Part 29 (1/2)

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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.s.”

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 pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 rea.s.sure himself as to his bearings for he was pus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.ses 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.