Laramie Holds the Range | Page 6

be wanting at Doubleday's?"
"D'no. Came off the train tonight."
"The Double-draw is out."
"Jing!" exclaimed Bradley, "it was there an hour ago."
"The ford is your only chance to get her over."
"Can I make it?"
"You've got good horses; you ought to make it by daylight."
"Hear they got a new foreman over at Doubleday's," Bradley said.
There was no comment, unless the silence could be so construed.
"Tom Stone," added Bradley, as if bound to finish.
There was an instant and angry exclamation, none the less ferocious because of the restrained feeling in its sudden utterance.
"Doubleday sets a good deal by what Van Horn says; I reckon he put him in there," suggested Bradley.
There was a further silence. Then she heard the stranger dryly say: "I expect so." It seemed as if behind everything he did say there was so much left unsaid.
"I never got rightly, Jim," Bradley went on, "how you 'n' Van Horn's related."
"I hope you never will," returned the man saluted as "Jim," in the same low, cold tone. "We're not related. He was my partner--once."
"Stone will change things at the ranch."
"He can't hurt them much."
"I guess they're full bad," said Bradley, and then, lowering his voice: "The gal's asleep there in the stage. How'd the land contest they made on y' at Medicine Bend come off?"
"The cattlemen own that Land Office. I'll beat the bunch at Washington."
"Doubleday wanted me to go down to swear. I wouldn't do it--wasn't even at the trial----"
"No honest man was, from Doubleday's."
"Was it Stone cut your wire, Jim?"
"You know as much about it as I do."
"Got it up again?"
"All I could find."
"Meaner 'n' hell over there, ain't they?"
There was no comment.
"How long you goin' to stand it, Jim?" persisted Bradley. And after the odd pause, the slow answer: "Till I get tired."
"That'll be about the time they rip it off again."
"About that time, Bill."
"Well," hazarded the old driver, meditatively, "the boys are waitin'. They say you're slow to start anything, Jim; but they look f'r hell t' pay when y' do."
To the stranger--it seemed to Kate--words must be worth their weight in gold, he parted with them so sparingly.
"What's this talk 'bout Farrell Kennedy makin' a depity marshal, Jim?"
"Mostly talk, Bill. Good night."
"Farrel offered it to y', didn't he?"'
"So Lefever says."
"Where y' headin' f'r now?" persisted Bradley, as Kate heard the shuffle of a horse's feet.
"Home."
"They ain't burned your shack?" Bradley asked with a half chuckle.
Kate just heard the man's reply: "Not yet."
The hoofbeats drew away. Kate cautiously pushed back her curtain.
The late moon was shining in an old and ghostly light. Distant heights rose like black walls against the sky. At intervals a peak broke sharply above the battlements, or a rift in a closer sierra opened to show the stars.
Kate could hear but could not for some time see the galloping horseman. Then of a sudden he reached the brow of a low hill and rode swiftly out into the spectral light. There he halted. Horse and rider stood for a moment silhouetted against the sky. The horse chafed at his bit. He stretched his head restively into the north, his rider sitting motionless, a somber flat hat crowning his spare figure. For barely a moment the man sat thus immovable. Then he turned slightly in the saddle and the horse struck off into the night.
Drowsiness had deserted the tired girl that watched him. While her companions slept she sat in the solitude waiting for day. Bradley, as good as an alarm dock, was stirring with the first streak and feeding his horses. He told his passengers that the bridges were all out and he was going back to the ford.
Belle, incredulous, when first told by Kate of a visitor in the night, had no scruples in asking questions:
"Who was here last night, Bill?"
"Wha'd' y' mean?" he countered, gathering up his lines.
"What man was it, you were talking to?" she demanded.
"I guess if I was talkin' to any man," he grumbled, "I was talkin' in my sleep. You must 'a' been 'a' dreamin'."
"Oh, come now, 'fess up, Bill." Belle nodded toward Kate. "She was awake."
Bradley started the horses, shifted on the box and looked not too well pleased: "I wasn't talkin' to nobody last night----"
"Bill, what a whopper."
"If you mean this mornin'----" he went on, doggedly.
"Well--who was here?"
"Jim Laramie."
"Jim Laramie!" echoed Belle, catching her breath and poking Kate with her elbow. "Wonder he didn't hold us up."
Bradley scowled but said nothing.
"Bradley doesn't like that," murmured Belle to Kate, as soon as the creaking of the wheels gave her a chance to speak without his hearing. "He's a friend of Jim's."
"Where did he come from?" continued Belle, raising her voice toward Bradley.
Bradley took his time to answer: "Claimed he was goin' home," he said laconically.
"How could he get across the creek with the bridges out?" persisted Belle.
Bradley's