elevate his rifle to pump. But he swayed on his +bent knee; the rifle slipped from his grasp. He sank to the rock +floor, clutching with his big hands at the gravel, while Laramie +running to him turned him over, snatched his revolver from its holster +and throwing it out of reach, lifted his enemy's head. + +When Kate, in an agony of suspense, made her way to the creek bed she +found Laramie scooping water up in his hands for Stone. She could not +go near the wounded man. Only by word from where she stood, piteously, +and by dumb sign, she drew Laramie to her to learn whether _he_ was +hurt. When he declared he was not, she would not believe him till she +had felt his arm where one bullet had cut his sleeve, and where the +deadliest had raised a sullen red welt along his temple. + +Ben Simeral was first to come along on his way to town, in his wagon. +John Frying Pan was with him. With their help, Laramie got Stone up to +the bridge and into the wagon to take to town. He had shut his eyes +and refused to talk. Kate made Laramie tell her every detail of the +fight and breathed anew the terrors of each moment. + +"I stole toward the bridge the minute I heard the firing," she +confessed, unsteadily. "Oh, yes, I know! I might have been killed. +But if you were, I wanted to be. How could you tell, when you stopped +me so, Jim, there was a man under the bridge?" + +"A bunch of bank swallows nests under that bridge right where Stone was +hiding," he said, reflecting. "Those swallows always fly out when I +ride up to it. If they don't fly out, I don't cross. Today they +didn't fly out." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +WARNING + +By nightfall Kate had the hope that her father might live. Doctor +Carpy, indeed, promised as much, though he confessed to Laramie that he +was partly bluffing. It was, he explained, a question of constitution +and nerve and he thought Barb had both. For better care he had him +brought to town, and within the same hospital walls that sheltered +Doubleday, lay Stone, in even more serious condition. The sole promise +Carpy would make concerning him was that he would fit him up either for +trial, or for his museum--or, as Lefever suggested, for both. + +The excitement of the town lay in the pursuit of Van Horn. Laramie +during the first uncertain days of her father's condition stayed within +Kate's call. + +"While Van Horn's loose, Jim," said Tenison one day, "you're the man +that's in danger; don't forget that." + +"I'd like to forget it," he returned. "But I guess it wouldn't be just +exactly safe to. Barb warned me yesterday to look out for a +surprise--Van Horn's good at them. Then again he may have left the +country--there's no word of him from anybody yet. + +"Things up at Barb's ranch have got to have some attention," he +continued. "Barb will be laid up a long time; and if I don't see after +things the banks will. I'm going to take McAlpin up there tomorrow." + +The two men were sitting before a large window in the hotel office. As +McAlpin's name was mentioned they saw the man himself stepping +sailor-fashion at a lively pace up Main Street. He made for the hotel, +burst through the office door and headed straight for Laramie: + +"Kitchen's just rode into the barn, Jim, with word from Lefever and +Sawdy--they've got track of Van Horn. He come to Pettigrew's ranch +yesterday for food and a fresh horse. One of John Frying Pan's boys +seen him. Lefever says they've got him located near the head waters of +the Crazy Woman. You know that rough country east of Pettigrew's? +Lefever says if you'll get right up there and watch the creek, he can't +get away. The boys at Pettigrew's say he's got lots of ammunition; +Lefever and Sawdy stayed at Pettigrew's last night." + +At the barn, Kitchen, who had ridden in from the Doubleday ranch, had +few details to add. But the Indian runner that brought the word from +Lefever and Sawdy had made it clear to Kitchen the two were depending +on Laramie to help them bottle Van Horn up. + +Laramie laid the news before Kate at the hospital. He called her from +her father's room and they talked at the end of the corridor. + +She looked at him wistfully: "I don't want you to go, Jim," she +whispered. + +Her hands lay on his free arm. "I don't want to go, Kate," he said. +"But the boys have sent to me for help--what can I do? He's a hundred +times more my enemy than theirs. The only interest they've got in +rounding him up is friendship for me and you. Suppose they close with +him and get killed?" + +Kate could only look up into his eyes: "Suppose you get killed, Jim?" + +He hesitated. Then he looked down into her own eyes: "You'd know I did +what I ought to do, Kate." + +She withdrew herself from his embrace and looked at him: "I know you're +going, Jim; only, don't ask me to say 'go.' I couldn't bear to think +_I_ sent you." + +McAlpin had armed himself and was determined, despite Laramie's +protests, to ride with him. The plucky boss was saddling the ponies +and stood momentarily expecting Laramie at the barn when the telephone +rang. + +Too occupied with his watch for Laramie to give it any heed, McAlpin +let it ring. And the barn men let it ring. It rang, seemingly, more +and more sharply until McAlpin, with an impatient exclamation, ordered +a hostler to answer. "It's you, McAlpin," bawled the hostler from the +office, "and they want you quick." + +McAlpin hurried to the instrument and glued his ear to the receiver. +Tenison was on the wire. He spoke low and fast: "Is Laramie there?" + +"No." + +"Where is he?" + +"Couldn't tell you, Harry, I'm lookin' for him every minute." + +"Drop everything. Find him quick or you'll be too late. Van Horn's in +town." + +McAlpin gasped and swallowed: "What d' y' mean, Harry?" + +"Damnation!" thundered Tenison. "You heard me, didn't you?" + +"I did." + +"Do as you're told." + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE LAST CALL + +The canny Scot knew well what the message meant. With little +ostentation and much celerity he hurried up street. Belle, at her, +door with Kate, drawn-faced, could only say that Laramie had promised +to come there before starting. "Warn him," was McAlpin's excited word. +"You know Van Horn, Belle." + +Red-faced and heated, McAlpin ambled rapidly in and out of every place +where he could imagine Laramie might be. Deathly afraid of running +into Van Horn--who bore him, he well knew, no love--but doggedly bent +on his errand, McAlpin asked fast questions and spread the rapid-fire +news as he traveled. More than once he had word of Laramie, yet +nowhere could he, in his exasperation, set eyes on him. How nearly he +succeeded in his mission he never knew till he had failed. + +Laramie had completed his dispositions and was free, after a brief +round of errands, to start north, when Carpy encountered him in the +harness shop next to the drug store. Laramie was in haste. But Carpy +insisted he must speak with him and, against protest, took him by way +of the back door of the shop over to the back door of the drug store +and into the little room behind the prescription case. + +The doctor sat down and motioned Laramie, despite his impatience, to a +chair: "It won't take long to tell you what I've got to tell you," said +Carpy, firmly, "but you'll be a long time forgetting it. And the time +you ought to know it is now. + +"Jim!" Carpy, facing him four feet away, looked squarely into +Laramie's eyes. "I know you pretty well, don't I? All right! I'm +going to talk pretty plain. You're going to marry Kate Doubleday. +Whatever her father's faults--and they've been a-plenty--they'd best be +let lie now. That's what Kate would want, I'm thinkin'--that's what +her husband would want--anyway, her children would want it. Barb, +after he deserted Kate's mother, went out into the Black Hills. He got +into trouble there--a partnership scrape. I don't know how much or how +little he was to blame; but his partner got the best of him and Barb +shot him. + +"The partner's friends had the pull. Barb was sentenced for +manslaughter. He broke away the night he was sentenced. He came out +into this country, took his own name again, got into railroad building, +made money, lost it, and went into cattle. + +"Two men here know this story. I'm one; the other is Harry Van Horn. +He lived in the Hills when this happened. He wouldn't tell because he +wanted Kate. + +"Jim, if Van Horn comes in alive, he'll be tried for this job on Barb. +He'll plead self-defense and spring the Black Hills story. Van Horn +has done his best to kill you and hired Stone to do it. You and Kate +ought to know why. It's up to you whether he comes in alive and +blackens her father's name to get even with both of you. Now start +along, Jim--that's all." + +Laramie did not rise. + +For himself he cared nothing. But he cared for Kate. And though she +had little reason to care for her father, and the tragedy of a record +such as his was not a pleasant memory for any daughter; how much more +would she suffer if his record were exposed by one whose interest it +would be to blacken it? + +"I said that was all," continued Carpy; "it ain't quite all, either. +Van Horn will swear everything in this Falling Wall raid on old Barb to +make feeling against him--it'll be a mess." + +Laramie's eyes were fixed on the floor. When he raised them he spoke +thoughtfully: "I see what you mean, Doctor. I'll talk plain, too--as +you'd want me to, I know. No one can tell till it's over how a man +hunt is going to work out. But whatever my feelings are, there's +something else I've got to think about. You're leaving it out. No +matter what stories have been told about me, my record up to this, is +clear. I've never in my life shot down a man except in self-defense. +I couldn't begin by doing it now. You know what I've stood from these +cattlemen in the last year----" + +"Why," demanded Carpy, "did you do it?" + +"Why did Kate Doubleday shun me like a man with the smallpox? Because +they put it up to her I was a man-killer. When they couldn't make me +out a rustler, they made me out a gambler. When they couldn't make me +out a thief, they made me out a gunman. I had a fine reputation to +live down; and all of it from her own father and his friends--what +could you expect a girl to do? + +"I won out against the bunch. I couldn't have done it without playing +straight. It's too late for me to switch my game now. I'd hate to see +more grief heaped on Kate. And Van Horn doesn't deserve any show. But +if his hands go up--though I never expect to see Harry Van Horn's hands +over his head--I can't do it, Doctor, that's all there is to it--he'll +come in alive as far as anything I have to do with it." + +Carpy laughed cynically: "Jim," he exclaimed with an affectionate +string of abuse, "you're the biggest fool in all creation. It's all +right." The doctor opened the door of the little room as Laramie rose. +"Go 'long," he said roughly, "but bring back your legs on their own +power." + +Laramie passed around from behind the prescription case where the clerk +was filling an order, and, busily thinking, walked rapidly toward the +open front door. A little girl waiting at the rear counter piped at +him. "How d' do, Mr. Laramie!" It was Mamie McAlpin. He stopped to +pinch her cheek. "I don't know you any more, Mamie. You're getting +such a big girl." Passing her, he stepped into the afternoon sunshine +that flooded the open doorway. + +The threshold of the door was elevated, country-store fashion, six or +seven inches above the sidewalk. Laramie glanced up street and +down--as he habitually did--and started to step down to the walk. It +was only when he looked directly across to the opposite side of the +street, lying in the afternoon shadow, that he saw, standing in a +narrow open space between two one-story wooden store buildings, a man +covering him with a revolver. + +At the very instant that Laramie saw him, the man fired. Laramie was +stepping down when the bullet struck him. Whirled by the blow, he +staggered against the drugstore window. Instinctively he reached for +his revolver. It hung at his left hip. But struggling to right +himself he found that his left arm refused to obey. When he tried to +get his hand to the grip of his revolver he could not, and the man, +seeing him helpless, darted from his hiding place out on the sidewalk +and throwing his gun into balance, fired again. + +It was Van Horn. Before the second shot echoed along the street a +dozen men were out. Not one of them could see at that moment a chance +for Laramie's life; they only knew he was a man to die hard, and +dying--dangerous. In catching him at the moment he was stepping down, +Van Horn's bullet, meant for his heart, had smashed the collar bone +above it and Laramie's gun arm hung useless. + +Realizing his desperate plight, he flung his smashed shoulder toward +his enemy. As the second bullet ripped through the loose collar of his +shirt, he swung his right arm with incredible dexterity behind him, +snatched his revolver from its holster, and started straight across the +street at Van Horn. + +It looked like certain death. Main Street, irregular, is at that point +barely sixty feet wide. Perfectly collected, Van Horn trying to fell +his reckless antagonist, fired again. But Laramie with deadly purpose +ran straight at him. By the time Van Horn could swing again, Laramie +had reached the middle of the street and stood within the coveted +shadow that protected Van Horn. In that instant, halting, he whipped +his revolver suddenly up in his right hand, covered his enemy and fired +a single shot. + +Van Horn's head jerked back convulsively. He almost sprang into the +air. His arms shot out. His revolver flew from his hand. He reeled, +and falling heavily across the board walk, turned, shuddering, on his +face. The bullet striking him between the eyes had killed him +instantly. + +Twenty men were running up. They left a careful lane between the man +now standing motionless in the middle of the street and his prone +antagonist. But Laramie knew too well the marks of an agony such as +that--the clenching, the loosing of the hands, the last turn, the +relaxing quiver. He had seen too many stricken animals die. + +Limp and bleeding, overcome with the horror of what he had not been +able to avert, he walked back to his starting point and sat down on the +edge of the sidewalk. His revolver had been tucked mechanically into +the waistband of his trousers. Men swarming into the street crowded +about. Carpy, agitated, tore open his bloody shirt. + +Laramie put up his right hand: "I'm not damaged much, doctor," he said +slowly and looking across the street. "See if you can do anything for +him." + +While he spoke, the tremor of a woman's voice rang in his half-dazed +ears--a woman trying to reach him. "Oh! where is he?" + +Men at the back of the crowd cried to make way. The half circle before +Laramie parted. He sprang to his feet, held out his right arm, and +Kate with an inarticulate cry, threw herself sobbing on his breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +TENISON SERVES BREAKFAST + +"I'm telling you, Sawdy," expostulated McAlpin, in the manner of an +ultimatum, "I'm a patient man. But you've got to get out of that room." + +Sawdy stood a statue of dignity and defiance: "And I'm telling you, Hop +Scotch, I'll get out of that room when I get good and ready." + +"A big piece of ceiling came down last night," thundered McAlpin. + +Belle was listening; these sparks were flying at her gate: "Whatever +you do," she interjected contemptuously, "don't get a quarrel going +over that room." + +McAlpin, inextinguishable, turned to Belle: "Look at this: Henry Sawdy +gets into that bathtub. He turns on the water. He goes to sleep. +Every few weeks the ceiling falls on my new pool tables. First and +last, I've had a ton of mortar on 'em. If there was any pressure, I'd +be ruined." + +"If there was any pressure," interposed Sawdy, "I wouldn't go to sleep. +Do you know how long it takes to fill your blamed tub?" + +McAlpin in violent protest, scratched the gravel with his hobnailed +shoes: "I'll ask you: Am I responsible for the pressure, or the water +company?" Sawdy undisturbed, continued to stroke his heavy mustache. +"The water it takes to cover you, Henry," sputtered McAlpin, "would run +a locomotive from here to Medicine Bend." + +"I have to wait till everybody in town goes to bed before I can get a +dew started on the faucet," averred Sawdy. "Sometimes I have to set up +all night to take a bath. Look at the unreasonableness of it, Belle," +he went on indignantly. "I'm paying this Shylock a dollar and a half a +week for my room--and most of the time, no water." + +McAlpin ground his teeth: "No water!" was all he could echo, doggedly. + +"Do you know what this row is about, Belle?" demanded Sawdy. "He's +trying to screw me up to a dollar seventy-five for the room. And +everybody on the second floor using my bathtub," continued Sawdy, +calmly. + +"_Your_ bathtub," gasped McAlpin. "Well, if you could get title to it +by sleeping in it, it surely would be your tub, Sawdy." + +"I don't want your blamed room any longer, anyway," declared Sawdy. +"I'm going to get married." + +McAlpin started: "Henry, don't make a blamed fool o' yoursel'." + +"I said it," retorted Sawdy, waving him away. "Move on." + +"I've had no notice," announced McAlpin, raising his hand. "You'll pay +me my rent to the first of the year. You rented for the full year, +Henry, remember that!" With this indignant warning, McAlpin started +for the barn. + +Sawdy followed Belle into the house. He threw his hat on the +living-room table: "Sit down, Belle," he said recklessly. "I want to +talk." + +Belle was suspicious. "What about?" she demanded. "You can't room +here, I'll tell you that." + +"Now hold your horses a minute--just a minute. Sit down. I know when +a thing needs sugar, don't I? You know when it needs salt, don't you? +Why pay rent in two places? That's what I want to know. Let's hitch +up." + +"Stop your foolishness." + +"My foolishness has got me stopped." + +"If you expect to eat supper here tonight, stop your noise." + +"Honor bright!" persisted Sawdy, "what do you say?" + +Belle took it up with Kate: "With him and John Lefever both nagging at +me what can I do?" she demanded, greatly vexed. "I've got to marry a +fat man anyway I fix it." + +When Lefever learned Belle's choice had fallen on his running mate he +was naturally incensed: "I've been jobbed all 'round," he declared at +Tenison's. "First, Jim sends me up to the Reservation on a wild-goose +chase after his two birds and bags 'em both himself within gunshot of +town. Then my own partner beats me home by a day and cops off Belle. +Blast a widower, anyway. He'll beat out an honest man, every time. +Anyway, boys, this town is dead. Everything's getting settled up +around here. I'm sending my resignation in to Farrell Kennedy today +and I'm going to strike out for new country." + +"Not till I get married, John," said Laramie, when John repeated the +dire threat. "And Kate wants a new foreman up at the ranch. You know +her father's turned everything over to her." + +"What'll she pay?" + +"More than you're worth, John. Don't worry about that!" + +Some diplomacy was needed to restore general good feeling, but all was +managed. From the men, John got no sympathy. The women were more +considerate; and when Kate and Belle threatened there would be no +double wedding unless John stood up with the party, he bade them go +ahead with the "fixings." + +The breakfast at the Mountain House, Harry Tenison's personal +compliment to the wedding party, restored John Lefever quite to his +bubbling humor. It was a brave company that sat down. And a +democratic one, for despite feminine protests it numbered at the +different tables pretty much every friend of Laramie's, in the high +country, including John Frying Pan--only the blanket men from the +Reservation were excluded. Lefever acted as toastmaster. + +"Jim," he demanded, addressing Laramie in genial tones, when everything +was moving well, "just what in your eventful career do you most pride +yourself on?" + +Laramie answered in like humor. "Keeping out of jail," he retorted +laconically. + +"Been some job, I imagine," suggested Lefever cheerily. + +"At times, a man's job." + +"But you're not dead yet," persisted Lefever. + +"I'm married--that's just as good." + +"Why, Jim!" protested his bride with spirit. + +"I mean," explained Laramie, looking unabashed at Kate, "I'm looking to +you now to keep me out." + +The boisterous features of similar Sleepy Cat celebrations were omitted +in deference to Kate's feelings and the too recent tragedies: her +father still lay in the hospital. + +But her guests were agreed that she looked very happy over her new +husband. The tell-tale glow not wholly to be suppressed in her frank +eyes; the unmanageable pink that rose even to her temples and played +defiantly under her brown hair curling over them; the self-conscious +restraint of her voice and the sense of guilt bubbling up, every time +she laughed--these were all "sign," plain as print to married men, like +McAlpin and Carpy, and grounds for suspicion even to confirmed +bachelors like John Lefever and the old priest that came down from the +Reservation to perform the ceremony; and in everyone of them the +observing read the trails that led to Kate's heart. + +Laramie, on the other hand, disgusted those that expected a stern and +heroic showing. Towards the close of the breakfast he was laughing +deliriously at every remark, and looking dazed when an intelligent +question was put at him; Harry Tenison pronounced it disedifying. + +But when the young couple swung into their saddles for the wedding +trip--their destination, naturally, a secret--criticism ceased. +Laramie again looked his part; and those who had heard him pledge his +life to cherish and protect Kate, felt sure, as the two melted away +into the glow of the sunset, that his word was good. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARAMIE HOLDS THE RANGE*** + + +******* This file should be named 23242.txt or 23242.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/2/4/23242 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/23242.zip b/23242.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff48ca9 --- /dev/null +++ b/23242.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8e4e63 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #23242 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23242) |
