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.



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 anybody 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.