"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.

THE END