Laramie Holds the Range | Page 4

of
the mountain night was like sparkling wine. Her senses tingled with the
strange stimulant.
To Belle, there was no novelty in any of this, and the strain of silence
was correspondingly greater. It was she who gave in first:
"You from Medicine Bend?" she asked, as the four horses walked up a
long hill.
"Pittsburgh," answered Kate.
"Pittsburgh!" echoed Belle, startled. "Gee! some trip you've had."
Belle, encouraged, then confessed that a cyclone had given her her own
first start West. She had been blown two blocks in one and had all of
her hair pulled out of her head.
"They said I'd have no chance to get married without any hair," she
continued, "so I got a wig--never could find my own hair--and come
West for a chance. And they're here; if you're looking for a husband
you've come to the right place."
"I haven't the least idea of getting married," protested Kate.
"They'll be after you," declared Belle sententiously.
"Are you married?" ventured Kate.
"Not yet. But they're coming. I'm in no hurry."
She talked freely about her own affairs. She had worked for Doubleday,
for whose ranch Kate was bound. Doubleday had had a chain of eating
houses on the line, as Belle termed the transcontinental railroad. They
had all been taken over except the one where she worked--at Sleepy
Cat Junction--and this would be taken soon, Belle thought.
"That's the trouble with Barb Doubleday," she went on. "He's got too
many irons in the fire--head over heels in debt. There's no money

now-a-days in cattle, anyway. What are you going up to Doubleday's
for?"
"He's my father."
"Your father? Well! I never open my mouth without I put my foot in it,
anyway."
"I've never seen him," continued Kate.
Belle was all interest. She confided to Kate that she was now on her
way, for a visit, to the Reservation where her cousin was teaching in an
Indian school, and divided her time for the next hour between getting
all she could of Kate's story and telling all of her own.
On Kate's part there was no end of questions to ask, about country and
customs and people. When Belle could not answer, she appealed to
Bradley, who, if taciturn, was at least patient. Every time the
conversation lulled and Kate looked out into the night, it seemed as if
they were drawing closer and closer to the stars, the dark desert still
spreading in every direction and the black mountain ridges continually
receding.
CHAPTER II
THE CRAZY WOMAN
They had traveled a long time it seemed to Kate, and having climbed
all the hills in the country, were going down a moderate grade with the
hind wheels sputtering unamiably at the brakes, when Belle broke a
long silence: "Where are we, Bill?" she demanded, familiarly.
"The Crazy Woman," Bradley answered briefly. Kate did not
understand, but by this time she had learned in such circumstances to
hold her tongue.
"He means the creek," explained Belle. "It's way down there ahead of
us."

Strain her eyes as she would, Kate could see only the blackness of the
darkness ahead.
"'N' b' jing!" muttered Bradley, as Kate peered into nothingness, "she's
whinin' t'night f'r fair."
Again for an instant Kate did not comprehend. Then the leads were
swung sharply by Bradley to the left. The stage rounded what Kate
afterward frequently recognized as an overhanging shoulder of rock on
the road down to the creek, and a vague, dull roar swept up from below.
Bradley halted the horses, climbed down, and taking the lantern went
forward on foot to investigate.
"Must have been a cloudburst in the mountains," remarked Belle,
listening; and Kate was to learn that a cloudless sky gives no assurance
whatever for the passage of a mountain stream.
The lantern disappeared, to come into sight again farther down the trail,
and while both women talked, the faint light swung at intervals in and
out of their vision as Bradley reconnoitered. Kate was a little worried,
but her companion sat quite unmoved, even when Bradley returned and
reported the creek "roarin'."
"That bein' the case," he muttered, "I'm thinkin' the Double-draw bridge
has took up its timbers and walked likewise."
The Double-draw bridge! How well Kate was to know that name; but
that night it seemed, like everything else, only very queer.
"Bradley," protested Belle, now very much disturbed, "that can't be."
"We'll see," retorted Bradley, gathering his reins and releasing his
brake as he spoke to the horses. "I don't guess myself there's much left
o' that bridge." Only the expletive he placed before the last word
revealed his own genuine annoyance and Kate prudently asked no
further questions. Some instinct convinced her she was already a
nuisance on the silent Bradley's hands. The ford--off